Marc Tyler Nobleman's Blog, page 114

Heroes for Literacy

My second time at the Colorado Council International Reading Association has surpassed the first. What some participants have called the best state IRA conference in the country gets such praise due to a strong selection of sessions, fun staff, fun authors, and a fun location. Special props to conference chair Mary Jo Ziegman for pulling this off with efficiency, sincerity, and a sense of humor.

I was born for this year’s theme, Heroes for Literacy. You could walk barely five feet in the hotel lobby without coming across a superhero-themed sign or other decoration.

 
 

I was heartened by the reaction to my two sessions; enthusiasm, appreciation, no nodding off.

Though I feel like I know author Chris Barton well, this was only my second time hanging out with him in person (first time was in 2009). Luckily, next time I will see him will be far sooner than four years—or even four months. We’re on panel together at the International Reading Association Convention in April. 


At my first CCIRA, I came away with Alan Katz as a friend, and he was here this time as well. Adding to the mix was Gordon Korman, whom I’d not met before. One night, a lively group of librarians from Colorado asked the three of us for our signatures…on ketchup bottles. I suppose that is a bond for life.

 
Bill Finger was born in Denver. This week, he came home:

 

Bill Finger was born 99 years ago today

A few tributes:

In September 2012, I checked how many views my TED talk had garnered on YouTube.


In doing so, I noticed that my trailer for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman had been given FEATURED status. I don’t know why, I don’t know for how long, I don’t know what impact it had. But I do know I was honored.

Also, here is fantastic pulp-style cover for a novel that doesn’t exist:

courtesy of Tony Fleecs, who did more like this
If you don’t know why the author is “Milton,” check out page 1 of Bill the Boy Wonder.

School visit in the birthplace of Bill Finger

On 2/6/13, I visited my first Denver school since Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman has come out. This is worth mentioning because Denver is the city in which Bill Finger was born.

My appearance at West Woods Elementary in Arvada was about two years in the making and the school was a lovely host. 

One highlight was when a student asked me how I could have written as many books as I have when I'm only in my "thirties or twenties." Forty-year-old me said "Some are short."

Another was when a student hand-delivered a string-bound pile of handmade thank you cards from her class maybe an hour or so after their presentation ended.

A third was this line from one of the cards: "One thing that I will remember [about your presentation] is that even if you are crazy nervous, that you don't let it stop you."

A fourth was a line from another card: "Your presentation was as golden as the sun."

So were you, West Woods, home of the wolves and the very cool gym wall painting.

Legends revealed: Bill Finger’s living heir and screen credit

Twice in back-to-back columns, “Comic Book Legends Revealed” at Comic Book Resources covered revelations that came out of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. 


First, the decades-long rumor that Bill left no heir.

He died in 1974 with only one child, who himself died in 1992, and as far as most in comics knew before I began my research, this was the end of the Finger bloodline. Yet F is for Finger…and false. I found his lone grandchild, a granddaughter born two years after he died. For more on this debunked myth, check out these posts and the book itself.

Second, the decades-long presumption that (short of successful litigation) Bill could not earn a screen credit in a Batman film.

Each post generated some lively discussion in the comments section. And though it may not seem so at first, these two legends are linked. How this may play out is still on the horizon.

“Top pick: Not just for comic book fans” – Junior Library Guild on “Bill the Boy Wonder”

School Library Journal ran an article whose title rivals Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman for number of syllables (but has one more colon!): “On the Radar: Top Picks from the Editors at Junior Library Guild: Picture Book Biographies for Older Readers.”


I’m honored that Bill made the list, and the distinguished company amplifies that honor.

After NPR, Portia Finger’s friend emerges, part 2

Part 1.

This is an interview with Dean Badolato, who was friends with Bill Finger’s first wife Portia and their son, Fred, for twenty years.

What was Portia’s opinion about Batman?

Portia respected all serious and legit art and artists. As [for] Batman, I know she was amused at the huge culture that it created. She probably thought it was pretty lightweight compared to the serious literature she enjoyed (she was an avid reader). Gore Vidal and Truman Capote are two authors she admired. She really loved Vidal’s Burr. She also read Mary Rennault’s series of books about ancient Greece like The Bull from the Sea.  

Did Portia tell you any stories about Bill’s work on Batman?

I don’t recall anything too specific about Bill and his work on Batman.

Did you spend any time with Fred? If so, what was he like?

Fred returned from Oregon shortly after the explosion of Mount St. Helen’s. He had become quite a good upcoming nouveau chef. With wife Bonnie, he had opened and run a restaurant, I believe near Portland. He had sired a child, Athena, with Bonnie; at that time, I am not sure if Bonnie and Fred had split up yet. But their marriage did not last and Freddie was interested in opening a new restaurant in New York.

