Oct. 24, 2009: The Writer's Almanac

Saturday’s Poem: “The Campus in Wartime” by Marvin Bell, from Mars Being Red. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the comic-book author Bob Kane, born in the Bronx (1916), the creator of Batman. He is alter ego of multimillionaire Bruce Wayne and one of the few superheroes in the history of comic books who doesn’t have any special powers. He’s just rich enough to build himself special crime-fighting gadgets. Kane said he based the character partly on Zorro, because he liked the idea…