Joe Simon

Joseph Henry Simon (October 11, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.

With his partner, artist Jack Kirby, he co-created Captain America, one of comics' most enduring superheroes, and the team worked extensively on such features at DC Comics as the 1940s Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy, and co-created the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Manhunter. Simon and Kirby creations for other comics publishers include Boys' Ranch, Fighting American and the Fly. In the late 1940s, the duo created the field of romance comics, and were among the earliest pioneers of horror comics. Simon, who went on to work in advertising and commercial art, also founded the satirical magazine '' Sick'' in 1960, remaining with it for over a decade. He briefly published with DC Comics in the 1970s.

Simon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999.

Early life

Joe Simon was born in 1913 as Hymie Simon. Note: Some sources erroneously give 1915 as birth year, including:
* 
*  and raised in Rochester, New York, the son of Harry Simon, who had emigrated from Leeds, England, in 1905, and Rose (Kurland),Simon, 2011, p. 10 whom Harry met in the United States.Simon, 2011, p. 11 Harry Simon moved to Rochester, then a clothing-manufacturing center where his younger brother Isaac lived,Simon, 2011, p. 9 and the couple had a daughter, Beatrice, in 1912. A poor Jewish family, the Simons lived in "a first-floor flat which doubled as my father's tailor shop". Reissued (Vanguard Productions, 2003) . Page numbers refer to 1990 edition. Simon attended Benjamin Franklin High School, where he was art director for the school newspaper and the yearbook – earning his first professional fee as an artist when two universities each paid $10 publication rights for his art deco, tempera splash pages for the yearbook sections.Simon, 1990, p. 24

Career

Beginnings

Upon graduation in 1932, Simon was hired by '' Rochester Journal-American'' art director Adolph Edler as an assistant, replacing Simon's future comics colleague Al Liederman, who had quit.Simon, 1990, pp. 26–27 Between production duties, he did occasional sports and editorial cartoons for the paper.Simon, 1990, p. 28 Two years later, Simon took an art job at the ''Syracuse Herald'' in Syracuse, New York, for $45 a week, supplying sports and editorial cartoons there as well. Shortly thereafter, for $60 a week, he succeeded Liederman as art director of a paper whose name Simon recalled in his 1990 autobiography as the ''Syracuse Journal American'',Simon, 1990, p. 29 although the ''Syracuse Journal'' and the '' Syracuse Sunday American'', were the separate weekday and Sunday papers, respectively. The paper soon closed, and Simon, at 23, ventured to New York City.Simon, 1990, pp. 29 & 31

There, Simon took a room at the boarding house Haddon Hall, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, near Columbia University. At the suggestion of the art director of the ''New York Journal American'', he sought and found freelance work at Paramount Pictures, working above the Paramount Theatre on Broadway, retouching the movie studio's publicity photos.Simon, 1990, p. 31 He also found freelance work at Macfadden Publications, doing illustrations for '' True Story'' and other magazines. Sometime afterward, his boss, art director Harlan Crandall, recommended Simon to Lloyd Jacquet, head of Funnies, Inc., one of that era's comic-book "packagers" that supplied comics content on demand to publishers testing the new medium. That day, Simon received his first comics assignment, a seven-page Western.

Four days later, Jacquet asked Simon, at the behest of Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman, to create a flaming superhero like Timely's successful character the Human Torch. From this came Simon's first comic-book hero, the Fiery Mask. Simon used the pseudonym Gregory Sykes on at least one story during this time, "King of the Jungle", starring Trojak The Tiger Man, in Timely's ''Daring Mystery Comics'' #2 (Feb. 1940).

Simon and Kirby

During this time, Simon met Fox Feature Syndicate comics artist Jack Kirby, with whom he would soon have a storied collaboration lasting a decade-and-a-half. Speaking at a 1998 Comic-Con International panel in San Diego, California, Simon recounted the meeting:

and remained a team across the next two decades. In the early 2000s, original art for an unpublished, five-page Simon and Kirby collaboration titled "Daring Disc", which may predate the duo's ''Blue Bolt'', surfaced. Simon published the story in the 2003 updated edition of his autobiography, ''The Comic Book Makers''.

After leaving Fox and landing at pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman's Timely Comics (the future Marvel Comics), where Simon became the company's first editor, the Simon and Kirby team created the seminal patriotic hero Captain America. ''Captain America Comics'' #1 (March 1941), going on sale in December 1940 – a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor but already showing the hero punching Hitler in the jaw – sold nearly one million copies.Per researcher Keif Fromm, ''Alter Ego'' vol. 3, #49, p. 4 (caption) They remained on the hit series as a team through issue #10, and were established as a notable creative force in the industry. After the first issue was published, Simon asked Kirby to join the Timely staff as the company's art director.

Despite the success of the Captain America character, Simon felt Goodman was not paying the pair the promised percentage of profits, and so sought work for the two of them at National Comics, (later named DC Comics). Simon and Kirby negotiated a deal that would pay them a combined $500 a week, as opposed to the $75 and $85 they respectively earned at Timely. Fearing that Goodman would not pay them if he found out they were moving to National, the pair kept the deal a secret while they continued producing work for the company. At some point during this time, the duo also produced Fawcett Comics' ''Captain Marvel Adventures'' #1 (1941), the first complete comic book starring Captain Marvel following the character's run as star of the superhero anthology ''Whiz Comics''.

Kirby and Simon spent their first weeks at National trying to devise new characters while the company sought how best to utilize the pair. After a few failed editor-assigned ghosting assignments, National's Jack Liebowitz

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