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##### November 7, 1998 OBITUARY ## Bob Kane, 83, the Cartoonist Who Created 'Batman,' Is Dead ##### By SARAH BOXER Bob Kane, the cartoonist who created Batman the Caped Crusader and his sidekick, Robin the Boy Wonder, died on Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 83 and lived in Los Angeles. Batman and Robin, the characters that Mr. Kane created with his partner, Bill Finger, nearly 60 years ago, are some of the longest-lived comic-book heroes in the world. They are ''up there with Superman, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Oz, said Paul Levitz, the executive vice president and publisher of DC Comics. Born in New York City, Mr. Kane attended Cooper Union and the Art Students League. His first comic strips, ''Peter Pupp'' and ''Hiram Hick,'' were published in 1936. In 1938 he started drawing adventure strips, ''Rusty and His Pals'' and ''Clip Carson,'' for National Comics. That same year, a comic-book hero called Superman appeared. Vincent Sullivan, the editor of National Comics, who also owned Superman, asked Mr. Kane and Mr. Finger to come up with a Supercompetitor. They developed Batman on a single weekend. Mr. Kane was 18. The first Batman strip came out in May 1939 in Detective Comics, one year after the debut of Superman. Batman's first adventure was called ''The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.'' And he was another kind of superhero entirely. Batman wasn't as strong as Superman, but he was much more agile, a better dresser and had better contraptions and a cooler place to live. He lived in the Batcave, drove the Batmobile, which had a crime lab and a closed-circuit television in the back, and owned a Batplane. He also kept a lot of tools in his utility belt, including knockout gas, a smoke screen and a radio. ''Since he had no superpowers, he had to rely only on his physical and his mental skills,'' said Allan Asherman, the librarian of DC Comics. Batman's fictional history, which was created years after the character himself, was dark. According to Batlegend, under his cape Batman was really a man named Bruce Wayne who, as a child, watched as his parents were murdered in the dark streets of New York City while they were walking home from a movie. Traumatized, young Bruce vowed to avenge their deaths by punishing criminals everywhere. He studied criminology, trained his body and assembled an assortment of tools to fight crime in Gotham. One night, startled by a bat outside his window, he made up his mind to dress up as a bat to put fear into the ''cowardly and superstitious'' hearts of criminals. While ''Superman is an optimist's myth,'' Mr. Levitz said, Batman is a hero for the guy who thinks ''the world is a tough place.'' In creating Batman Mr. Kane said he drew on a number of sources: a 1920's movie called ''The Mark of Zorro,'' a radio show called ''The Shadow'' and a 1930 movie called ''The Bat Whispers.'' That movie featured a criminal with a cape who shines his bat insignia on the wall just before he is about to kill his victims, and who, in at least one scene, stands on the roof of a building and spreads his cape out. ''I guess anyone who wears a cape is tempted to do that,'' Mr. Asherman said. Mr. Kane also credited Leonardo da Vinci: ''I remember when I was 12 or 13 I was an ardent reader of books on how things began . . . and I came across a book about Leonardo da Vinci. This had a picture of a flying machine with huge bat wings . . . . It looked like a bat man to me.'' But it was Mr. Finger, Mr. Kane said, who chose some of Batman's most memorable features. He suggested the cape with scalloped edges, the cowl and the blank white eyes. ''When I first drew him I had eyes in there and it didn't look right,'' Mr. Kane once admitted. ''Bill Finger said, 'Take them out.' '' Mr. Finger also came up with the name Bruce Wayne (which, it has been observed, sounds a lot like Bob Kane). Robin, the Boy Wonder, came out a year after Batman. ''He was basically a younger edition of Batman.'' Mr. Asherman said. ''There was a need for a kid sidekick, so kids could identify with him, and for a character who would tone down the violence.'' Robin's story echoed Batman's. Under his costume, Robin was Dick Grayson, an aerialist who saw his parents fall to their deaths when the circus failed to pay some racketeers protection money. Bruce Wayne happened to be watching and offered to become Grayson's guardian. Robin got a less elaborate costume: a red vest, green boots, a yellow cape and no tights. But he was a far better flyer. Batman's villains also had pedigrees. The Joker is descended not only from the face on playing cards but also, Mr. Asherman said, from ''The Man Who Laughs,'' a 1920's movie based on a Victor Hugo story about a disfigured man in medieval France who moves in royal circles. The Penguin, Mr. Asherman said, was probably inspired by the penguin who used to be on packets of Kool cigarettes. The Riddler? Mr. Asher had no idea: ''He is just a psychopath who likes to send riddles to the police.'' For an action comic, the style of Batman was strangely quiet, and much was made of the shadows. As the superhero became popular, he began starring in other venues. In the 1940's Columbia Pictures released two serial films, ''Batman,'' in 15 chapters, and ''The New Adventures of Batman and Robin,'' also in 15 segments. In 1966 came the television show, which starred Adam West. Beginning in the 1980's there were more Batman movies. And Batman toys and costumes continue to sell year after year. ''He adapts to each era,'' Mr. Kane said. ''He fights against all injustices in the world. He fights the battle for the little man.'' But it was not Batman's sense of justice, Mr. Kane believed, that made him so popular. It was his campiness. ''Batman and Robin were always punning and wisecracking and so were the villains,'' he said in an interview in 1965. ''It was camp way ahead of its time.'' Did that mean he didn't take his superheroes seriously? ''How could you?'' As Batman's popularity increased, Mr. Kane did less and less of the drawing. Although his name appeared on the strip until 1964, the work was done mostly by other artists, whom Mr. Kane called his ''ghosts.'' He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Sanders Kane, an actress; a daughter, Deborah Majeski of New Jersey; a sister, Doris Atlas of New York; a grandson, Matthew Alderman, and, of course, Batman, Robin, the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin and the Catwoman.
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