"10 Real Life Heroes Who Helped Bill Finger Get Credit" (Screen Rant)

On Screen Rant, Tim Davis has posted an unranked list of people who helped Batman co-creator Bill Finger receive official credit in 2015 (41 years after Bill died and 76 years after Batman debuted). 

The list:

11. (honorable mention) Bob Kane (with a nod to Thomas Andrae); mention is fine, honorable doesn't track

10. the one I live with (see below)

 9. Jerry Bails

 8. Michael Uslan

 7. Jerry Robinson/Carmine Infantino

 6. Lyn Simmons

 5. Charles Sinclair

 4. Travis Langley

 3. Alethia Mariotta

 2. Fred Finger

 1. Athena Finger

A paperweight that carries significant weight

Bill Finger left behind few belongings that we know of. 

I was lucky enough to inherit one of them—a paperweight. That turned out to be the first of several quirky stories revolving around this small hunk of metal (brass, I believe).

First, it's in Bill the Boy Wonder—anachronistically.

Second, I don't take it to school visits anymore. But not for the reason you might think.

At airport security in (I believe) Reno, the TSA agent asked me to remove the paperweight from my carry-on; I (of course) would never put it in checked luggage. 

He asked what it was. I said "Bill Finger's paperweight." He (of course) asked "Who's Bill Finger?"

I said long story. 

Short version: co-creator of Batman and this paperweight is one of the only things he owned that still survives. 

He said it could be used as a weapon so I could not bring it on board.

I nearly choked.

This was several years ago and my memory of the rest of the conversation is virtually nonexistent, but I imagine I said something like this: "I know we are not supposed to negotiate, but as I mentioned, it's a one-of-a-kind and culturally invaluable. Is there anything I can say to convince you to allow me to take it?"

Somehow my desperation sold him so he did let me keep it. I realized I was risking losing it every time I took it on a flight…so I stopped taking it on flights. 

Third, the man who gave it to me, Bill's sometime writing partner Charles Sinclair, did so because he felt I would take good care of it. 

One time I didn't. (Or a second time, if you count the TSA incident.)

I tend to pack for trips at the last minute. One night before an early flight, I went to my basement office to gather a few things to pack, including the paperweight. I didn't turn on the basement light. As a carried the stack through the dark, paperweight on top, it slipped off—hitting the tiled basement floor. 

Then I turned on the light to discover a small piece had chipped off the bottom. 

I was mortified, even more so when I could not find the missing sliver. Luckily, the next day, my wife did, and she even managed to glue it back so well that you'd probably not notice.

Fourth, this everyday object has obtained a near-mythic status in my family. When my daughter was seven, out of the blue she pointed to the paperweight and said "If there was a fire and you and mommy weren't here, I would take this out for you."

I said "That's so thoughtful, sweetie pea. But if there's even a fire, just get out…

"…I'll get the paperweight."

Fifth, it's even a possibility that a paperweight that appeared once on Gotham was similar-looking on purpose…

The paperweight has been part of my presentation for schools for years, and the reveal generates one of the biggest gasps of the hourlong talk. After, kids sometime ask if I brought it, and I relay the reason why I didn't. 

If I told teachers before the talk that we will get to a point in the story when kids will have a huge reaction to seeing a paperweight, few if any would believe me.

This little beetle has proven to have power far beyond preventing papers from shuffling out of order…

Charles Sinclair (Bill Finger's longtime writing partner), 1924-2017

This one hits especially hard. 

While researching the book that would become Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I found and interviewed eight Golden and Silver Age comics creators who knew Bill personally, plus two outside of comics who knew him even better: his second wife Lyn Simmons and his longtime writing partner Charles Sinclair.

Of those ten, Lyn is the only woman—and now the last man standing. On 11/15/17, Charles passed away at age 93. 

Charles was a writer and journalist. Charles and Bill co-wrote radio serials, television shows (most proudly for Charles: 77 Sunset Strip), B-movie scripts (The Green Slime, Track of the Moon Beast), and a two-part episode of the 1966 Batman TV show (featuring the Clock King). Charles was the hustler who got many of the gigs; Bill was the only Batman comics writer to make the leap to Batman TV writer.

Charles was the first person I found in my research, the first of three people in the book's dedication (along with Lyn and Bill's granddaughter Athena), and now the first of those three to pass away.

I found Charles on 6/15/06 (at 1 p.m., I noted) after searching for hours. I learned of him on IMDb (he was listed as a co-writer with Bill), then combed People Finder records. This led me to call dozens of people and production companies in Los Angeles, where I assumed a former TV writer would be living. 

