Arts & Decoration, July 1921
The Printing Art, September 1915
(Next post on Monday: Mel Blum, Art Director)
LETTERING • LOGOS • LETTERFORMS • ALPHABETS • TYPOGRAPHY • CALLIGRAPHY • ETC
Surprised on Birthday.Jerome Siemon was pleasantly surprised at his home, 613 Ninth street, Thursday evening, by the members of the Jazz orchestra, of which he is the leader, the occasion being his birthday anniversary. The evening was spent with Jazz music and later refreshments were served. They presented Mr. Siemon with a purse of money, wishing him many happy returns of the day.
Mr. and Mrs. Romie Siemons [sic] of Moline left for Chicago this morning where they will make their home. Mr. Siemons has accepted a position in that city. The young couple were married Tuesday, July 24, in Clinton the nuptials coming as a surprise to their many friends. Mr. Siemons is a son of Mrs. Emma Siemons and his bride, who was Miss Beatrice Vogel, a daughter of Thomas Vogel of Rapids City.
Rome Siemon, the fairly widely known cartoonist who got his start in his working life pounding a piano in a nickel movie in Rock Island (he was just a kid and his family was poor) apparently has been doing some Christmas shopping and thinking of poor orphan youngsters. For several years Mr. Siemon, who lives in Hollywood, Calif., has been, taking time out from a busy working career to draw cartoons to help the Moline Good Fellow Christmas fund sponsored by the Dispatch. Rome knows what it is to be up against it at one stage in his career that was in Moline he found the piano playing picking so poor that he thought he was lucky to get a part-time job as a LeClaire hotel elevator operator. If Siemon’s cartoon plea appeals to you, send a contribution to this Christmas program to bring some cheer to needy children and widows to Good Fellow Fund, Moline Dispatch, or drop in with buck or two (or more) and some one at the Dispatch office will be glad to take it.
…Mike [Royer] learned to letter from Mike Arens. Mike Arens learned lettering largely from a man named Rome Siemon, who was the house letterer at Western Publishing, on the West Coast books for years….
RT: You mentioned at the 1995 Stan Lee Roast in Chicago how in ’49 you started out penciling for a guy who was really an inker, but who pretended to Stan that he was penciling material which you ghosted for him. Don’t you think it's time you finally told us who that artist was?ROMITA: The reason I never gave his name was, I didn’t want to embarrass him. His name was Lester Zakarin. I met him for the first time in forty years in 1999, at a convention in New York, and he told me he wasn’t offended by any of the interviews I’d given. I’d always say that this artist I was ghosting for would tell Stan he could pencil, but actually I’d do the penciling for him, and he just inked my pencils.But Stan was one of the few editors who’d ask guys to make changes. And when he asked Lester Zakarin to change something, he would panic. So I would go into the city with him and I’d wait at the New York Public Library, which was very close to where Timely was, at the Empire State Building. Zakarin would get the corrections from Stan and tell him, “I can’t draw in front of people. It has to be absolutely quiet. I’m going to a friend’s office. I’ll do these corrections and bring them back in the afternoon.” Then he’d meet me at the library, and I’d do the corrections, and then he’d go back to Stan. [laughs]
Zakarin, Lester Samuel (PE), 1841 Central Park Ave, Yonkers
Zakarin, Lester S. (62, A.M. 62) Proj Engr, Malcolm Pirnie Inc, 226 Westchester Ave, White Plains NY, 10604, (1853 Central Park Ave, Yonkers NY) (28) CO SM