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Sid Jacobson, Harvey Veteran, Non-Fiction Comics Writer, Dead at 92

By Christopher Chiu-Tabet | July 26th, 2022
Posted in News | 0 Comments

The Daily Cartoonist reports veteran comic book writer and editor Sid Jacobson died on Saturday, July 23, aged 92. According to his son Seth, “He went peacefully after suffering a major stroke during a seemingly mild bout of Covid.” Jacobson, whose credits included a three-decade stint as an editor at Harvey Comics, was best known in later life for authoring non-fiction graphic novels like “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation,” and “Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography,” with the late Ernie Colón.

Sidney Jacobson was born into a Russian Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, on October 20, 1929. He majored in journalism at New York University, and joined Harvey Comics in 1952, where he oversaw classic children’s comics like “Richie Rich,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” and “Sad Sack.” He also penned satirical, adult-aimed titles outside Harvey, like “The Colored Negro Black Comic Book” (drawn by Colón, whom he met at Harvey), and “The JFK Comic Book,” as well as the Jewish superhero strip “Captain Israel and Boychick,” which he wrote under the pseudonym Eric Reuben.

When Harvey closed up shop in 1982, Jacobson moved to Marvel Comics, where he was appointed editor of the children’s imprint Star Comics. While at the company, he wrote graphic novelizations of movies like Santa Claus: The Movie, Labyrinth, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Star folded by 1988, and Jacobson returned to the revived Harvey in the early ’90s, where he headed up a line of comics based on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Jacobson and Colón reteamed on “The 9/11 Report,” a graphic representation of the 9/11 Commission Report, in 2006, and subsequently created “After 9/11: America’s War on Terror (2001- ),” “Che: A Graphic Biography,” “Vlad the Impaler: The Man Who Was Dracula,” and “Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography.” Their last book together, before Colón’s death in 2019, was “The Torture Report,” an adaptation of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 examination of the CIA’s use of torture.

As well as comics, Jacobson was also a songwriter, penning lyrics for the likes of Frankie Avalon and Johnny Mathis, and branched into animation in 1967, co-creating the obscure, syndicated sci-fi series Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero. He wrote the 1985 prose novel Streets of Gold, a fictionalized history of his family’s immigration story, and 1989’s Depression era tale Another Time, as well as 2004’s biography Pete Reiser: The Rough-and-Tumble Career of the Perfect Ballplayer.

Jacobson was recognized during his lifetime with an Inkpot Award in 2003. He is survived by his two children, Seth and Kathy' <snip>

https://www.newsfromme.com/2022/07/27/sid-jacobson-r-i-p/

Sid Jacobson, R.I.P.
Published Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 9:44 AM

Sid Jacobson died last Saturday at the age of 92 in a hospice in Redwood City, California. He had a long, fascinating career as a writer and editor of comic books and, for a time, writing popular songs. Songs that Sid wrote were recorded by, among others, Frankie Avalon, Johnny Mathis and Dion and the Belmonts.

Sid was born in Brooklyn and attended Abraham Lincoln High School, followed by New York University. A brief career in journalism led to a wide array of writing jobs and he connected with Harvey Comics in the early fifties. Several online sources say he wrote Casper the Friendly Ghost, Little Lotta and Little Dot in 1950 but Harvey didn't begin publishing Casper until 1952 and Little Lotta until 1953. However and whenever he started there, Sid quickly moved into the job of assistant editor and then editor, working — sometimes on a part-time basis — for Harvey until the company ceased publication in 1982.

During all that time, he wrote for and served as editor for all kinds of comics but mainly Casper, Richie Rich, Sad Sack and other titles affiliated with those three or similar in style. He forged a close friendship with one of Harvey's best artists, Ernie Colón, and the two of them would later collaborate on a series of graphic novels, mostly based on true events in the news.

After '82, the story of Harvey Comics got especially complicated with the firm and its various assets being sold and re-sold with publication (mostly reprints) starting and stopping. Between 1984 and 1988, Sid edited and wrote for Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics aimed at a younger audience that employed many of the longtime Harvey Comics artists like Warren Kremer and Howie Post. Some of the comics like Royal Roy and Wally the Wizard even looked a lot like Harvey Comics and there was at least one lawsuit which ended when Star Comics ended. Later, when the then-current owner of Harvey resumed publishing new stories, mostly of Hanna-Barbera properties, Sid returned as editor until that line collapsed.

Mostly in later years, Sid worked with Ernie Colón on the aforementioned graphic novels which included The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, After 9/11: America's War on Terror, A Graphic Biography: Che, Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography and The Torture Report. Some of these, I thought, were outstanding.

I worked with Sid a few times and found him genial and easy to get along with. Mostly, I knew him from Comic-Con where he often appeared on panels and delighted audiences with his tales of working in comics for an awful long time. I had not spoken to him in twenty-or-so years but I'm reasonably sure that as long as he was able, he was writing and trying to sell something somewhere.