In 1939, 24-year-old Bob Kane was looking for a job. In those days, the young (and, according to many, rather mediocre) artist would take on anything he could get his hands on, such as drawing stories about Peter the puppy. One day, National Comics editor Vin Sullivan mentioned that Superman was breaking records and needed a new costumed hero for an anthology of Detective Comics stories. Kane immediately set to work. He naturally took Superman as his model. Bob also had in mind Zorro and Bat-man, a killer from a popular movie.

The new hero – Bat-man – wore red tights, a small black domino mask and had rigid wings (Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter, can you imagine?). Kane showed the sketches to author Bill Finger, with whom he’d collaborated before. He advised to change the color of the tights to gray, dominoes replaced by a fully closed mask with pointed ears, add gloves, and instead of wings to give the hero a stylish cape.

Batman in his big red sedan (!) made his comic book debut in May 1939 in Detective Comics #27. The story’s plot was penned by Bill Finger, but the credits listed only Bob Kane. The fact is that Finger was a salaried employee of National Comics and Kane was a contract employee. At the time, many magazines and newspapers only listed the name of the artist who drew the comic. But Finger’s role in the creation of Batman was too big (hell, he even came up with the name Bruce Wayne), and of course he deserved to be recognized as the author. Alas, that didn’t happen. Finger didn’t know how to stand up for himself. He was not particularly respected in the publishing house because he often missed deadlines and was considered non-committal. Not wanting to stir up a scandal, Finger did not argue over Batman. He died poor and unknown.

Bob Kane, on the other hand, had the makings of a businessman. He hammered out an excellent 20-year contract guaranteeing a good income and his name being mentioned in all Batman products. Kane single-handedly negotiated with National Comics (soon, on the heels of the success of Detective Comics, the publisher would change its sign to DC Comics), single-handedly introduced the new hero, and bargained the important phrase “Batman created by” only for himself – in exchange for the rights to Batman.

Bob Kane continued to work on the Dark Knight stories. However, he himself drew little, because he knew very well that it is not too good at it (Kane is also known for the fact that shamelessly redrew poses from movie posters and other comic books).

The contract obliged Kane to produce Batman stories, and Bob found a way out – put the work on the shoulders of hired assistants. For decades, artists worked anonymously for Kane (the comics themselves included his name). For example, from 1946 to 1953 Batman was drawn by Lew Schwartz, and from 1953 to 1967 – Sheldon Moldoff. In total, Kane had no less than six “helpers”.

In the 60’s Bob tried his hand at animation and television. Later he began to exhibit in galleries (some of the pictures were again painted by other artists). The last years of his life, especially after Tim Burton’s “Batman” came out, Kane just rested on his laurels. He died on November 3, 1998.

I am in no way trying to diminish the merits of Bob Kane. He really did do a lot for his character. The Batmobile, the gadget belt, Batman’s cave, many of the Dark Knight’s famous adversaries, including the Joker, Two-Face, and Catwoman – Kane had a hand in all of it. And yet I wouldn’t call him a man of crystal honesty or infinitely decent. However, you know history loves a winner and forgives them.

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“Marvel means “wonder.” Marvel Comics was founded in 1939 by Palp magazine publisher Martin Goodman as a group of subsidiaries under the common name Timely Comics.

The first publication was a comic book in which the Torch Man, the android superhero and the mutant antihero Nemore the Submariner appeared. The comic was a smash hit with readers!

Writer and artist Joe Simon, the company’s first editor, joined forces with future comic book industry legend Jack Kirby to create the first patriotic superhero, Captain America. He first appeared in the comic book in March 1941 and became a major sales hit.

Other Timely characters, were not as popular, but some of them such as; Yula, Miss America, Destroyer, Vinge and Angel continue to appear in modern comic books. By the 40s, Martin Goodman’s business had grown and he needed assistants. Goodman hired his wife’s cousin’s son, 17-year-old Stanley Lieber, who would become internationally popular 20 years later as Stan Lee.

