Comics Interview — Issue #031

Fred Finger, son of Batman co-writer Bill Finger, recounts how his father co-created Batman with Bob Kane, developing the costume, the origin story, the Batcave, the Batmobile, and iconic villains such as the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, and Catwoman. He describes Bill as a brilliant but tragically undervalued writer who died penniless in the early 1970s, and expresses ongoing bitterness toward DC Comics for denying royalties and coldly dismissing the Finger family. Fred reveals his unsuccessful attempts to have DC acknowledge his father's files and contributions, and warns he may pursue legal action ahead of the upcoming Batman film.

Kane traces Batman's creation to influences including Leonardo da Vinci's bat-winged flying machine, Zorro's dual identity, and the film The Bat Whispers, and credits Bill Finger with refining the character's look and writing the early stories. He disputes Jerry Robinson's claims to have created the Joker and Robin, asserting the Joker originated from a Conrad Veidt photograph and that Robin came from Robin Hood — his own ideas. Kane discusses his lifetime royalty contract with DC, his fine-art Batman paintings, his work on the Courageous Cat animated series, and his current role as creative consultant on the Batman feature film in Hollywood.

Robinson describes how he came up with the concept for the Joker one evening as a journalism student, sketching a playing card as the character's trademark, though he acknowledges Bill Finger wrote the first story using a Conrad Veidt photo to finalize the look. He also claims credit for suggesting the name "Robin" and adapting the Robin Hood costume for Batman's sidekick, recounting the camaraderie and grueling all-night work sessions of the Golden Age. Robinson offers warm tributes to Bill Finger's research-driven, visually sophisticated writing.

Roussos recalls working at Bob Kane's studio alongside Jerry Robinson, erasing Kane's rough background pencils and replacing them with his own dramatic big-moon, heavy-shadow style that defined the early Batman's visual atmosphere. He describes the chaotic freelance environment, Kane's strict Friday paycheck rituals, and National/DC's eventual offer to bring Robinson and Roussos in-house to prevent their work on rival titles from competing with Batman. Now a longtime Marvel staff colorist, he reflects on 30 years with National and his later collaborations with Robinson on Harvey Comics and the Green Hornet newspaper strip.

Miller discusses The Dark Knight Returns, his four-issue series set twenty years in the future featuring a fifty-something Batman returning from retirement in a politically dystopian America, with Superman recast as a government agent and enemy. He explains his central thesis that Batman only functions in a malevolent world, argues that the superhero genre has been corrupted by trivialization and TV-era sentimentality, and champions a return to Romantic adventure with genuine heroism and moral conviction. Miller also criticizes Marvel's treatment of Jack Kirby and outlines how the Dark Knight format — square-bound 48-page graphic novels — is designed to reach a wider adult audience.

Ward, who played Robin in the 1966 Batman TV series, discusses the show's broad three-demographic appeal (children, college campers, and nostalgic adults), recounts dangerous on-set stunts including near-maulings by Bengal tigers and third-degree burns from a pyrotechnic accident, and reveals he was offered the lead in The Graduate but blocked by Fox. He describes the typecasting that has followed him since the series ended, shares the famous anecdote about the Catholic Legion of Decency objecting to the fit of his tights, and argues that he and Adam West should be cast in any new Batman film, citing the precedent of the Star Trek films.

DAK frames the issue as a significant document of comics history, explaining that gathering primary-source accounts of Batman's origins — inherently contradictory but collectively illuminating — alongside interviews with Frank Miller and Burt Ward creates a perspective spanning nearly five decades of the character.

Reader mail including an extended rebuttal from a fan challenging John Byrne's claims of ownership over Doctor Doom (in response to the CI #25 Byrne interview), praise for the Kevin Eastman/Peter Laird interview in CI #27, and editorial notes from DAK explaining the bi-weekly publishing schedule experiment the previous summer.