Batman’s Robin, Joker Co-Created, Designed By New Jerseyan Turned Staten Islander – Collectors Confessions

Jerry Robinson

 

As comic books have become more of a mainstream part of popular culture, more people in the general public have become familiar with the names of the important creators that have helped to weave the rich tapestry of these fictional worlds. Unlike when I was a kid, it’s not unusual to find people who know who Stan Lee was and (generally) what he did. Thanks to the efforts of some valiant and hardworking creators, many more people are familiar with Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, the two men who created Superman, and even Jack “King” Kirby is deservedly recognized by more and more people outside of the comics world. I would like to take a few minutes now to tell you all about another of these important artists, and one who was a resident of Staten Island: Jerry Robinson.

 

Jerry Robinson was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1922. His father, Benjamin, was an entrepreneur who had emigrated to the United States from Russia in 1895, and his mother, Mae, was a bookkeeper in Lower Manhattan. Robinson originally aspired to be a journalist, attending Columbia University, but in 1939, a chance meeting with Bob Kane changed the trajectory of his life. The two young men realized that they shared a love for comic strips and illustration, and Kane had just created a character whose popularity was exploding: Batman. Kane needed extra hands in his studio, someone to help ink his drawings and provide general office help to his writing partner, Bill Finger. Robinson signed on and his career in comic books was off and running. 

 

He worked his way up from inking backgrounds to inking secondary characters and to being made the primary inker on “Batman”. By late 1940, he had been officially hired by National Publications (the company that would eventually become DC Comics) as a staff artist. That same year, Bill Finger and Bob Kane started discussing the possibility of adding a sidekick to the Batman stories. Many other heroes of the Golden Age of Comics (1938-1956) had increased their popularity by adding a child sidekick that young readers could relate to more closely than they could the adult superhumans. Robinson, who had idolized Robin Hood as a boy, suggested the sidekick be named Robin. Robinson even designed elements of his costume as a tribute to the Outlaw of Nottingham (check out those little green boots). 

 

Before Robin, Batman had been popular enough, but with the introduction of the Boy Wonder his fame increased enormously, and the DC Comics Universe gained one of its most important and popular characters. But Robinson wasn’t quite done adding to Batman’s world just yet.

The same year Robin premiered in Detective Comics, Robinson, Kane, and Finger co-created The Joker, arguably the most popular villain in all of comic book history. Like most historical events during the Golden Age, personal accounts differ, but since Robinson had a big hand in designing Robin’s costume, it isn’t difficult to believe his claim to the visual design of The Joker. Robinson claimed it was his idea to base the face of the Clown Prince of Crime on the actor Conrad Veidt from the 1928 silent film classic “The Man Who Laughs”. 

 

In 1943, Bob Kane stepped down as the main artist for Batman to focus on the newspaper strips (newspaper strips were much more lucrative than comic books back then) and Robinson was promoted to a main artist on the Batman character, sharing the duties with another legendary artist, Dick Sprang. 

 

In the early 1950s, Robinson became a freelance artist, working for textbook companies and drawing the cover of “Playbill” magazine. He served as the head of professional cartooning societies and started a company that represented syndicated cartoonists all over America. 

 

Jerry Robinson passed away in 2011 at the age of 89, in his home on Staten Island, and though he might be gone, we can be consoled by the fact that two of his co-creations, a courageous and dynamic boy-acrobat and a deranged, homicidal clown will occupy the dreams of people for a long time to come.  

Banner Image: Joker.  Image Credit – Anton Kotlovskii