Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #25 - Gene Colan!

Gene "The Dean" Colan was always part of the comics landscape for me and many other second-generation Marvel fans. We didn't know that Colan, like many of his colleagues at that time were returning Marvel artists, once having worked for the company long before under its Atlas title. But few of the new artists brought such a sophisticated world vision as did Colan. Colan drew stuff unlike anyone else, it seemed real, but as if it were a bizarre dark reflection of reality. His early work on Daredevil really to my mind made the title and he not Frank Miller is the definitive DD artist. DD was a character in search of a direction and had floundered despite artists like Joe Orlando, Wally Wood, Bill Everett, and John Romita having taken a stab. But it was Colan who found the way into the wacky world of Matt Murdock and his friends. When I popped into comics Colan had been tapped to draw a little comic called Marvel's Space-Born Hero Captain Marvel. He drew the origin tales in Marvel Super-Heroes and the first four issues of the comic itself before giving way to Don Heck and later Dick Ayers among many others. But it's Colan's visions of the darks of space which made Captain Marvel work for this young fan. He also drew a little one-shot tale penned by Arnold Drake title Guardians of the Galaxy. I wonder happened to those guys? Colan was a major artist for Doctor Strange and Iron Man both. Later in concert with Marv Wolfman Colan became a powerhouse horror maven when they fashioned the epic comic The Tomb of Dracula. Unappreciated by the bosses at Marvel, Colan left for the greener pastures of DC and took on Batman and Wonder Woman. Colan seem to work for anyone after that, with some good Indy work in his resume, again attempting to tap that horror vein he'd plumbed so well years before. But it will always be Captain Marvel and Daredevil that make Gene the "Dean" in my book.

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