Broken Frontier

The great Jerry Robinson is no more. The legendary artist, best known for creating the Joker, passed away Wednesday in New York City. He was 89.

Jerry Robinson’s name is not as well-known as some others of his generation. It’s never been as instantly recognizable, for instance, as that of Bob Kane, the creator of Batman. And yet without Jerry Robinson’s at times hotly disputed contributions to the Batman mythos, Bruce Wayne and his worryingly obsessive alter ego might not have attained anything like the success they have.

Robinson was discovered by Bob Kane in 1939 when he was only 17 and became first a letterer, then background inker and then the principal inker on the then new Batman strip in both Batman and Detective Comics (and occasionally World’s Finest) for some years, eventually pencilling the strip from 1943 when Kane left it (although Kane continued to be credited rather than Robinson).

He also named and designed Robin, the Boy Wonder (inspired by the stories of Robin Hood which he had read as a boy) and co-created both Two-Face and Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred, though his repeated claims to have created the Joker have caused controversy for years; most comic book historians agree that he did, but Bob Kane always hotly denied this, crediting the creation of the character to himself and Bill Finger. Whatever the truth though, his importance in ensuring the success of Batman cannot be underestimated.

Robinson’s significance to the comics industry, though, is not confined to Batman: a successful newspaper cartoonist in his own right, he went on to become President of the National Cartoonists Society from 1967-69, President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists from 1973-75 and founder and President of the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate. He was also a noted comics historian and author of ‘The Comics’, a book detailing the  history of newspaper comic strips, as well as numerous other books, features and articles on the subject over the years.

Robinson, perhaps in part because of his own experiences when working on the Batman characters, Robinson became a vocal crusader for creator’s rights, and in the mid 1970s was  (along with Neal Adams) instrumental in getting Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster due recognition and recompense for the creation of the character on whom DC’s success was founded.  As a result of Robinson and Adams’ endeavours, in 1975 Siegel and Shuster received lifetime stipends and a credit from then onwards on all published and broadcast material featuring their character. Robinson himself was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004, and in 2007 served as creative consultant on the movie Batman: The Dark Knight.

Jerry Robinson passed away at a hospice on Staten Island late on Wednesday 7th 2011 at the age of 89, and his passing leaves the world of comics a poorer place, but his creations will almost certainly live forever.

Note: DC has shared some official comments on Robinson's passing on its The Source blog, including an overview of his most popular Golden Age cover art.