Bob Kane his first adventure strip, "Rusty and his Pals". In early 1939, DC's success with the seminal superhero Superman in "Action Comics" prompted editors to scramble for more such heroes. In response, Bob Kane conceived "the Bat-Man." Kane said his influences for the character included actor Douglas Fairbanks' film portrayal of the swashbuckler Zorro; Leonardo da Vinci's diagram of the ornithopter, a flying machine with huge bat-like wings; and the 1930 film "The Bat Whispers", based on Mary Rinehart's mystery novel "The Circular Staircase" (1908). Bill Finger joined Bob Kane's nascent studio in 1938. An aspiring writer and part-time shoe salesperson,
American comic book comic book schools globally, along with Japanese manga and the Franco-Belgian comic books. The typical size and page count of comics has varied over the decades, generally trending toward smaller formats and fewer pages. In recent decades, standard comics have been about × , and usually 32 pages long. While comics can be the work of a single creator, the labor of making them is frequently divided between a number of specialists. There may be a separate writer and artist, or there may be separate artists for the characters and backgrounds. Particularly in superhero comic books, the art may be