In the post-war years, comic book sales dropped significantly as the superhuman image popularized during the war and Great Depression went out of fashion. And in the 50’s “Timely” changed genre to westerns, horror, crime, love and spy novels and even medieval adventures popular at the time. Attempts to revive superhero comics featuring the trio of Torch Man, Submariner and Captain America were not successful. In the late 50’s, Goodman on the wave of success of science fiction films launched a new direction “Amazing Worlds”, “Fantasy World”, “Amazing Histories”, “Journey into Mystery”. But space fantasy comics are not popular and become second-rate monster comics. In the 1960s, editor and writer Stan Lee, along with artist Jack Kirby, create “Fantastic Four.”

“Superheroes in the real world”, they fight with each other, experience everyday hardships and it was this approach that was the reason for the success of this comic and all subsequent ones based on it. Marvel began creating comics about other super and anti-heroes such as Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, X-Men, Daredevil and memorable villains such as Dr. Octopus, Venom, Dr. Doom, Galactus, Magneto, Green Goblin.

Most of the characters in Marvel Comics live in one fictional universe called Earth-616. Marvel Comics paid special attention to revealing the characters of superheroes. They suffer from internal problems, they are lonely more than ordinary people. And some Marvel heroes are more like villains and monsters. At the time, this unconventional approach revolutionized comic books. Most of the heroes created at that time belong to the authorship of Stan Lee and his name becomes one of the most famous in the comic book industry. Thanks to artist Jack Kirby, characters such as the Silver Surfer, the Watchers, Ego the Living Planet, and Dr. Strange appear. Together they created what is known as the “Marvel method”, which consists of the author coming up with the story, the artist drawing it and thinking out the fine details of the plot, dialogues and even characters, and then the author completes the process with the final polishing of the plot and dialogues.

In 1970, Marvel conquered the British public by creating a comic book about Captain Britain, which was released first in the UK and later in America.

In 1972, Goodman retired from publishing, replaced by Stan Lee. The new editors returned to the old fantasy genres: Conon-Warwar, Red Sonja, the horror Tomb of Dracula, satire and science fiction. In the mid-70s, in addition to newsstands, Marvel began to venture into comic book stores. Hits were the reincarnated X-Men series and a comic book about the urban crime fighter Daredevil.

In the 80’s, new Marvel Comics editor Jim Shooter relaunched the “Mighty Thor” comic book and made it a bestseller. In the early 90’s Marvel launching the successful Spider-man 2099 comic book series made a lot of money and reader recognition, but in the middle of the decade the industry hit a slump and in 1996 Marvel took advantage of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. This included the departure of seven of the most successful, award-winning artists Todd McFarlane known for his work on Spider-Man, Jim Lee (X-Men), Max Silvestri (Wolverine), Erik Larsen (The Amazing Spider-Man), Jim Valentino (Guardians of the Galaxy), and William Partacio. They left Marvel and started their own successful company, Image Comics. With the arrival of a new millennium, Marvel Comics avoided bankruptcy and began trying to diversify its offerings. It launched new comic book lines, “MAX” for older readers and “Marvel Age” designed conversely for younger readers. By 2010, while Marvel remained a major comic book publisher, despite a significant decline in the industry compared to previous decades, several characters were changed to become franchises. The highest-grossing of which: the X-Men film series, which began in 2000, and the Spider-Man trilogy, which came out in 2002.

In 2007, the company launched an online digital archive of over 2,500 comic books available for viewing, monthly or yearly subscription. In 2009, Marvel Comics celebrated its 70th anniversary with a single-series Marvel Mystery Comics, the 70th Anniversary Special, and other variations of special issues.

In 2009, after a decade of negotiations between the companies, The Walt Disney Company struck a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion dollars. The deal was favorable to both companies. Disney had found it increasingly difficult over the years to create and promote new characters, while Marvel lacked the investment to promote existing ones. The head of the Walt Disney Company Robert Eiger called the deal a great opportunity for the studio to make billions of dollars, turning 5,000 characters from the Marvel library into characters for movies, video games, toys and, of course, comic books.

