The Everest of school visits

On the first day of 2016, I flew to India for third time within a year for my third stint at the American School of Bombay. I taught creative writing three times a day for five days, and capped it with a most unusual and unexpected speaking gig.

I’d stayed the week at a Sofitel hotel and on my first day, a restaurant manager struck up a conversation. When I said I am a writer, he asked if I’d present to the staff about my work. (On his list of suggested topics I could cover: calligraphy. I quickly disabused him of the notion that I had any knowledge of that.) I said I’d be happy to but questioned if anyone would be interested. He assured me that people would and he was right:

I learned this was part of the hotel’s monthly “voices” program which revolves around a different speaker each time—sometimes guests, sometimes locals.

On 1/9/16, I was off to a first for me: Nepal, to speak at two international schools in Kathmandu—Lincoln School and the British School.

The country is still reeling from the earthquake (and aftershocks) of 2015. Evidence of it is visible fairly often, but it’s far from a city of rubble. In some cases what I took for quake damage was actually new construction in progress. (Neither school had lost any staff or students in the quake, though both, I believe, lost a significant number afterward, due to urgent relocation.)

At one point, a Nepali I was with indicated a man on the street near us and said “He’s a rich man. He has an ax.”

Glimpses of my Nepal, starting with my first step there:

The airport:

Earthquake damage:

Due to fallout from the quake, some people ride the bus like this:

Small shops are rampant, this one on the scenic drive up a mountain to a spot called Nagarkot, where Everest could be visible if weather cooperates:

The Mount Everest Youth Club:

A five-star resort with a great view...but, since the quake, a drop in guests:

Two of my kind hosts, Lincoln School elementary school principal Ken Fernandez and his wife Cri:

If not for clouds, you would see Mount Everest behind me:

Great view of the Himalayas on this postcard of my hotel, Hotel Greenwich Village...but not in real life:

To go on an hourlong Mount Everest fly-by, I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. Since the quake, Nepal is enduring load-shedding, meaning times when the power is cut to conserve. Currently it is for six hours a day but there is talk it will increase to eighteen.

We were supposed to be at the airport by 5:45 for a 6:45 departure...
 

...but were instead in for a parade of delays:

Named for one of the biggest myths, one of the tiniest gift shops:

 

The plane finally took off...at 11 a.m. It seats about 20.

The air sickness bag leaves as little to the imagination as vomiting does to the stomach:

View of Everest from the cockpit...

...and from my seat:

(It is the one to the left of the peak that looks like it is smoking.)

At Pashupatinath Temple, a holy site for Hindus, bodies from the four castes are cremated steadily. It takes a male body 2.5 hours to burn fully, a female three. Then the ashes are set adrift in the river. Among family of the deceased, crying is not allowed. After the quake, the site could not keep up with the need, forcing mass cremations. The men who perform the ritual are professionals:

The hospice on site:

Holy men live here:

It will be hard to spot me here:

Bouddhanath Stupa, a sacred Buddhist (and UNESCO World Heritage) site, which was damaged in the quake (“stupa” refers to the domelike structure):

At Lincoln, the time to change classes is announced by a handheld gong:

One class greeted me with a cool sign (complete with credit to Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman artist Ty Templeton) and bats with every student:

Part of the garden behind Ken and Cri’s house:

A charming bakery that would also be right at home in Soho:

I have not seen tangles of wires and cables like this:

A new friend, midair:

Music, movies...and moos:

Another cow:

Jeremiah O’Sullivan, the risk-taking Lincoln librarian who brought me in, bore an uncanny resemblance to Bill Finger’s son Fred, and was game to pose like him: 

Less than a year earlier at the British School, on this spot stood another author...by name of J.K. Rowling:

 The Cinema Times

My kind librarian host at the British School, Sunita Chitrakar:

The oldest high school in Nepal:

Good marketing on this brand of Himalayan bottled water:

One of the days I was in Kathmandu, elsewhere in the city a leopard walked into someone’s house. Just walked in:
 

Fires in the street represent hope in the future for this lovely country.

Letters from Watkin Mills Elementary, Maryland

On 12/18/15, I had the honor of speaking at Watkins Mill Elementary in Maryland.

