Josef “Joe” Rubinstein appears at an Arizona comic book convention. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

Over a career that started in the early 1970s, comic book icon Josef “Joe” Rubinstein has reportedly inked over more characters and more pencilers than anyone else in industry history.

For those not familiar with how comics come together, inkers such as Rubinstein use brushes and pens to add shading and detail to artists’ pencil drawings, imbuing them with mood, character and a heightened sense of action. Fans understand that a masterful ink job can bring the panels of a comic to life.

And plenty in the industry came to respect Rubinstein’s skill at finding just the right touch to heighten, rather than detract, from the artists whose work he touches. Especially when it comes to Marvel Comics, name a property — from Wolverine to Captain America to the Silver Surfer — and there’s a good chance he worked on it.

Indeed, Rubinstein was so prolific at one point, rumors circulated that he must have hired secret staffers to crank out all the work, a claim he vehemently denies.

Inkers use brushes and pens to add shading and detail to artists’ pencil drawings, imbuing them with mood, character and a heightened sense of action. Credit: Instagram / josefrubinstein

“I just didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “It was all I did.”

Rubinstein, 67, will appear at San Antonio’s Nelco Comics, 1134 N. Flores St., for a Saturday, July 12 signing and meet-and-greet. While the artist charges for autographs at some appearances, he’s agreed to forgo his usual fee for anyone who buys the comic he’s autographing from the shop.

We caught up with Rubinstein to discuss the care he applied to inking over other artists’ work, his history in the business and how comics helped finance his love of painting.

I read an interview where you said you had a chameleon-like quality that helps you excel at adapting to different artists’ styles. Can you talk about that?

Well, I have an approach. … I inked the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe in one form or another for 20 years, and the reason Mark Gruenwald hired me is because I made it cohesive, but at the same time, I was faithful to the individual artists’ approach, so that you flipped the page and you knew it was a Walt Simonson, and you knew it was an Al Milgrom, and you knew it was a Bill Sienkiewicz. That’s because I said, “OK, Bill has to have a hard line. Walt is more stylized than I usually work with, so let me see if I can adapt to that.”

I inked Bill Sienkiewicz’s very first job, a Moon Knight backup in the full color magazine, and my credit was left off because they didn’t know that anybody else inked it other than Bill. I did a three-part Eric Larson Spider-Man and Wolverine series, and they left my credit off because they thought Eric inked it.

So, I’m always trying to give respect for what’s in front of me. It’s not exactly that I have a special skill. It’s just that I listen and look at what’s in front of me.

Inking Marvel’s Wolverine helped put Rubinstein on the map. Credit: Courtesy Image / Marvel Comics

How much of that comes down to your willingness to do deep research on an artist’s work? Do you go back and look at their past illustrations to get a full understanding of their style and what approach to take?

No, I’m more direct than that. I would call them up. I would say, “Hey, I’m inside your job. Who’s your favorite inker? What did you hate about the [inking] jobs you didn’t like? What do you ink with? Who are your influences? Do you think your stuff is more appropriate for a pen or a brush?” I get all this stuff down, and then I say, “By the way, it’s probably going to take me three issues to figure out how to do you correctly, but I’m going to try on the first page.”

How often does that kind of communication happen in the business? Are you unusual in that you reached out so directly?

I don’t know. I didn’t take a survey. I just know that I wanted to give the best I could do, because you spend — at least I do — spend my life alone in a room. It’s like, after it’s all done, I’d like to have something I’m not ashamed of and something that I thought, “Well, that’s a job well done.” …

I would call people up and just ask them lots of questions, but sometimes the frustrating response after being in the business for a while was, “Oh, just ink it like Joe Rubinstein.” It’s like, “What’s that?” Because I know how I would ink me, but I don’t know what you want. Again, if I’ve got, let’s say John Buscema and Kerry Gammill, Kerry’s very influenced by John, but I’m not going to ink him the same way, because John, when he inks his own stuff, has a very sort of casual, not in a derogatory term, but a casual handwriting way of inking his work. Kerry is a lot more rendered and crafted, so I had to craft it more.

When I ink, I ink several pieces at once because I don’t want them to smear, so I’ll jump from this one to that one to that one. I was inking like an Al Milgrom and a Bill Sienkiewicz, and a, I don’t know, an Arthur Adams piece. And I sort of stopped and went, “How am I doing this? These are really different approaches.” I went, “Because I just look at the line and go, hard line, soft line, thick line, thin line — go with it.” Really, it all comes down to drawing. Since I’ve been drawing from life, since I was 11 years old at the Art Students League, first and foremost on my list is draw well, and then let style occur after that. Because some people hide behind style. They’ll say, “That’s my style,” because they can’t draw.

In addition to inking, you’re a skilled painter. How interested were you in fine art before you got into comics, or did comics provide an opening and a better understanding of fine art for you?

In addition to his inking work, Rubinstein is a masterful painter. “The comic book stuff paid for my painting addiction,” he says. Credit: Instagram / josefrubinstein

Look, I was 5 years old when I came to America from Israel, and I couldn’t speak the language or read it. My older cousin had comic books. I looked at them, and I guess I became enthralled by the pictures and the superheroes. … And like a lot of kids, I took lined paper and crayons and did my own comics for a while, and then I really wanted to be better. My parents were nice enough to send me to the Art Students League. Eleven years old on the subway to Manhattan. What the hell were they thinking?

Then I wanted to be a comic book artist, but I kept being drawn toward color, and I’d see these illustrations and these paintings and go, “Well, I want to paint too.” Eventually, I just wanted to paint and draw better. The great part was comic books were satisfying. I mean, imagine reading Curt Swan’s Superman as a little kid and then getting hired to do Curt Swan’s Superman. What a dream. Or reading Carmine Infantino’s Flash, and then getting hired to do Carmine Infantino’s Flash. That’s a great experience very few people ever go through, but I wouldn’t have been able to survive if I didn’t sit down and draw my own drawing and paint my own paintings. The comic book stuff paid for my painting addiction.

How often do you get out these days and meet with fans and sign autographs, and that sort of thing?

I don’t know, 20 or 30 times a year. My living is going to conventions these days, and doing commissions, so I’m always on the road somewhere.

Free, 11 a.m.-noon and 2-4 p.m. Saturday, July 12, Nelco Comics, 1134 N. Flores St., Suite 2, (210) 863-0360, nelcocomics.com.

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This article appears in Jul 10-23, 2025.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...