Who is Joe Giella?

It's almost easy to forget about inking when it comes time to appreciate how comics are made. The main artist of a comic book would do the pencils and generally do the line work, but the printing processes of comics wouldn't allow for lifting the art from the pencils. This is where the inker would come in and create a new version of the art with more definition to the lines that the processes can pick up on. In addition, unused lines created during drafting can be completely eliminated. With modern digital imaging, it is possible to create print-ready art now, but many artists still use pencils as their preferred style of drafting and an inker is still required.

The inker who worked on The Flash when Ralph Dibny debuted was Joe Giella, who happens to be—at the time of writing—the sole surviving known person to work on that debut. He was born on July 27, 1928 and studied at Manhattan's School of Industrial Art, the Art Students League and took commercial art courses at Hunter College.

Joe began work at age 17, later noting his Italian heritage, being the firstborn son and the struggles of his family. His first comics work was art for the six-page Captain Codfish story in Hillman Periodicals' Punch and Judy #11.

In 1946, Giella began working for Fawcett Comics, inking Captain Marvel (now Shazam). Soon, he got on at Timely Comics (now Marvel). He revealed recently that he lost his first big project while commuting home on the bus and after being yelled at by Stan Lee, the artist quickly redid the pencils and he was able to get it done well in good time, getting him a staff position doing whatever odd art jobs were needed.

In a couple years, he'd moved onto a better paying position at National Publications while also serving for the Naval Reserves. He continued his work for what would become well through the dawn of the Silver Age, inking for Adam Strange, Green Lantern, and other titles, including—of course—The Flash.

Giella also worked on comic strips such as The Phantom and Flash Gordon and served as artist on Mary Worth from 1991 to 2016. He also did commercial art for advertising firms and publishing companies.

Joe Giella's work earned him a 1996 Inkpot award. He was also a guest of honor at 2017's Herocon's Inkwell Awards.

Joe currently lives in Eastmeadow on Long Island in New York.