Joe Giella
Joe Giella was an American comic book artist best known as a DC Comics inker during the late 1950s and 1960s period which historians and fans call the Silver 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."
Biography
Early life and career
Born on June 27, 1928, in New York City, Giella grew up in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, and attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan. He also studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan, alongside future comics professionals Mike Sekowsky and Joe Kubert, 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". A standard reference, the Grand Comics Database, lists one "Captain Codfish" feature, running six pages with the art signed by Giella, in Hillman Periodicals' Punch and Judy Comics #11.
Giella later freelanced for Fawcett Comics, commuting by bus to C. C. Beck's and Pete Costanza's studio in Englewood, New Jersey, to ink Captain Marvel stories. In either 1946 or 1947, he began freelancing for Timely Comics, the 1940s precursor of Marvel Comics, 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 on Captain America Comics, finishing backgrounds, making pencil corrections and inking occasional pages. Giella did similar duty on Human Torch, 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 began drawing for DC Comics in the late 1940s; Giella joined him at that company in 1949. There, Giella inked stories featuring the Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary and other characters under editor Julius Schwartz.
During the early-1950s lull in superheroes, Giella inked Westerns penciled by Alex Toth, including the feature "Sierra Smith", and Gene Colan on the series Hopalong Cassidy, splitting the work with fellow inker Sy Barry.
When the era called the Silver Age of comic books began with the resurgence of superheroes in 1956, Giella began inking science-fiction stories, including the feature "Adam Strange" in Strange Adventures. In the 1960s, he prominently inked Carmine Infantino on [The Flash (comics)|Flash (comic book)|The Flash] and Gil Kane on Green Lantern. Giella inked the "Flash of Two Worlds" story in The Flash #123. This story introduced Earth-Two, and more generally the concept of the multiverse, to DC Comics. When Julius Schwartz became the editor of Batman and Detective Comics in 1964, he assigned Giella to ink the two series. This assignment led to Giella drawing the daily "Batman" comic strip from August 8, 1966 to March 16, 1968. His final issue of Batman was #214 while his last Batman story in Detective Comics appeared in issue #401. He inked the pencils of Dick Dillin in both Justice League of America and World's Finest Comics until 1972.
Giella inked two New Teen Titans drug awareness comic books sponsored by the American Soft Drink Industry and IBM, respectively, which were published in cooperation with The President's Drug Awareness Campaign in 1983–1984.
After the death of Julius Schwartz in February 2004, DC Comics Presents was revived for a series of eight one-shot issues. Giella drew two of these tribute issues.
Giella's final work for DC Comics was a variant cover for Archie Meets Batman '66 #6.
Comic strips
Giella also assisted on such King Features syndicated comic strips as Flash Gordon, and The Phantom, 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 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 including McCann Erickson and Saatchi & Saatchi, and publishers such as Doubleday and Simon & Schuster.
As of 2010, Giella lived in East Meadow, New York, on Long Island. Giella and his wife Shirley had three sons and a daughter. His son Frank is an art history and cartooning instructor at Forest Hills High School, and a colorist for the comic strip Mary Worth, which Giella penciled and inked until 2016. Joe Giella died on March 21, 2023, at the age of 94.
Accolades
Giella received the Inkpot Award in 1996. In 2016, he received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award at the Harvey Awards. Giella was the Guest of Honor at the 2017 Inkwell Awards ceremony at HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2018, Giella was awarded the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award for his many years of inking.
