Will the Real Creator Please Stand Up:

I had yet another hero destroyed yesterday, dashed to shreds by cruel truth. It is the fault of Anthony Tollin and Will Murray, the guys putting out those killer Shadow facsimiles, who have pin pointed the issue of the Shadow that Bill Finger ripped off to create Batman number 1. That`s right, Bill Finger, Bob Kane didn`t even write issue 1. chemical-syndicate The great Bob Kane didn`t even do his own Shadow rip off.

I have known for years that Bob Kane signed his name to other artist`s work. I knew that he lived off one really good contract that gave him credit and profit sharing for all things Batman.

I knew that Kane made his fortune on the backs of hundreds of other talented creators but I thought that at least he had done his own stealing. That he had fashioned that first story. Another hero living off lies. This explains a lot about Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse.

I have had a lot of my heroes shown up as first class rip off artists starting with 1977 when my teacher Dick Ayers told me just how little Stan Lee really had to do with all those books he got writing credit on. classroom-truth-vs-corporate-truth

So what does this have to do with animation, other than the very bad Courageous Cat? A whole, lot because there are tons of cases of rip offs taking the credit for other animator`s creations. The business has always been this way.

This in part explains why Charles Mintz and Pat Powers made their big mistake. They thought that Walt Disney was just another businessman taking credit for the work of real artists. That is why they thought that if they hired away all his artists they could reproduce his creativity.

Don’t get me wrong Walt took credit for lots of artist, but unlike so many artist rip offs he brought something to the game. He was and still is the best producer and storyman who ever worked in animation.

A lot of people take shots at Walt Disney once they discover that he has feet of clay and they find it hard to forgive him for being human and not the lovable Uncle Walt they watched on TV every Sunday night.

He did good things and he did bad things. He kept paying Al Zinnen even when he was sick and dying Zinnen . And he turned over his strikers to HUAC and the draft board. The truth is that the classic Disney animations (pre 1945) happened only because Walt made them happen.

Say what you want about Walt; he made a major contribution to the creations that bore his name. And that is a whole lot more that a lot of those other greats (sic).