Newsletter

Bob Kane

Nov. 6, 1998-- Bob Kane, the comic book artist and writer who created Batman while still in his teens, died at his home in California on Tuesday, November 3. He was 83 years old.

Jenette Kahn, President and Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics, said, "Bob Kane is a giant in the field of popular culture, one of a handful of people who launched the comic book industry and who gave the world a group of characters so colorful and inventive that they continue to captivate every new generation. Bob will be greatly missed, but he has left a legacy that will keep his memory alive."

Bob Kane, a self-proclaimed "doodler" once said he was inspired to draw Batman after studying Leonardo da Vinci's drawings.

"I remember," Kane said in an interview, "when I was 12 or 13, I was an ardent reader of books on how things began - the automobile, the steam engine, the parachute - and I came across a book about Leonardo da Vinci. This had a picture of a flying machine with huge bat wings. ... It looked like a bat man to me."

Kane was born in New York City on Oct. 24, 1915. He broke into comic book work in the mid-1930s. Batman was born a year after the debut of "Superman" when DC Comics editor Vincent Sullivan asked him to devise a new superhero.

An immediate hit, the Caped Crusader has been in continuous publication since 1940-- a feat matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman -- with new stories every month. Batman currently stars in four monthly comic books --Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: Shadow Of The Bat and Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight -- as well as appearing in a host of graphic novels and crossovers. In the ensuing decades, the character would star in comic books, animated television series, a hit live-action television show in the 1960s, and four top-grossing Warner Bros. feature films. The toys based on the character have been consistent best-sellers for more than a decade.

The now-legendary tale follows a young boy, traumatized by the murder of his parents before his eyes, who vows to avenge their deaths by bringing criminals to justice. A teenaged Bruce Wayne uses his vast fortune to study criminology, train his body to athletic perfection, and assemble an assortment of vehicles and weapons to fight crime in his home of Gotham. When he is startled one night by a bat outside his window, he decides to costume himself as a "bat" man in order to strike fear in the "cowardly and superstitious" hearts of criminals.

Besides conceiving the Dark Knight, Mr Kane was also the cartoonist on the comic series when Robin the Boy Wonder, the Joker, Catwoman and the Riddler - among others - made their first appearances. He also created the television cartoon characters Courageous Cat, Minute Mouse, and Cool McCool. More recently he served as a consultant on the Batman films.

Kane is survived by his wife, daughter, grandson, and sister.