Archie Comics
Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest Magazine #122 Mighty Comics #44–45 Mighty Crusaders #2
DC Comics
Action Comics #484, 501, 537, 540 Adventure Comics #462–465 Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #2–3, 8, 10–12, 22, 26, 36, 42, 44 All-American Men of War #127–128 All-American Men of War vol. 2 #2–13, 17–20, 26, 43 All-American Western #110–120, 122, 124–126 All Star Comics #50, 73–74 All-Star Squadron Annual #3 All-Star Western #58–69, 71–75, 80–83, 93–101, 103, 106–119 The Atom and Hawkman #39 Batman #164–175, 177–181, 183–184, 186, 188–192, 194–196, 199–202, 204–207, 209–212, 214 Batman Family #15 Batman: Turning Points #2 Big Town #6–8, 19–20 The Brave and the Bold #28–29 ; #45–49 Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 Comic Cavalcade #25–26 Danger Trail #1–5 DC Comics Presents #20, 25, 29, 42 DC Comics Presents: Batman #1 DC Comics Presents: Justice League of America #1 DC Special Series #11 Detective Comics #327–350, 352–358, 360, 362, 364–365, 368, 370, 372, 378–394, 396, 398–399, 401, 428–429, 486–488, 490–491, 493, 497–499, 501–502, 504–506, 508–510, 512–517 Elvira's House of Mystery #6 Fanboy #5 The Flash #105–151, 153–159, 161–167, 219–220, 251, 259–260 Flash Comics #86–92, 94–98, 102 Ghosts #84, 98 G.I. Combat #132–133 Girls' Love Stories #2, 4, 142, 151 Girls' Romances #2 Green Lantern #1–28, 64–68, 71–72, 75, 157 Hopalong Cassidy #86–98, 101–103, 111, 113–114, 116–128, 130, 132–135 Jimmy Wakely #1–5, 11, 13–15, 18 Justice League of America #45, 75, 77–84, 86–92, 94–102 Mr. District Attorney #15, 17 Mister Miracle #23 Mystery in Space #1–7, 13–14, 18–19, 23–25, 27–35, 37–45, 47–49, 51, 60, 71, 73, 84, 86 The New Adventures of Charlie Chan #1–3 The New Adventures of Superboy #23, 26, 28–30, 33–37, 39–41, 44, 46, 51, 53–54 New Teen Titans #2–3 Our Army at War #1–4, 6–20, 28–29, 39, 47 Our Fighting Forces #3, 5, 9–10 Phantom Stranger #1–2, 4–6 Romance Trail #3, 5–6, 8 Secret Hearts #8 Sensation Comics #82, 88–90, 92, 95–96, 98–100, 102, 109 Sensation Mystery #114 Showcase #13 ; #17–19 ; #21 ; #22–24 Star Spangled War Stories #13–18, 20, 25, 28, 32, 36–41, 46, 55 Steel, The Indestructible Man #1, 3–4 Strange Adventures #5, 7, 9, 13, 15–17, 20–21, 24, 27–33, 39–42, 44–49, 51–96, 98–100, 105, 107, 117–118, 129, 131, 134, 138, 143–144, 147, 150–151, 157 Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #244 Superboy Spectacular #1 Superman #219, 226, 229, 266, 327, 352, 357, 359, 363 Superman and Batman: World's Funnest #1 The Superman Family #182, 185–188, 193–214, 216–222 Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #112 Teen Titans #46, 50 Weird War Tales #64, 76, 86, 121 Western Comics #46–61, 64–72, 74, 77–85 Wonder Woman #234, 240, 242, 244, 247–250, 252, 254, 265, 276 World's Finest Comics #198–205, 207–214, 266, 268–270, 272
Dell Comics
Twilight Zone #1
IDW Publishing
Batman:The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 1966–1967 HC includes Batman comic strips from August 8, 1966 to December 31, 1967 featuring storylines drawn by Giella Batman:The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol. 2 1968–1969 HC includes Batman comic strips from January 1, 1968 to March 16, 1968 featuring a storyline drawn by Giella
Marvel Comics
The A-Team #2 Captain America #182 Giant-Size Avengers #3 Marvel Spotlight #21 Marvel Two-in-One #9 Power Man #35 Rawhide Kid #10 Willie Comics #7
Tower Comics
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #8, 12 Undersea Agent #2