Happy Sunday! Remembering Comic Book Artist/ illustrator Joe Sinnott on his Birthday today, October 16, 1926 – June 25, 2020.

"Joe Sinnott was born in Saugerties, NY, the 2nd oldest of 7 children. His childhood dream was to be a cowboy. After High School, he joined the US Navy Seabees in Okinawa during WWII, afterwards he worked 3 years in a cement factory before entering the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, NYC - in 1949. The school was run by Tarzan artist Burne Hogarth. While there, Joes' first comic book work was published - Trudi, a 5 page filler story in Mopsy #12 (Sept 1950) for St.John's Publishing. He also did work for one of his instructors at the school - Tom Gill (long time Lone Ranger artist). He began working for Stan Lee at Timely (Marvel) in 1950, penciling and inking crime, horror, war, westerns, sci-fi and romance books, while at the same time illustrating material for Dell, Charlton, Treasure Chest, ACG, Archie and Classic Illustrated, and he also drew the life stories of Babe Ruth, John Kennedy, Gen.MacArthur, Eisenhower, Pope John XXIII, The Beatles, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Micky Mantle and many other famous people. In November 1965, Joe began his amazing run with Jack Kirby on the Fantastic Four, It is this book that he is most well known for, but he worked on many other Marvel books too- Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, Avengers, Defenders, SHIELD,, The Defenders, ROM, Ms.Marvel and The Thing to name a few. Joe mentioned that "The Thing" had "always been his most favorite character to draw". During his legendary career Joe won 2 Alley Awards as the comic industries best inker in 1967 & 1968, The Irving Forbush Award for Favorite Inker in 1974, an Inkpot Award at the 1995 San Diego Comic Con, and most recently 2 Inkwell Awards in 2008 (one the Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award) named in his honor. Joe retired from doing comic books in 1992, but continued as the inker on the Sunday Spider-man Strip for King Features for 17 more years.

On one of our first trips back east, we had the chance to visit and make this portrait of Joe in his studio, for "The Artist Within" portrait project. We had the best time!

Happy Birthday Joe, You are missed!

Photograph © Greg Preston

https://sampselprestonphotography.com/the-artist-within...

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