Captain America, no. 1, cover

Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

1941

Comic cover featuring superhero in American patriotic outfit punching Hitler in the face, surrounded by papers depicting invasions, a TV screen, and fascist soldiers with weapons; heading in English across the top.
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Creator Bio

Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

Kirby, 1917–1994; Simon, 1913–2011

Comic-book artists Jack Kirby and Joe Simon are best known for cocreating the iconic superhero Captain America. Simon grew up in Rochester, New York, and Kirby (born Kurtzberg) on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They each worked for various comic publishers before coming together to produce their groundbreaking comic in 1941. The sensational cover of the debut issue features Captain America slugging Hitler while deflecting Nazi bullets with his shield. Kirby and Simon collaborated on several other superhero comics and, in the late 1940s, created a new genre of romance comics with True Romance. To this day, many of their characters remain pop cultural icons in comic books and films.

Related Guide

Visual and Material Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century

1939–1973

Jewish visual art flourished and diversified in the postwar period, reflecting the social and political transformations taking place in the world.

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