Some context: Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (nee Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege. Simon was raised in a Jewish family with roots that originated in Eastern Europe and Hungary (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.
The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.  Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.  Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).  Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.
WHen was it released?
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Some context: Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel Maus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines Arcade and Raw has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist for The New Yorker, where he made several high-profile and sometimes controversial covers. He is married to designer and editor
Spiegelman was born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 15, 1948. He immigrated with his parents to the US in 1951. Upon immigration his name was registered as Arthur Isadore, but he later had his given name changed to Art. Initially the family settled in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and then relocated to Rego Park in Queens, New York City, in 1957. He began cartooning in 1960 and imitated the style of his favorite comic books, such as Mad. At Russell Sage Junior High School, where he was an honors student, he produced the Mad-inspired fanzine Blase. He was earning money from his drawing by the time he reached high school and sold artwork to the original Long Island Press and other outlets. His talent was such that he caught the eyes of United Features Syndicate, who offered him the chance to produce a syndicated comic strip. Dedicated to the idea of art as expression, he turned down this commercial opportunity. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan beginning in 1963. He met Woody Gelman, the art director of Topps Chewing Gum Company, who encouraged Spiegelman to apply to Topps after graduating high school. At 15 Spiegelman received payment for his work from a Rego Park newspaper.  After his graduation in 1965, Spiegelman's parents urged him to pursue the financial security of a career such as dentistry, but he chose instead to enroll at Harpur College to study art and philosophy. While there, he got a freelance art job at Topps, which provided him with an income for the next two decades.  Spiegelman attended Harpur College from 1965 until 1968, where he worked as staff cartoonist for the college newspaper and edited a college humor magazine. After a summer internship when he was 18, Topps hired him for Gelman's Product Development Department as a creative consultant making trading cards and related products in 1966, such as the Wacky Packages series of parodic trading cards begun in 1967.  Spiegelman began selling self-published underground comix on street corners in 1966. He had cartoons published in underground publications such as the East Village Other and traveled to San Francisco for a few months in 1967, where the underground comix scene was just beginning to burgeon.  In late winter 1968 Spiegelman suffered a brief but intense nervous breakdown, which cut his university studies short. He has said that at the time he was taking LSD with great frequency. He spent a month in Binghamton State Mental Hospital, and shortly after he got out his mother committed suicide following the death of her only surviving brother.
Prior to the New Yorker job, were any of his works controversial?
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