These are the only surviving drawings of Frank Foster's 1932 Batman.

These first Batman drawings by Frank Foster are dated 1932. They were most likely done in the early part of the year toward the end of his time in Art School. Frank’s wife, Ruth, is certain she knew about it prior to their marriage in July, 1932, seven years before Bob Kane’s Batman appeared.

On the back of this panel of drawings, is the notation:

Written in Frank Foster’s hand, there is the date “1932”, which indicated the year the drawings were created, and there are the names, “Batman” and “Night-Wing”. There is a check mark next to “Batman.” In his 1975 interview, Foster explains it this way:

“That’s [Night-Wing] just some sort of alternative thought I had at the moment, and then I checked off Batman because I thought that was a better name.”

("Nightwing" later emerged as a comic book character that evolved out of Batman's sidekick, "Robin.")

The word, “Village” refers to Greenwich Village in New York. At the end of school in 1932, Frank went to New York to look for work and visited a friend, Julian Marson, who lived in Greenwich Village at the time.

Nightwing and Raven