Archives - The Brilliant Inks of Joe Sinott

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Joe Sinat Introduction

1:16Hello, your friend and neighborhood host here again, J.T. Wheatley, back for another episode of the History of Comics podcast, this time on the life of Joe Sinat, one of the great inkers of the comic book medium. Of the many unheralded jobs in comic books, inkers are one of them, especially since that infamous scene in Kevin Smith's 1997 film classic, Chasing Amy, in which they are accused of being tracers, specifically Banky, played by a stalwart Kevin Smith actor, Jason Lee. In truth, inkers provide an essential job in comic books, as they help enhance and interpret the original art the pencilers laid down, fixing mistakes and setting the mood.

1:55A good inker can save sloppy art, while a bad inker can ruin good draftsmanship. Many are also pencilers in their own right, using their talent to help out the artists. Simply put, a good inker is needed in comics, and one of the greatest was Joe Sinat, who worked in nearly every Marvel book from the 1960s to the 1980s, enhancing the pencils of legendary artists like Jack Kirby, John Mishima, and George Perez. As much as Kirby and Steve Ditko, it was Sinat who helped develop the classic Marvel look that made their comics so popular, and he is a prime example of the importance of inkers.

2:28Joe Sinat was born on October 16, 1926, at the Catskill Mountain, Sagittarius, New York, one of seven children, the Catherine and Edward Sinat. He demonstrated his drawing skills at age three in kindergarten with his first box of crayons, which he received from a teacher that stayed at the boarding house his mother ran. Sinat started drawing everything he could find before eventually copying strips like Terry and the Pirates and Flash Gordon. He also loved Congo Bill and Action Comics No. 1 over Superman because he was similar to Jungle Jim, the comic strip by Alex Raymond, correct creator of The Flash Gordon.

3:03Sinat also loved movies, radio dramas, and serials like many kids of his time. As he got older, Sinat served as the art director of his high school yearbook, though he was disappointed that his schools only presented two classes on representation and design as far as art instruction. Thus, he had to learn anatomy from comic books. After high school, Joe Sinat enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II with the Fighting Seabees in Okinawa, driving an ammunitions truck. It was part of ceding to his mother's wish not to be drafted into the Army, as his brother Jack had died while serving in the U.S. Army's 3rd Division.

3:39After completing his service in May of 1946, Sinat admitted to a piddling around for three years, playing sports while working in a limestone quarry in his father's cement manufacturing plant. However, the winter of 1948 in New York would be one of the coldest in history, and unable to go outside, Sinat finally decided to go to school. Sinat went to the Cartoonist and Illustrated School, CIS, now called the School of Visual Arts, in March of 1949 on the GI Bill, submitting his art samples to Silas Rose, the CIS head, who then gave them to Bernie Hogoff, the school's head instructor.

4:14Both were impressed by Sinat's samples, and especially since he had no training, which got him into the school. There he was instructed by numerous professional artists the school would bring in, notably Milton Keneff, the legendary comic strip artist of Terry and the Pilots, and Steve Canyon. Another instructor was Tom Gill, famous as the pencil of the Lone Ranger, comics by Dell, and he would help Sinat get into the comic book industry directly. Soon, Joe Sinat had his first professional work published with his feature, Trudy, in Mopsy No. 12 on September of 1950. That same year, he married his fiancée, Betsy Kierlowski, in August during the school's two-week vacation.

4:50They would be married for 56 years until her death. Tom Gill was one of the original instructors at the Cartoonist School since 1948, and would mentor numerous talented artists during his tenure, such as Herb Trimpe, who we mentioned in the previous episode. While teaching, he still maintained accounts with Timely, the future Marvel, Fawcett, and, of course, Dell, teaching during the week while working nights and weekends for his comic book companies. Joe liked Joe Sinat's talent and made him one of his assistants. Sinat would work with Joe for nine months while attending school, working nights and taking the Long Island Rail to Joe's studio to work for all weekend.

5:25Soon, Sinat was doing most of the work on some assignments, such as Kent Blake Detective, which he penciled and inked. Figuring he was ready to set out on his own, plus having a watch for support now, Sinat made his play for Timely through Stan Lee, figuring he couldn't turn him down. Despite leaving Tom Gill, he and Joe Sinat would remain friends, and Sinat's credits working for Tom Gill as one of the best teaching experiences he ever had.

