Profile of Bill Finger on Famous Like Me

Bill Finger (February 8, 1914 - January 24, 1974) was an American writer who is best remembered (though never officially credited) as the co-creator of Batman with artist Bob Kane.

Finger and Kane began to collaborate in 1938. In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at the comic book division of National Publications (later DC Comics, now a subsidiary of Time Warner) to request more superheroes for their titles. Kane subsquently created a character called "Birdman". Finger offered such suggestions as renaming the character "Batman", giving the character a cowl instead of a simple domino mask, giving him a cape instead of wings, giving him gloves, and removing bright red sections of the original costume. Finger wrote the first Batman story, while Kane provided art. Because Kane had already submitted the proposal for a Batman character to his editors at DC Comics, Kane was the only person given official credit at the time for the creation of Batman.

Batman was a breakout hit, and soon after, National suggested that character receive a youthful sidekick who the readers could use as an audience surrogate. Kane initially suggested an impish character like Puck, while Finger suggested a more down-to-earth character, Robin. Finger went on to write many of the early Batman stories, including making major contributions to the character of The Joker, as well as other major Batman villains. He is also credited with the invention of the Batmobile, the Batcave, anything Bat-named, the Bruce Wayne identity, and with providing a name for Gotham City. Among the things that made his stories particularly distinctive was a use of giant-sized props -- enlarged pennies, sewing machines, or typewriters.

Kane, the more business-savvy of the Kane-Finger creative team, negotiated a contract with National, signing away any ownership that he might have in the character in exchange for, among other compensations, a mandatory byline on all Batman comics stating "Batman created by Bob Kane", even on stories with which he had no direct involvement. Bill Finger's contract, by comparison, left him with a monetary pittance and no credit even on the stories that he wrote without Kane. Finger, like Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and many other creators during and after the Golden Age of Comic Books, would resent National for "cheating" him of the money and dignity that he felt that he was owed for his creation. By the time Finger died in 1974, he had never been officially credited once for his work. He died poor and without any official heirs to continue his fight for credit. Since then, in the comic book industry, being "Fingered" has become slang for being denied credit for one's contributions to a story or character.

Posthumously, Finger has been named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame and Jack Kirby Hall of Fame. He is also the namesake of the Bill Finger Award.

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