Category: Joltin’ Joe Sinnott

My Economics advisor at the small college I attended liked teaching there because he could express his views on Political Economy without getting in trouble. Avoiding trouble is also the reason I prefer having my old weblog to posting on fan forums.

Some of the controversies regarding classic comic books concern the various combinations of pencil artists and inkers. Here is an excellent comparison of original pencil art to finished inks.

Frank Giacoia was a top-notch professional. His direct and distinctive inking style was unmistakable, while adhering to the original pencils. Stan Lee often credited Joe Sinnott as “Embellisher,” rather than as an inker. On the left is a face drawn by Jack Kirby that Frank inked, and on the right is the same character as inked by Joe.

A few years separate these two examples. In that time Jack had adjusted his drawing to accommodate the switch to smaller original art — from 12″x16″ to 10″x15″ — but I think it’s still a valid comparison.

Joe said he sometimes felt he put too much of his own style on Jack’s faces. But Stan brought Joe back to Marvel to ink “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” for a reason. As I liked to tell Joe, his “friendly faces” were the very thing that got me started reading the Fantastic Four. Here’s a picture I took looking over Joe’s shoulder as he drew Superman for a fan five years ago. As you can see, Joe inked exactly the same way that he drew.

Stan said he liked to see how artists handled mundane, everyday scenes. Here’s a panel from a Captain America story, half of it taken up with Stan’s dialogue, that shows how perfectly Joe enhanced Jack’s art, adding expressive subtlety to the faces.

An hour chatting with one of my favorite comic book artists, Joe Staton, who is the penciler for the Dick Tracy comic strip. I’m expecting to see Staton this weekend at a memorial service for our late mutual friend, Joe Sinnott. It’s being held in the same town where Joe lives.