The First 1940's Drawing of The Joker by artist Jerry Robinson

The Joker has been through a lot of changes over the years, but this is artist Jerry Robinson's original 1940 sketch of the classic Batman villain. In a 2009 interview with the LA Times Robinson had this to say about the character he created all those years ago,

It was based on a playing card and the character had a lot of mystery to him early on. We had no idea, of course, that we’d still be talking about him all these years later. When I think of the money from that movie — a billion dollars...I get a chill when I hear that. We should have copyrighted what we had done. But of course, we didn’t know. We were young and no one could have seen all of this... it was a new industry and we were pioneering a new mythology. We had no past so we had very few rules. We also didn’t expect any of it to last.

It's amazing to see how far this character has come. And seriously! Back in the day who would have thought these characters would have become so damn big and popular! It's suck they didn't copyright it! I suggest you read the rest of the interview if you haven't already.

Now behold... the fist drawing ever of The Joker.