Gene Colan

Gene Colan (June 2009)

Eugene Jules Colan , pseudonym Adam Austin (born September 1, 1926 in New York City , † June 23, 2011 there ) was an American comic artist .

Colan was best known as an illustrator of the comics Daredevil , Howard the Duck and Tomb of Dracula . For Tomb of Dracula he developed the comic character Blade together with Marv Wolfman , who later became known mainly through the film adaptations with Wesley Snipes in the role of the "Daywalker".

Life

After attending Washington High School in New York City and studying at the Art Students League, Colan took part in the Second World War from 1943 as a member of the Air Force in the Pacific region . At this time Colan worked for the first time as a professional draftsman, contributing images for the daily newspaper The Manila Times in his spare time .

After returning to the States, Colan began working as a full-time comic book artist in 1944. In 1946 Colan hired as a draftsman at Timely Publications, which later became Marvel Comics . Colan switched to Timely's competitor DC Comics as early as 1948 - when Timely reduced its workforce due to falling sales . There he was mainly responsible for war comics such as All-American Men at War and Our Army at War , a western series and the adventure title Captain Storm .

In the further course of the 1950s Colan, whose style is mainly characterized by the skilful use of shadows and his organic-flowing lines, worked for DC Comics and Marvel at the same time. In addition to the work on the aforementioned DC war series, there were similar projects for Marvel, such as: Battle , Battle Action , Battle Ground , Battlefront , GI Tales , Marines in Battle , Navy Combat and Navy Tales .

In the early 1960s Colan worked as a freelance draftsman on various romantic love comics at DC and also created superhero stories for Marvel Comics for the first time under the pseudonym Adam Austin. In particular, he drew sub-mariner stories for Tales to Astonish and Iron Man stories for Tales of Suspense . In the mid-1960s, engagements in series such as Avengers , Captain America , Dr. Strange and especially the series about the scarlet turned “devil guy” Daredevil .

The Daredevil series, for which Colan drew more than eighty issues between 1966 and 1973 (# 20-100, as well as Annual # 1), became the series with which Colan's name is most frequently identified to this day. Between 1974 and 1979 and 1997, a total of eighteen more issues in the series followed.

After the end of his work on Daredevil, Colan devoted himself to the horror comic series Tomb of Dracula , also published by Marvel , which he oversaw over its complete, seventy editions, running time. In the last few years of the decade, Colan attracted more attention for his work on Steve Gerber's anarchic science fiction comic, Howard the Duck , which is about the genre-parodic adventures of an extraterrestrial, humanoid duckman stranded on earth in an accident.

In the first half of the 1980s Colan was again mainly working for DC after falling out with Marvel's publisher Jim Shooter . For DC Colan worked as the main illustrator of the two main series around the superhero Batman - Batman (# 340, 343–345, 348–351) and Detective Comics (# 528–538, 540–546 and 555–567) - mostly stories illustrated by Gerry Conway and Doug Moench , and on the series about the Amazon Wonder Woman (# 288–305).

In the later 1980s he worked with writer Marv Wolfman on the fourteen-part action series Night Force , with Cary Bates on the twelve-part series Silverblade , with Greg Potter on the space saga Jemm, Son of Saturn, and co-authored the first six issues with Doug Moench 1987 re-started series about the almighty spirit of revenge The Specter .

With his friend Don McGregor Colan presented the miniseries Nathaniel Dusk (1984) and Nathaniel Dusk II (1985-86) and the series Ragamuffins published in Eclipse's anthology series Eclipse.

With the graphic novel Detective. Inc .: A Terror of Dying Dreams , he first presented his own work in 1985, which was followed by work for Dark Horse Comics ( Predator: Hell & Hot Water ) and Archie Comics (Jughead's Time Police) . In 1990 Colan drew the One-Shot To Riverdale and Back Again , an adaptation of the NBC television film of the same name. He worked for Marvel in the 1990s on a miniseries about the African-American superhero Black Panther and on a revival of Tomb of Dracula.

In the 2000s, Colan drew several booklets of the comic book adaptation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer . He also gave courses at the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology, and was the subject of retrospectives in New York and Vermont.

Most recently Colan lived in Vermont with his wife Adrienne and was still working on the visualization of a story written by Ed Brubaker about the superhero Captain America .

Exhibitions

• 2008: Retrospective "Colan: Visions of a Man without Fear" at The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, November 15, 2008 to March 15, 2009

Awards

• 2009: Comic Art Professional Society's Sergio Award
• 2008: Sparky Award
• 2005: Induction into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame
• 1979: Eagle Award in the Favorite Comic Book category for Howard the Duck
• 1977: Eagle Award in the category: Favorite Comic Book (humor)
• 1974: Shazam Award in the category: Best Penciller (Dramatic Division)

Web links

• Literature by and about Gene Colan in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gene Colan in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Renowed comic book artist Gene Colan dies 84 ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at wnyc.org, accessed June 24, 2011  
2. ^ Obituary: Horror specialist at Marvel comic artist Gene Colan has died, by Stefan Pannor, Spiegel, June 24, 2011