Colan vs. Byrne

[Paul McEnery]

Augie --

Any chance you could summarize the conflict for those of us who aren't going to get to the bio that soon?

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Just as soon as I finish laughing over that Sheehan quote. Jeez, what a moron. . .

Back to Colan:

It was the end of times for Colan at Marvel. Jim Shooter just swept into office and effectively pushed Colan out, complaining that his art wasn't up to snuff anymore. He was an old and tired hack who couldn't tell the stories the writers were writing. There was some grain of truth to this, in that Colan was famous for pacing a story as he drew it and winding up with a 12 panel final page to try to wrap everything up. That was nothing new, and his collaborators knew what to expect. There are a couple of funny examples of that in the book. But Shooter went further, saying that Colan would make everything a splash page with a couple of lines for a cloud and be done with it in ten minutes.

In the Fall of 1982, Byrne did an interview in THE COMICS JOURNAL #75. Not surprisingly, Byrne backed his boss, Shooter. "You look at Gene Colan's stuff and 90 percent of the time you can't tell what's going on in the picture." etc. etc.

But it gets even better when Byrne goes on to say, "Colan cheats. Colan just doesn't bother to do it right... Has he had a stroke? Have too many brain cells burned up? He's forgotten what a skeleton looked like?"

He goes on to say that Colan draws everyone with banana feet and duck hands, and more.

It's around page 133 of the book.

-Augie

[Kyle]

Just as soon as I finish laughing over that Sheehan quote. Jeez, what a moron. . .

Wow.

I left because I stopped reading comics in the monthly form.

Now that I've started again, I've been easing my way back in to online life.

It would seem to me that I made a mistake.

And here I remember these being comic book message boards.

[Royal]

Colan by armbar.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Kyle - there are 250 words of comic book discussion in my post you can concentrate on.

And I'm all for keeping politics out of this board.

-Augie

[roach04]

Yeah, Shooter did run Colan out of Marvel - I have an issue of CBA (I think) where Gene's wife says it got to the point where Shooter would send back every page Gene submitted marked-up on stuff Shooter wanted corrected. I've always been a big supporter of the Shooter Marvel and I know business is business, but all the stories surrounding Gene Colan there during that timeframe aren't very nice to think about.

I've never read his Daredevil, but Tomb of Dracula is probably the best comic that Marvel produced in the mid-to-late 1970s (along with MOKF). And I thought Colan was great on Dr. Strange too - his art really took Strange into the dark arts whereas Frank Brunner and Steve Ditko's was more surreal magic.

And...I'd love a Colan commission...gotta save up for one of those.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

They talk about that in the book, as well. I know parts of the book were lifted from previous interviews, and I think there was a CBA one specifically mentioned. But it also got to the point where Colan was ready to quit and his wife talked him into playing one last game with Marvel to see where he stood.

But, yeah, it didn't end particularly well.

I'd kill for a simple headshot commission. Of HOWARD THE DUCK. I'm weird that way.

-Augie

[Paul McEnery]

Back to Colan:

It was the end of times for Colan at Marvel. Jim Shooter just swept into office and effectively pushed Colan out, complaining that his art wasn't up to snuff anymore. He was an old and tired hack who couldn't tell the stories the writers were writing. There was some grain of truth to this, in that Colan was famous for pacing a story as he drew it and winding up with a 12 panel final page to try to wrap everything up. That was nothing new, and his collaborators knew what to expect. There are a couple of funny examples of that in the book. But Shooter went further, saying that Colan would make everything a splash page with a couple of lines for a cloud and be done with it in ten minutes.

In the Fall of 1982, Byrne did an interview in THE COMICS JOURNAL #75. Not surprisingly, Byrne backed his boss, Shooter. "You look at Gene Colan's stuff and 90 percent of the time you can't tell what's going on in the picture." etc. etc.

But it gets even better when Byrne goes on to say, "Colan cheats. Colan just doesn't bother to do it right... Has he had a stroke? Have too many brain cells burned up? He's forgotten what a skeleton looked like?"

He goes on to say that Colan draws everyone with banana feet and duck hands, and more.

It's around page 133 of the book.

-Augie
Thanks, Augie.