When that failed, I tried searching his name nationwide on People Finder, that time including his middle initial R (which appeared only on the Writer's Guild "missing writers" page). I called the first guy on the list—and struck gold. We talked for 1.5 hours. I was the first person who interviewed him about Bill. He said he would buy a copy of my book.

In 2010, I told him that I sold the manuscript. He suggested a title: Crusader Without a Cape.

Thanks to Charles, I learned the following (not a complete list):

• Bill had a "lady friend" named Lyn Simmons who, it turns out, became his second wife (and later became as invaluable in my research as Charles was)
• how and where Bill died
• details about Bill's legendary gimmick books (including what kind of notebooks they were and examples of entries)
• how Bill got to write for the Batman TV show
• visual details about Bill's workspace (from the make of his radio to the Klee print hanging over his desk), which I shared with Ty Templeton, who illustrated my book

Also, Charles connected me with his second wife, Nancy H. Cole, who was the first person to produce a decent, previously unpublished photo of Bill (from their wedding).

Charles was married three times and had six children. 

His first wife, Cory, worked for DC Comics. It was through her that he and Bill met. Charles and Cory had two children, Lorna and Scott, and divorced in 1963.

His second wife was the aforementioned Nancy. They married in 1964, had three children (Kim, Jennifer, and Jason), and divorced in 1969.

He met Gayle Sanders in 1973 and married her 1978. They had a son, Peter. Gayle has been a friend to me almost as long as I've known Charles. Charles didn't email so everything digital went through Gayle.

Charles adopted three of Bill's belongings: a desk, a small sculpture Bill made of his then-wife Portia (which Charles would later give to Athena), and a paperweight (which he kindly gave to me, in July 2006).

I found out about Charles's death two days before the Bronx renamed a street "Bill Finger Way." I contacted him (via Gayle) to remind him of the sign unveiling, but wasn't expecting him to attend (he wasn't able to make the last event I had in New York, in February 2016, because the trip from Brooklyn to Manhattan would've been too exhausting). 

Unfortunately, Charles did not get the chance to watch Batman & Bill (which came out in May) and probably didn't know about the street renaming. It was similar to how Robin co-creator/early Batman ghost artist Jerry Robinson died only six months before my biography of his old colleague and mentor came out. Both men would've been so proud to see their friend get long overdue recognition. 

At school visits, after emphasizing how Bill's story took place a long time ago, I was always so touched to tell kids that both Charles and Lyn were still alive. In a way, I felt their longevity was in part to bear witness to a story that should not be lost.

I interviewed Charles numerous times for the book and twice on camera for the documentary, first in 2008 (for the first iteration, which did not come to pass) and again in 2016. His recall was astounding. His diction was crisp. His geniality was ever-present.

Jim Amash conducted a great interview with Charles, published in Alter Ego #84. Charles is the star of many posts on this blog.

Please read them. 

He, too, deserves to be recognized, and not just because he was always willing to take time to reminisce about Bill (for no gain for himself). He didn't help me because he was old and desperate for something to do. He had plenty to do. At times when I called him he asked me to try again later because he was on his way to the gym.

He helped me because he was a good man. I knew from the moment he first told me a Bill Finger story that I would dearly miss him one day, and that day has arrived. Meeting Charles was the closest thing I had to meeting Bill himself, and he ended up being a friend beyond that.

 2008

 2012

 2013

 2014 (with Athena)

2016 (last time I saw him)

He was a good man.

Charles, I will always be grateful to you. I will speak of you as I do Bill—without fail, with fondness, and with an eye on legacy.

The debt owed to Charles Sinclair and Lyn Simmons

When researching Bill Finger for what became Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, the first two people I found who had not been interviewed before on the subject were the two most important: his longtime friend and sometime writing partner Charles Sinclair and his previously-unknown-to-comics-historians second wife Lyn Simmons.

I tracked down both in mid-2006, when Charles was 82 and Lyn was 84.

Ten years later, both are still with us.

And both were invaluable in fleshing out what we know about Bill.

Prior to my interviews with Charles and Lyn, and aside from an interview with Bill's only child, Fred, that was published in Comics Interview #31 (1986) and reprinted in Alter Ego: The Comic Book Artist Collection (2001), all of what we knew about Bill came from people he worked with. Talking to people who knew him outside of work was especially helpful in getting a sense of his personality, his motivation, his demons.

The most notable details we learned courtesy of Charles:

• how and where Bill died
• Bill's scarab paperweight (which I now proudly own)
• details about Bill's legendary gimmick books (including what kind of notebooks they were and examples of entries)
• how Bill got to write for Batman (1966 TV show)
• Lyn! (Charles was the one who told me about Bill's "lady friend" who, it turns out, was more precisely his second wife)

The most notable details we learned courtesy of Lyn:

• Bill's birth name Milton, which led to his yearbook photo, which is the earliest known photo in existence
• how she almost got Bill's name in the credits of Batman (1989 movie)
• one of the clearest (and quirkiest) of the 12 new Bill photos I uncovered

Now you know why the dedication of the book is "To Charles, Lyn, and Athena, the soul, heart, and hope of Bill Finger."

Me with Charles and Lyn in 2008:

Big Bill Finger weekend: play and dedications

On 6/28/14, I had the honor of seeing the premiere of Fathers of the Dark Knight, which is, I believe, the first play ever about Bill Finger (and the other guy).

Writer/direction Roberto Williams threw the passion of many men into the production, and it showed.

Adding to the special nature of the proceedings: Bill’s granddaughter Athena and great-grandson Ben were in attendance (along with Athena’s mom/Fred’s ex-wife Bonnie). Roberto invited Athena to say a few words before curtain:

What’s more, the venue would have been no stranger to Bill. The play was staged at his alma mater, DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. 

The seats in the auditorium look old enough to date back to the early 1930s. Maybe Bill had once sat in the same seat I did.

The last time I had been at DWC was in 2006; I’d gone there to soak up the atmosphere but mainly to try to find his yearbook photo—this before I knew that, in high school, his name was Milton Finger. (So I didn’t find the photo…on that expedition. But later I did.)

Congrats to Roberto, the spot-on cast, and the hard-working crew on an unprecedented show. When Bill (played by Ezekiel Jackson) says “You don’t call me Bill the Boy Wonder for nothing!” I was, I admit, a few degrees hotter than proud.

The cast with Athena.

 The cast doing the now-ubiquitous “Oscar selfie.” 

 Finger family portrait (Ben, Athena, Ezekiel). 

 Bill and me.

The next day, Athena, Ben, professor/Bill advocate Travis Langley, and I had Brooklyn brunch with Charles Sinclair and his wife Gayle.

After, Charles gave Athena one of only three possessions of Bill’s that he had: a sculpture Bill made of his first wife Portia in an art class in the early 1950s. 

The other two items Charles inherited from Bill: a paperweight (which he gave to me in 2006) and a desk (the one slightly visible behind them in the photo above and more visible here).

Put another way: seven years after I found both Charles and Bill’s second wife Lyn and six years after I found Athena—the Dynamic Trio to whom I dedicated Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman—the three finally met...in twos. 

By chance, the week before the play, I saw Lyn for the first time in six years. The day before the play, Athena met Lyn. The day after the play, Athena met Charles. Lyn and Charles have met but have not seen each other in around 50 years. Given that Lyn and Charles are both over 90 and live in the New York area while Athena lives in Florida, the prospect of getting all three in the same room is slim.

Oh, zooming in on the banner outside DeWitt Clinton:

Change the world indeed.

“New,” previously unpublished Bill Finger photo 6 of 6

The title of my post way back on 7/21/08, five months after I launched this blog, was “‘New’ Bill Finger photo 1 of 9.”
 
But there were no subsequent posts unveiling photos 2-9.

Until now.

(Less three I published in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, plus one I have found since.)

Bill (standing) at the (second) wedding of his friend 
Charles Sinclair (not pictured), 1964

Bill Finger at the 92nd Street Y

On 5/15/13, I had the pleasure of returning to the 92nd Street Y in New York to speak about a Great Event that happened not far from there: the creation of Batman.

This was a comp ticket; as shown in the previous image, people actually had to part with 

$29 to hear me, which I thought would mean (far) fewer than 29 would show up.

The venue alone was an honor, as was the fact that people I care about came to listen, including a gaggle of college friends:

One of the three people to whom the book is dedicated also humbled me with his attendance: Charles Sinclair, Bill’s longtime friend and sometime writing partner.

Like the last time I spoke at the Y (2009), I took a photo of the room before I started:

But unlike the last time, I forgot to take one of the room once it’d filled in, which was the point.

The event generated some wonderful coverage.

  New York Daily News

 Newsarama

And the coverage generated some wonderful coverage.

More than 350 likes and almost 50 shares 
for the Facebook link to the Newsarama article.

Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen weighed in on Facebook.

Thank you again to Sidney Burgos for hosting me. Hope to speak under your roof again.

Bill Finger’s sole Batman credit in his lifetime

In 25 years of writing Batman stories, including some of the most popular ever, Bill Finger was officially credited as a writer (or co-creator) precisely zero times. (By that I mean in a credit box within a first-run story. In the 1960s, editor Julie Schwartz, bless him, did sneak Bill’s name into the backmatter at least a couple of times.)

One time only, Bill did get to see his name prominently displayed on a Batman story—but it was not in print. Bill was the only writer of Batman comics who (with Charles Sinclair) also wrote an episode of the 1966 TV show...the show that made Batman’s popularity go mainstream. (It was the two-part episode introducing the villain the Clock King.)

Small screen was big time on one level, but in the grand scheme, small solace for a marginalized career.

Speaking of TV credits, here is what the credits for the landmark Batman: The Animated Series could’ve looked like if things had played out differently…fairly:

courtesy of @hrguerra

Note the order.

Bill Finger’s medical examiner report and death certificate

As I did with Michael Siegel, father of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, I sought out the death documents of Bill Finger. Neither set was a breeze to come by but both turned out to provide invaluable insight in creating Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman.

Bill’s medical examiner report is four pages (the first of which is displayed in two images because it is too big for a single scan). I was told that a medical examiner made an evaluation only when the cause of death was not immediately known.

A few sad observations:

According to the “Report of Death” form, it was longtime friend Charles Sinclair who found Bill face up on a couch in Bill’s apartment, #9B, at 3 p.m. (That was how Charles relayed the story to me before I had copies of these forms. His memory should somehow be harnessed by the CIA.) This is how the apartment building looks today:

Apparently, word of Bill’s death did not reach the medical examiner until 8 p.m., and his half-hour examination began at 9:15 p.m.

It’s noted that Bill suffered MIs (heart attacks) in 1963, 1970, and 1973. This is also noted: “No weapons, notes. No evidence of trauma.”

The “Notice of Death” form indicates that Bill was to be cremated; the final, touching resting place of Bill’s ashes is shown in Bill the Boy Wonder. The words at the bottom of this form are haunting in their curtness: “Natural death. No history. No family.”

The “Identification of Body” form indicates that Bill’s body was claimed by his only child, son Fred, who was 25 and living in California at the time. Especially sad: Fred reported that he had last been in touch with his father three years prior.

According to the same form, Bill was “not employed.” The accurate term would have been “self-employed.”

Despite a recurring debate, there is no mention of alcohol on any of the forms.

On a broader note, the access hierarchy to vital records is bewildering to me. The following pertains to New York as of 2007:

document/information	cost	access
birth certificate	yes	only family members, I believe
birth/death indexes	free	anyone, but you cannot make copies from the books
social security application	yes; slightly more if you don’t know the person’s social	anyone (if person is deceased, obviously)
marriage license	yes	anyone
will	free	anyone
death certificate	yes	only family members (luckily I knew some of Bill’s)

Special deliveries in Brooklyn and Batmanhattan

On 6/3/12, six years to the month that I “found” the esteemed Charles Sinclair, longtime friend and writing partner of Bill Finger, I hand-delivered a copy of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman to him at his Brooklyn home. Charles was the first person I found in my research and is now the first of three people in the dedication.

Charles is standing in front of a desk which, I only then learned, was once Bill’s. When I asked why Charles didn’t mention that before, he said with a chuckle, “You didn’t ask.” Sounds like I now have to walk around his house and inquire about literally every object.

The same day, in Manhattan, I also delivered a copy to comics legend (in part for being the first artist of the “New Look” Batman in 1964) Carmine Infantino. As has become standard whenever I talk with Carmine, I was treated to a bit of comics history.

Both men are so gracious and so entertaining. It was important to me to give them their copies of the book in the flesh.

I made one more stop in Manhattan, again to pay tribute—but that time, not to a person. I went to the building on East 51st Street where Bill lived at the end of his life—in fact, the building in which he died.

Coincidentally, I’d stood in front of that very building a year and a day ago when we were filming the documentary.

The drinking problem problem

Same Bat-tale, same Bat-chatter.