Thanks to Disney, Marvel characters have become more famous outside of America because of the studio’s incredible distribution potential. But it’s only because of Stan Lee that we read, watch and know these Marvel superheroes.

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At the beginning of his career, the future maestro not only composed short stories, but also drew them himself. Alan Moore’s first characters were animals – politically active mouse Anon I. Mouse, panda St. Sacras and ironic cat Maxwell.

But Alan soon realized his skills as an artist were lacking and focused on subjects. He wrote a story for the 2000AD anthology about Judge Dredd, a major British comic book hero. It wasn’t accepted, but the young author was noticed. After stretching himself with 4-5 page short stories on Doctor Who and dystopian sketches of the future in the Future Shocks series of strips, Moore soon began receiving more serious job offers, including from 2000AD’s main competitors, Marvel UK and the publishers of the Warrior anthology. It was at Warrior that the monthly series Marvelman (later renamed Miracleman) and “V for Vendetta” began to appear, turning Moore from promising newcomer to star.

Moore’s fame spread across the ocean. DC Comics invited him to write the script for the poorly selling Swamp Thing series. As he had done with Miracleman before, Moore started the series from scratch, setting up an event in the critter’s life that turned his world upside down. The stories were so compelling that the series not only didn’t lose old readers (of which there weren’t many), but gained new fans.

In the Swamp Thing comics, occult detective John Constantine made his first appearance. Although outwardly he resembled the singer Sting, in fact it was Moore himself – a cynical and distrustful Englishman, a native of the working class. The character was beloved by readers and was soon given a long-running solo series.

Skillfully juggling the ideas of other authors, Moore turned other people’s universes into his own. The logical continuation was the publication of comics about their own worlds in the DC imprint – Vertigo. That’s how the dystopia “V for Vendetta” found new life, and that’s how “Watchmen” was born.

“Vendetta” came about as a reflection on what a Cold War world could come to with reactionaries in power – Reagan in the US and Thatcher in Britain. In the story, after a nuclear war in England, a fascist party usurps power. It seeks to unite society with a single idea and purge minorities, who are sent to concentration camps. A former prisoner of one of them, wearing a smiling Guy Fawkes mask, becomes an anarchy incarnate: he blows up government buildings, hunts the party leadership and successfully opposes the system.

In 2006, when the comic was adapted, the mask of the main character became a symbol of revolutions and the Anonumous movement. It is recognized even by those who have not seen the comic book or the film. Moore approves of this as a counterbalance to what he believes the authorities have learned from the comic book.

Following Vendetta, Moore began work on the most detailed superhero epic ever – Guardians. Unlike Miracleman, where superheroes appear as Nietzschean superhumans, the characters of “Guardians” are as real as possible. They are trying to find their place in a society living in constant fear of nuclear apocalypse.

The story begins with the shocking murder of a superhero and spirals downward, plunging the reader deeper and deeper into the conspiracy and constantly reminding them of the end of the world. The comic was groundbreaking in everything from the character development to the appendices to each installment. The recurring question “Who guards against the guardians?” (variant – “Who guards the keepers?”) addresses readers, urging them to think: why do they admire masked vigilantes who put themselves above the law? Who gave the heroes the right to do so? Do they make the world a better place? The characters’ opinions varied, leaving readers to decide for themselves.

In 1987, Alan proposed an even bolder scenario: “Twilight of the Superheroes”, the finale of the entire DC universe. According to Moore’s plan, in the future the world is ruled by superhero clans – the House of Steel (the union of Superman and Wonder Woman), the House of Thunder (the family of Captain Marvel) and others. The dynastic alliance of the strongest houses carries a threat to the balance, and the wedding is tried to prevent the weaker heroes – Constantine and Batman. DC didn’t give the okay to develop this exciting idea, as it suggested the ultimate dystopia and the end of most of the lucrative series. Then Moore realized that he was not on his way with corporations, stamping comics and movies about the same heroes year after year.

