Post by G on Dec 16, 2011 9:05:43 GMT -5
Jerry Robinson, Godfather of a Comic-Book Villain, Dies at 89
www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/books/jerry-robinson-godfather-of-a-comic-book-villain-dies-at-89.html
Jerry Robinson, a prolific comic-book artist, comics historian and editorial cartoonist who is credited with having created the Joker, the archenemy of Batman with devilish eyes and ghoulish smile, died on Wednesday at a hospice on Staten Island. He was 89 and lived in Manhattan.
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His son, Jens, confirmed the death.
It was a chance encounter on a tennis court in the Poconos in 1939 that started Mr. Robinson’s career. Then 17 and on vacation before going to college, he was wearing a jacket covered with his own cartoons when a man on a nearby court struck up a conversation. It was Bob Kane, primary creator of a counterpart to Superman then still in the works: Batman.
“It’s a shame you’re going to Syracuse or you could join the Batman team,” Mr. Robinson recalled Mr. Kane saying. Mr. Robinson transferred to Columbia, joined the team and, by most accounts, began sketching the sinister character.
“Villains, I always thought, were more interesting,” Mr. Robinson said last year in a profile in The New York Times. “I think the name came first: the Joker. Then I thought of the playing card.” (His parents were bridge players).
The Joker made his debut in 1940 and has created havoc ever since, in print as well as on television (Cesar Romero in the 1960s series) and in film (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger).
Mr. Kane, who died in 1998, long contended that he and Bill Finger, the original writer on the series (who died in 1974), had created the Joker. But several comic-book historians concur with Mr. Robinson’s account.
“I believe Jerry did most of it, and Bill Finger polished Jerry’s idea,” one of them, Mark Evanier, said on Thursday. Michael Uslan, a historian who is executive producer of the Batman movies, agreed: “From everything I’ve heard over the years, it was him and Bill Finger.”
No one, however, has contested that Mr. Robinson created Robin, Batman’s sidekick, following Mr. Finger’s suggestion for a character youngsters could connect with. He came up with the name and designed the costume, based on N. C. Wyeth’s illustration “Robin Meets Maid Marian.”
Mr. Robinson left the Batman team in the early 1940s and began creating his own comic-book characters, among them London, a superhero inspired by the bombings of Britain during World War II, and Atoman, a nuclear-powered version of Superman. For two years, starting in 1953, he did a daily science-fiction adventure strip, “Jet Scott,” for The New York Herald Tribune.
In a syndicated strip in the 1960s, “Still Life,” Mr. Robinson featured inanimate objects involved in conversation, often political. In one, a water faucet says, “Unless this country faces up to the problem of water conservation, we’ll be in real trouble” — to which a drop of water from the faucet asks, “Where will we put all the pollution?”
Mr. Robinson also did cover illustrations for Playbill magazine, wrote more than two dozen books on the history of comics and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1967 to 1969.
Sherrill David Robinson was born in Trenton on Jan. 1, 1922, the youngest of five children of Benjamin and Mae Robinson. Besides his son, he is survived by his wife of 57 years, the former Gro Bagn; a daughter, Liv Robinson-White; and two grandchildren.
Beyond his own creations, Mr. Robinson was active in supporting artists’ rights. According to a 2010 biography, “Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics,” by N. C. Christopher Couch, he helped secure the release of a Uruguayan cartoonist, Francisco Laurenzo Pons, who was imprisoned in the 1980s for lampooning the military junta in his country.
He was also instrumental in mobilizing support for the writer-and-artist team of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created Superman in the 1930s and had sold their rights to the character for $130. A long legal fight resulted in a settlement with Warner Communications, DC Comics’ corporate parent, providing the pair with annual payments for the rest of their lives and provisions for their heirs.
