Tag Archives: Jack Kirby

Giving it away

Jim Amash: How did copyrighting CAPTAIN AMERICA occur to you?

Joe Simon: “At 24 years old, I was just trying to make a living. I was a product of the times… it was the Depression and I was just happy to make a living. We all were. All of us were like homeless people, happy for anything we got. People say, “Well the Shusters and the Siegels, and the Simons and the Kirbys were stupid. They gave away everything.” But we never even thought about it that way.

Timely’s chief accountant was Maurice Coyne, a guy who promoted that for me; he didn’t like them very much… It was his idea that we arrange some kind of a 25% royalty for me. I gave Kirby part of it, but it was hardly anything. Maurice took me aside on day and told me they were putting all the office expenses, all the salaries and everything, on Captain America.”

-Alter Ego #76

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It’s common sense…

“I was aware of everything Jack [Kirby] did from the time I was eleven. I’d tell my buddies, “This guy is great! Look at this stuff that’s popping out of the pages. Look at how he does that!” They thought the comics were some kind of tricky photo technique. They would say, “Aw, you’re crazy. Nobody’s going to do all those drawings by hand.”

– John Romita
Interview by Roy Thomas

[Hilarious. I agree — what kind of lunatic would do all those drawings, day-in-and-day-out, for years and years???]

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