Robert Kane (October 24, 1915-November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman (with Bill Finger) and most early related characters for DC Comics.
He was inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996.
More information: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Robert Kahn was born in New York City, New York. His parents, Augusta and Herman Kahn, an engraver, were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. A high school friend of fellow cartoonist and future Spirit creator Will Eisner, Robert Kahn graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and then legally changed his name to Robert Kane. He studied art at Cooper Union before joining the Max Fleischer Studio as a trainee animator in the year of 1934.
He entered the comics field two years later, in 1936, freelancing original material to editor Jerry Iger's comic book Wow, What a Magazine!, including his first pencil and ink work on the serial Hiram Hick. The following year, Kane began to work at Iger's subsequent studio, Eisner & Iger, which was one of the first comic book packagers that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during its late-1930s and 1940s Golden Age. Among his work there was the talking animal feature Peter Pupp -which belied its look with overtones of mystery and menace- published in the U.K. comic magazine Wags and reprinted in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics.
Kane also produced work through Eisner & Iger for two of the companies that would later merge to form DC Comics, including the humor features Ginger Snap in More Fun Comics, Oscar the Gumshoe for Detective Comics, and Professor Doolittle for Adventure Comics. For that last title he went on to do his first adventure strip, Rusty and his Pals.
In early 1939, DC's success with the seminal superhero Superman in Action Comics prompted editors to scramble for more such heroes. In response, Bob Kane conceived the Bat-Man.
Kane said his influences for the character included actor Douglas Fairbanks's film portrayal of the swashbuckler Zorro; Leonardo da Vinci's diagram of the ornithopter, a flying machine with huge bat-like wings; and the 1930 film The Bat Whispers, based on Mary Rinehart's mystery novel The Circular Staircase (1908).
Bill Finger joined Bob Kane's nascent studio in 1938. An aspiring writer and part-time shoe salesperson, he had met Kane at a party, and Kane later offered him a job ghost writing the strips Rusty and Clip Carson.
In 1966, Kane retired from DC Comics, choosing to focus on fine art. As Kane's comic-book work tapered off in the 1960s, he parlayed his Batman status into minor celebrity. He enjoyed a post-comics career in television animation, creating the characters Courageous Cat and Cool McCool, and as a painter showed his work in art galleries, although some of these paintings were produced by ghost artists.
More information: Comic Years
DC Comics named Kane in 1985 as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.
In 1989, Kane published the autobiography Batman and Me, with an updated edition Batman and Me: The Saga Continues, in 1996.
Kane worked as a consultant on the 1989 film Batman and its three sequels with directors Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher.
Stan Lee interviewed Kane in the documentary series The Comic Book Greats.
Kane was a recipient of the Inkpot Award in 1977, was inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996. He was added to the National Comics Awards' Roll of Honour in 1999.
On October 21, 2015, for his work in motion pictures, he posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6764 Hollywood Boulevard.
Kane's work is housed in collections in New York City's Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and St. John's University.
More information: Walk Of Fame
Bob Kane
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