When I finally had a chance to see some of Sinnott’s science fiction in the Tales to Astonish Masterworks, it was interesting to see how much his pencilling/inking work work at one time resembled the work of Murphy Anderson, who is a lot people’s favorite DC inker. Sinnott, like Anderson, was heavily influenced by the more highly rendered comic strip illusrators such as Milt Caniff and Alex Raymond. If you’ve seen FF#5 or Journey into Mystery #83 (Thor origin) which Sinnott inked, you can see how he still inks in a more of classic illustrator style than he did later on.

Sinnott’s inking style starting around FF#44, the style he would more or less use for the rest of his time at Marvel, is somewhat more “cartoony” i.e. his line work is much more bold and direct than in his earlier work.

Inker? More like tracer, amirite?

How do you do it?

Thanks for keeping peoples educated about the great artists of our time!

I once named Al Milgrom (during the Roger Stern run) as the best Avengers penciler. Only later did I realize that my praise was actually meant to Joe’s superb inking.

Most of my first recollections of comic book art I liked was inked by Joe. He made everything clean and powerful.

I was most recently struck by his work over Al Milgrom during Stern’s run on Avengers. When I think of Milgrom, I unfortunately think of not-so-nice art on things like Secret Wars II, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine and some issues of Hulk. But those Avengers look really good, and I think we can thank Joe for that.

Good pick. Am eagerly awaiting Mr. Austin (please).