I came across some more photos I have of Steve, like this one of him with Jack Kirby…
…and I thought, "Hey, there's a good excuse to write more about Steve." It's been nice these days to see so much written about him on Facebook and other social media services. Everybody who knew him liked him. Everybody who'd heard of him but didn't know him wanted to know more about him.
When I first met Steve, he was what you'd call The Quiet Type. He didn't talk much. In our old Comic Book Club, that made him unique because the other twenty or thirty guys talked, usually loudly and all at the same time. He was usually there with his brother Gary — they were very close — and Gary was easily the more talkative of the two. It took me a while to appreciate that when Steve did talk, he almost always had something to say that was worth hearing.
The more we worked together, the more I came to appreciate that about him. At the club meetings, he'd sit and listen to everyone else — which was at times very entertaining — and he'd just enjoy the show. It's often harder to be a good listener than it is to be a good talker. And the more we worked together, the more Steve had to say…so before long, he was a good talker and a good listener. It's tough to master either of those skills, let alone both at the same time.
People just liked him and he was discerning enough to get some good ones into his life. The best was Diana, who was his wife for 23 years. They both chose well. Some of my longtime friends, when they selected mates, you'd look at the two of them together and think, "Oh, this is not a natural coupling." Steve himself once described another couple we knew as "a mix of oil and oilier." But with Steve and Diana, you could tell they were very, very good for each other. I wish we'd all gotten together more.
Here's a photo taken at my 60th birthday party. The gentleman at left is Bruce Simon, a great friend to both of us, and that's Steve in the middle. Bruce, Steve, Gary and I all went down to San Diego for the first San Diego Comic-Con — and I just figured it out: That was 50 years, 10 months and 24 days ago today…
The last time Steve and I talked at length not on the Internet — just the two of lunching alone — one topic was how so much we'd learned from Jack Kirby was beneficial in our lives. There was plenty there to discuss. Steve said the main lesson he'd learned was "Always be nice to every human being." Just to be a bit ornery, I named three people who we both felt had seriously wronged Jack and I asked, "Should he have been nice to them?"
Steve chuckled and said, "You forget! Anyone who harms Jack or cheats him immediately qualifies as not a human being!"
Diana has requested that those who wish to make a donation in Steve's honor direct that money to the place Steve would have wanted it to go. That would be the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. Of course.