It's funny you should use the example of what Jerry Robinson thought of Bob Kane because I once attended a Batman panel at San Diego Comic-Con (2009, I think) where Jerry Robinson talked about this very topic! It was Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson and Lew Sayre Schwarz talking about the early days of Batman and working with Bob Kane. It was mostly Moldoff telling very funny stories about how awful Bob Kane was, with Robinson and Schwarz agreeing with him. But Jerry Robinson - a very nice, soft-spoken man who was rather reluctant to tear into Kane too harshly (he reminded me of Dick van Dyke) - did tell one story that I mostly remember.

I have a few things to do today but I should be able to get back to this maybe later today, maybe in a few days.

Wait...what?



Yes, I'd heard this one

Well. . there was that time at a mini-con function, we were out at the patio of a bar, and we watched the Writer of a bestselling Marvel book go to a potted plant and pee.

directly behind the children of another comic creator (whom I won't name, tho she absolutely still remembers it too, since we just saw each other at Dragon*con for the first time in many years, and after hugging hello in artist's alley, she brought up that incident).
we bonded over watching a writer pee behind her kids

and, yes, the bathroom was right inside the bar.
and, no, I have no idea (other than : he was very drunk) as to why he chose the corner of the patio to use instead of the bathroom.


that my horror story

Everybody loves Archie Goodwin. Nobody has anything less than glowing praise, ever.

as long as it didn't have Rob Liefeld proportions, eh?

I believe Mike Richardson talked about it in Between the Panels.  When the New Universe titles hit the stands, they did so with a thud.  They got back bundle after bundle of unsold, stripped covers (returned for credit, in standard newsstand affidavit return).  Gruenwald, just for fun, took the returned covers, wadded them up and tossed them on the floor.  As more came in, he added them to the pile.  Everyone would watch the pile grow, through his office window, until it was near the ceiling.  Apparently, Gruenwald did a lot of goofy stunts like that, to boost morale.  There is another story of either him or Archie Goodwin or both leaving an office by not touching the floor, climbing over furniture to move across the room.

Eisner, in The Dreamer, tells the story of a mobster coming into their offices to shake them down for "towel services" for the building (providing towels for the restrooms).  Eisner didn't want their towel service; but, they tried to muscle him.  He says that Jack Kirby got in the guys face and ran him off, despite being shorter.  Others have confirmed a version of the story.  It was retold at one of the San Diego cons, when Al Feldstein (I think) was given an award.  Eisner then talked about Feldstein's time there and how he started out erasing smudges from the art.  Feldstein replied, "And why were there smudges?  There weren't any damn towels!"

Between the Panels has a lot of great material.  It elaborated on the story that Mike Grell brought a gun to contract negotiations with First (Grell has spoken about it on an interview, on youtube).  Grell actually had been given a .45 automatic, by his brother, for Christmas, and had it in his briefcase when he went to discuss his contract, at First's offices.  The legend was that he pulled it out, laid it on the table and said, "Okay, let's negotiate!"  The reality was that someone saw it, asked to take a look at it and Grell pulled it out, made sure it was clear and passed it around.

Kanigher was the main one who was alleged to have been held out a window and Alex Toth is generally the person who is claimed to have done it.  Toth denied the story.

I think it was Grell, clarifying another story, said Denys Cowan sent a wrestler to Now Comics to collect on a bounced check.  The Comics Journal had a whole article about Now's bankruptcy and charges of stolen artwork and monies owed to various people.  That is an old one, really.


In the Comic book Artist, Dick Giordano tells of Steve Ditko creating a rather twisted Santa story, posting a page at a time over the course of the holiday.  Supposedly it was both hilarious and gruesome, each page getting wilder than the last.


Another from Between the Panels:  either Marie Severin or Herb Trimpe (I don't have my copy anymore), after Kirby left for DC, found a cigar butt and pinned it to a note on the wall that said, "I quit!"

At a convention in Collinsville, IL, Mike Gold told me a story of how Eliott S! Maggin sucker-punched him at a convention.  Gold was his editor and Maggin had stopped sending in work owed to the company.  Gold said he decided that if Maggin didn't want to do the work, he didn't want to pay him anymore and told him he was fired.  Gold claims that Maggin came up behind him at a convention, son after, and punched him.  Gold further stated he was ready to retaliate when others got between and broke it up.  If you've never met Mike Gold, he's a fairly big guy.  Probably wouldn't have gone well had he been able to go back after Maggin.  He didn't bear him any ill will; just said something was bothering Maggin then and he just stopped producing work.

I can't remember if it was in Between the Panels or elsewhere that the story was told that Dave Sim, who was known to push people's buttons, deliberately, started getting on Jeff Smith (who has a rep as the nicest guy on the planet) about his wife and Smith had enough and almost came to blows over it.
 

Mark Waid comes out looking pretty bad in the Oral History of Fantagraphics