Writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. has died at the age of 91. A lot of folks reading this will recognize him as the main writer behind the Batman TV show of the sixties…and he did many other things, as this obit will tell you. I was not a fan of that show (or what it did to the public image of comic books) but Mr. Semple had a splendid body of work and he deserves to be celebrated for it…and for things other than Batman.
Anthony Tollin sent me a link to the obit. And Anthony Fiske sent me a question to ask why Semple is being billed as the "creator of Batman" in some reports. Well actually, I think they say he was the creator of the TV series, which is also not the proper phraseology. The Writers Guild has changed the rules from time to time but generally now, the person who writes the bible and pilot for a new series based on pre-existing material — which is what Semple did for Batman — gets the credit, "Developed for television by…" It was a little less formalized back when the show went on.