75 Greatest Batman Writers and Artists: Artists #15-11

In honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Batman, we're doing four straight months of polls having to do with Batman, culminating with the official celebration of Batman's anniversary at the end of July. The last installment will deal with Batman stories, but this month will be about Batman's writers and artists (40 artists and 35 writers).

You all voted, now here are the results! Here is a master list of all the writers and artists featured so far. We continue with Batman artists #15-11...

Enjoy!

NOTE: Don't be a jerk about creators in the comments section. If you are not a fan of a particular creator, that's fine, but be respectful about it. No insulting creators or otherwise being a jerk about creators. Specifically, no "Creator X better not be in the top ten!" or variations of that idea ("Creator X better not be ahead of Creator Y," etc.) I'll be deleting any comments like that and, depending on how jerky the comment was, banning commenters.

15. Jerry Robinson

Hired as Bob Kane's first assistant, Jerry Robinson quickly became a major part of the Batman feature. He helped design the Joker and Robin (according to Robinson, he designed the Joker entirely by himself - I tend to believe Bill Finger's version of events a bit more, which is that the Joker was based on a picture of Conrad Veidt, but either way, Robinson was a key part of the creation of the Joker). He definitely created the Joker's trademark playing card...

Soon, with Batman's popularity booming, DC hired Robinson outright to create new Batman content for DC. Robinson was a very talented penciler, with a strong sense of how to tell a story. Here's a randomly selected tale of how three brothers who were crooks wore specially made bullet proof vests. The first two brothers die because of their vests (one gets sucked up by a powerful magnet and one drowns because of his heavy metal vest) and the third decides to quit crime...

See? Just a very well-told story. Robinson was one of the main Batman artists for roughly five years until the end of World War II when he moved on from comics to other types of comic work (specifically editorial cartooning).

14. Carmine Infantino

When Julie Schwartz was assigned the Batman titles in 1964 with a mandate to raise sales at all costs, he was able to finagle a deal where he would be able to pick the artist on Detective Comics while Bob Kane would be allowed to continue drawing Batman on his own (by "on his own," we of course mean Sheldon Moldoff continuing to draw the book under Kane's name). The choice of who to draw Detective Comics was a no-brainer, as Carmine Infantino was DC's most popular artist at the time. He came over to the Bat-books and helped revitalize the series, including a redesign adding a yellow oval behind Batman's chest insignia.

Infantino was particularly good at drawing action, something he exceled at on the Flash under Schwartz's editorship. Here is one of Infantino's most famous works on Batman, as Batman and Robin face off against the imposing being known as Blockbuster...

Eventually, Infantino was promoted to being in charge of the whole line of DC comics, so he stopped drawing Batman regularly.

13. Brian Bolland

Brian Bolland had drawn Batman before, namely in Bolland's contribution to Justice League of America #200, as well as a story in Batman #400, but that's not what's getting him so high on this list. He's here because of his tremendously strong work on one of the most famous Batman stories ever told, the Killing Joke...

Just outstanding.

Go to the next page to see #12-11!

12. Bruce Timm

One of the co-creators of the extrememly popular Animated Series adaptation of Batman comics, Bruce Timm soon brought his striking artwork over to the actual comic books. His most famous work is the Mad Love graphic novel where he and writer Paul Dini handled the origins of Joker's girlfriend, Harley Quinn, a character introduced on the TV series.

I think these pages demonstrate Timm's unique ability to have an adult flair to what is ostensibly intended to be a an "all-ages" book. Timm, naturally, is a fluid artist and his sequential work is at the top of the line...

11. Greg Capullo

One of the most impressive things to me about Greg Capullo's current run on Batman is the fact that he helped reluanch the book in the New 52 and has remained on the book ever since, missing very few issues along the way.

Capullo's art style is incredibly dynamic and stylized. Here is an action sequence from early in his Batman run....