He worked at a couple of high-end restaurants as chef and we sampled his work on several occasions. He was really talented and would have competed well, I believe, with the most successful of today’s chefs. Not surprising since Portia was herself a great home cooker and we often were treated to suppers at Portia’s with fantastic, simple but excellent cuisine. She turned me on to really dark strong French roasted coffee! Also, Freddie and Portia would enjoy seeing us perform when we were lucky enough to be appearing in shows. Fred was a great guy who loved his family; a gentle kind of guy and quite hardworking.

Portia had friends in the gay community and Fred was gay himself. Which came first and do you think one affected the other?

Can’t really say which came first. Probably both evolved at the same time.  

How did Portia respond to Fred’s homosexuality?

This is a really difficult one to answer. I believe Portia really wanted the very best for Fred in terms of having a loving, productive family life with the usual components of mom, dad, kids, etc. I think she felt he might have been able to have that kind of life, but at the same time she may have also realized that Freddie was living a gay life and actually seemed to be quite happy. There is a real paradox of thought here because Portia was a very liberal and progressive-thinking human. She also deeply believed in psychology and psychiatry and had a very important therapist in her own life. Despite this fact, I think she felt with a lot of hard work, Fred might have been successful in living a more conventional straight life. I know nevertheless that Portia loved and adored Fred, straight or gay, very much.

How did you find out that Bill died? If you were around Portia at that time, what was her reaction to Bill’s death?

This is a bit eerie: I hardly remember Bill’s passing because Portia barely mentioned it. In 1974 [the year Bill died], I was touring with the DC ballet, but I know she had no service. Honestly, I can say she never really felt good about the man (he had done some really crummy things to her friends) and I believe she felt that he was less than an ideal dad to Fred.

What happened with Portia and Fred after Bill died in 1974?

As far as I know, Fred and Portia’s life did not change much at all after Bill’s death.

How did Fred come to get some kind of royalty from DC Comics?

I’m pretty sure that when Fred returned from the west coast after Mount St. Helen’s blew, Portia urged him to go to DC Comics and let them know who he was and that he deserved royalties. I remember Portia saying that they had given a small token payment of about $500 but that was it. I never heard of any other payments going to the family.

What did Portia think Bill’s legacy should be?

Honestly, Portia never spoke of Bill in regards to a legacy. She always assumed that the truth would probably never be known. But she did know that he was indeed the real creator of the character. I’m telling you she was really, really angry at Bill for things he did.

Are you still in touch with anyone else who knew Bill or Portia?

I am in touch with Portia’s very, very, very favorite and dear friend, Shirley Hendrick. Shirley is well into her 90s and in an assisted living situation. My brother and I [recently performed] a dance concert for her and the other residents. Shirley was a brilliant oil painter and fast friends with Portia and family. Shirley has two sons, Vern and Gregory, who also knew Fred and the family. The two families lived close to each other in Manhattan and vacationed in the same Pocono area in the summers.

What do you do for a living?

I am a professional director/choreographer/performer, a lifelong career.

Have you seen any of the Batman movies?

As a kid, I followed Batman, like all the other kids. I’ve not seen the recent movies. At the ripe old age of 60, that stuff is quite honestly old hat for my taste. The stuff I saw Heath Ledger into when he played the Joker made me really, really sad. They went way too far into darkness for my tastes. I have a feeling Batman was a lot better in its earlier incarnations than today’s. I’m so sick of the massive violence in almost all the current cinema ventures today. We have enough violence in our real neighborhoods.

If you have seen my book, what was your reaction to it?

I haven’t read the book yet; looking forward to. Your trailer looks really good.

Anything else you’d like to share about the Fingers?

It was an honor and a gift to be a part of the Fingers’ lives. Portia was an incredible teller of tales and an educator of life’s lessons like no one else. She was full of love of life and art and joy and beauty. It was heartbreaking to see her and Fred struggle throughout their lives to make ends meet when they legitimately were deserving of so much credit and financial reward for the contributions to America’s (and the world’s, for that matter) popular culture that Batman made and continues to make to this day.

Thank you, Marc Tyler Nobleman, for caring enough to share with the world this most interesting and unusual story.

After NPR, Portia Finger’s friend emerges, part 1

In August 2012, after I’d appeared on NPR for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I received the following (excerpted) message on Google+ from a man named Dean Badolato:

I was a very close personal friend of Bill's wife Portia Finger and their son Freddie. I knew them from 1970 until they both passed around 1990. I knew through Portia her husband's involvement with Batman but many others neither understood nor believed her story. I am actually quite moved that the truth is out and although the Finger family is no longer with us to share this event, it is still wonderful that justice will lie with the written word. I am so proud to know that someone cared enough to write the truth!

