| Joe Giella | |
|---|---|
 Giella in 2009 | |
| Born | (1928-06-27)June 27, 1928 United States |
| Died | March 21, 2023(2023-03-21) (aged 94) |
| Area(s) | Penciller,Inker, Painter |
| Awards | Inkpot Award (1996)[1] Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame (2018) |
Joe Giella (June 27, 1928 – March 21, 2023) was an Americancomic bookartist best known as aDC Comicsinker during the late 1950s and 1960s period which historians and fans call theSilver Age of Comic Books. Due to his long and prolific career, Giella has been described as "one of the creators synonymous with the Silver Age of Comics."[2]
Born on June 27, 1928,[3] Giella grew up in theAstoria neighborhood ofQueens, and attended theSchool of Industrial Art inManhattan.[2] He also studied at theArt Students League in Manhattan, alongside future comics professionalsMike Sekowsky andJoe Kubert, and took commercial art courses atHunter College.[3] He began working in art at 17, he said in a 2002 interview, explaining that "when your parents are struggling to keep the house going, the first son in the family, especially in an Italian family, had to go to work." He described his first professional job as the humor feature "Captain Codfish", which the interviewer described as "a less-eccentric 1940s ancestor ofSpongeBob SquarePants".[4] A standard reference, theGrand Comics Database, lists one "Captain Codfish" feature, running six pages with the art signed by Giella, inHillman Periodicals'Punch and Judy Comics #11 (cover-dated June 1946).[5]
Giella later freelanced forFawcett Comics, commuting by bus toC. C. Beck's andPete Costanza's studio inEnglewood, New Jersey, to inkCaptain Marvel stories. In either 1946 or 1947, he began freelancing forTimely Comics, the 1940s precursor ofMarvel Comics, and shortly afterwards joined the staff. His start was rocky, however; as a 2012 article related,
What he needed was a regular paycheck, so he kept dropping by the offices of Timely Comics ... hoping to get a job. [Editor]Stan Lee rewarded his persistence with a tryout inking a strip that cartoonistMike Sekowsky had penciled. Giella's elation on his trip home soon turned to panic. "The first job he gave me I lost on the train. No one slept at my house that night," Giella jokes. "I went in the next morning and thought that's the end of my job." He was nearly right. As a frantic Lee screamed at Giella for his carelessness, Sekowsky came to his defense. "Mike repenciled the whole job that I lost on the train and I did the inking," he says. "Stan liked what I did and I got the staff position. I never left anything on the train again."[4]
"I would do any work that they offered," Giella had recalled in a 2005 interview. "I started out doing a little touch-up work, a little background work, a little inking, redraw this, fix this head, do something with this panel".[6] Later, he assistedSyd Shores onCaptain America Comics, finishing backgrounds, making pencil corrections and inking occasional pages. Giella did similar duty onHuman Torch,Sub-Mariner, andhumor stories. Inking soon became his specialty. In 1948, he joined theNaval Reserves, continuing with them for eight years.[3]
His friendFrank Giacoia began drawing forDC Comics in the late 1940s; Giella joined him at that company in 1949.[2] There, Giella inked stories featuring theFlash,Green Lantern,Black Canary and other characters under editorJulius Schwartz.
During the early-1950s lull insuperheroes, Giella inkedWesterns penciled byAlex Toth (including the feature "Sierra Smith") andGene Colan (on the seriesHopalong Cassidy, splitting the work with fellow inkerSy Barry).[5]
When the era called theSilver Age of comic books began with the resurgence of superheroes in 1956, Giella began inkingscience-fiction stories, including the feature "Adam Strange" inStrange Adventures, andBatman stories pencilled by the likes ofSheldon Moldoff (ghosting forBob Kane), andCarmine Infantino. In the 1960s, he prominently inked Carmine Infantino on the reboots of theFlash andGil Kane on the seriesGreen Lantern.[5]
Giella also assisted on suchKing Featuressyndicatedcomic strips asFlash Gordon (inkingDan Barry in 1970), andThe Phantom, on which he worked for 17 years (sometimes helpingSy Barry with pencilling when deadlines became too consuming for Barry). In 1991, Giella succeededBill Ziegler as artist on theMary Worth daily and Sunday newspaper strip.[7][3] Giella retired fromMary Worth in 2016, with his last strip appearing on July 23, 2016.[8]
Outside comics, Giella did commercial art for advertising agencies such asMcCann Erickson andSaatchi & Saatchi,[3] and publishers such asDoubleday andSimon & Schuster.[citation needed]
As of 2010, Giella lived inEast Meadow, New York, onLong Island.[7] His son Frank is anart history and cartooning instructor atForest Hills High School,[4] and acolorist for the comic stripMary Worth, which Giella penciled and inked until 2016. He died on March 21, 2023, at the age of 94.[9][10]
Giella received theInkpot Award in 1996.[11] In 2016, he received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award at theHarvey Awards.[2] In 2017, Giella was the Guest of Honor at the 2017Inkwell Awards ceremony atHeroesCon in Charlotte, NC (June 2017).[12][13] In 2018, Giella was awarded theInkwell AwardsJoe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award for his many years of inking.[14]
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Media related toJoe Giella at Wikimedia Commons
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