Sickles was assigned to the action/adventure comic Scorchy Smith, whose creator, John Terry, was suffering from tuberculosis. Loosely modeled on Charles Lindbergh, Scorchy was a pilot-for-hire who flew into numerous high-octane globe-trotting adventures. The series, which started in 1930, was heavily influenced by Roy Crane’s adventure strip, Wash Tubbs. Sickles initially illustrated the strip as a ghost artist, but he signed his own name after Terry's 1934 death.
Sickles' artwork was much admired and proved highly influential to other comic strip artists. His compositions were cinematic in style, and he had a brisk, impressionistic style of inking that he referred to as “chiaroscuro.” Sickles also was adept in his application of the shading medium Zipatone. Sickles and Caniff worked together for two years, sometimes writing and drawing each other's strips. Caniff acknowledged being heavily influenced by Sickles.
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