Jerry Robinson
Jerry Robinson (born January 1, 1922 in Trenton , New Jersey , † December 7, 2011 in New York City ) was an American comic book artist and cartoonist . He was best known for his involvement in the creation of the characters Joker and Robin in the Batman comics.
Life and work
Early Years (1922-1939)
Jerry Robinson was born in 1922 to a Russian immigrant and a New Yorker. With the intention of becoming a journalist, he enrolled at Columbia University in New York as a journalism student . Among other things, he financed his studies as an ice cream seller until he was recruited in 1939 by the freelance writer and draftsman Bob Kane as a member of his team, which was dedicated to the production of the - then brand new - comics about the dark avenger and nocturnal criminal hunter Batman.
Work on Batman (1939-1947)
As an employee of Bob Kane and his partner Bill Finger , who had created Batman, Robinson oversaw the comics as an ink draftsman from the summer of 1939. Specifically, these were the monthly and three-month series Batman and Detective Comics .
After Robinson had worked first as a letterer and then as an ink artist on backgrounds and supporting characters, he was eventually entrusted by Kane with the ink drawings for the most important parts of the Batman stories. The pencil sketches were still created by Kane himself at the time, while Finger wrote the stories.
After Robinson and his assistant Roussos first had to use the bedroom of Kane's apartment as a studio, the enormous commercial success of their work finally made it possible to rent their own workspaces in the Times Tower in Times Square .
In 1941, Robinson and Finger, who had previously both been Kane's employees, were poached by Kane's employer, National Comics (later DC Comics ): instead of writing and tinkering stories for Kane as freelancers, they were both supposed to be immediate employees of the publishing house work on Kane's projects. Robinson worked from then on in DC Comics' main studio on Lexington Avenue.
Robinson, Robin and the Joker
The main Batman characters that Robinson helped create are Batman's assistant and junior partner Robin , as well as his archenemy, the insane, clown-faced Joker .
Of course, Robinson's contribution to the creation of these characters is controversial: Robinson himself has repeatedly made the claim that he proposed that the Robin character invented by Bill Finger be given this name. His inspiration was the Robin Hood books that he read in his youth.
While this statement was never denied by Kane and Finger, both of them repeatedly denied that Robinson invented the character of the Joker, as he claimed. While Robinson claimed to have designed the character from a Joker playing card, Kane and Finger always stated that Kane designed the concept of the character. Then Finger suggested revising this concept based on the role of the German actor Conrad Veidt in the film The Man Who Laughs (1928). Robinson only delivered the playing card as an attribute of the joker. For his part, Robinson stated that Finger showed him (not Kane) the footage of Veidt as a smileer after seeing his, Robinson's, concepts for the character, as they reminded him of Veidt.
Robinson's work in the 1950s and 1960s
In 1953 Robinson began working as a comic strip artist for newspapers. During this time Robinson and Sheldon Stark co-created the strip 'Jet Scott' for the Herald Tribune Syndicate, which is about an investigator who investigates scientific secrets.
Robinson returned to the comic industry in the early 1960s. At that time he mainly illustrated comic adaptations of films and TV series for the publishing house "Dell Publishing". His work during this time included drawings for the comic series Lassie , Bat Masterson , Rocky and Bullwinkle and Nancy Parker. He also illustrated book covers.
In 1963 Robinson developed Still Life and in 1964 Flubs & Fluffs , two series each consisting of full-page satirical cartoons and published in the New York Sunday News .
Late years
In 2006, Robinson was the curator of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York that examined the contributions of Jewish artists to American comic and cartoon culture. The main focus was on the will of Jewish artists to assert themselves as a minority in American society and the utilization of the “superhero” genre as a weapon of the diaspora Jews in their struggle to defend themselves against their persecution by National Socialism in Europe. The exhibition was titled Superheroes: Good and Evil in American Comics .
Others
During the civil-military dictatorship in Uruguay, Robinson stood up for the Uruguayan illustrator for the Marcha Francisco Laurenzo Pons newspaper, who was imprisoned there in 1978 and sentenced to 6.5 years in prison .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Cavna: JERRY ROBINSON, RIP: Pioneering Batman artist and comics ambassador dies at 89. In: The Washington Post, December 8, 2011 (accessed May 27, 2014).
- ↑ "El creador del Joker quiso liberar a un prisionero político uruguayo - Robinson cruzó" on www.montevideo.com.uy from December 11, 2011 (Spanish), accessed on December 11, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Robinson, Jerry |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American comic book artist and political cartoonist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 1, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Trenton , New Jersey |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 7, 2011 |
| Place of death | New York City |