A Dramatic Shift in the Jack Kirby Story After His Death, Part One
Jack Schiff’s 1959 affidavit in his lawsuit against Jack Kirby over Sky Masters is an interesting artifact. It has been cited for the past 30 years as evidence that Joe Simon helped Kirby create Challengers of the Unknown, but very few who made that claim had actually seen the document.
Jon B Cooke quoted Schiff at length from the affidavit in his Sky Masters article in Kirby Collector #15, April 1997. There was no mention of Challengers and he later recalled none in the original document. Harry Mendryk cited the document in a 2006 Simon & Kirby blog post for the Kirby Museum site. In 2004 the late Stan Taylor declared with authority on Kirby-L, the Jack Kirby mailing list, that the document said something it didn’t. Aside from the Cooke article, those claims appear to originate in a falsification of the history by Mark Evanier.
2006-7
From Harry Mendryk’s blog post.
In a legal deposition, Jack Schiff stated that the Challengers was pitched to DC by both Joe and Jack. If that is true, could some of the early Challengers stories actually be Simon and Kirby productions?
The following year (July 2007), Mendryk posted this on Kirby-L.
I am trying to locate the reference for the Schiff deposition where he talks about both Simon and Kirby pitching the Challengers to DC. Any body know where that was published?
It was an odd question if he’d already read it. Several posters suggested that Jon Cooke had mentioned the Challengers connection in his then-current article, but he hadn’t. I emailed Cooke in April 2022 and got this response.
Joe Simon actually mentioned the trial date in THE COMIC BOOK MAKERS and that prompted me to ask my brother to go to the White Plains courthouse and have copies made of all the available Court documents. I can’t recall any mention of Challengers.
I emailed Mendryk the same month. This was his response.
Yes I saw the deposition that I mentioned in my blog post. And yes I am pretty certain that it was the Kirby/Sky Masters case. However it has been over 15 years so I can recall no specifics about the deposition. The copy I read belong to Joe Simon and I have no idea what has happened to that copy or how he obtained it.
The problem paragraph in Schiff’s affidavit is this one.
Challengers is not mentioned. Can it be inferred from Schiff’s wording that Simon and Kirby pitched the property together? Several people have suggested that, but there’s more compelling evidence that they did not.
2004
In the 2004 Kirby-L discussion, Philip Railsback kicked things off by asking the tough questions about why Simon hadn’t mentioned any Challengers involvement in his 1990 autobiography, The Comic Book Makers. Stan Taylor shut him down with this post to Kirby-L, March 2004.
Yep, according to Jack Schiff, in his deposition for the trial against Kirby, he says that both Simon and Kirby came in and made the initial pitch. Sometime between that initial pitch, and DC accepting the project, Joe went back to Harvey as an editor, so Jack was left to do Challs on his own. Joe never really worked on an actual Challs comic, so he didn't remember much about the concept.
Taylor revealed during the discussion (as had Mendryk in his blog post) that his information was second hand when he said Schiff specified Challengers. What was the source of Mendryk’s and Taylor’s misinformation? Both tipped their hands in the Kirby-L thread, revealing it was the same source. Mendryk added this to the discussion.
Joe Simon recently showed me a letter (or email) to him from Mark Evanier. In it Mark states that Jack Kirby's recollection of events matched Joe's, that is that Joe and Jack created the Challengers.
In May 2004, Taylor added this.
Interestingly though, Joe didn't remember doing anything on the Challs, and it was either Mark Evanier, or someone else who had to prod his memory. At first he denied having anything to do with it. I believe it was when he was shown the Jack Schiff deposition, that it rekindled the memory. I doubt that Joe Simon was involved in the first complete story, at most, he probably worked up a proposal with Jack. Joe returned to Harvey as an editor right at this same period. The proposal to DC was actually done at least a year after the studio split up.
Simon didn’t remember any involvement in Challengers. Mark Evanier provided him with a compelling version of events by email, mentioning and possibly mischaracterizing the Schiff deposition. Simon lent a copy of the email to Mendryk, who then conflated Evanier’s email with the Schiff deposition in his blog post. Taylor turned second hand information based on an extrapolation into established fact.
1981
Mark Evanier once had a firm opinion which he wasn’t afraid to share. The Comics Journal #67, October 1981.
1996-7
On an earlier incarnation of Kirby-L in November 1996, Evanier posted this in response to a question from Bob Heer. (Evanier would leave the list in 1999.)
Tue Nov 19 00:31:08 1996 From: evanier@pagebbs.com (Mark Evanier) ME: I'm not sure. The first SHOWCASE issue of CHALLENGERS was produced out of the Simon-Kirby studio, before it had a publisher, and as with many Joe/Jack projects, it's a little hard to tell where Simon leaves off and Kirby begins, at least with regard to the writing. Joe says he wrote it. Jack said he wrote it. My guess is they both wrote it. If you buy that, then it's a question of whether you think co-writing the issue is enough to entitle Simon to co-creator credit. I would think so but it's not as clear-cut as some other projects.