5:48After graduating the Cartoonist School, Joe Sinat went to Atlas, the future Marvel and former Timely. Founder Martin Goodman loved to avoid paying taxes and to work with Stan Lee in 1951. Sinat also returned to his hometown of Sagittarius after leaving New York City for three years due to school. Reportedly, he approached Lee directly, pointing out that he did most of Gill's work on Red Warrior and Kent Blake. Impressed, Lee handed Sinat a script, The Man Who Wouldn't Die, which would later appear in Apache Kid No. 8.

6:21And the rest, according to Sinat, is history. While there, Sinat stated that Stan Lee was a brilliant writer, able to read stories in nearly every genre, from westerns to science fiction, and would eventually leave school as work got more steady, doing features like The Adventures in the Town, The Arizona Kid, and Arrowhead. However, things took a downturn when Frederick Warburn published his book, The Seduction of Innocent, in 1954, which blamed comic books for juvenile delinquency. This led to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which forced the comic book industry to form the Comics Code Authority,

6:52regulating its content as a result, restricting the industry and practically banning horror comics. More than a few of those, Senator did features for, such as Only Twelve of Us May Live, Cry Werewolf, and Drink Deep Vampire. While the public decried these horror tales, Sinat said artists like him loved them because they really got to cut loose with their talent. During his early run in Atlas, Sinat produced 1,300 pages for the comics like Adventures in the Fear, The Arizona Kid, and Battlefront,

Comics Code Authority

7:18but with the new CCA, Sinat soon found himself looking for work and nearly didn't get it at DC, as he was a Marvel guy, according to one editor. Thankfully, another editor grabbed Sinat before he left, saying he liked his art and gave him a work. With comics on the downturn, what work Sinat could get was less than before, with Stan Lee being forced to cut page rates at Atlas in 1957 to 58 due to loss of sales. Some artists went into advertising, teaching, or just left the business altogether. As for Joe Sinat, he suffered as well, having to leave Atlas for a six-month period,

7:51while his page rate was cut from the average of $46 to $21. He would work in commercial advertising while finding works at Classic Illustrated in Charlton, and even worked with Vinnie Coletta, his first inker. By 1963, they would produce 600 romance stories, 27 pages total for Charlton, especially for Coletta, who was adept at depicting beautiful women. Sinat would call Coletta one of a kind, able to get the job done, though it would take a shortcut that altered the art originally penciled. Of interesting note, due to the nature of Sinat working in Sagittarius,

8:25he only met Vinnie Coletta in person for the first time in 1975 at a comic book convention. In 1959, Joe Sinat rejoined Marvel Comics, the formal Atlas, when Stan Lee called, stating they were back in business. However, due to the new CCA restrictions, he could no longer show direct violence as before. He was also doing treasure chests and fun facts, but did features on historical figures from Babe Ruth to JFK. Sinat also worked on the monster books, which were trendy in 1961, inking It Was Trapped by Titans, The Monster That Time Forgot,

8:56for Tales to Astutis No. 10. This would be one of the first times Sinat worked with Jack Kirby, who previously inked most of his own pencils. Sinat also inked Jack Kirby's pencils on Doom Under the Deep in Battle No. 69 in April of 1950, and then Sinat worked on The Fantastic Four No. 5, which was the first appearance of Dr. Doom. Of note, Sinat didn't even know what The Fantastic Four was due to living in the Catskills, and thus it was out of the comic scene.

9:24Sinat's work schedule was at 7.45 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., and he created his inking skill with balancing blacks with the panels on the page. On Friday, Sinat would show up at the Marvel offices with his completed assignment, and Stan Lee would give him a new script, which he then took back home and worked on from Monday to Thursday before returning again. All this was done by mail, while Sinat never went to New York City except on special occasions in the course to visit the offices. Thus, he wasn't aware of everything that was going on and how Marvel was suddenly reviving the comic book industry.

