On October 11th, 1913, the child who would one day be known as Joe Simon was born to Henry and Rose Simon. Henry filled out the birth certificate and named the child Hymie, after a well-loved cousin. Rose wasn’t happy with this, as she wanted to name the child Joseph after her brother. She only called the baby Joseph, and the name stuck despite the fact that his name was never legally changed (Simon 12).
As a child, Simon was an avid reader. One of the book series that would impact his career the most was called The Boy Allies (Simon 14), a series about a group of young boys involved in World War I. In addition, Simon would read the newspaper comic strips, with a strip called Minute Movies influencing Simon with its stories taking place over multiple days or even weeks, rather than the single-day strips that comprised the majority of newspaper strips.
Simon began earning money from his art at a young age. He started by charging his fellow classmates a penny for simple drawings at age 8 (Simon 22), and even at that age he wanted to pursue art as a career. Simon lacked formal training but still was able to contribute to his school newspapers and yearbooks. As if foreshadowing some of the difficulties he would face in the comics industry, there was some debate at his high school regarding illustrations Simon had made for the yearbook. Local universities saw the illustrations and bought the rights to use them in their own yearbooks. The high school faculty then held a vote to decide who should get the money, Simon or the school, and Simon won by a single vote (Simon 24).
Upon graduating high school, Simon struck out searching for a job as an artist. Simon’s first job was at the Rochester-Journal American, a company that published multiple newspapers in Rochester. Simon helped edit the art for the newspaper and attributed this job to giving him a myriad of skills that became useful in his comics career (Simon 32). In addition to his artistic duties, Simon was soon given writing duties after his writing talents became known to the editorial team.
Despite consistently having a steady job, Simon always was on the lookout for more opportunities. While working at the newspaper he would do freelance illustrations for the advertising department and would seek further freelance work when he was employed with Paramount Studios retouching photos (Simon 56). It was this drive for more work that led Simon to the relatively new industry of comic books. Simon started at Funnies Incorporated, a company that would create comics and then sell them to comic publishers. Simon’s work was quickly noticed by Martin Goodman, the owner of Timely Comics, and Simon was soon commissioned to make a new hero for Timely (Simon 67) called The Fiery Mask as well as creating stories for other publishers. After a time of working at Funnies Incorporated, Simon took a job as the Editor in Chief at Fox Publications where he was responsible for putting together the comic, which he was able to do thanks to his previous experience at the newspaper (Simon 73).
While at Fox Publications Simon met Jacob Kurtzberg, who is better known today by the name Jack Kirby. The two began working together on freelance projects while holding their day jobs at Fox. This freelancing broke the contract Simon had with Fox, so Simon was let go from Fox when his freelancing was discovered. During this time, Simon would do most of the writing and inking with Jack doing the penciling (Simon 87), but the two would work jointly on the story ideas (Simon 85).
Simon was contacted by Martin Goodman at Timely Comics to create a new series and also be the editor (Simon 90). At the time, Timely Comics had been licensing characters from other companies, and Goodman wanted to produce more characters in house. Simon took the offer, and was able to submit the idea for Captain America immediately, as he and Kirby had already completed the entire first issue (Simon 92). Captain America Comics #1 became a best seller for Timely Comics, selling nearly a million issues (Simon 111).
Despite the success, Simon claimed that he and Kirby were being denied their promised royalties due to how the accounting was handled at Timely Comics (Simon 112 and Scioli 41). He and Kirby decided to make the move to DC Comics after being extended an offer (Simon 113). The two kept working at Timely Comics until it was discovered they were also working for DC Comics and they were fired (Simon 114).
Simon would later serve in World War II, enlisting in the Coast Guard (Simon 124). One day there was a notice in the barracks soliciting candidates who had artistic experience. Simon volunteered and joined the Combat Art Corps, a group whose purpose was to inform the public about the Coast Guard as well as get people to sign up (Simon 130). With his connections in the comics industry, Simon was able to get some of the stories he created for the Coast Guard published and sold by DC Comics.
After his enlistment ended, Simon returned to creating comics. Some of his works during this time include Black Magic, The Silver Spider, and The Fighting American. The comics industry would eventually start struggling due to negative press and the implementation of The Comics Code Authority, an organization created to manage and censor material that was published in comics. Simon would be involved in comics for the rest of his life but also branched into other mediums, including a humor magazine called Sick (Simon 211). He would publish biographies, such as The Comic Book Makers and My Life in Comics, and would be interviewed regarding events such as the death of Captain America in 2007 (Simon, 243). He kept working until his death in 2011.
Work Cited
Scioli, Tom. Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2020.
Simon, Joe. My Life in Comics. Titan Books, 2011.