Silver Age of Comic Books
During the late 1950s and 1960s period historians and collectors call the Silver Age of Comic Books, Sinnott continued doing occasional pencil-and-ink stories for Atlas Comics as it transitioned into the nascent Marvel Comics, contributing to such "pre-superhero Marvel" titles as Strange Tales, Strange Worlds, Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense and World of Fantasy. He also began a stint with the low-budget Charlton Comics, teamed as penciler with inker Vince Colletta on several romance-comics stories in series including First Kiss, Just Married, Romantic Secrets, Sweethearts and Teen-Age Love that he would do through 1963.[15]
Sinnott's first collaboration with Jack Kirby, one of comics' most historically groundbreaking and influential creators and the penciler with whom he is most often identified, came with the war-comics story "Doom Under the Deep" in Atlas' Battle #69 (April 1960).[15][20] After a supernatural Kirby story in Journey into Mystery, #58 (May 1960), he inked Kirby's twice-reprinted giant-monster story "I Was Trapped By Titano the Monster That Time Forgot" in Tales to Astonish #10 (July 1960), although not the cover featuring that lead story.[15][21] Sinnott in 1992 believed his first Kirby collaboration was a Western story titled "Outlaw Man from Fargo",[10] but nothing approximating that appears in standard databases.
Sinnott did one additional Kirby pre-superhero Marvel story, "I Was a Decoy for Pildorr: The Plunderer from Outer Space", in Strange Tales #94 (March 1962), before inking his first Marvel superhero comic: both the cover and the interior of penciler Kirby's The Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962), the issue introducing the long-running supervillain Dr. Doom.[22] Sinnott also inked a few panels of the following issue's second page, the remainder inked by another Kirby regular, Dick Ayers.[23]
Sinnott explained his not remaining on The Fantastic Four after his single early issue:
"Before Stan called me to ink Jack on Fantastic Four #5, I never knew the Fantastic Four existed. I lived up here in ... the Catskill Mountains, and I never went down to the city at that time. ... Everything was done by mail and I didn't know what books were coming out, even. ... Stan called me up and said, "Joe, I've got a book here by Jack Kirby and I'd like you to ink it, if you could. I can't find anybody to ink it." ... [When the pencil art arrived,] I was dumbfounded by the great art and the characters. ... I had a ball inking it. I remember when I mailed it back, Stan called me. He said, "Joe, we liked it so much, I'm going to send you #6." So he [did], but I had committed myself [to] another account at [publisher George A. Pflaum's Catholic comic book] Treasure Chest ... and this was a 65-page story I was going to have to do on one of the Popes ["The Story Of Pope John XXIII, Who Won Our Hearts", in vol. 18, #1–9 (Sept. 13, 1962 – Jan. 3, 1963)]. I had committed myself to it, so when I had started #6, I think I just did a panel or two.[23] I had to send it back to Stan."
Sinnott had by then inked the introduction of the Norse god superhero Thor, in Journey into Mystery #83 (Aug. 1962). He also inked the following issue's Kirby cover, and, following his papal project, he both penciled and inked five subsequent Thor stories, in issues #91–92, 94–96 (April–Sept. 1963).[15]
Aside from these sporadic works, however, Sinnott was primarily inking for Charlton during this period, with occasional jobs for American Comics Group, Treasure Chest, and Dell Comics, for which he variously penciled and fully drew film and TV adaptations, and penciled the one-shot biographical comic The Beatles #1 (Nov. 1964).[15] But then, in 1965, he returned to Marvel to work virtually exclusively, beginning with his inking the cover and the story, "Where Walks the Juggernaut", of The X-Men #13 (Sept. 1965).[15]
After this, Sinnott began his long and celebrated stint on a Marvel flagship title, Fantastic Four, inking Kirby on "The Gentleman's Name Is Gorgon! or What a Way to Spend a Honeymoon!" in issue #44 (Nov. 1965). He remained on the series through Kirby's departure after issue #102 (Sept. 1970)—having contributed visually to the introductions of Lee/Kirby's Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock and other characters—and continued on through 1981, missing an issue here and there or simply inking the cover. He made a brief return in the late 1980s. His post-Kirby pencilers included John Romita, John Buscema, Bill Sienkiewicz,[24] Rich Buckler, and George Pérez.[25]
A comics historian assessed the mid-1960s Kirby–Sinnott art collaboration:
"In an uncanny stroke of luck and perfect timing, just when Kirby gained the time to improve his artwork, Joe Sinnott became the FF ' s regular inker. Sinnott was a master craftsman, fiercely proud of the effort and meticulous detail he put into his work. ... That slick, stylized layer of India ink that Sinnott painted over Kirby's pencils finished Jack's work in a way that no other inker ever would. Comic fans had never witnessed art this strange and powerful in its scope and strength.[26]"
During the 1960s Silver Age, Sinnott also inked several Kirby Captain America stories and his "The Inhumans" backup feature in Thor; two Jim Steranko stories each of superspy Nick Fury and superhero Captain America; and Buscema's 38-page origin story in The Silver Surfer #1 (Aug. 1968), among other Marvel work.[15]
Sinnott recalled in 2006,
"Down through the years, all through the '60s, [rival] DC [Comics] always called me and ask me if I'd come over and work for them, and I'd tell them that [Marvel editor] Stan [Lee] would give me all the work I wanted. Stan had always told me, "Joe, whatever DC offer you, we'll continue to pay you more," no matter what the rates were. In those days all the artists didn't get the same pay, we all got different rates. And I enjoyed the characters that we were working on.[27]"
