As I'm sure many of you know by now, artist Gene Colan is ill. I worked with Gene for many years, starting with a story for Tower of Shadows, then Tomb of Dracula, Night Force, Curse of Dracula, Goofy (yes, Goofy!) and most recently a story for The Simpsons. Every job Gene did was not only wonderfully illustrated, but brilliantly told. Gene is a master craftsman.

But then I knew that long before Gene and I worked together. I was a fan of his when he was drawing at Warren Magazines, then a fan of this Iron Man artist I never heard of whose credit was Adam Austin, because Gene, who was working at DC, wasn't supposed to be working at Marvel, too. Gene just drew better than anyone else and his unique style popped off the page.

Gene's art has always been singular in comics. You see hundreds of Kirby imitators, lots of Buscema clones, those who try to mimic Jim Lee or name an artist, but nobody has ever tried to copy Gene's work, because it's truly unique in so many, many ways. You can always tell when Gene draws a page. His characters have personality, emotion, and somehow when you look at them, you feel they have a past as well. They are people who have lived. Who have weight and gravitas. His work on Tomb of Dracula among others is filled with human emotion. His characters appear to be photographic, but what makes Gene special is they aren't. They are so real but at the same time they are a pure artist's vision. I've talked in the past about a scene I remember reading when I was just a fan of Gene's before we worked together. I can't tell you which book it was in, but the drawings has always stuck in my mind. Gene did a photo-realistic version of a car speeding through the city. At least it looked photo-realistic until you truly analyzed it. To give the car a sense of speed, the car was not only driving off the pavement but the metal of the car was actually bent in a way that made it seem it was speeding faster than you can imagine. Yet, again, when you looked at it it seemed like a piece of beautiful advertising illustration. Gene is an illustrator as well as a cartoonist. He is an artist who made you feel that what you saw was 100% real, but to achieve that effect he bent physics to his whim.

Every month when we worked together on Tomb of Dracula or later Night Force or Curse of Dracula, or whatever, Gene would call me after he received the plot or script and ask questions about the story. He was involved and he cared about making the story work as best he could. The wonder of Gene's magic is that every time I did a story with him, it looked so much better than I ever could have imagined.

As an artist Gene has always been truly special. But even more importantly, Gene is a great person, humble, and open to everyone who comes by his convention table. Behind the scenes Gene is the same. As I said above, we spoke all the time whenever we worked together, and Gene's friendship as well as his commitment to his work is unparalleled.

Gene has enriched all our lives with his incredible body of work, now let's return the favor and give him all our very best wishes.

Labels: Gene Colan