“Joe says he wrote it. Jack said he wrote it. My guess is they both wrote it.”
There it is, right off the bat. Although he accurately quotes Kirby on the subject (for the first and last time in this or any discussion), Evanier indicates Kirby’s truth needs to be tested against what other people may have to say about it. By elevating Simon’s claim, he calls Kirby a liar, although Kirby would turn out to be the only straight shooter in a world of credit takers.
Rich Morrissey joins the discussion in December to say “writing style expert Martin O’Hearn” believes the finished dialogue in Showcase #6, the first Challengers issue, to be Kirby’s. Joe Simon’s son Jim, who had earlier threatened the group with legal action, lectured Morrissey at length about minimizing Simon’s part. An aside to Evanier shows that there has been off-list communication between Evanier and the Simons: “Mark E., I believe you quoted Jack when he said Joe was the best layout/designer man he ever knew.” Did Kirby actually say that? Did Evanier actually say he did?
By two weeks later, Evanier’s take had begun to evolve.
Thu Dec 5 03:49:57 1996 From: evanier@pagebbs.com (Mark Evanier) I believe the first CHALLENGERS was written by Joe and Jack.
Evanier, August 1997.
From: evanier@ix.netcom.com (Mark Evanier) Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 23:06:04 GMT ME: Simon says he wrote the first CHALLENGERS story and Jack remembered Joe as being involved in it, though not to the extent that Joe recalled. That is not the least bit unusual; they worked very closely together and often did not recall or agree on who'd done what on a given comic. Dave Wood also may have worked on the script. This is not something that is likely to be proven definitively, but there are a couple of bits of evidence in favor of Simon's involvement. One is simply the way the story is formatted with chapter breakdowns and the fact that it was lettered by Ben Oda, who was then lettering for Simon and Kirby but not for DC. That would indicate to me a strong likelihood that it was birthed in the Simon-Kirby shop. Also: Simon recalls having worked on the first CHALLENGERS story, then leaving to take an editorial job at Harvey. In the SKY MASTERS lawsuit, Schiff stated that Simon and Kirby came back to work for DC "on or around July of 1957" and that Simon then left and Kirby worked for DC solo thereafter. Well, July of '57 would be right about when the first CHALLENGERS story would have been written and drawn, and there is no sign of any other possible Simon work in the period. So Schiff's timetable fits in perfectly with Simon's recollection.
At that point Stan Taylor popped in to say this idea was new to him.
From: anabelt@unix.cde.com (Stan Taylor) Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:48:02 -0500 I had never heard of any connection between Joe and COTU, until I joined the list. I still have not read what the connection is. Was it a concept that was mentioned in a S/K book, or just a thread that was thrown around in a bull session? Anyone with more specifics, please write in.
In the 1996-7 threads it was Ken Penders playing the skeptic; he had read The Comic Book Makers and expressed his disbelief that Simon was ever involved and simply failed to mention it. Penders was writing a Challengers article that would be published in TJKC #17.
The Joe Simon Challengers narrative was introduced after The Comic Book Makers was published, with Evanier taking a hand in augmenting Simon’s memories. Simon then tried to hit DC up for compensation, but was denied. J David Spurlock, who published a new edition of Simon’s book in 2003, said this in an August 2022 Challengers discussion conducted by Bob Beerbohm.
I was around Joe when it became a topic of discussion; looong after his first book, and after my well-received revised edition but, before his Titan book. Looking for credit and pay, Joe tried to convince DC that he had a hand in Challengers. DC said they would look into it and get back to him. They did. They said, "There is absolutely nothing in our records to possibly lend any credence to such a claim." After that, Joe began talking it up in print.
In a series of late 1990s interviews, Harry Donenfeld told Beerbohm that Kirby’s Challengers was to his mind the start of the Silver Age, and inspired DC’s other team titles, including the Justice Society reboot. It’s clear to anyone who hasn’t drunk Lee’s Kool-Aid that Challengers was Kirby’s template for the Fantastic Four.
To cover the legal bases, Ken Penders spent a significant portion of his article detailing Simon’s claim, introducing it as “Recently,…” and concluding with this:
Since Simon doesn’t present any evidence regarding his contributions, I think it fairly safe to say his input was minimal at best. (Referring back to The Comic Book Makers, there isn’t one mention of Challengers. Considering Simon didn’t hesitate to point out who created what, especially his own contributions to any particular creation, this tends to lend further credence to Kirby being the primary, if not sole creator of COTU.)
There is no priesthood safeguarding the data and doling it out to people who prove their worthiness. The information is public. With that, here is the Schiff affidavit, with the Liebowitz affidavit and, for completeness, Kirby’s.
accordingtokirby 