Following up on our earlier item about Bob Kane (or one of his ghosts) swiping on early Batman stories, a couple of message boards — this one, for instance — are discussing to what extent Mr. Kane could draw at all. It's no secret that after about 1946, everything published in comics under his signature was done by someone else. He may occasionally have drawn or redrawn a panel here or there but it was all substantially the work of men like Lew Sayre Schwartz or Sheldon Moldoff.
Kane also employed ghost artists on at least some of what he "drew" for other venues. During the "pop art" craze of the sixties, which I believe lasted about an hour and forty-two minutes, he suddenly was out selling oil paintings that he'd allegedly done, blowing up old Batman panels a la Roy Lichtenstein. Soon after, he was sued by a lady who claimed she'd actually painted them…meaning that Kane hadn't even taken the time to project, trace and color in the panels — something a high school art student could have done.
But was it that Kane couldn't do the work or that he just didn't want to expend the effort? There's a big difference there. Based on my own encounters with the man, I'd say it was both with the emphasis on laziness. Once upon a time, the man did support himself as an artist in comics. He wasn't great but back then, not many were. What separated Kane from many others was that he seemed to figure out that drawing comics day and night only led to drawing more comics day and night.
You couldn't get wealthy that way (Jack Kirby sure didn't) and even if you could, some people just don't want to spend 80 hours out of every week at a drawing table. To become something more than a comic artist required better drawing than Kane could muster so he hired assistants, all of whom drew better than he did, and let them make him look good. It worked pretty well, at least as far as he was concerned…and then later on, he figured out that he could do as many syndicated comic strip artists did, which was to go out and play and let the hired help put in the 80 hours.
I first met Kane in 1968 when I was fourteen years old. The story is told in my book, Wertham Was Right, and also in Gerry Jones's excellent Men of Tomorrow. The quick version is that Kane met one of our comic book club members at a comic rack in a Los Angeles grocery store and invited him to come visit him. A half-dozen of us made the journey and then I went back later on my own and learned an awful lot of comic history.
On our first trip, Kane acted like he drew Batman with the aid of a few assistants. That was until I let him know that I knew otherwise, whereupon he confessed to what I guess was about 80% of the truth. I'm still amazed he was that candid. Anyway, he did sketches for us all. Everyone else asked for Batman and Kane whipped out a couple of them — obviously stock sketches, largely identical to one another. Most artists, even the great ones, have a little repertoire of head shots they can replicate with their eyes closed.
I think he had two Batman images, one profile and one full-face. The full-face looked a lot like the drawing in the "Batman for President" in the photo above. Kane had done it for a photo session a few weeks earlier. He gave us all autographed copies of the photo and on my second visit, he gave me the original to the poster he was holding in it.
I was the last one to get a sketch from him that first day. Just to throw him a curve and to see what would happen, I asked him for something other than Batman…a drawing of The Penguin. Kane gave a me a little grin as if to say, "You troublemaker," but he picked up his marker and did the drawing you see above right. If you're interested in the question of whether Bob Kane could draw, know that he produced it right in front of me, all by himself. At least, I didn't see Shelly Moldoff under the table. Kane did it straightaway in marking pen without any preliminary underdrawing in about two minutes and I still think it's pretty decent — especially for a guy who was way outta practice. Then again, I suspect it also represented the upper end of his ability.