CBR: Gene Colan Dead at the Age of 84

[CBR News]

A legend of the comics industry has passed away. Gene Colan, known best for his work on Daredevil and co-creating the character Blade, has died at the age of 84.


Full article here.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Awwww man.

RIP Gene.

[Ray Dillon]

Such a huge inspiration. Worked 70 years in comics! Won an Eisner for drawing Captain America #601 LAST YEAR! At age 83!! What an incredible man!

[Ben D]

Such a huge inspiration. Worked 70 years in comics! Won an Eisner for drawing Captain America #601 LAST YEAR! At age 83!! What an incredible man!

He was indeed a great artist and it was a delight to behold his art. He will be forever missed.

[Rheged]

Very sorry to hear this. Condolences to his family. He'll be missed. Gene Colan was great on any book he did, but I loved him best on my two favorites: The Sub-Mariner (and in Tales to Astonish) and Tomb of Dracula.

[verslibre]

One of the GREATEST comics artists EVER has left us.

Tomb Of Dracula, Nathaniel Dusk, Captain America, Daredevil...everything Gene drew was stunning.

Now you have all the time in the cosmos to draw, Gene. R.I.P.

[StoneGold]

Sucks, but he really wasn't doing to well towards the end. I got to wrangle him at comic con a couple years ago, getting him across the show floor wasn't easy.

[whitedevilxiii]

The man was an inspiration to us all and he will be immortalized through his work

[ian33407]

His DD work was my first comic-book reading, it was an absolute discovery and an absolute revelation..

RIP mister Colan, but during your lifetime you were already missed..

[Predabot]

We've lost another of the greats... :( And the art-form is the lesser for it.

Loved him on Tomb of Dracula, but I think some of his best work was actually towards the end. His commissions were truly awesome pieces of art, that each owner can cherish for a long time to come.

Rest in Peace, Mr Colan.

And my condolences to his family, and my appreciation to Clifford Meth who's done so much for him trough the last few years.

[Iangould]

An excellent book about Mr Colan:




Probably my favorite part of the book is where the interviewer takes him through the process of creating a Dracula cover and the accompanying illustrations show each step in the process.

Everyone talks about Colan's work as being impressionistic and talks about the interplay of light and shadow. At times, with the seemingly loose and half-drawn figures and the shadows you can think there's relatively little effort put into a Colan illustration.

Remember the old saw about the absence of all signs of effort being the mark of a real master?

As Secrets shows, Gene Colan was a master. The final piece with that characteristic effortless mastery is the result of multiple stages of photo reference, compositional studies and preliminary drawings.

Another thing about Colan I'd like to point out: his sheer versatility.

This is a man who was doing Tomb of Dracula and Howard the Duck. (The Gerber/Colan Howard , unlike essentially every other version of the character was a thing of sheer beauty.

So every month Colan alternated between a highly cerebral (by 70's Marvel standards) moody horror comic and a completely insane off-the-wall humor comic.

They did share one thing though - when most mainstream comics were confined to New York (with occasional forays into other worlds) and were populated with musclebound demigods - both Dracula and Howard regularly traveled all over North America (in Howard's case) and all over the world and both titles had gigantic casts.

Offhand, I can't think of anybody, with the possible exception of Wally Wood, with the range and facility that Colan demonstrated.

[ultimatewolf]

Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula, I was in my early teens when Gene was cranking out the great stuff and I will miss him. Truly a great great artist.

[Ubiquitous]

Another legend passes away. My condolensces go out to his family and all of us who were inspired by, and enjoyed his work.
It's a sad, sad day.

[edhopper]

My favorite artist. I do not know if there has been another artist in the field with as unique a style. Nobody drew like Gene. He was so prolific we sometimes forget how brilliant he was.
Starting with his first Dr. Strange stories in Strange Tales, he reinvented the comic page with non grid layouts and panels overlapping and flowing into each other.
On top of this was his unsurpassed penciling.

[Sean Walsh]

I met him at a NYC show several years ago. What an incredibly nice man.

RIP Mr. Colan.