Joe Giella (born June 27, 1928)
at the Lambiek Comiclopedia. Retrieved February 11, 2012
Archived
from the original on October 16, 2016. is an American

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

artist best known as a

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

inker during the late 1950s and 1960s period which historians and fans call the

Silver Age of Comic Books The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and widespread commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those featuring the superhero archetype. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an in ...

. Due to his long and prolific career, Giella has been described as "one of the creators synonymous with the Silver Age of Comics."

Biography

Early life and career

Giella grew up in the Astoria neighborhood of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, and attended the

School of Industrial Art The High School of Art and Design is a career and technical education high school in Manhattan, New York City, New York State, United States. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and more ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He also studied at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

in Manhattan, alongside future comics professionals

Mike Sekowsky Michael Sekowsky (; November 19, 1923 – March 30, 1989) was an American comics artist known as the penciler for DC Comics' ''Justice League of America'' during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on ''Wonder Woman'' during th ...

and

Joe Kubert Joseph Kubert (; September 18, 1926 – August 12, 2012) was a Polish-born American comic book artist, art teacher, and founder of The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman. He is also kno ...

, and took commercial art courses at Hunter College. 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 of ''

SpongeBob SquarePants ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' (or simply ''SpongeBob'') is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It chronicles the adventures of the title character ...

''". A standard reference, the

Grand Comics Database The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information useful ...

, lists one "Captain Codfish" feature, running six pages with the art signed by Giella, in

Hillman Periodicals Hillman Periodicals, Inc., was an American magazine and comic book publishing company founded in 1938 by Alex L. Hillman, a former New York City book publisher. It is best known for its true confession and true crime magazines; for the long-runni ...

' ''

Punch and Judy Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically Mr. Punch and one other character ...

Comics'' #11 (

cover-date The cover date of a periodical publication is the date displayed on the cover, which is not necessarily the true date of publication (the on-sale date or release date); later cover dates are common in magazine and comic book publishing. More unu ...

d June 1946).Joe Giella
at the

Golden Age of comic books

Giella later freelanced for

Fawcett Comics Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Captain Marvel, the alter ego of ...

, commuting by bus to

C. C. Beck Charles Clarence Beck (June 8, 1910 – November 22, 1989) was an American cartoonist and comic book artist, best known for his work on Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Captain Marvel (today known as Shazam!) at Fawcett Comics and DC Comics. Early li ...

's and

Pete Costanza Pete Costanza (May 19, 1913 – June 28, 1984) was an American comic book artist and illustrator. He is best known for his work on Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family during the World War II era fans and historians call the Gol ...

's studio in Englewood, New Jersey, to ink Captain Marvel stories. In either 1946 or 1947, he began freelancing for

Timely Comics Timely Comics is the common name for the group of corporations that was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics. "Timely Publications became the name ...

, the 1940s precursor of

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

, and shortly afterwards joined the staff. His start was rocky, however; as a 2012 article related, "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". Later, he assisted

Syd Shores Sydney Shores (1916 – June 3, 1973) was an American comic book artist known for his work on Captain America both during the 1940s, in what fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books, and during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books. Bi ...

on '' Captain America Comics'', finishing backgrounds, making pencil corrections and inking occasional pages. Giella did similar duty on

Human Torch The Human Torch (Jonathan "Johnny" Storm) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is a founding member of the Fantastic Four. He is writer Stan Lee's and artist Jack Kirby's reinvention of a si ...

, Sub-Mariner, and humor stories. Inking soon became his specialty. In 1948, he joined the Naval Reserves, continuing with them for eight years. His friend

Frank Giacoia Frank Giacoia (July 6, 1924 – February 4, 1988) was an American comics artist known primarily as an inker. He sometimes worked under the name Frank Ray, and to a lesser extent Phil Zupa, and the single moniker Espoia, the latter used for collab ...

began drawing for

in the late 1940s; Giella joined him at that company in 1949. There, Giella inked stories featuring the

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

Green Lantern Green Lantern is the name of several superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. They fight evil with the aid of rings that grant them a variety of extraordinary powers, all of which come from imagination, fearlessness, ...

