An old hero passes away

Joe Simon, creator of Captain America, died last Wednesday, December 14. He was 98 years old. When I was 17 or 18 years old, my good friend Herb Schiebold and I took a trip to New York City and were determined to meet the great team of comic book artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of many great comic book superheros. We went to the offices of Timely Comics and were told that the team works out of their homes in Mineola, Long Island, so the next morning we boarded the train and were on our way. When we arrived at the street where Simon and Kirby lived we saw a guy walking down the street carrying a batch of comic strips. We asked him if he were Joe Simon, he responded " No, but I could be Jack Kirby". He was on his way over to Joe Simon's house and invited us along. They were under the usual deadline pressure but were very gracious and spent a lot of time with us, showing us all of the work that they were doing. It was a great experience that I'll never forget. Many years later, in the mid 1960's, one of my students, Bob Taylor, sold a cover to Simon who was the creator of Sick Magazine. Bob and I went to New York and met with Joe who remembered me from my earlier visit. Bob and I began to do a lot of artwork for Sick Magazine and I signed my work "The Professor" as I had been submitting ideas to Mad Magazine. I sold a few ideas to Mad but never any artwork. I did work for Sick for about 2 years and it was fun, but my advertising deadline pressures prevented me from continuing. Though I only knew Joe for a brief period, he was a great friend and was fun to work with. Below are a couple of things that I drew for Sick.