Creativity Quote by Bob Kane

A petty joke dressed up as a legalistic shrug, Bob Kane's line lands because it weaponizes the language of credit while pretending to respect it. The question is framed like common sense: if Bill Finger "created" Batman, why isn't his name printed right next to Kane's? But the real move is the phrase "conspicuous by its absence" - a courtroom cadence that turns a moral issue into a technicality. Kane is not arguing about creation; he's arguing about paperwork, branding, and the power to define what "counts" as authorship.

The subtext is defensive, even paranoid. Kane knows Finger's contribution is the kind that makes myths stick: tone, structure, villains, the detective DNA that distinguishes Batman from a generic pulp strongman. By reducing Finger to someone who should have demanded a byline, Kane recasts exploitation as procedural fairness. If you're not credited, it must be because you didn't earn it, didn't ask, didn't negotiate - not because the system was built to keep you invisible.

Context matters: Golden Age comics ran on assembly lines, where writing, penciling, inking, and editorial shaping blurred into a factory output. Kane was both a participant and a beneficiary, savvy about contracts and public image in a medium that treated creators as replaceable parts. The quote works, darkly, because it's a masterclass in how cultural credit gets laundered: turn collaboration into ownership, turn absence into proof, turn a co-creator into a footnote by insisting the footnote was optional.