How to use this Page

While researching Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I went to nutty lengths to find people who knew Bill Finger or his family. Given that Bill had died in 1974 and left less trace than you would believe, I had little choice.

His first wife Portia died in 1990, so I felt I had a shot of finding friends of hers, many of whom were gay. There is a gay and lesbian center near where she was living when she died, so I made this flyer and posted it there:

Since that didn’t work, I’m posting it here.

(By the way, the phone number is old and inactive.)

Starting with Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and expanding exponentially for my upcoming book on Bill Finger, my research often involves extensive people-hunting.

Sometimes I know who I’m hunting for by name. Other times I’m looking for a person fitting a description (Finger’s second wife/nephew/neighbor/etc.). And simultaneously, at all times, I am looking for any relevant others whom I don’t even yet know about.

There is a shivery moment between learning of a person I should look for (specifically someone in the “description” category above) and learning that person’s name. It is a cocktail of exhilaration and panic.

The exhilaration part is obvious—you may have just found a Missing Link. The panic part: how easy or hard it will be to find him may come down to the name itself.

That’s why I virtually pray that it will be unusual.

John Smith? Here come the waterworks. You’re in for a mental workout. With such an everyday name, even knowing the middle name is probably not enough to narrow it down.

John Smithbergstein? Common first name but that last name is an oddsend—and one I just made up. (It was not the first last name I made up for this post. But I abandoned that name—Smithbergson—because a Google revealed that it already exists.)

The reverse is equally true: Threepio Smith ought not take long to track down.

Best case scenario, of course, are atypical first and last names. Threepio Smithbergstein is a researcher’s dream.

But no matter how distinct the name, people-hunting remains unpredictable. To wit:

The title of this post is a takeoff on the title A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s 1989 bestseller.

Because the novel became so well-known, I would presume that most people who had the surname “Meany” and had a son after the novel came out would not name him Owen. (Yes, even people who loved the book. It’d just be begging for a comment. Every. Single. Time.)

Further, I presumed “Meany” was rare to begin with.

So my guess was that there’d be, at most, only a couple of living people in the U.S. named “Owen Meany,” all born before 1989.

However, according to the public records accessed at Intelius, there are currently as many as sixteen (though some are probably duplicates and all probably were born pre-1989).

So, as I wrote, unpredictable.

Another case in point: After months of researching Bill Finger’s side of the family (all the while surprised that the name “Finger” was much more common than I anticipated), I changed focus to his first wife’s family. To access them, I needed her maiden name. It took some maneuvering, but eventually I did close in on it, h

You've seen the first known photograph of the desk of uncredited Batman co-creator Bill Finger.

Let's zoom in a bit.

In the summer of 2006, I visited Charles Sinclair, Bill's longtime writing partner. After we chatted a bit, Charles got up, took a plastic baggie off a shelf, and handed it to me. It contained something gold-colored and heavy for its size.

Charles said it was a paperweight, it used to belong to Bill Finger, and it was for me.



He believed the Egyptian glyphs underneath had inspired at least one Bill Finger story. I believed—without a certificate of authenticity—that this metal scarab had, in fact, been Bill Finger's once.

I profusely thanked Charles for it but politely declined it at the same time. Charles insisted I keep it, saying he knew I would appreciate it much more than he would. Besides, he was keeping something else of Bill's—a sculpture Bill made in an adult art class of his then-wife Portia:

Do you see the resemblance? At the time, I couldn't, because I hadn't seen what Portia looked like.

But I have since:

This is the first-ever published or posted photo of Portia Finger. It's just one of a half-dozen or so photos of her I now have. I've got her as a child, I've got her from what was probably the last year of her life, and I've got her in various years in between. This was taken in Provincetown, Massachusetts, probably in the 1940s.

That man with Portia? I'm 99.98 % sure it is not Bill Finger. The hair is too poofy and dark, the build is too scrawny, and the face doesn't match the other photos I have from that period which I know show Bill. My guess is that Bill was taking the picture.

Later, when I told Bill's second wife about the paperweight, she remembered it instantly and wrote this:

"I gave it to Bill as a birthday or Christmas present. Or did he give it to me? I was studying ancient Egyptian history for a couple of years and I do think I gave it to Bill."

So now the paperweight that once sat on Bill Finger's desk and that may have inspired Bill Finger stories sits on my desk and inspires an ongoing Bill Finger story of a different kind.

Mark Williams is the author of the DANGER BOY (Candlewick) books, a time-travel series that chronicles the adventures of Eli Sands and his friends. The newest title, DANGER BOY CITY OF RUINS, is set in Ancient Jerusalem. Through Eli’s adventures, readers are taken on an exciting action-packed ride that will thrill kids (and adults) ages 9 and up.