It had been a while since I had “found” anyone “new” connected to Bill Finger—though technically this was him finding me. Either way, I was excited anew. And even though the book is out, I (of course) asked Dean if I could interview him.

In agreeing, Dean wrote “My only regret is that you did not come along 25 years ago when the Fingers could really have used you!”


How did you learn of my book on Bill Finger?

I learned of your book about Bill Finger listening to your NPR interview; I heard you speaking about Bill Finger about whom I thought no one knew anything!

What was your reaction upon learning that someone wrote a book on Bill?

Having been a close personal friend of his wife and son for almost 20 years, I was completely blown away (actually, I almost fell out of my loft bed!) by the news of a book about the real creator of Batman, Bill Finger.

Why did you reach out to me?

I knew through Portia the story of Bill being the original “ghost” writer of Batman and I wanted you to know that I could corroborate all the data I heard on the radio interview and to say what a great thing it was [for you] to have written this book. Being a lifelong theatre/dance artist, I know what it is like not to get credit for work one has created or even helped create in the early stages of a project. And because it [has been] more than 20 years since Portia and Freddie [have] graced our world, I thought it was fantastic that Bill the Boy Wonder had come along.

Did you ever meet Bill? When and how did you meet Portia?

I never met Bill; he and Portia had divorced by [the time] I met her in the summer of 1971 at the old Roosevelt Hospital in New York. I and a large group of professional-level dance students had just arrived from Chicago to make our fortunes in New York. One of our group, Bill Gatewood, happened to be recovering from a diabetic incident and Portia happened to be in the same hospital awaiting surgery for a stomach hernia. While visiting Bill [Gatewood], I met Portia, who had befriended Bill as he recovered. Soon Portia and many of our crowd were friends.  

What was Portia like?

Portia was highly intelligent, literate, and liberally minded. She loved the fine arts: painting, sculpture, literature, and especially dance—and especially classical dance. [My group] were serious ballet performers (I performed for the American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, and National Ballet of Washington DC; my brother a choreographer and featured dancer for the Metropolitan Opera of New York). 

Dean in 1977 (and in the air)
Being a lifelong resident of lower Manhattan, Portia was always concerned with state and city events and had a large circle of varied and interesting characters in her life.

She also was the first person of Jewish heritage to educate young naïfs as myself of the realities of the European Holocaust of WWII in a personal and firsthand account from someone who lost untold family members and was hip to all the political realities of those times. She was an avowed atheist who couldn’t possibly accept the notion of a caring God who could allow such profound atrocities to be carried out on so many innocent people. As we used to say in the old days, Portia was a really “heavy” person (and I don’t mean weight-wise); [she was] profoundly concerned with righteousness and justice in society with equal rights for all. 

What did Portia tell you about Bill?

I think Portia felt it necessary to share Bill’s story with us. She told us how he had been the original ghostwriter (using her words here) of the series and that he, she, and Freddie had never up to that time received a penny of royalty or residuals from DC Comics. She described [Bill as] a brilliant and creative thinker but [one who] never stood up for himself and never demanded proper compensation for his work. She also told me personal information about Bill and her marriage which I will only say was difficult. Bill was not good with money, alcohol, or, quite honestly, fidelity.

Did Portia see a difference between Bill as a man/husband and Bill as a writer/creator?

I can only guess. My gut feeling is that she wouldn’t differentiate the two because I think she would have felt that what you are as a person is only going to reflect who and what you are as an artist.

Part 2.

"Geek" Magazine goes to bat for "Bill the Boy Wonder"

There once was a Geek who liked Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. He went away and a new Geek stepped in to replace him. That Geek likes Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. 



Bonus: In the related article below Bill, look which Batman co-creator is listed first:

The cold open of Matthew Cordell’s picture book “hello! hello!”

In March 2011, I posted an explosive series that peeled back the curtain on the enigmatic process of picture book writers and artists. Well, it wasn’t exactly explosive. And maybe the process isn’t all that enigmatic. (But it was a series.)

One of the posts discussed the cold open, a device commonly seen in television. As an example, I showed the pre-title page sequence of The Enemy by Davide Cali and Serge Bloch. 



That post prompted one author to introduce himself to another—and in an unexpected reversal, I was not the one doing the introducing. (In other words, I’ve been known to force myself, digitally speaking, upon fellow writers whose work I admire.)

The talented author/illustrator Matthew Cordell kindly let me know that he enjoyed the post, both by e-mail and by comment underneath it.

Six months later, Matthew e-mailed with fun news. “I'm working on final illustrations for a picture book that makes use of a delayed opening (my very first!). Inspired by your blog post and, of course, a personal fave, The Enemy.”

Flash forward a year, and hello! hello! is amassing raves and fans in equal stride. I take full credit.

Well, not exactly full credit, but partial credit. Actually, just a fraction of a square root of partial credit. Technically, that works out to no credit at all. 


In seriousness, I’m thrilled for Matthew on the success of the book. I asked him to reflect on the genesis of his cold open and he graciously obliged:

The idea of doing a cold opening in one of my picture books had not really occurred to me for some time even though I probably encountered this play in form with many favorite picture books. I guess it pretty much went unnoticed. I’d always gone with the typical approach: endsheets-copyright-title-story-endsheets.

Then one day I picked up what would become a favorite picture book, The Enemy by Davide Cali, illustrated by Serge Bloch. I’m a big fan of Bloch. The design of this book is very clever and sophisticated. And it uses a cold opening. It really became clear to me that this could be a cool thing to do.

Then I saw your blog post pointing out cold openings in some of your favorite pic books, and that pretty much sealed the deal. I had to do it. Some time later, my idea for hello! hello! came along and I knew this had to be the book to explore a cold opening. Early on, I had plans for weaving in many layers of subtle intricacies with the design of this book, so it was immediately obvious to me it could also benefit from this little tweak to the form.

I may be taking this a step too far, but perhaps this is why the book is named “hello” twice. The first “hello” kicks off the cold open, the second the story proper.

No, no?

Congrats, congrats, Matthew, and thanks for sharing a bit of your process.

Trivia countdown: a school needs your help

On 2/8/13, I am scheduled to speak at Sunrise Elementary School in Aurora, CO.


Sweetly, in this month leading up to it, they have been building excitement for the visit with a daily trivia countdown…and they’ve asked me to ask my blog readers to provide the last three tidbits.

The countdown so far:

31 days out: He’s the author of more than 70 books.

30 days out: Bill the Boy Wonder was named to the “100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2012” list on School Library Journal’s Fuse #8.

29 days out: He says he owes his writing career to Michael Jackson…tune in tomorrow to find out why.

28 days out: When he was 16 he wrote a spoof of Michael Jackson’s song “Bad.” It was so popular that he was asked to perform it at every sweet sixteen party he went to that year.

Weekend

25 days out: He is also a cartoonist. When he was 7 years old he drew pictures of Scooby-Doo nonstop.

24 days out: When he was in fourth and fifth grade, his favorite novels were The Mouse and the Motorcycle and The Cricket in Times Square.

23 days out: He did not like math in school. When he got to middle school and got his first schedule he was so excited that math wasn’t on it. Then one of his friends said, “Marc, algebra is math.”

22 days out: He loved school. It’s where he learned everything he needed to be a professional writer—writing, public speaking, and typing.

21 days out: The number one thing that has helped him overcome hardships in his life is the desire to succeed. If you want something badly enough, and work hard enough at it, you can succeed at anything.

Weekend

17 days out: If he could have any pet, he would choose a gorilla…but only until it grows up.

16 days out: If he could have any superpower, he would choose flight…because airfare is so expensive.

15 days out: He had lots of fun in college. Some of the things he did were join a comedy troupe, write and direct a play, and report for his campus news show.

14 days out: He tried for 12 months to write for Nickelodeon magazine before they finally gave him a chance. After selling his first pieces, he wrote for them for 7 years.

Weekend

11 days out: He loved the Hardy Boys books when he was a kid. He remembers taking them to his grandmother’s house to stay up late reading them…but in reality he probably stayed up only until 9 p.m.

10 days out: His first struggle in school was in kindergarten…using scissors. As a matter of fact, he had such a hard time using scissors, his teacher even wrote about it on his report card.

9 days out: He recently wrote a spoof of the popular song “Call Me Maybe” called “Call Bill Finger,” after the secret co-creator of Batman in his book Bill the Boy Wonder.

8 days out: He has been told he looks like people including Ferris Bueller, Seth Meyers, Steve Nash, and High Jackman as Wolverine.

7 days out: He rounded up a series of pictures of authors as kids dressed as superheroes. He even has a picture of one of the authors who visited Sunrise—Bruce Hale—as Tarzan.

4 days out: He wrote his first play when he was in college. It was based on the novel and classic film about the Frankenstein monster. He called it Frankenstory .

Now it is your turn. 

In the comments section, can you please provide a piece of trivia that hasn’t been covered?

3 days out...

2 days out...

1 day out...