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No man controls the will to retain the spirit, and there is no ruling on the day of death; neither is there discharge in war, nor will wickedness save the one who practices it. Kohelet 8:8 |
William "Bill" Finger (February 8, 1914 – January 18, 1974) was an American comic strip and comic book writer best known as the uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, as well as the co-architect of the series' development. In later years, Kane acknowledged Finger as "a contributing force" in the character's creation, and comics historian Ron Goulart has referred to Batman as the "creation of artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger". A DC Comics press release in 2007 stated that, "Kane, along with writer Bill Finger, had just created Batman for DC predecessor National Comics."
Finger additionally helped create Batman nemeses The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, The Riddler, and others. He also wrote many of the original 1940s Green Lantern stories and would go on to contribute to the development of numerous comic book series.
He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999. His name provided the basis for the Bill Finger Award, founded by Jerry Robinson and presented annually at Comic-Con International to honor lifetime achievements by comic book writers insufficiently honored for their work in the medium.
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Finger was born in 1914 to a Jewish family. He joined Bob Kane's nascent studio in 1938. An aspiring writer and a part-time shoe salesman, he had met Kane at a party; Kane later offered him a job ghost writing the strips Rusty and Clip Carson.
Early the following year, National Comics' success with the seminal superhero Superman in Action Comics prompted editors to scramble for similar heroes. In response, Kane conceived "the Bat-Man". Finger recalled that Kane
Finger offered such suggestions as giving the character a cowl instead of the domino mask, a cape instead of wings, adding gloves, and removing the red sections from the original costume. He later said his suggestions were influenced by Lee Falk's popular The Phantom, a syndicated newspaper comic strip character with which Kane was familiar as well, and that he devised the name Bruce Wayne for the character's secret identity: "Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock ... then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne." As Kane summed up decades later in his autobiography, "Bill Finger was a contributing force on Batman right from the beginning... I made Batman a superhero-vigilante when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective."
Finger wrote both the initial script for Batman's debut in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939) and the character's second appearance, while Kane provided art. Batman proved a breakout hit, and Finger went on to write many of the early Batman stories, including making major contributions to the character of the Joker as well as other major Batman villains. When Kane wanted Robin's origin to parallel Batman's, Finger made Robin's parents circus performers murdered while performing their trapeze act.
Bill Finger recalled that,
Comics historian Jim Steranko wrote in 1970 that Finger's slowness as a writer led Batman editor Whitney Ellsworth to suggest Kane replace him, a claim reflected in Joe Desris' description of Finger as "notoriously tardy." During Finger's absence, Gardner Fox contributed scripts that introduced Batman's early "Bat-" arsenal (the utility belt, the Bat-Gyro/plane and the Batarang). Upon his return, Finger created or co-created items such as the Batmobile and Batcave, and is credited with providing the name "Gotham City". Among the things that made his stories distinctive were a use of giant-sized props: enlarged pennies, sewing machines, or typewriters.
Eventually, Finger left Kane's studio to work directly for DC Comics, where he supplied scripts for characters including Batman and Superman (introducing to the latter's mythos the character Lana Lang). He would eventually write for other companies as well, including Fawcett Comics, Quality Comics, and Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics.
In 1994, Bob Kane gave Finger co-credit for creating Batman's archnemesis the Joker, despite claims on the character by writer Jerry Robinson:
Robinson, whose original Joker playing card was on public display in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007, and the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia from October 24, 2004 to August 28, 2005, has countered that he created the Joker to be Batman's larger-than-life nemesis when extra stories needed to be written quickly for Batman #1 and that he even received credit for the story in a college course. Regarding the Conrad Veidt similarity, Robinson said:
In 1940, Finger collaborated with artist Martin Nodell to create the superhero Green Lantern in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940). Both writer and artist received a byline on the strip, with Nodell in the earliest issues using the pseudonym "Matt Dellon".
According to Nodell, Finger was brought in to write scripts after Nodell had already conceived the character. Nodell's name appeared first, before Finger's, in the bylines on the stories that he drew, although when ghost artists such as Irwin Hasen were used, Finger's name appeared first so that the credits then read "by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell". It is standard practice in Modern Age comics to list the writer first and the artist second.
As a screenwriter, Finger wrote or co-wrote the films Death Comes to Planet Aytin, The Green Slime, and Track of the Moon Beast, and contributed scripts to the TV series' Hawaiian Eye and 77 Sunset Strip. He also wrote a two-part episode "The Clock King's Crazy Crimes / The Clock King Gets Crowned", airing October 12–13, 1966, in season two of the live-action Batman TV series.
Artist Bob Kane negotiated a contract with National Comics, the future DC Comics, that signed away ownership of the character in exchange for, among other compensations, a mandatory byline on all Batman comics (and adaptations thereof). Finger's name, in contrast, does not appear as an official credit on Batman stories or films, even the comics he wrote in the 1940s and 1950s.
Finger received limited acknowledgment for his writing work in the 1960s; the letters page of Batman #169 (Feb. 1965), for example, features editor Julius Schwartz naming Finger as creator of The Riddler, one of Batman's recurring villains.
Additionally, Finger did receive credit for his work for National's sister company, All-American Publications, during that time. For example, the first Wildcat story, in Sensation Comics #1 (July 1942), has the byline "by Irwin Hasen and Bill Finger", and the first Green Lantern story (see above) is credited to "Mart Dellon and Bill Finger". National later absorbed All-American. National's practice in the 1950s made formal bylines rare in comics, with DC regularly granting credit in its comics only to Kane; to William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, under his pseudonym of Charles Moulton; and to Sheldon Mayer.
Finger, who died in 1974, was posthumously inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1999. In 1985, DC Comics named Finger as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great. In his honor, Comic-Con International established in 2005 the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which is given annually to "two writers who favored us with important, inspirational work that has somehow not quite received its rightful recognition."
Bill Finger
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