Gene Colan, R.I.P.
I was sad to learn tonight of the death of comics artist Gene Colan at the age of 84. Many of us who followed his work and career have been expecting it for some time now, but that doesn’t lessen the blow.
With Jack Kirby and John Buscema, Gene Colan was one of the foremost comics artists of my youth. While Buscema worked in a somewhat more photorealistic version of the “Kirby style” — which was, for all intents and purposes, the Marvel house style — Colan’s work was utterly distinct. His figures had a balletic flow and propulsion unique to comics. Colan was the first comics artist I noticed; I distinctly remember reading an issue of Daredevil and staring at the art and flipping back to the splash page to find out Who drew this?
Somehow or other, Colan became counterculturally cool in the early to mid 1970s, through the strength of his work and partly because of the odd raft of assignments he picked up from Marvel: Daredevil (which eventually saw the character transferred to San Francisco and running into the hippie subculture), Tomb of Dracula (with a lead who was no one’s idea of a hero), Dr. Strange (who applied Eastern mysticism to fight psychedelic threats), and Howard the Duck (an acidic anthropomorphic commentator on the ills of our society). The supple action Gene Colan brought to all these titles pulled the reader through some very strange times.
Two years ago, Marvel invited Colan to draw Captain America #601. This represented a return to the home of his fame, and his final achievement. Although the script (by Ed Brubaker) was weak, the trademark Colan flourishes were there: forced perspective that grabbed your attention, fluidity of movement, and pencils so detailed that inks seemed superfluous. It wasn’t his best work, but it was strong, especially given his terrible eye trouble, and I was glad to see anything by him. My college-age son read it, though, and having no familiarity with this artist, said to me, “What’s with the lame artwork?” Because what has happened in the past 20 years in Marvel comics is this: the photorealists have won. Comics are scripted and “drawn” to resemble film. Which is fine, but it means that with the passing of Gene Colan, we have truly seen the end of an era.
June 24th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
This was a lovely and moving piece. I think I discovered Gene Colan’s work through you (very late in life), when I picked up a Tomb of Dracula anthology at Comic-Con. Unfortunately I have no childhood memories of his work as I never read many of the earlier titles. Thanks for a fitting tribute.
July 12th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
I have fond memories of Gene Colon’s work on Daredevil. He made the fantastic appear real. Maybe I’ll finally get the Marvel Essentials collection of DD.
July 23rd, 2011 at 12:09 am
[…] next thing I went to was a tribute to artist Gene Colan, who died recently. I thought Mark Evanier’s opening remarks were apt: that Gene Colan was lucky, because he […]