Comics artist Jerry Robinson died 7 December 2011. Born 1 January 1922 in Trenton, New Jersey, he’ll be remembered for creating Batman’s nemesis The Joker.
According to The Los Angeles Times, he “was still a teenager when he stepped into the fledgling comic book industry after a chance meeting with Bob Kane, who showed the youngster the just-published issue of Detective Comics #27,” in which Batman debuted. “Robinson was at a resort in the Catskills and wearing a white painter’s jacket that caught the eye of Kane because the teen had covered it with his own illustrations.
“‘That was a fad then, kids would get these linen jackets with all the pockets and personalize them with all this razzmatazz,’ Robinson said in 2009. ‘I was wearing mine as a warmup jacket and someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Hey, who drew that stuff?” It was Bob Kane, who had just finished the first issue of Batman. I didn’t even know what that was. He showed me the issue that was on sale there at the local village. I wasn’t very impressed.'”
Kane offered the 17-year-old Robinson a job inking and lettering, and soon moved him up to penciling. Robinson started working on Batman in 1939, named Robin, and “was the creator or key contributor to the first and formative appearances of enduring characters such as the Joker, Two-Face, and Alfred.”
Following his time at Batman, Robinson formed a short-lived studio with Mort Meskin. He freelanced for several publishers, created the 1950s’ strip Jett Scott, and then moved into political cartooning, as well as creating True Classroom Flubs and Fluffs which ran in The New York Sunday News in the 1960s and Still Life. “I did 32 years of political cartoons, one every day for six days a week, I wrote and drew every word, every line,” Robinson said. “That body of work is the one I’m proudest of. Looking at the Batman pages is like revisiting my youth. My first seven years in New York were the first seven years of Batman itself. While my time on Batman was important and exciting and notable considering the characters that came out of it, it was really just the start of my life.”
In his later years, the United Nations invited him to produce two major exhibitions, the Ecotoon collection of environmental art at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Human Rights collection of political commentary in Vienna in 1993. Robinson also drew for Playbill, and contributed to many books.
Robinson was president of the National Cartoonists Society (1967-69), and of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (1973-75).
In 1978, he founded Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate/CartoonArts International, which now represents more than 550 artists from more than 75 countries.
Robinson is survived by his wife, Gro; his son, Jens Robinson; his daughter, Kristin Robinson-White; and two grandchildren.
Jens Robinson released a statement from the family: “In addition to those closest to Jerry who knew him as husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law, uncle and dear friend, Jerry was adored personally and respected by so many people around the world. His comics creations, especially the first supervillain, the Joker, are cherished by many millions more. Jerry was one of the last remaining links to the Golden Age of comic books in the 1930s and ’40s. Among his numerous awards and accomplishments, Jerry was most proud of his fight for creator rights, notably on behalf of his friends the Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and oppressed political cartoonists abroad. In his later career he revolutionized the way political cartoonists worldwide are distributed outside their own countries through the formation of the cartoon syndicate he founded.”