9:55Stan Lee and Jack Kirby loved Sinat's ink so much, they offered him the following issue of Fantastic Four No. 6, but he was committed to doing Treasure Chest, the story of the Pope's project, thus he had to turn it down. Sinat did ink Jack Kirby's pencils on Journey in the Mystery No. 83, August of 1962, which was the first appearance of Thor, along with doing the cover. And after his Treasure Chest assignment was complete, he penciled and inked five more Thor stories in issues No. 91 to 92, 94 to 96, from April to September of 1963.

10:27Thor would be one of the big characters Sinat loved inking, along with Captain America, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer. As for Fantastic Four, Sinat wouldn't return to the comic until issue No. 44, November of 1965, and would continue for 48 issues at No. 92, then coming back from No. 95 to No. 101. Sinat loved the art and story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were producing, and he would join them in introducing the Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Inhumans, and the Black Panther,

10:58all of which was done in the epic issues No. 44 to 52 run on Fantastic Four, still the high-water mark of that comic book series. Once again, due to the nature of his work being an inker, Sinat never met Jack Kirby face-to-face in 1972.

11:15As Sinat, of course, never really visited the Marvel offices, and mostly just worked out his studio in Sagittarius. Sinat also stated that the level of detail that Kirby put into his pencils made it a lot of work, but it was definitely satisfying, as he considered Kirby one of the fastest but most versatile artists to ever work in the business. He even did work in the unfinished Fantastic Four No. 102 due to Jack Kirby leaving abruptly from Marvel to go to D.C., which he received the unfinished pages in 2006, with finished art by Ron Friends.

11:46Sinat would continue to ink Fantastic Four until it ended up to the 300s, along with the Silver Surfer and the Mighty Thor, working with the likes of John Beshima, John Byrne, and George Perez. Of the artists, John Byrne, he would note on Fantastic Four, he would find himself correcting his mistakes at first, such as the neck length and the hairstyle. Part of the job of inkers is to correct these mistakes, as they're essentially artists themselves. Perez, he noted, for his hyper-detailed pencils and the ability to maintain continuity. Sinat said you could have made a stamp of pencils that Perez penciled.

12:18Joe Sinat continued to find work outside of Marvel as well, like Classic Illustrator No. 554 on September of 1958, on the feature D and Chain of Deer, while also working on America's Best Comics, Charlton and Dell. One notable work was penciling the one-shot biographical issue of The Beatles on November of 1964. However, by 1965, Sinat was nearly exclusive at Marvel, inking on nearly every Marvel title, and helping to establish the Marvel look that helped make the company so popular. He loved working on The Avengers,

12:49such as issue No. 100 by Barry Windsor Smith, due to the characters like the Scarlet Witch, Captain America, and Hawkeye, one of his favorites. However, Sinat also loved working with Al Mingram on the West Coast Avengers even more. He also worked working on Jim Starnenko's pencils on Nick Fury in Strange Tales No. 166 and 68 and Nick Fury No. 1, along with Captain America No. 110 and 111. One thing he didn't like, though, was inking vehicles and stagecoaches and motorcycles. Would you consider too much work?

13:20In the 1970s, Joe Sinat was so ingrained at Marvel that you weren't considered a Marvel guy until he inked your pencils. And he would work on nearly every book that the company published, along with every artist from Jack Kirby to Neil Adams to Gil Kane. For the rookies like Jim Starnenko and Neil Adams, he would tweak their art in the right directions and his inks before they became the seasoned professionals we know today. By this point, Sinat was the old man at Marvel with 20-plus years at the company and using his wisdom and experience to guide young artists.

13:52Some artists needed a lot more work, like John Bishima, whose art became so loose from books like Nova and Ms. Marvel that Joe Sinat received a finished art credit over inking, while Bishima was credited with giving layouts over penciling.

14:05Sinat soon became friends with many of them, like Ron Franz and Terry Austin, while receiving high acclaim from the rest of his comic book peers from his talent and professionalism. Outside of comic books, Joe Sinat loved sports and Bing Crosby, and as a result, he penciled several sports comics, illustrating the stories of Mickey Mantle, Brooks Robinson, and Pete Rose, while also doing covers for magazines like Crosby Magazine and the Bing Crosby Fan Club. Sinat also worked in advertising in the 1960s and 70s as well, such as album covers and hosties Twinkies ads, which featured for Marvel,

