This is a 19 minute conversation with one of my favorite people in comics, Joe Sinnott. Joe was and is a fabulous artist but at one point in his career — around '62 — he became more useful to Stan Lee as an inker…so an inker he's been ever since. He's made bad artists look good and good artists look better.
Those of you with little or no interest in comic book art might want to watch some of this anyway, just to hear a man with great talent and well-placed pride. As you'll see, Joe has always cared passionately about doing good work. It helps to remember that he worked in comics at a time when there was very little (if any) financial reward for extra effort. There was, in fact, a penalty: If you're paid by the page and you spend more time on a page, you make less money per week. For much of his career, Joe was paid about the same as guys who either had less talent or who put less effort into their work…or both. Even when he was paid more to ink a page, he was paid something like 15% more than someone who put in 50% as much time and Joe was three times as good.
If you want to know why someone would do that — why they'd do more than they were being paid to do — watch this video and see the kind of person Joe is. You'll also understand why so many of us love this guy, personally as well as professionally…
