Joe Simon, 94, Appearing At New York Comic Con
“'Living legend' is how Joe Simon is categorized on the list of special guests appearing at the New York Comic Con at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center this weekend. Mr. Simon, 94, has a different take on it. 'I call it the old-geezer table,' he said during a recent interview at his Midtown Manhattan apartment.
Mr. Simon will take part in the 'Legends Behind the Comic Books' panel at 3 p.m. on Friday, one of numerous events planned at the convention, a three-day celebration of all things comics.
Mr. Simon earned the 'legend' title with his partner Jack Kirby by creating Captain America, the superhero who arrived in December 1940, just in time to play a patriotic foil to the Axis powers. The cover of the first issue even has the good captain socking Hitler in the jaw.
For Mr. Simon and Mr. Kirby, though, the biggest blow came when they were dismissed from the series, which had been selling a million copies a month, in a dispute over royalties. The team moved to Detective Comics (today DC Comics), but Captain America stayed with Timely, the forerunner of Marvel Comics.
It’s a tale worthy of its own comic (and one of many inspirations for Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'): On the frontier of a new industry, writers and artists creating scores of characters, but publishers profiting from them."
To read the rest of George Gene Gustine's New York Times article, click here.
Labels: article, captain america, comic book, comic book artist, comic con, comics, creators' rights, george gene gustine, jack kirby, joe simon, marvel, new york comic-con, ny times, timely comics
posted by Jeff Pidgeon at
8:01 AM
1 Comments:
I still use some of Kirby's marks when I'm painting into corners. I call them "bubbles" but, they also look like planets. Well, sort'a. And, I can't help but think that since i stopped buying comics long ago (not because I don't like them! Because I'm too broke to be buying things I can't eat or paint with, y'know?) but anyway, I suspect that whatever I had copied from years ago (1960's-80's) has evolved enough that I don't call them copies anymore.
It's like Gene Day. Dang! That guy could take two pages of square panels and create a huge, moving piece of art covering both pages simultaneously!
In between Star Wars One (four) and two (five) (Lucas was such a weiner for doing it like that!) Marvel ran alongsides of adventures to fill in the gap. Gene Day stepped in from doing some Kung Fu Comic story, and although I hadn't heard of him before that, I sure got to know his work!
Dang it was impressive!
He worked part of the next set between Star Wars 2 (5) and 3 (6) and it was phenomenal stuff.
Bad news is, I think that's when he died. Just a young guy, too, y'know? Think he had a wife....Linda. Have no idea if she ever followed up on his direction, but, for then, it was NEW! FRESH!
COOL!!!
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