Batman vol. 1 #202 last story "signed" Bob Kane 1 1

[AwesomeSauce]

I'm looking to buy a CGC slabbed copy of Batman vol. 1 #202 "Gateway To Death". The descriptions on eBay state that this issue is the last story "signed" Bon Kane. What exactly does this refer to? What exactly does this mean? I'd love to be educated on this topic. Thanks, all!

[theCapraAegagrus]

6 minutes ago, AwesomeSauce said:

I'm looking to buy a CGC slabbed copy of Batman vol. 1 #202 "Gateway To Death". The descriptions on eBay state that this issue is the last story "signed" Bon Kane. What exactly does this refer to? What exactly does this mean? I'd love to be educated on this topic. Thanks, all!

Edit: It appears as though Bob Kane's signature is printed for the last time in this comic? Possibly something similar to the "Stan Lee Presents" thing that Marvel used to do even after he wasn't creating/editing for Marvel...?

Edited August 22, 2019 by theCapraAegagrus

[AwesomeSauce]

Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful!

[Zonker]

Up until 1968, Batman (co)creator Bob Kane had an arrangement where he would farm out Batman artwork to a stable of artists, who would sign their work as "by Bob Kane."  The most common example of one of these so-called ghost artists was Sheldon Moldoff, although the Grand Comics Database identifies the actual artist of #202 as Chic Stone.  Note this was a common practice in newspaper comic strips, where the originator of the strip often moved on and had assistants or other 3rd parties actually do the work under the originator's signature.  By the time of the New Look Batman of 1964, there were obvious non-Bob Kane artists working on the Batman comics, most notably Carmine Infantino on every other issue of Detective Comics starting with #327.  Infantino's issues did not carry the "by Bob Kane" signature, and in many cases the actual artists were credited.  But for most of the mid-1960s the fiction was maintained that Bob Kane was actually contributing to many issues of the comics, whereas his actual contribution was limited to picking up the checks from DC.

[shadroch]

1 hour ago, Zonker said:

Up until 1968, Batman (co)creator Bob Kane had an arrangement where he would farm out Batman artwork to a stable of artists, who would sign their work as "by Bob Kane."  The most common example of one of these so-called ghost artists was Sheldon Moldoff, although the Grand Comics Database identifies the actual artist of #202 as Chic Stone.  Note this was a common practice in newspaper comic strips, where the originator of the strip often moved on and had assistants or other 3rd parties actually do the work under the originator's signature.  By the time of the New Look Batman of 1964, there were obvious non-Bob Kane artists working on the Batman comics, most notably Carmine Infantino on every other issue of Detective Comics starting with #327.  Infantino's issues did not carry the "by Bob Kane" signature, and in many cases the actual artists were credited.  But for most of the mid-1960s the fiction was maintained that Bob Kane was actually contributing to many issues of the comics, whereas his actual contribution was limited to picking up the checks from DC.

Has it ever been documented just how that arrangement worked? Was Kane paid by DC and he paid the artist or did DC pay the artist and also Kane? Were writers also involved? Were artist like Jerry Robinson DC employees or did they only work for Kane?

[Larryw7]

Kane paid Shelly.. "Officially" no one working at the National office knew about Moldoff. They pretended that Kane drew the stories attributed to him. Mark Evanier mentioned Irv Novick, who was ghosting the Batman  newspaper strip when Evanier met Kane(around 1967), and Kane went slightly pale and said "What do you know about Irv Novick?" . He really wanted fans to believe that he drew all of this stuff,  even when it was obvious he wasn't because all of the artists had their own style that couldn't be hidden just a box with the name.Bob Kane was.attached to the art.