Several claims about Bill Finger (uncredited co-creator of Batman) are widely repeated in circles where people know who Bill Finger is:

• Bill was as much if not more of the creator of Batman as Bob Kane—TRUE (subjectively but widely accepted)
• Bill was notoriously late when it came to deadlines—TRUE
• Bill was bad at money management and often dependent on advanced checks—TRUE
• Bill died poor, alone, and anonymously—TRUE
• Bill has no heirs—FALSE (and much more about that to come in future posts, not to mention the book itself)
• Bill was an alcoholic…

This one is more of a gray area, but my vote is FALSE.

I understand that this does not gibe with the presumption: a writer whose Big Idea was for all intents stolen and who then toiled most of his career without proper credit seems a prime candidate to be a boozehound—especially in an era when writers and alcohol went together on practically a romantic level.

But I don’t believe Bill drank to excess on a regular basis, and I don’t believe this is revisionist history. I interviewed most of the surviving people who knew Bill well and their statements carry infinitely more weight than reheated rumors from comics aficionados, be they fans or pros.

In 2008, Bill’s longtime writing partner Charles Sinclair (who has been consistent and balanced with most of his recollections) told me “Bill…enjoyed a drink [but] was not an alcoholic. He might’ve occasionally moved toward being borderline.”

Also in 2008, Bill’s second ex-wife Lyn Simmons said with even more conviction that Bill was not addicted to alcohol.

In an interview with writer/editor George Kashdan published in Alter Ego #93 (5/10), Kashdan said the same.

In an interview with Charles published in Alter Ego #84 (3/09), he again said he didn’t think Bill drank like an alcoholic and that he never saw Bill drink too much. He also said Jerry Robinson said that he (Jerry) didn’t think Bill had a drinking problem.

In Alter Ego #39 (8/04), Robinson himself said that anyone treated as Bill was might turn to drink, but that wasn’t the case in the beginning (meaning, presumably, that Bill wasn’t drinking when Bill and Jerry met, in 1939). I believe Jerry is elsewhere on record saying he wouldn’t classify Bill as an alcoholic, though I don’t have that handy. (Ah, the permissive beauty of a blog versus a print article!)

A possible counterpoint: In 2006, the late Jerry Bails told me “Drinking was a common out for writers, and Bill was no exception.” To my regret, I didn’t ask for elaboration, but I think he may have been speaking generally or extrapolating. In any case, Bails did not know Bill as well (or rather as long) as the others quoted here, nor did he live in the same city, and ultimately he did not say Bill was a drunk.

I do realize Bill’s network may simply be protecting their old friend, but some were critical on other issues. Therefore, I suspect that now, decades after Bill’s death, when asked about this by the first person to write a book about Bill, they would see the obligation in setting the record straight, if that was needed.

Everyone agrees Bill drank and most everyone said within safe limits, though some inconclusively. I stand by my FALSE vote and will leave it at that. (The book is for all ages so this is obviously not a topic I am addressing there.)

Part of my rationale comes from what killed Bill. It was not booze, at least not according to the Medical Examiner’s report…which you shall see here as we get closer to the book’s July publication.

From Charles to Charlesbridge

To research Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator and visual mastermind behind Batman, the first person I tracked down was Bill’s longtime friend and writing partner, Charles Sinclair.

And although I would end up contacting more than 200 others after Charles, he remained one of my most valuable sources, not to mention one of the most generous.

He knew Bill outside of comics. He knew Bill outside of work in general. At one point, he and Bill were roommates. And fortunately for me, his memory seemed remarkably vivid for an 82-year-old (at the time, which was 2006).

Thanks to Charles, I found Bill’s second wife, whom almost nobody else knew about. Thanks to Charles, I learned the details surrounding Bill’s death, the true story of which literally nobody else I contacted knew about. Thanks to Charles, I’m now the awestruck owner of this.

Charles was a bridge to the real Bill, allowing me to write the book that, appropriately, will be published by Charlesbridge.

(While everything I wrote in this post is sincere, yes, the whole thing was just a set-up for that last line.)

Untold tale of Bill Finger #4, part 2: Not the Batdance

While writing, Bill liked to listen to Mozart on his snazzy desktop Crosley radio. I was planning to wait till the book is out to show how that radio likely looked, but then I decided this is not one of life's—or even the book's—greater mysteries.

Charles Sinclair has had staggering recall about even some of the smallest details about his longtime friend and sometime writing partner Bill Finger, yet he could not remember precisely which model Bill had; he is more than forgiven. He did kindly look through dozens of images and said that this 1949 model comes close...

...and this 1948 model comes very close....

...though the dial looked more like the one here, if on the right and with three knobs under it:
 So maybe you can mash up these three in your head and produce an authentic image.