Jerry Robinson, Comic Book Creator of The Joker, Dies at 89

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Jerry Robinson, Comic Book Legend and Creator of Batman Nemesis, The Joker, Dead at 89
BY Ethan Sacks
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Dec 8, 2011


Jerry Robinson, the pioneering comic book artist credited with creating Batman’s archnemesis, The Joker, and later a crusading hero for cartoonists in his own right who helped restore “Superman’s” creators’ rights in a single bound, died in his sleep Wednesday night.

He was 89.



“Everyone who loves comics owes Jerry a debt of gratitude for the rich legacy that he leaves behind,” Jim Lee, DC Entertainment co-publisher and popular “Batman” artist, said in a statement.







Discovered by “Batman” creator Bob Kane as a 17-year-old journalism student enrolled at Columbia University, Robinson entered comics in 1939 as an inker and letterer on the fledgling comic.

Though Kane claimed he and writer Bill Finger came up with the idea for The Joker — embodied by Heath Ledger in the 2008 film, The Dark Knight — most comic historians credit Robinson for the iconic villain.

“The heroes are rather dull — they have to be heroes,” Robinson told this reporter for a 2008 Wizard Magazine profile. “The exciting ones are the villains.”





Robinson, however, ditched super heroes in the 1950s and launched a weekly cartoon, “Flubs and Fluffs.” The strip poked fun at real-life students’ errors that became a Sunday staple for years in the New York Daily News.

Expanding his horizons further, he launched a political satire strip called “Still Life” in the early ‘70s.





The New Jersey-born artist’s greatest contributions to cartooning, however, came off the drawing board.

Robinson became an advocate for cartoonists’ rights, most notably championing the case of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of “Superman.”





Broke and locked in a legal battle with DC Comics over the rights for their creation at a time in the early ‘70s when $3 million for the rights a Superman feature film.

Launching a high-profile publicity campaign on behalf of his peers, Robinson helped negotiate a financial settlement that restored the creators name on every Superman comic.

“He fought to bring respectability to the artists and writers who created the comics and who had long been ignored by society,” says comic historian and movie producer Michael Uslan, who considers Robinson a friend and mentor.









Another Robinson plot worthy of The Joker helped out another beleaguered cartoonist in a more literal life-and-death situation.

Francisco Laurenzo Pons was languishing in a Uruguayan jail for six years, enduring beatings and electric shocks, having been imprisoned by the ruling military junta for a working at a liberal magazine. When Robinson heard of his he helped create a bogus award with the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and named Pons a winner.

The media circus drew attention to Pons, and Uruguay felt compelled to release him.

“I don’t have any doubt that pressure from Robinson and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists had a bearing on making my freedom possible,” Pons told the News by email in 2008.







Robinson, who settled down in New York since his Columbia days, is survived by a wife, Gro, a sons, Jens, and a daughter, Kristen, as well as two grandchildren.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-styl...ticle-1.988623