Last week I wrote a short tribute to Joe Sinnott, who passed away at 93 years old on June 25th. Sinnott’s career stretched across seven decades. He worked on so many different comic books during his lifetime that I wanted to spotlight some more examples of his work, both doing full art, and as an inker / embellisher. Here are twelve highlights from his career.
1) “Drink Deep, Vampire” is one of Joe Sinnott’s earliest stories. It appeared in Strange Tales #9, published by Atlas Comics with an August 1952 cover date. Decades later Sinnott would cite it as a favorite.
2) Sinnott drew many Western stories for Atlas during the 1950s. Here is a good example of his work in the genre. “The End of the Dakota Kid” appeared in Gunsmoke Western #46 (May 1958).
3) One of the earliest jobs on which Sinnott inked Jack Kirby was the monster story “I Was Trapped By Titano the Monster That Time Forgot!” in Tales to Astonish #10 (July 1960). Right from the start they were doing great work together. They certainly did a superb job depicting Titano, an immense crab.
4) Sinnott did a great deal of work for Treasure Chest of Fun & Fact published by George A. Pflaum. One of his most noteworthy assignments for that educational comic book was “The Story of Pope John XXIII, Who Won Our Hearts,” a 65 page biography serialized over nine issues. Here is the beautifully detailed opening page of the first chapter, published in Treasure Chest vol 18 #1 (September 13, 1962).
5) Journey Into Mystery #91 (April 1963) featuring Thor was one of the very few Marvel Comics superhero stories for which Sinnott did the full art. He did nice work on this one. I especially like the first panel on this page, with the beautiful Valkyries in flowing gowns descending from Asgard to give an imprisoned Thor his belt of strength.
6) Ask who was Jack Kirby’s best inker, and many fans will respond that it was Joe Sinnott. Sinnott did superb work over Kirby at Marvel, especially on Fantastic Four. Issue #72 (March 1968) has one of the most iconic covers from their run, and it doesn’t even feature the FF. Instead we have the Silver Surfer soaring through outer space, with the Watcher in the background, surrounded by a bundle of “Kirby crackle.”
7) Tender Love Stories was a short-lived romance series from Skywald Publications, who were in operation for the first half of the 1970s. The cover of the first issue (February 1971) has the interesting pairing of Don Heck and Joe Sinnott. I’m one of those people who believe Heck was underrated. His style was well-suited to the romance genre. Sinnott’s inking complements Heck’s pencils on this piece.
8) Sinnott remained on Fantastic Four for a decade after Kirby departed. In the early 1970s he was paired with John Buscema. This splash page from FF #137 (August 1973) beautifully showcases Sinnott’s detailed, polished inking. The textures on the castle walls, the forest surrounding it, and the Moon in the sky above are incredibly rendered.
9) Although from the early 1960s on nearly all of Sinnott’s work for Marvel was as an inker / finisher, from time to time he did full art for covers and licensing art. Here is one of his occasional covers, for The Invaders #30 (July 1978) featuring Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch in battle with a Nazi flying saucer.
10) Sinnott stated a number of times that his favorite character to draw was Ben Grimm, the Thing. In addition to inking the Thing in innumerable issues of the Fantastic Four, Sinnott also did inks / finishes for the character in his solo series published in the 1980s. Sinnott was paired with penciler Ron Wilson, and they made an effective team. Here’s a page from The Thing #24 (June 1985) that has Ben tussling with the Rhino. Just look at the detailed, textured manner in which Sinnott inks the Rhino’s costume.
11) Sinnott did very little work for DC Comics. One of the few jobs he did appeared in the pin-up book Superman: The Man of Steel Gallery (December 1995). Sinnott inked longtime Superman artist Curt Swan, and it was a beautiful collaboration. Looking at this, I really wish Swan & Sinnott could have worked on a few Superman stories together. I got this autographed by Joe at a comic book convention several years ago.
12) Deadbeats is a vampire soap opera written & penciled by Richard Howell and inked by Ricardo Villagran published by Claypool Comics. It ran for 82 issues, and has continued as a web comic. Howell asked a number of different artists to ink the covers throughout the run. The cover to the penultimate installment, Deadbeats #81 (December 2006), was inked by Sinnott, who had previously inked Howell a few times at Marvel. The coloring is by John Heebink.
Originally I was going to show 10 examples of Joe Sinnott’s artwork, but I just could not narrow it down, which is why we have 12…. or 13, if you count Joe’s self-portrait at the top. Even with that I still had to leave out a few examples I really liked! As I said before, Sinnott did so much great artwork over the decades. Please feel free to mention your own favorites in the comments below.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 