Frank Giacoia


Frank Giacoia was an American comics artist known primarily as an inker. He sometimes worked under the name Frank Ray, and to a lesser extent Phil Zupa, and the single moniker Espoia, the latter used for collaborations with fellow inker Mike Esposito.

Biography

Early life and career

Frank Giacoia studied at Manhattan's School of Industrial Art and the Art Students League of New York. He entered the comics industry by penciling the feature "Jack Frost" in U.S.A. Comics #1, inked by friend and high-school classmate Carmine Infantino — the latter's first art for comics and published by Marvel Comics' 1940s precursor, Timely Comics. His friend and collaborator Carmine Infantino, a classmate at the Art Students League, recalled that
Later in 1941, Giacoia joined the New York City comic-book packager Eisner & Iger, the studio of Golden Age greats Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. His early works include drawing crime comics for Ace Comics, horror for Avon Publishing, and a multitude of characters for National Comics Publications including the Flash and Batman.
Other companies for which Giacoia did art during the 1940s and 1950s include Crestwood Publications, Dell Comics, Eastern Color Printing, Fawcett Comics, Harvey Comics, Lev Gleason Publications, and Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics. Giacoia and writer Otto Binder introduced the short-lived character Captain Wonder in Kid Komics #1.

Later career

During the 1960s Silver Age of comic books, Giacoia became best known as a Marvel Comics inker, particularly on Captain America stories penciled by the character's co-creator, industry legend Jack Kirby. One of the company's preeminent names, he worked on virtually every title at one time or another. Giacoia inked the first appearance of the Punisher in The Amazing Spider-Man #129.
Giacoia also worked on the newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man from 1978–1981, as well as on the strips Flash Gordon, The Incredible Hulk, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, Sherlock Holmes, and Thorne McBride.
He was credited as the pseudonym "Frankie Ray" for some time. In Fantastic Four #53, his real name was announced in the "Bullpen Bulletins".

Awards and honors

Giacoia was nominated for the Shazam Award for Best Inker in 1974. The 1989 graphic novel The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives, the back cover of which was inked by Giacoia, is dedicated to his memory.
He posthumously won one of the two annual Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Awards in 2016. The award was received by his great-nephew, Mike Giacoia.

Critical assessment

In its list of "The 20 Greatest Inkers of American Comic Books", historians at the retailer Atlas Comics listed Giacoia at #5:

Archie Comics