Only a week after the creator of the Joker, Jerry Robinson, passed away, on December 14th, Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America and several other characters from the Golden Age of comics, passed away at the age of 98.
Joe Simon was a writer, artist and editor of comic books, particularly Marvel Comics. His was the first editor of Timely Comics, which later became known as Marvel Comics. Simon's resume of comics did not just consist of superhero-inspired ones; when the popularity of superheroes was down, Simon worked with his partner Jack Kirby on romance comics, western comics and horror comics, including the likes of Young Romance, Boys' Ranch and Black Magic (one from each respective genre and all well-received in their day).
Simon worked on comics well before his stint as an editor at Timely. He worked on comic strips at his high school for its newspaper and in the art department of several newspapers in Rochester and Syracuse, where he learned how to lay out pages and retouch photos. He would also draw sports players for the newspapers' sports sections. Later, Simon would work with Paramount Pictures, where he retouched pictures of celebrities.
The team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby only wrote and published ten issues of Captain America before they were fired and went to work for Detective Comics (now the modern-day DC comics). Recently, writing credits were given to both Jack Kirby and Joe Simon for the movie Captain America: The First Avenger.
Joe Simon left five children and eight grandchildren after his death.
For more about the life of Joe Simon, read his autobiography, Joe Simon: My Life With Comics which came out earlier this year.
