Gene Colon's art has movement, even in the still frames. His drawing was like movie frames, which is why when you change the distance you are looking at it from, the faces change. For me, its like water, constantly moving.
I see it this way,Eisner used a lot shadows to make it more moody and cinematic. Colan used a lot of shadows to draw light. When he drew faces, many where good for oil painting portraits.
I have a hard time getting into Gene Colan in his career's final years. That distortion you mentioned becomes more and more pronounced. But I still have his 1991 Dracula mini-series from Epic Comics. And I'd like to read the Night Force hard cover.
I have this book. I know I didn't buy it new and I know I didn't full price, not more than $10 max. I was disappointed by it's content too. Sue the Bronze Age retrospective is nice, and it's cool to see original art and rarely seen commissioned pieces. But I never liked Gene Colan on superheroes. I don't think his talent was made for this. His Iron Man was the worse to me, as it looked too organic, as if Tony Stark was wearing a spandex suit. I didn't like his body proportions and weird awkward action poses. On the other hand, I think he was brilliant on Tomb of Dracula. I understand that this was a Marvel production, and they couldn't go into Gene's long run on DC romance titles in the 50's and 60's, but I would have liked a little more room in their short volume for his work for the Atlas era where he drew war, westerns, and other genres that were more suited to his style. BTW, did you met Gene Colan while you worked at Marvel?
I never met Gene Colan at Marvel but I did meet him at a con a couple of years before he died. This is not the greatest art book. If memory serves it was a fund raiser for Colan that friends of his put together and Marvel approved and put out. I think there were a couple more like this at the time. An Ed Hannigan book comes to mind.
I met Him in the 90s. Don't matter what Gene worked on ,when he was younger...I would be educational for professional artists. My only other choice-Curt Swan.
One of Marvel's top illustrators during its classic period.
A classic talent.
The first comic book I ever read was Daredevil #81, so I became a Gene Colan fan from the very beginning.
I can't remember what book I saw him on first but he was there from the beginning for me too.
Really loved gene colan art. I loved his silverblade from dc some awesome mid 80’s stuff.
I still have my Silver Blade issues on my shelf. I should pull them out and look at them.
Very cool book. Gene Colan has done some amazing work! Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked the video.
One of the greats along with John Buscema and Neal Adams :)
Great book! Thanks for showing it.
You're welcome.
Gene Colon's art has movement, even in the still frames. His drawing was like movie frames, which is why when you change the distance you are looking at it from, the faces change. For me, its like water, constantly moving.
Moving water is a good description.
I see it this way,Eisner used a lot shadows to make it more moody and cinematic.
Colan used a lot of shadows to draw light.
When he drew faces, many where good for oil painting portraits.
Big fan of how he drew Tony Stark in Tales of Suspense.
He did a nice job with Tony.
Colan was the best Iron Man artist ever, IMO. 👍
I have a hard time getting into Gene Colan in his career's final years. That distortion you mentioned becomes more and more pronounced. But I still have his 1991 Dracula mini-series from Epic Comics. And I'd like to read the Night Force hard cover.
I enjoyed Night Force back in the 1980s. I don't even remember much of Colan's work in the 90s. I'll have to look it up sometime.
He burned out on comics and wanted to pursue fine arts. I met Gene Colan and Don Heck.
Except that is Steve Ditko's "Infinity" on the back cover.
They used a Ditko drawing in a Colan book?!? Whoops!
Cliff Meth is a pal of mine... he's alive and well.
Good to hear!
Very nice book, except for the double page spreads, nasty gutter loss.
It's a pretty thin book too but It really wrecks those spreads. So annoying.
I have this book. I know I didn't buy it new and I know I didn't full price, not more than $10 max. I was disappointed by it's content too. Sue the Bronze Age retrospective is nice, and it's cool to see original art and rarely seen commissioned pieces. But I never liked Gene Colan on superheroes. I don't think his talent was made for this. His Iron Man was the worse to me, as it looked too organic, as if Tony Stark was wearing a spandex suit. I didn't like his body proportions and weird awkward action poses. On the other hand, I think he was brilliant on Tomb of Dracula. I understand that this was a Marvel production, and they couldn't go into Gene's long run on DC romance titles in the 50's and 60's, but I would have liked a little more room in their short volume for his work for the Atlas era where he drew war, westerns, and other genres that were more suited to his style. BTW, did you met Gene Colan while you worked at Marvel?
I never met Gene Colan at Marvel but I did meet him at a con a couple of years before he died.
This is not the greatest art book. If memory serves it was a fund raiser for Colan that friends of his put together and Marvel approved and put out. I think there were a couple more like this at the time. An Ed Hannigan book comes to mind.
I met Him in the 90s. Don't matter what Gene worked on ,when he was younger...I would be educational for professional artists. My only other choice-Curt Swan.