Favorite (lightly edited) excerpts from the thank you letters the students wrote:

• “If you like reading, you are welcome here.”
• “I learned a lot but I do not want to be in your next book.”
• “I want the superhero books. My dad has money. I can give you the money.”
• “You brought the joy of Batman and Superman to our school.”

And the one signed this way:

Sincerely,
A good student

Two books, two years, two topics

In the two-year period from 2016-2018, I will put out two books set during World War II and two books set in England. (One of the two books is set during WWII England.)

This concludes Meaningless Observation.

Making the case that Bill Finger deserved co-creator status

What a year.

As anyone with a Gotham stamp in his passport knows, September brought big Batman news.

Eight years have passed since I discovered that Bill Finger had a grandchild born two years after he died, Athena. When she decided to challenge the “Batman created by Bob Kane” credit line, I pulled information from my research that I thought could be relevant to the mission:

• “Now that my longtime friend and collaborator is gone, I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved. He was an unsung hero. Because he came into the strip after I had created Batman, he did not get a by-line... I never thought of giving him a by-line and he never asked for one. I often tell my wife ‘If I could go back 15 years, before he died, I would like to say “I’ll put your name on it now, you deserve it.”’”—Bob Kane, Batman & Me, 1989
• “Legally, nothing has to be done. Morally, I think something should be done, and we will do it out of compassion.”—Jay Emmett, Executive VP of Warner Communications, parent company of National Periodical Publications, on giving Superman creators Siegel and Shuster compensation and credit, October 1975
• Bill named as Batman co-creator in DC-authorized publications by present and past DC professionals in good standing
• instances where DC has credited Bill for writing Batman’s origin (of course, one of the most significant aspects of the character)
• Jerry Robinson in 2006: “[Bill] created most everything for [Bob]. He definitely was a full co-creator. I think he had more to do with the molding of Batman than Bob. He just did so many things at the beginning. As an artist, I can appreciate what goes into that. Aside from creating almost all the other characters, creating the whole persona, the whole temper, the history, origin of Batman. Everything. It made it a success from the beginning.”
• in Alter Ego #39 (1/03), Jerry Robinson said he is “positive” Robin was Bill’s idea
• in Batman #169 (2/65), longtime DC editor Julius Schwartz gave Bill creator sole credit for the Riddler
• in Comics Interview Super Special: Batman—Real Origins of the Dark Knight (1989), Bob is quoted as saying this: “Bill Finger created some of the villains: I believe he created Penguin. Catwoman, I think he came up with”; NOTE: he also then claims he (Bob) came up with Joker and Riddler, both of whom are almost always credited partially or fully to Bill
• in Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told (1988), published by DC, Bill credited as “creator or co-creator” of Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and a “host of other elements”
• in Batman & Me, page 44, Bob says Bill named Gotham City
• Bill’s second wife Lyn Simmons almost getting Bill’s name in credits of first Batman movie, 1989 (particularly significant: the textual evidence that Warner Bros. almost agreed)
• one of DC’s most acclaimed writers, Grant Morrison, made a bold statement in Playboy (2012)—and still works for DC: “Created by: Bill Finger, art by Bob Kane (disputed)”
• If Bob had a contract with DC at the start of Batman, but Bob was not producing the ideas he was getting credited for, can the person who was secretly producing them make a legal claim to them?
• personal letter Bill wrote in 1965: “I phoned Bob Kane moment I got your copy of the fantastic letter [in which Bob claimed Bill was lying about his role in Batman]; after a few minutes of conversation in which I quite angrily spoke my mind and jogged Bob’s fading memory, he agreed to ‘revise’ the letter, in fact asked me to have dinner with him”
• on DC’s “75th anniversary of Batman” chronological milestone poster, the first nine elements (and 12 of the first 14) listed came solely or mostly from Bill
• simply comparing what Bill is credited for vs. what Bob is credited for makes it indisputably clear that Bill is the dominant creative force
• Tom Fagan’s 1965 article based on interview with Bill, “The Man Behind the Legend” (last line calls Bill “the” creator of Batman)
• signs indicate that DC does believe Bill deserves more; legally, they can’t say so themselves, but they didn’t stop me from saying so, which almost seems like a way to endorse the truth of the matter

Super(hero) school library in Utah

In 10/13, I made my first trip to Utah and spoke at several schools. Author friend Chris Barton recently spoke at one of the same schools and posted/tweeted a visual update of how the library looks now: