Monday, June 4, 2012

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.

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