Jerry Robinson at the Paradise Comicon
I attended the Paradise Comicon in Toronto
Jerry Robinson entered the comics industry when he was seventeen years old, in 1939. Looking for some work on the side while he went to college, he wound assisting Bob Kane on a new character named Batman. Unfortunately for his college plans, Robinson got into comic books just as the first major boom hit, and higher education fell by the wayside. Shortly after getting the job with Kane, Robinson was pencilling and inking Batman stories. In addition to refining Batman’s look, Robinson suggested “Robin” as the name for Batman’s sidekick and created the Joker.
Alongside Kane, Bill Finger, and later Dick Sprang, Robinson shaped Batman into the character we see today. However, Kane was a savvier businessman that most of his peers, and his deal with the publisher stated that he would receive sole credit for all Batman stories whether he worked on them or not (as well as financial compensation for the rest of his life), a rule that held well into the sixties. So, while Finger, Sprang, and Robinson contributed thousands of pages of Batman stories, their names never appeared on one.
Robinson worked on a number of other characters, taught cartooning at an art school inNew York
I went to the convention and ran into a couple of my students there. I’ve been teaching classes on comics for the past few semesters, so I walked around with them and pointed out things in a teacherly way. “That’s Gail Simone, she’s going to be writing Wonder Woman. That’s Cary Nord, he draws Conan and they do this thing where they reproduce directly from his pencils so it looks painted. That’s-- Holy crap, that’s Jerry Robinson.” We’d done a lesson on Jerry Robinson, and when I explained that he was sitting right there no one really knew what to do.
I wound up talking to him for about twenty minutes, and he talked about his own experiences teaching, and about travelling (he was the first Western cartoonist allowed to do work in the Soviet Union), and about working at DC in 1941 with Jack Kirby on one side of him and Joe Shuster on the other and Mort Meskin sitting over there and that was when my head exploded. The student I was with leaned over at one point and whispered, “This guy is history.” I eventually turned to go because I knew that sooner or later I was going to say something stupid in front of Jerry Robinson, but before I went he reached over and gave me a couple of these little prints he was selling. He signed one, saying, “Here, these are for your class.” I thanked him for his work in comics and I left. The whole experience was the best I’ve had at a convention, and possibly the best I’ve had in comics.
*The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. Ed. Mike Gold. New York: DC Comics, 1988.
Jerry Robinson entered the comics industry when he was seventeen years old, in 1939. Looking for some work on the side while he went to college, he wound assisting Bob Kane on a new character named Batman. Unfortunately for his college plans, Robinson got into comic books just as the first major boom hit, and higher education fell by the wayside. Shortly after getting the job with Kane, Robinson was pencilling and inking Batman stories. In addition to refining Batman’s look, Robinson suggested “Robin” as the name for Batman’s sidekick and created the Joker.Alongside Kane, Bill Finger, and later Dick Sprang, Robinson shaped Batman into the character we see today. However, Kane was a savvier businessman that most of his peers, and his deal with the publisher stated that he would receive sole credit for all Batman stories whether he worked on them or not (as well as financial compensation for the rest of his life), a rule that held well into the sixties. So, while Finger, Sprang, and Robinson contributed thousands of pages of Batman stories, their names never appeared on one.
Robinson worked on a number of other characters, taught cartooning at an art school in
I went to the convention and ran into a couple of my students there. I’ve been teaching classes on comics for the past few semesters, so I walked around with them and pointed out things in a teacherly way. “That’s Gail Simone, she’s going to be writing Wonder Woman. That’s Cary Nord, he draws Conan and they do this thing where they reproduce directly from his pencils so it looks painted. That’s-- Holy crap, that’s Jerry Robinson.” We’d done a lesson on Jerry Robinson, and when I explained that he was sitting right there no one really knew what to do.
I wound up talking to him for about twenty minutes, and he talked about his own experiences teaching, and about travelling (he was the first Western cartoonist allowed to do work in the Soviet Union), and about working at DC in 1941 with Jack Kirby on one side of him and Joe Shuster on the other and Mort Meskin sitting over there and that was when my head exploded. The student I was with leaned over at one point and whispered, “This guy is history.” I eventually turned to go because I knew that sooner or later I was going to say something stupid in front of Jerry Robinson, but before I went he reached over and gave me a couple of these little prints he was selling. He signed one, saying, “Here, these are for your class.” I thanked him for his work in comics and I left. The whole experience was the best I’ve had at a convention, and possibly the best I’ve had in comics.
*The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. Ed. Mike Gold. New York: DC Comics, 1988.
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