Paul Reinman

Paul Reinman
Paul Reinman c.1964
Born	Joseph Paul Reinmann September 2, 1910 Germany
Died	September 27, 1988 (aged 78)
Nationality	Naturalized American (immigrated German)
Area(s)	Inker

Paul J. Reinman, born Joseph Paul Reinmann, (2 September 1910 in Germany – 27 September 1988) was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's frequent inkers during the period comics fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books. This included the first issues of The Incredible Hulk and The X-Men.

Paul Reinman was born in Germany and raised in Pfiffligheim, a borough of Worms, seat of one of the oldest Ashkenazi communities. The second of five children, and the eldest son, of real-estate agent and farm-produce broker Bernhard and his wife, he began drawing at age 3. By his early twenties, he was creating pen-and-ink drawings of such subjects as the Rashi Synagogue, which was shortly afterward destroyed by the Nazis. Emigrating, he arrived in New York City on June 15, 1934, joining an aunt, Johanna, who had come to the United States circa 1890, and a cousin, Willi, who had arrived in 1927. Reinman eventually brought his younger brother Friedrich and sister Emmy in 1936; their parents and Willi’s brother Ludwig, an artist, in 1937; and his older sister Alice in March 1938. Another younger brother, Hans, remained in Germany, but eventually escaped and made his way to the U.S. in November 1945, and changed his name to John.

Reinman married Dora, an immigrant from Reichelsheim, a city near Worms, in September 1938. The couple had a daughter born circa 1944.

In the 1930s, Reinman entered the field of commercial art in New York, recalling in 1988,

My first job was as assistant to a designer of neon signs. Then the going got tough and I took any kind of job just to make ends meet, and I worked in the check room of an exclusive men’s club on New York's East side … but luckily I had a chance to get back to art and I took a job in a studio of a match factory. Here I did designs of match covers and lettering. A few years later I quit and started to freelance in posters, fashion drawings, and package designs. Then I brushed up on my drawing technique and practiced illustration in many mediums. I succeeded in getting assignments for dry brush drawings for pulp mags, and following this I broke into comic-book cartooning.”