14:36which featured the character Thor. To develop his technique when he was younger, Joe Sinat copied comic strips like The Phantom and Johnny Hawk about a college athlete. As an adult and professional artist, Sinat inked Marvel strips as well, such as Spider-Man, which he started back in 1992, and The Hulk, which he did for a short time as well. During Spider-Man, he got to work with Stan Sakai, who led the strip, and it credits Sinat with being able to help meet his deadlines, as of course he's also busy with his Ushagi-Ojumbo comic. Sinat would retire from comic books

15:07to concentrate on inking The Amazing Spider-Man Sunday strip in 1992, and continued on in the series until it ended on March 22nd of 2019. With the strip's end, Joe Sinat officially retired from the comics industry at the age of 92. He did for sporadic work during that time on Marvel Comics as well, such as inking The Captain America No. 1, Volume 6, variant cover by John Vermeer Sr., which is cover dated on September of 2011. Today, Joe Sinat is considered one of the three greatest inkers in comic books,

15:38next to Frank Giacora and Dick Giordano. He has received near universal praise from nearly every artist he's ever worked with, from Herb Trimpey to Murray Severin, and numerous awards for his contributions to the comic book medium, notably the Ink Pot Award in 1995, the Inkwell Hall of Fame in 2008, of which he is named after in honor of that year, and the Will Lies in their Hall of Fame in 2013. On July 27, 2007, the post office issued two commemorative stamps of The Thing and The Silver Surfer,

16:09which is penciled by Jack Kirby and ink by Joe Sinat.

16:14Today, Joe Sinat is still alive and living in retirement with a legacy as one of the greatest inkers to ever work in comics. He is a true example of the need of their job in the comic book art and know that inkers are not just tracers.

16:27I would like to thank the chief source for this episode, Breaststrokes with Greatness, The Life and Art of Joe Sinat by Tim Lalsute, a great overview of his life with interviews from Sinat and many of his comic book colleagues along with beautiful reprints of his art. A must-read for any comic book fan.

Comic Book Review

16:56And now is March 26, 2026, time for the favorite comic of the week. Superman, Spider-Man, number one from DC and Marvel comics featuring various DC writers and artists. That is, of course, their new, this is the company crossover DC Marvel event where they're crossing over their two flagship characters, Superman and Spider-Man. And in this one, this is the one that's produced by DC which features various artists like Mark Rage, Jorge Jimenez, Tom King, Jim Lee, and so forth. It's just a great mix of stories about

17:26the two characters interacting. And what's best about this is that unlike they're doing like a multiple dimensions thing, no, they're just acting like they're in the same universe. And the main story about Mark Rage and Jorge Jimenez is just Peter Parker and Clark Kent working together on a reporting job. He's the photographer for Clark Kent working as a reporter and they end up having to fight up against Brainiac and Dr. Octopus. There's a lot of great stories that are mixed in there too. There's a Tom King, Jim Lee story. This is Lois Lane and Mary Jane

17:57team up to help their superhero loves which is a great read. And just a fun, just a great combination. There's Spider-Man 2099, Batman Beyond and Superboy in the future mixed up at one point. And a really crazy one by Gail Snow and Bill Ortega in which Power Girl goes on a blind date and ends up with a Punisher and the best part is her blind date is Paul Rabin who is depicted as the complete loser that he is and always will be because he's the worst character in comic books created in a very long time. And he should be, if he's going to be in a comic book he should be treated

18:27like the loser that he is, thank goodness. But this is just, but for getting in just a fun, great book, great storytelling, great art and art in general. And similar to like the Batman Deadpool crossover event they did a while back, DC once again nails it and it's kind of showing that if you're curious, DC's been killing it in the comic book sales and the trade sales that it's writing better to get the opposite universe and now as a perfect Harry on top they're writing better Spider-Man stories than Marvel is right now. That's just embarrassing.

18:58But what are you going to do until the house idea is rising ship again? You know, it tends to be, you know, competition and hopefully they'll get around to it. But until then you got this great Superman Spider-Man book to read from getting in one of the best Superman Spider-Man books on the stands right now. So definitely check it out. And with that we'll delve into this episode of the archives joining you next week for likely another edition. And until then go enjoy yourself a good comic book and definitely check out this Superman Spider-Man book. If you're a fan of your character just a great read in general. You're confused

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