- Joe Giella
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birthdate = Birth date and age|1928|6|27|df=y
location =Manhattan ,New York City
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nationality = American
area = Inker
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awards =Joe Giella (born
27 June ,1928 ,Manhattan ,New York City ) is an Americancomic book artist best known as aDC Comics inker during theSilver Age of comic books . For a picture of him and his work, see his biography card at the [http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/biogs/giella.asp National Cartoonists Society] , of which he is a member.Biography
Early life and career
Joe Giella attended
Manhattan 'sSchool of Industrial Art , where future singerTony Bennett was a classmate and friend, leaving three months shy of graduation in order to work and help support his Depression-era family. At 17 or 18, he freelanced for editorEd Cronin atHillman Periodicals , penciling and inking the humor feature "Captain Codfish". He also studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan, alongside future comics professionalsMike Sekowsky andJoe Kubert , and took commercial art courses atHunter College .Golden Age of comic books
Giella later freelanced for
Fawcett Comics , commuting by bus toC. C. Beck 's andPete Costanza 's studio inEnglewood, New Jersey to ink Captain Marvel stories. In either 1946 or 1947, he began freelancing forTimely Comics , the 1940s precursor ofMarvel Comics , and shortly afterward joined the staff. "I would do any work that they offered," he 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". [Joe Giella interview, "Alter Ego" #52 (Sept. 2005), p. 6] Later, he assistedSyd Shores on "Captain America Comics", finishing backgrounds, making pencil corrections and inking the occasional page or two. Giella did similar duty on Human Torch,Sub-Mariner , andhumor stories. Inking soon became his specialty. In addition, he joined theNaval Reserves in 1948, continuing with them for eight years.His close friend
Frank Giacoia , who was best man at Giella's wedding, moved toDC Comics in the late '40s, and eventually convinced Giella to join him at that better-paying, if more staid, company. Starting circa 1948, Giella inked the Flash,Green Lantern ,Black Canary and other characters under editorJulius Schwartz .Into the Silver Age
During the early-1950s lull in
superhero es, Giella inked Westerns penciled byAlex Toth (including the feature "Sierra Smith") andGene Colan (on the series "Hopalong Cassidy ", splitting the duties with fellow inkerSy Barry ).When the era historians call the
Silver Age of comic books began with the resurgence of superheroes starting in 1956, Giella began inkingscience fiction stories, including the feature "Adam Strange " in "Strange Adventures ", andBatman stories pencilled by the likes ofSheldon Moldoff (ghosting forBob Kane ), andCarmine Infantino . In the 1960s, he prominently inkedGil Kane on the series "Green Lantern." Giella eventually inked the covers and interior art of DC's top-selling books that decade.Comic strips
Giella also assisted on such
King Features syndicatedcomic strips as "Flash Gordon" (inking Dan Barry in 1970), and "The Phantom ", on which he worked for 17 years (sometimes helpingSy Barry with pencilling when deadlines became too consuming for Barry). In the early 1990s, Giella became the artist on the "Mary Worth" daily and Sunday newspaper strip.Other work
Outside comics, Giella did commercial art for such ad agencies as
McCann Erickson andSaatchi & Saatchi , and such publishers as Doubleday andSimon & Schuster .Footnotes
References
* [http://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/giella_joe.htm Lamiebk Comiclopedia: Joe Giella]
* [http://hometown.aol.com/comicsproj/credits.html The Comic Strip Project: Credits]
* [http://www.comics.org/ The Grand Comic-Book Database]
* [http://members.aol.com/MG4273/comics.htm Classic Comic Books]
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