Frank Giacoia

FRANK GIACOIA 06 July 1924 – 04 February 1988)

a.k.a Frank or Frankie Ray, Phil Zupa, Espoia (when collaborating with Mike Esposito)

Avengers Pencils: #73, 110

Avengers Inks: (as Ray) #26-29, (as Giacoia) #30, 31, 86, 87 118

Avengers Covers: #17, 19, 22, 26-30, 47, 73, 85, 101, 103, 106, 110, 120, 124, 131-133, 139, 142,-144, 147, 149, 150,159, 178

Giacoia, started his comics career on Timely’s Jack Frost from USA Comics #3 in January 1942. Over the years Giacoia worked for many comic-book publishers including Ace, Avon, Crestwood, DC, Dell, Eastern Color, Fawcett, and Harvey.

During the 1960s, Giacoia established his name as an inker at Marvel working on virtually every series including the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip from 1978-1981 and inking many of the Marvel heavyweights such as Kirby, Colan, Heck, and Kane.

In 1974 Giacoia was nominated for the Shazam Award for Best Inker (Dramatic Division) and Chicago’s Atlas Comics lists Giacoia as #5 in the top 20 inkers of American Comic Books.

Frank Giacoia’s primary involvement with the Avengers was inking covers starting with #17 however probably his most significant contribution was the penciling of #73 which featured the racially militant threat of the Sons of the Serpent and quite a strong focus on The Black Panther. The issue featured many interesting page and panel layouts.