Having ruined relations with DC, in the 1990s Alan decided to quit and with superheroes, and with the work for large publishers. He kept coming back to the former, but he was stubborn about the latter. Moore decided to see if he could come up with the stories that the brutal “big guns and metal” era of comics demanded. He wrote stories for several issues of Spidey and Supreme, and had the distinct pleasure of working on the Tom Strong series, a cross between the Tarzan novels and the Superman comics of the 1960s.

Alan Moore touched upon the theme of changing eras in “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. The series brings together the heroes of Stoker, Haggard, Verne, Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. Moore grew up on books by these authors, and he is pleased that the comic book has made many people want to read them. Another great series Moore published at the turn of the millennium is Top Ten, a story full of references about a police station in a city where everyone has superpowers.

Moore’s fascination with the occult and magic is reflected in the comic strip Prometheus, where the ancient goddess of imagination finds a new avatar in the form of student Sophie. The colorful psychedelic design of the comic made it look like a grimoire. And lately, Moore has been busy reimagining Howard Lovecraft’s legacy. Alan has rid the world of Cthulhu of the racist overtones that characterized the early 20th century, and introduced the theme of sex. The three sequential stories The Courtyard, Neonomicon, and Providence take place in different times and feature different characters, but all are mysterious, shocking, and creepy in their own way.

Moore’s comics have always attracted the attention of Hollywood. Five of them have been screened: “From Hell”, ‘Constantine’ (twice), ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘Watchmen’. But none of the screen adaptations Moore does not recognize, does not allow his name to be mentioned in the credits and does not even receive royalties. And as a magician, he even cursed them. Why? Crazy whim, recklessness?

The fact is that Alan refuses to see his life’s work as “raw material” for movies. Moore considers comics an independent form of art, not always combined with the movie. And looking at the film adaptations, one can agree with him. “From Hell” and ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ take from the comics only a few plot lines, changing and discarding the rest, and as movies are simply weak. Both “Constantine” and at all free fantasy, taking from the original only characters. The screenwriters of “V for Vendetta”, then the Wachowski brothers, treated the source material more carefully, but they also changed key elements of the comic book. Thus, the movie never mentions fascism and anarchy.

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Early years and the formation of his creative path

Osamu Tezuka was born on November 3, 1928, in Osaka. From an early age, he showed a deep interest in drawing and, inspired by Western cartoons, especially the creations of Disney Studios, he began to seek out new art forms. It was this early experience that shaped his unique style, in which he combined dynamic composition, expressive characters and cinematic storytelling techniques.

“Astroboy”: the birth of a legend

In 1952, the world learned about “Astroboy” (original title – “Tetsuwan Atom”). This manga became a real cultural phenomenon: the story of a robot with human qualities won the hearts of millions of readers. “Astroboy” not only laid the foundations of the genre, but also opened a new era in Japanese pop culture, initiating a modern understanding of manga and animation.

Artistic innovation and unique style

Tezuka was a pioneer in the use of cinematic techniques in the comic book format. His works were characterized by:

• Dynamic frame composition

Tezuka created the effect of movement and depth by using unconventional angles and close-ups.

• Expressive facial expressions and emotions of the characters

This allowed complex emotional states and dramatic moments to be conveyed.

• Philosophical overtones

Many of his works dealt with important themes, from moral issues to existential musings, making his manga relevant and profound.

Legacy and cultural impact

During his career, Tezuka created not only “Astroboy” but also other significant works such as “Kimba, the White Lion,” “Black Jack,” “Phoenix,” and “Buddha.” However, it was “Astroboy” that brought him worldwide recognition and cemented his title as the father of Japanese manga. His innovative ideas and creative approach have had a lasting impact on the entire manga and animation industry, inspiring subsequent generations of artists and directors. Academic studies, exhibitions, and numerous publications attest to the significance of his contributions to world culture.

Conclusion

Osamu Tezuka remains a symbol of Japan’s creative innovation and cultural heritage. His work, beginning with Astroboy, set the standard for modern manga and animation, and the influence of his style is still felt today. Tezuka not only changed the face of Japanese pop culture, but also gave the world a unique legacy that continues to inspire millions of people around the world.

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