In
the early 1930’s,
when the world was gripped by the Great Depression, Frank D. Foster
II was a young art student in Boston. Foster became friendly with
Al Capp, who later became famous for the comic strip “Li’l
Abner”. Capp was interested in cartoons and comic books, and
suggested to Foster that they should work together to develop some
comic characters. He worked with Capp briefly and “cooked up” a
couple of ideas.
Foster described this in a 1975 interview with
a Boston attorney:
" … he got me interested enough
to make some ideas up. And it seems to me that in those days, and
even now, that most all of the strips were the heros of the day – such
as, flying through the sky during the day and doing good deeds
and so forth and so on – and I thought, well, why couldn’t
that be done at night? Have a good guy do stuff at night. So, I
started working, just briefly, very briefly, not too seriously,
with Al Capp, and cooking up a couple of ideas."
"...one of the things was Batman..."
A portion of a panel of drawings of Frank Foster's Batman
Frank Foster Circa 1932
In July, 1932, Foster Married
Ruth Hardy, and he pursued a painting and decorating business.
By the end of 1935, the Foster family had grown
to three with the birth of Frank D. Foster III. The painting and decorating business failed in 1936, and with the business bankrupt, the Fosters moved to New York that fall.
From then until 1940, Frank found
intermittent and part-time work at a variety of jobs, including painting
murals for the 1939 World’s Fair and drawing cartoons for publishers.
In 1937 while the Foster family lived in New York
at 53rd street, just a few blocks from DC publications, located at 480
Lexington Avenue (between 46th and 47th streets), Frank showed his work to comic book publishers. He recalled working for a week or two drawing cartoons at
Munsey Publications. According to his son, he also recalled leaving
his work with various publishers including DC Comics at 480 Lexington
Avenue to be evaluated for possible publication. He distinctly remembered
leaving his drawings, having them returned and being being told they
couldn't use them. He did not, however, remember the exact dates or names
of the various individuals who interviewed him.
There is little room for doubt that people at DC saw the drawings. Most
likely it was Bob Kane himself who was at DC at the time and claimed credit for creating
Batman.
Further establishing the drawings during this period was a letter
from a friend of the Foster’s who had lived in the same apartment
in New York in the late ‘30s. In 1975, Frank wrote to Byron MacDonald
to find out if Byron remembered seeing the drawings during
this period. About two weeks later, MacDonald replied:
"I definitely do remember those drawings
as we had lots of discussions concerning Batman..."
In April 1939, the work on the World’s
Fair ended and Frank was out looking for work again. In 1940, the Fosters moved to Washington, DC where Frank went
to work assisting the curator of the Mellon Art Gallery (now the
National Gallery of Art).
"Will you look at that! They stole Batman!"
Sometime shortly after moving to Washington,
Frank saw "Batman" comics on the news stands. His wife
remembers him saying "Will you look at that! They stole Batman!".
Being without financial resources for attorneys
or knowledge of how to proceed with doing anything about it, nothing
was ever done.
Frank D Foster II passed away in
1995. His son, Frank Foster III, feels that although there is no chance
for any kind of a legal action, he believes that his father should
at least receive some recognition for his idea:
“In my mind there’s
been a tremendous injustice and I don’t feel right about
just letting it lie forever and never trying to make it right.“
Circa 1989
“My Father’s passed
away, so if anything develops, he won’t be there to enjoy
it. There is an injustice to be made right and history should be
corrected, and even if it’s posthumous, he should be given
some recognition. I know he created Batman. It’s the first
Batman. It was there, at the same place, at the same time Batman
was published. There has to be a connection. The possibility of
two men in 5,000 years of history arriving at the same character
who’s a hero of the night, with the same name of Batman,
at the same time, at the same place on the earth, is zero.”