, Black Canary and other characters under editor

Julius Schwartz Julius "Julie" Schwartz (; June 19, 1915 – February 8, 2004) was a comic book editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in The Bronx, New York. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various ...

Into the Silver Age

During the early-1950s lull in superheroes, Giella inked

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

penciled by

Alex Toth Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout ...

(including the feature "Sierra Smith") and

Gene Colan Eugene Jules Colan (; September 1, 1926 – June 23, 2011)Eugene Colan
at the

(on the series '' Hopalong Cassidy'', splitting the work with fellow inker Sy Barry). When the era called the

Silver Age of comic books The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and widespread commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those featuring the superhero archetype. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an in ...

began with the resurgence of superheroes in 1956, Giella began inking

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

stories, including the feature "

Adam Strange Adam Strange is a fictional space adventurer appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by editor Julius Schwartz with a costume designed by Murphy Anderson, he first appeared in ''Showcase'' #17 (November 1958). Adam Stran ...

" in '' Strange Adventures'', and Batman stories pencilled by the likes of

Sheldon Moldoff Sheldon Moldoff (; April 14, 1920 – February 29, 2012) was an American comics artist best known for his early work on the DC Comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" (uncredited collaborator ...

(ghosting for

Bob Kane Robert Kane (born Robert Kahn ; October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman (with Bill Finger) and most early related characters for DC comics. He was inducted into the comi ...

), and Carmine Infantino. In the 1960s, he prominently inked

Gil Kane Gil Kane (; born Eli Katz ; April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) was a Latvian-born American comics artist whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s and virtually every major comics company and character. Kane co-created the modern-day versio ...

on the series ''

.''

Comic strips

Giella also assisted on such

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial ...

syndicated comic strips as ''Flash Gordon'' (inking Dan Barry in 1970), and ''

The Phantom ''The Phantom'' is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The char ...

'', on which he worked for 17 years (sometimes helping Sy Barry with pencilling when deadlines became too consuming for Barry). In 1991, Giella succeeded Bill Ziegler as artist on the ''

Mary Worth ''Mary Worth'' is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight-decade run from 1938. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this soap opera-style strip influenced several that followed. It was created by writer Allen Saunders and ar ...

'' daily and Sunday newspaper strip. Giella retired from ''Mary Worth'' in 2016, with his last strip appearing on July 23, 2016.

Other work

Outside comics, Giella did commercial art for advertising agencies such as

McCann Erickson McCann, formerly McCann Erickson, is an American global advertising agency network, with offices in 120 countries. McCann is part of McCann Worldgroup, along with several other agencies, including direct digital marketing agency MRM//McCann, expe ...

and

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...

, and publishers such as Doubleday and

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

Personal life

As of 2010, Giella lives in

East Meadow, New York East Meadow is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York. The population was 38,132 at the 2010 census. Many residents commute to Manhattan, which is away. History In 1 ...

, on Long Island. His son Frank is an

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

and cartooning instructor at Forest Hills High School, and a

colorist In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is ...

for the comic strip ''

'', which Giella penciled and inked until 2016.

Accolades

Giella received the

Inkpot Award The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at CCI's annual conv ...

in 1996. In 2016, he received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award at the

Harvey Awards The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that we ...

. In 2017, Giella was the Guest of Honor at the 2017

Inkwell Awards The Inkwell Award, sometimes shortened to the Inkwells, is a trophy given in the field of inking in American comic books. The awards were partially named after the Yahoo group whose members include many in the inking community, and after the pe ...

ceremony at

HeroesCon Heroes Convention, or HeroesCon, is a comic book convention that takes place in June (often over Father's Day weekend)Hargro, Carlton. "Best. Convention. Ever," ''Creative Loafing'' (June 17, 2009), p. 25. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conven ...

in Charlotte, NC (June 2017).Inkwell Awards 2017 Winners
/ref>
/ref> In 2018, Giella was awarded the

Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award for his many years of inking.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Giella, Joe 1928 births Living people American comics artists Comics inkers American people of Italian descent Artists from New York City People from East Meadow, New York Silver Age comics creators High School of Art and Design alumni Inkpot Award winners