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1. This is going to play to stereotype but I have a story about Elliott Abrams and Jerry Robinson, the cartoonist who created The Joker. 
2. Jerry Robinson (1922 – 2011) was one of the early comic book artists. One of his claims to fame is that in 1939, working as an assistant to Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, he co-created Robin and The Joker. The visual design of these characters is from Robinson.
3. Robison was a real jack-of-all trade & worked in many different genres, including political cartooning. He served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in 1970s & was active later in supporting imprisoned editorial cartoonists.
4. In his capacity of working for press freedom for editorial cartoonists, Robinson took up the cause of imprisoned Uruguayan cartoonist Francesco Lorenzo Pons.
5. Robinson hit on the idea that the American editorial cartoonist association would give Pons an award as "Foreign Cartoonist of the Year" to pressure Uruguay to release him to get award.
6. The problem Robinson ran into was Abrams, who he described as "a real bad man" who tried to stonewall the project. But Robinson got Senator Paul Tsongas to pushback against Abrams.
7. Despite Abrams's stonewalling, Robinson & the American editorial cartoonists were able to get Pons out of jail. Years later, Pons mentioned to Robinson that his (Pons') son son still has a picture of Batman on his wall.
8. The whole story can be found here: tcj.com/jerry-robinson…