Mark is my SCBWI colleague, and I am thrilled he was willing to share thoughts and insights about his work. Aside from authoring highly acclaimed books, Mark is a columnists for a Hollywood trade paper, and his work has appeared in numerous publications. He is also a Judaic studies teacher at Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles. Most importantly, Mark is the proud dad of two boys who were the inpiration for the Danger Boy books.

In your latest book, DANGER BOY:CITY OF RUINS, Eli travels back in time to Ancient Jerusalem. What inspired you to choose this setting?
Multiple, overlapping reasons: I'm Jewish (well, a lively mix, between mom and dad, of both Jewish and Celtic traditions!), I was sitting in my Sunday school classroom one morning after teaching about the prophets Jeremiah and Huldah, and thinking about ideas for future "Danger Boy" books, but mostly thinking about how rigid adult belief structures, and old inescapable grief, lead to "cities of ruin" for our children. That, plus the fact that particular region was again keeping the world dancing on the edge of the abyss.

How extensive was your research?
Did I get to go to Israel? No. I asked a lot of the Israelis I teach with questions about how the weather feels at certain times of year, what the "air" is like, etc. That and a lot of Internet, a lot of reading, etc.

When writing a time travel story, how concerned must an author be about accuracy?
Being as accurate as you can is the payoff for the stuff you make up -- especially when the "real" history is more incredible than the "storytelling" parts, which is usually the case. And it's also relative -- I had to be really accurate in my "Lewis & Clark book" (DB #3: Trail of Bones), since they all kept journals!
As for Jeremiah and Huldah -- there are no records, outside Tanakh, of family names, any kind of life outside their described mythic roles. Which made it simultaneously easier and harder because they are already large, mythic, etc.

Do you have any advice for authors who are interested in writing time travel stories?
Emphasize the history, over the quantum science. As fascinating and great as the quantum science is. In other words, what's the reason your characters are time traveling in the first place? Where are they going?
Of course, if you have them traveling *ahead,* to a still unchartered future, forget I said anything.

Why did you start writing children's books?
I'd been writing comics and videogame scripts (in the early Jurassic era of the medium), and then became a dad. As I revisited early/mid-90's picture books, there seemed to be a renaissance similar to what comics went through in the 80's! But nothing new appeared to be happening in series fiction, for when readers "graduated" from picture books (never mind that I still like a good Chris van Allsburg offering...)

So I thought, "what if you had a series that was interconnected, somewhat dark, where people aged and came and went -- like in life?" Apparently, I was looking for psychic real estate in the suburbs of J.K. Rowling's zeitgeist, but hadn't heard of Harry Potter when I sat down to start "Danger Boy" (the title coming from my then toddler -- now a teenager -- as he ran up and down the halls one night proclaiming himself, yes, a "Danger Boy!")

However, the year I was shopping chapters and proposals around, the adventures of a certain young British wizard at boarding school took off, and other editors and houses thought, "hey! yeah! darkish interconnected series!" So -- thanks, J.K.!

What are you working on now?
I' m revising the last contracted "Danger Boy" book, "Fortune's Fool," about Shakespeare, Marlowe, the Elizabethans, and their fondness for political intrigue, rendition, torture, etc. (Plus, you know, I get to write about "King Lear.")

And then there's the post "Danger Boy" stuff -- a YA set in Jamaica, a mystery series, still nascent, and, well, another stand-alone, set in the SoCal desert, involving, well, the cosmos again, kinda.

Plus, I'd love to get back into graphic novel writing, and have some feelers out.

What is the best thing about being a children's writer?
It's just such a fun thing to be! I get to write stories about baseball and dinosaurs and Shakespeare and Marlowe and Sacajawea and the secrets of Alexandria, and it's my job!

Well, of course, I have to take on some other jobs, too -- did I mention I teach writing classes?

What is the hardest part about being a writer?
You actually have to sit down and write.

What do you like to read?
I love reading new work by my various colleagues. On a recent panel with Lisa Yee, Kerry Madden, Amy Koss, Cecil Castellucci and Sally Nemeth, I likened the LA YA scene with late 60's rock (well, you know, I couldn't resist) -- i.e., everyone "hearing" each other's work, learning from it, pushing past what's been done, everyone helping amp up everyone's chops, etc.

I read news all the time, online, still read comics, been rereading some Kesey and trying to make new sense of "Sometimes a Great Notion," and lately, on a mini-Cormac McCarthy tear.

Do you have hobbies besides writing?
Watching baseball. Taking long walks, preferably, in wild or semi-wild areas(a.k.a. hiking) whenever possible.

Thanks, Mark! It was a pleasure blog chatting with you. See you in the "future!"

If you would like to know more about Mark,or the adventures of Eli Sands in the DANGER BOY series, check out www.dangerboy.com