Batman & Bill Page #6

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the first real

version of Bill Finger

that we would get to know.

He was interested

in a lot of things.

He loved ballet, for

instance, I loved it.

We went together.

He was very knowledgeable

about theater,

about movies.

He was proud of being a very,

very good comic book writer.

There are several heroes,

in my opinion, in this story.

When Lyn, his second wife,

learned that they were making

a big budget Batman movie,

which would become Tim

Burton's 1989 Batman movie,

she tried to get Bill

credit in that movie.

This time it is

to the big screen.

Warner Brothers

is spending millions

to bring millionaire Bruce Wayne

and his alter ego to life.

Is this a gamble for the studio?

Will Batman pay off?

Will there be bat hysteria?

When the first Batman

movie was coming out,

my mother got very concerned

that Bill was getting

no credit for it.

Estimates are that

the final price tag

for the Warner Brothers movie

will be in the 30 to

50 million dollar range.

I thought he should

get some credit

on the screen,

and I tried to get in

touch with the managers

or whoever it was to tell them

that Bill should get credit.

We weren't interested in suing,

because we weren't

seeking money,

we were just seeking

credit for Bill.

I really dealt with

the legal department

a couple of times.

They weren't disagreeing

with Bill's

co-creating Batman,

there was no disagreement there.

They just didn't

want to get involved

in something they

didn't have to do

that might open up some

liability issues for them.

They, I would say,

politely declined.

That long-awaited

41 million dollar film,

Batman, got an old-fashioned

kickoff last night

when it premiered

in Los Angeles.

Thousands of fans, many

of whom waited all day

outside the theater in Westwood,

welcomed the scores of stars

who turned out for the opening.

So of course the Batman

movie was a juggernaut.

Batman owned 1989.

Are all those

people waiting now?

You're kidding!

It's Batmania this summer.

Everyone wants

to see this movie.

That movie was stratospheric.

I've been reading comic books

since I was six years old.

They couldn't have done

this movie any better.

Day by day, there are

more and more signals

that a phenomenon is emerging.

There is even a

1-800-BATMAN number

in here to get your

merchandise to you faster.

1989 is when Batman moved

from just another superhero

to a fictional character

that everybody knows.

At our first Batman

premiere in 1989,

Bob showed up in like

this black velour bat cape.

Bob was fun, and

Bob was a showman.

He loved the attention, he

reveled in the attention.

My autobiography

came out, Batman & Me.

At the height of the

movie of Batman One,

it sold 250,000 copies.

That's the cover of me.

That's the first

Batman I drew in 1939.

Doing the book was interesting.

I helped design the book

and rewrote a lot of the book

based on a lot of

interviewing I did with him.

I interviewed him for hours.

For me, the most significant

passage is on page 44,

when Bob writes, "Now

that my longtime friend

and collaborator is gone,

I must admit that

Bill never received

the fame and

recognition he deserved.

He was an unsung hero."

"I often tell my wife,

if I could go back

15 years before he died,

I would like to say, quote,

'I'll put your name on it now.

You deserve it.'"

I remember when I read that,

and several other people told me

they had similar reactions.

They were just

dumbstruck, I mean,

it was just like...

it's one of those things

that'll just stop you

when you're reading it

if you know anything

about the situation

because you are looking

at a book written...

allegedly written...

by the person

who is totally responsible,

or almost totally responsible,

for the fact that

poor Bill Finger

never got the credit

he deserved for Batman.

He did have regrets at the end

about Bill not getting credit.

Never sufficient

regret to fix it.

I don't think he would've

ever put Bill's name

on the strip at that time.

It opens a legal can of worms

when he told me that,

which he wouldn't

have wanted to get into,

because then it wouldn't...

it would be not

only credit but money.

The other especially

notable thing

about Bob's book is

this series of sketches,

which are dated

January 17th, 1934.

- Yeah.

- He has these drawings

that he says were

stashed away as a kid

and wasn't sure

whether to make it

into a bird or a bat,

and he said that

when he was creating

this new superhero, he

remembered these drawings

he had made in 1934

in this trunk,

and he went to get them

and this gave him

the inspiration

for making a

character into a bat.

Wow.

I don't think that's

ever been corroborated

that that's an

actual 1934 document.

I mean, somebody should do

a Shroud of Turin investigation

on those 1934 sketches.

I mean, right away,

the date alone,

it's like you're telling me

that at the dawn of

the comic book itself,

which was created in 1933,

before there were

superheroes, obviously,

you're telling me

that you created

a Batman-like

character, Bob Kane.

Looking at the

drawing from 1934,

he's wearing a cowl,

and his original Batman

drawing didn't have a cowl.

It also... there's

a bat emblem on it.

The bat emblem was

suggested by Finger.

These are not

haphazard sketches.

These are something put together

by someone retrospectively

trying to talk about

how they came up

with this character.

In this case, for a man to say,

"Bill created a costume,

but here's my drawing

of the same costume

five years before."

There's just no

way to look at that

and not see... see

the scam going on,

see a man who's

desperately trying

to hold onto

something that he knows

is not rightfully his.

At some point, if

you tell the story

enough to yourself,

then it just...

your perception

is now your reality.

I do think that over time,

Bob started to feel differently

than he felt

when he was younger,

but he probably felt

trapped by the myth

of Bob Kane, which he created,

and I think he probably thought,

"I'm going to look much

worse if I come clean now..."

even if maybe his

conscience was saying

it would be the right...

better thing to do,

"...than if I just...

Let's see how long

I can ride this out.

Maybe I can get to the grave

with no one really

challenging me on this."

One day, when I'm 120 or so,

I'll look down from

the bat cave in the sky

at my little creation

that goes on and on and on,

and I'll just say,

"Hey, Warner Brothers

and Leonardo, just send me

the residuals in the sky.

I'll give you my address,

it's up there

where the angels are."

Bob died in 1998.

He got to live

through seeing Batman

become a worldwide phenomenon,

and had a proper

obituary in newspapers.

He was mentioned

on nightly news.

He went on to have a star

on the Hollywood Walk

of Fame many years later.

Bill died in 1974

with no obituary,

no funeral, no gravestone...

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