This past week, the comics world lost a true legend. Gene Colan was one of the premiere artists of the Silver Age but stayed active in the comics business throughout his life, with a career that started in the 1940s and spanned seven decades.
Much of his early career was spent working on war stories, including creating illustrations for The Manila Times while he was in the Army Air Corps. It was when he sought a job at Timely Comics (forerunner to Marvel) that he met Stan Lee. During the 40s and 50, he also worked for National Comics (forerunner to DC), and Atlas Comics (another Marvel forerunner), again mostly on war stories, along with some crime stories and westerns. In the 60s and 70s he worked on such Marvel characters as Captain America, Doctor Strange, Sub-Mariner, and the character for which he would become best known, Daredevil.
His style was very different from his contemporaries (including Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby), and he was known for his attention to detail and his expressive atmospheres. Back then, he and other artists operated under what they called the “Marvel Method” which meant that Lee would tell him the beginning, middle, and end of a story, and Colan would provide approximately 20 pages of art, to which Lee then added the dialogue and captions. In the late 60s, Colan and Lee created the Falcon, who was the first mainstream African-American superhero.
In the 70s, in addition to his continued work on Daredevil, he had an acclaimed run on “The Tomb of Dracula” and was the primary penciller for Steve Gerber’s cult hit “Howard the Duck”. In the 80s, he worked for DC for a time, on characters that included Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Spectre. Later in his career, he added Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade to his list of credits. One of his last works earned him an Eisner Award (Best Single Issue), along with writer Ed Brubaker, for Captain America #601.
Colan passed away June 23, due to complications from cancer and liver disease, at the age of 84. Everyone at SoEntertain.Me sends our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends at this sad time. His life and his work will long be remembered.
