Joseph Henry Simon (11 October 1915 - 14 December 2011; Rochester, New York, USA)
Joe Simon was one of the most important artists of the Golden Age of American Comic Books. He was born Joseph Henry Simon into a Jewish family of partially British descent in Rochester, New York. Young Hymie Simon (as he was called by then) had his first jobs as art director of the Benjamin Franklin High School college newspaper and as an assistant with the Rochester Journal-American.

By 1934, Joe Simon worked as a sports illustrator and cartoonist with the Syracuse Journal in Syracuse, New York. Simon moved to New York City at the age of 23, where he did freelance work for Paramount Pictures and Macfadden Publications. He did his first comic book art through comics packager Funnies Inc., creating characters like 'Fiery Mask' for Timely's Daring Mystery Comics and 'Blue Bolt' for Novelty Press in 1940.

His star started to rise when he teamed up with Jack Kirby, with whom he created many classic characters during a period of about 15 years. It is said that they brought anatomy back into comic books, drawing explosive panels with magically stretched muscles and dynamic action. Their best known creation is 'Captain America', Timely's real American hero who was fighting nazi's even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Simon was one of the earliest editors with Timely, but eventually left the company. Simon and Kirby produced the first issue of 'Captain Marvel Adventures' for Fawcett in 1941 before joining National Periodicals (the future DC Comics). They revamped 'The Sandman' and created new characters like 'Manhunter'. They also created features like 'Boy Commandos' in the eponymous title and 'Newsboy Legion' in Star-Spangled Comics.

Joe Simon was with the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II and while in service, he created a true-life Coast Guard comic, that was published by DC and syndicated to Sunday papers under the title 'True Comics'. After the War, Simon and Kirby launched their own Prize Comics imprint with Crestwood Publications. They set up new titles like 'Boys' Ranch', and did early attempts at horror ('Black Magic') and romance comics ('Young Romance').

Between 1953 and 1955 the duo had their own Mainline studios, through which they published titles like 'Police Trap', 'Bullseye: Western Scout', 'Fox Hole' and 'Young Love'. By the mid 1950s, Simon and Kirby split up as good friends. Joe Simon started to focus on advertising art, scriptwriting and editorial work. He created new superheros like 'The Shield' and 'The Fly' for Archie Comics in the late 1950s.

Joe Simon was mainly busy with producing promotional comics for the advertising agency Burstein and Newman during the 1960s. He also founded the satirical magazine Sick in 1960. Simon was also involved in the launch of Harvey Comics' original superhero line, and even worked with Jack Kirby again. In the 2000s, Simon turned to painting and marketing reproductions of his early comic book covers. After a long and illustrious career, Joe Simon passed away after a brief illness on 14 December 2011.
Source: Lambiek

Jack Kirby (28 August 1917 - 6 February 1994; born New York City, USA; died Thousand Oaks, California, USA)
One of the fathers of the comic book, there is hardly an artist in comics today who has not been directly or indirectly influenced by Kirby. In his early career he worked at the Fleischer animation studios, and in the 1940s teamed with Joe Simon to create many different super-hero teams and characters. Among these were Captain America for Timely, Stuntman and Boy Explorers for Harvey. In the 1960s he worked with Stan Lee on Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers, etc, and he was the major factor that made Marvel a household name in comics.

Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg) was an American comic book artist, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons.

He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics.

After serving in the European Theater in World War II, Kirby produced work for DC Comics, Harvey Comics, Hillman Periodicals and other publishers. At Crestwood Publications, he and Simon created the genre of romance comics and later founded their own short-lived comic company, Mainline Publications. Kirby was involved in Timely's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, which in the next decade became Marvel.

There, in the 1960s, Kirby co-created many of the company's major characters, including Ant-Man, the Avengers, the Black Panther, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, Thor, and the X-Men, among many others. Kirby's titles garnered high sales and critical acclaim, but in 1970, feeling he had been treated unfairly, largely in the realm of authorship credit and creators' rights, Kirby left the company for rival DC.

At DC, Kirby created his Fourth World saga which spanned several comics titles. While these series proved commercially unsuccessful and were canceled, the Fourth World's New Gods have continued as a significant part of the DC Universe. Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the mid-to-late 1970s, then ventured into television animation and independent comics. In his later years, Kirby, who has been called "the William Blake of comics", began receiving great recognition in the mainstream press for his career accomplishments, and in 1987 he was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

In 2017, Kirby was posthumously named a Disney Legend for his creations not only in the field of publishing, but also because those creations formed the basis for The Walt Disney Company's financially and critically successful media franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Kirby was married to Rosalind Goldstein in 1942. They had four children and remained married until his death from heart failure in 1994, at the age of 76. The Jack Kirby Awards and Jack Kirby Hall of Fame were named in his honor, and he is known as "The King" among comics fans for his many influential contributions to the medium.
Source: Wikipedia; Illustration Art Gallery