On December 8th, Jerry Robinson, the creator of the Joker died at the age of 89 years old just one month shy of his 90th birthday. He was born on January 1, 1922 and started work in the comics industry at 17 years old while attending Columbia University when he was noticed by Bob Kane. Robinson worked as an inker on the early Batman titles and over several years put more of his input into Batman’s design and the characters within that world. Outside of creating the Joker, he was also responsible for co-creating Batman’s sidekick Robin, and with those leaving a lasting legacy on Batman’s world. Eventually though Robinson moved on from Bob Kane’s Batman team and went to work on many other heroes until he moved into crime and romance comics. From there he went on to work on political cartoons and comic strips.
As time went on he went on to curate fine arts galleries and museum shows celebrating comic book art. Along with Neal Adams he fought for Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster to get their deserved credit and pay for them creating Superman from DC Comics. He went on to become a paid creative consultant for DC Comics and was an ambassador for comics . He also created the concept of the “Astra,” manga collaborating with Sidra Cohn and was published in Japan in 1999, brought over to the states via CPM Manga. As time went on he went on to curate other fine arts exhibits spotlighting Golden Age comic art, and recently a new printing, “The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art,” was just published by Dark Horse Comics.
My own thoughts on Jerry Robinson are immense amounts of respect. Along with creating the Joker and giving us many things that fans love about the Batman universe. That’s some talent and what he continued to do as an ambassador of comics is something that I can appreciate. I think he’d be proud to know of the legacy he left behind is honored every day and that he leaves many people truly respecting all that he’s done. Thank you Jerry Robinson. From myself and the rest of soentertain.me we send our condolences to Jerry Robinson‘s family and friends.
this man is a legend. I hope they give a spotlight for like 15 minutes during the dark knight rises. the buzz on batman wouldn’t have been anything without three joker of the last film.