My Grandfather is Everyone's Beloved Captain America Creator
I'm 12 years old, and I'm sitting at my grandfather's drawing table. The top of it is splattered with black ink and paint, and I'm drawing my next masterpiece. My grandfather is next to me in his oversized easy chair watching the Giants and blowing cigar smoke into a fan that directs it out the one living room window of his studio apartment, lower Manhattan glowing behind the glass. He has just eaten his dinner of cow tongue stew, or whatever it was that he threw in that pot, and he is happy. I hold up my drawing to him.
"Oh, beautiful!" He says out of the side of his mouth that isn't holding the cigar.
I smile, pleased with myself. His artwork covers the walls - comic book characters, bold with color and perspective. I have won the approval of the ultimate judge-the creator of Captain America.
Many people know Joe Simon as the cartoonist; most people remember him as a true comic legend.
Joe Simon, to me, was Daddy Joe – my grandfather. Always creatively inclined, I would stand by his side while he drew, hoping to absorb just a tiny bit of his talent. He would show me how to shade and how to work with perspective – how to make Captain America's leg look as though it was leaping toward you. I loved to watch his steady hand ink a solid black line over each pencil stroke. He moved seamlessly.
My grandfather and Jack Kirby dreamt up Captain America in 1941, designed to protect America's citizens from horrors such as Adolf Hitler. Daddy Joe was my family's very own superhero. He was our pride and joy.
When I was eight years old, I brought him into school for Grandparents Day, and he stole the show sketching cartoon characters for my classmates and showing us how Richie Rich was really Casper the Ghost with hair. As I got older and began dating, he was a great hook, line and sinker.
I loved to watch him sign autographs at comic conventions - he was in his element. This man that people were honored to meet was mine. He was my Daddy Joe, and he was someone special.
Once, when I was a child, he let me sit next to him at his convention table. A sign was propped up that read, "Joe Simon, Co-creator of Captain America." I folded a piece of paper so I could put up my own sign that read, "Granddaughter of Joe Simon." I was thrilled when people asked for my autograph, focusing very hard on my penmanship. I was by his side for a number of conventions, and as a teenager flew across the country to San Diego to watch him accept the Inkpot Award at the 1998 Comic-Con.
The family joked that we were like an old married couple. It all came naturally to us. On childhood family vacations we shared hotel rooms, taking late night walks to the closest supermarket to get cooked shrimp and cheese for the room, and storing it, repulsively to my mother, in a bucket of ice. We used his video camera to capture the rental homes we stayed at and the country hills surrounding it. We spent hours recording each other and making movies full of inside jokes. You could often see my mom or dad walking in the background, not daring to interrupt us–a giggling child and her perfectly immature grandfather.
He died on December 14, 2011, only a few months after the first Captain America movie came out.
The grandchildren had traveled to Los Angeles to represent him at the premiere. We called him from the front of the El Capitan theater to let him hear the fans cheering as the celebrities made their way down the red carpet. We were so proud of him and the success of his creation and even felt it was appropriate to brag to the actors about who our grandfather was.
He was 97 years old at the time, unable to make the trip out to California. Instead, he was treated to a private screening in Manhattan. Seventy years before this, he sketched a character that he never imagined would take such a hold on the world, and here he was watching a blockbuster movie starring this sketch. He was beyond delighted.
It's a strange sensation to dread something unavoidable and then actually have it happen. The reality of it feels like something you've pieced together from bad dreams. I got the call that he was on life support early on a Wednesday morning as I was getting ready for work. My hair was still wet and I planted myself on my boyfriend's blue couch with my free hand clamped over my mouth. I was on the next New York-bound train from Boston. I was 30 years old, and still unprepared for such a loss.
Harder than the funeral was being in his empty apartment. All of his artwork was to be collected and put in a safe place, but the rest of it - papers, candy, art supplies, photos, VHS tapes, clothing- needed to be taken or tossed. I looked around, trying to figure out what to take. It felt as though I was falling down a dirt hole, trying to grab what I could: a couple of paintbrushes, the handles stained with layers of color; an old ink jar that he had used to ink thousands of comics; and the green, glow-in-the-dark flashlight I had gotten him for his last birthday - he had a thing for flashlights.
Family members each took what we felt to be appropriate keepsakes, and whatever artwork couldn't be appropriately stored was auctioned off to collectors. The Estate of Joseph H. Simon now works to keep his art alive and relevant with book and film projects.
The months that followed were full of painful sightings. He was everywhere. There were reminders of my loss around every corner: Captain America toys, coffee cups, t-shirts and posters. With each sight, I felt my body flinch–invisible to others but an enormous jab to my gut nonetheless.
The weight of sadness took a permanent seat on my shoulders, and I soon began to wonder if it would ever leave. I hoped that it would one day slide gracefully down my back, never to be felt again, but a few weeks later, as I walked down the sidewalk with my future husband, Larry, the weight was still there.
As we made our way down the street, loud music reverberated out of the local synagogue, luring us to climb the steep steps. Larry led me by my hand, a wordless plea to focus on something other than my sorrow. Standing on my toes, I saw through the narrow window of the closed wooden doors to the synagogue's reception hall. We watched children dancing, moving in circles, linking arms, spinning and hopping from one foot to the other-happy. I smiled. As they spun and bounced, a little boy turned toward the door, revealing a Captain America t-shirt.
It knocked the breath out of me.
But instead of letting it push the sorrow down harder onto my shoulders, I noted Daddy Joe's presence and said hello. And instead of the usual internal jab, I felt a warmth fill my chest.
"Hi, baby," I heard him say back to me in my head.
Five years after his death, I'm still brought to tears by the yearning to be at that drawing table with him. I would give anything to watch his steady hand move across a page. And though the Captain America sightings still knock the breath out of me, they are no longer painful. Rather, each sighting, no matter how large or small – movie billboard or coffee mug – now signifies that he is still here with me.
With the May release of Captain America: Civil War, I will be grateful for the commercials and merchandise that bombard every city corner. I now understand that I was not only lucky to have such a creative, influential grandfather, but to also be loved by a man whose memory will live on for many years to come. Long live Captain America.
