Under the heading “At Home with the Joker,” the AARP Magazine for March-April ran a full-page article about Jerry Robinson, explaining how he invented the Joker and Batman’s juvenile sidekick, Robin, and going on to report that Robinson, at 87, is “going strong as an artist, writer, curator of exhibitions, and head of a syndicate, Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate/CartoonArts International, distributing more than 350 cartoonists.” Robinson has two books coming soon from Dark Horse: a revision of his 1974 history, The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art, and a compilation of the sf comic strip, Jett Scott (starting September 28, 1953; ending in 1955), that Robinson drew over Sheldon Stark’s scripts. Said Robinson: “To live, I have to create. I have to be involved.” He’s also writing a graphic novel for DC Comics about “an older Clown Price of Crime, who ‘has changed, as any person would,’ says Robinson, laughing, ‘and not necessarily for the better.’ ... when people read about heroes who conquer adversity — crime and evil and, from time to time, the Joker—it gives them some hope for the future,” he concluded.
The article is illustrated with mug shots of the Joker (as inspired by Conrad Veidt in “The Man Who Laughs,” Cesar Romero in the 1960s camp TV series, Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie, and Heath Ledger in the latest) and a photograph of Robinson sharing a coffee break with the grinning gargoyle.
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