It took a series of calls involving Mr. Robinson to reach a deal to have Siegel and Shuster credited on all print materials, films and television productions. Afterward Mr. Robinson received a letter from Mr. Siegel: “Thank you for being what is truly priceless: a good friend.”
www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/books/jerry-robinson-godfather-of-a-comic-book-villain-dies-at-89.html
Jerry Robinson, a prolific comic-book artist, comics historian and editorial cartoonist who is credited with having created the Joker, the archenemy of Batman with devilish eyes and ghoulish smile, died on Wednesday at a hospice on Staten Island. He was 89 and lived in Manhattan.
Related
His son, Jens, confirmed the death.
It was a chance encounter on a tennis court in the Poconos in 1939 that started Mr. Robinson’s career. Then 17 and on vacation before going to college, he was wearing a jacket covered with his own cartoons when a man on a nearby court struck up a conversation. It was Bob Kane, primary creator of a counterpart to Superman then still in the works: Batman.
“It’s a shame you’re going to Syracuse or you could join the Batman team,” Mr. Robinson recalled Mr. Kane saying. Mr. Robinson transferred to Columbia, joined the team and, by most accounts, began sketching the sinister character.
“Villains, I always thought, were more interesting,” Mr. Robinson said last year in a profile in The New York Times. “I think the name came first: the Joker. Then I thought of the playing card.” (His parents were bridge players).
The Joker made his debut in 1940 and has created havoc ever since, in print as well as on television (Cesar Romero in the 1960s series) and in film (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger).
Mr. Kane, who died in 1998, long contended that he and Bill Finger, the original writer on the series (who died in 1974), had created the Joker. But several comic-book historians concur with Mr. Robinson’s account.
“I believe Jerry did most of it, and Bill Finger polished Jerry’s idea,” one of them, Mark Evanier, said on Thursday. Michael Uslan, a historian who is executive producer of the Batman movies, agreed: “From everything I’ve heard over the years, it was him and Bill Finger.”
No one, however, has contested that Mr. Robinson created Robin, Batman’s sidekick, following Mr. Finger’s suggestion for a character youngsters could connect with. He came up with the name and designed the costume, based on N. C. Wyeth’s illustration “Robin Meets Maid Marian.”
Mr. Robinson left the Batman team in the early 1940s and began creating his own comic-book characters, among them London, a superhero inspired by the bombings of Britain during World War II, and Atoman, a nuclear-powered version of Superman. For two years, starting in 1953, he did a daily science-fiction adventure strip, “Jet Scott,” for The New York Herald Tribune.
In a syndicated strip in the 1960s, “Still Life,” Mr. Robinson featured inanimate objects involved in conversation, often political. In one, a water faucet says, “Unless this country faces up to the problem of water conservation, we’ll be in real trouble” — to which a drop of water from the faucet asks, “Where will we put all the pollution?”
Mr. Robinson also did cover illustrations for Playbill magazine, wrote more than two dozen books on the history of comics and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1967 to 1969.
Sherrill David Robinson was born in Trenton on Jan. 1, 1922, the youngest of five children of Benjamin and Mae Robinson. Besides his son, he is survived by his wife of 57 years, the former Gro Bagn; a daughter, Liv Robinson-White; and two grandchildren.
Beyond his own creations, Mr. Robinson was active in supporting artists’ rights. According to a 2010 biography, “Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics,” by N. C. Christopher Couch, he helped secure the release of a Uruguayan cartoonist, Francisco Laurenzo Pons, who was imprisoned in the 1980s for lampooning the military junta in his country.
He was also instrumental in mobilizing support for the writer-and-artist team of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created Superman in the 1930s and had sold their rights to the character for $130. A long legal fight resulted in a settlement with Warner Communications, DC Comics’ corporate parent, providing the pair with annual payments for the rest of their lives and provisions for their heirs.
It took a series of calls involving Mr. Robinson to reach a deal to have Siegel and Shuster credited on all print materials, films and television productions. Afterward Mr. Robinson received a letter from Mr. Siegel: “Thank you for being what is truly priceless: a good friend.”
