Eugene Jules Colan (September 1, 1926 – June 23, 2011) was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series. He co-created the Falcon, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics; Carol Danvers, who would become Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel; and the non-costumed, supernatural vampire hunter Blade.

Colan was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005.

Career (More in link below)

Eugene Jules Colan was born September 1, 1926, to Harold Colan, an insurance salesman, and Winifred Levy Colan, an antique dealer, in The Bronx, New York City. His parents ran an antiques business on the Upper East Side. His family was Jewish, and the family's surname had originally been "Cohen". Colan began drawing at age three. "The first thing I ever drew was a lion. I must've absolutely copied it or something. But that's what my folks tell me. And from then on, I just drew everything in sight. My grandfather was my favorite subject". Among his earliest influences, he said in 2001, were the Coulton Waugh adventure comic strip Dickie Dare "in The New York Sun. I was influenced by the style, or the story. Mostly the story. I took it very seriously." He moved with his family "at about age 4" to Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. Later, he would try to copy artist Norman Rockwell's covers to The Saturday Evening Post. Other major art influences were comics artists Syd Shores and Milton Caniff. Colan attended George Washington High School in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, and went on to study at the Art Students League of New York.

Dracula and Batman

Colan in the 1970s illustrated the complete 70-issue run of the acclaimed horror title The Tomb of Dracula as well as most issues of writer Steve Gerber’s cult hit Howard the Duck.

Colan, already one of Marvel’s most well-established and prominent artists, said he had lobbied for the Tomb of Dracula assignment:

When I heard Marvel was putting out a Dracula book, I confronted Stan [Lee] about it and asked him to let me do it. He didn’t give me too much trouble but, as it turned out, he took that promise away, saying he had promised it to Bill Everett. Well, right then and there I auditioned for it. Stan didn’t know what I was up to, but I spent a day at home and worked up a sample, using Jack Palance as my inspiration and sent it to Stan. I got a call that very day: ‘It’s yours.’

Colan and Marv Wolfman created several ing characters for the Dracula series. They introduced Blade in The Tomb of Dracula #15 (Aug. 1977). Gerber later said to Colan: “There really was almost a telepathic connection there. I would see something in my mind, and that is what you would draw! I’ve never had that experience with another artist before or since.”

Colan returned to DC in 1981, following a professional falling out with Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Colan recalled two decades later that Shooter

... hated me. I was miserable. It was the worst experience ... one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. I had to leave Marvel because of him. I wouldn’t stay, and I ... left everything behind. I left a pension plan, everything. I would have stayed, but Shooter gave me such a rough time. In fact, the vice president [of Marvel] had been down in a meeting with me and Shooter, trying to pacify me and get me to stay. And I just wouldn’t do it, cause I could see the writing on the wall, and I knew where Shooter was heading, and I didn’t want any more of it.

He brought his shadowy, moody textures to Batman, serving as the character’s primary artist from 1981 to 1986, penciling most issues of Detective Comics and Batman during this time. His debut issue of the character’s eponymous series was #529 (Aug. 1983).

In the insert preview in DC Comics Presents #21 (July 1982). He was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1985. Additionally, Colan worked with Cary Bates on the 12-issue run of Silverblade; with Greg Potter on the 12-issue run of Jemm, Son of Saturn; and drew the first six issues of Doug Moench’s 1987 revival of The Spectre.

Colan’s style, characterized by fluid figure drawing and extensive use of shadow, was unusual among Silver Age comic artists, and became more pronounced as his career progressed. He usually worked as a penciller, with Frank Giacoia and Tom Palmer as his most frequent inkers. Colan broke from the mass-market comic book penciller/inker/colorist assembly-line system by creating finished drawings in graphite and watercolor on such projects as the DC Comics miniseries Nathaniel Dusk (1984) and Nathaniel Dusk II (1985–86), and the feature “Ragamuffins” in the Eclipse Comics umbrella series Eclipse #3, 5, and 8 (1981–83), with frequent collaborator Don McGregor.

Independent-comics work includes the Eclipse graphic novel Detectives Inc.: A Terror Of Dying Dreams (1985), written by McGregor and reprinted in sepia tone as an Eclipse miniseries in 1987, and the miniseries Predator: Hell & Hot Water for Dark Horse Comics. He contributed to Archie Comics in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drawing and occasionally writing a number of stories. His work there included penciling the lighthearted science-fiction series Jughead’s Time Police #1-6 (July 1990–May 1991), and the 1990 one-shot To Riverdale and Back Again, an adaptation of the NBC TV movie about the Archie characters 20 years later, airing May 6, 1990; Stan Goldberg drew the parts featuring the characters in flashback as teens, while Colan drew adult characters, in a less cartoony style, and Mike Esposito inking both.

Back at Marvel, he collaborated again with Marv Wolfman and veteran inker Al Williamson on a new The Tomb of Dracula series, and with Don McGregor on a Black Panther serial in the Marvel Comics Presents anthology, as well as a six-issue adaptation of Clive Barker’s “The Harrowers: Raiders of the Abyss.”

In 1998, Colan and his Tomb of Dracula writing collaborator, Marv Wolfman, reteamed on Dark Horse Comics three-issue miniseries The Curse of Dracula (July-Sept. 1998). Saying the book required “a much younger and better-looking Dracula” than in their previous series, Colan used “my lawn-boy my model. ... I asked him to do the posing and he did.” For the same company early the next decade, Colan returned to vampires with the 2001 one-shot Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayers, an omnibus that included writer Doug Petrie’s 16-page “Nikki Goes Down”, starring a 1970s vampire slayer seen in one episode of the namesake TV series.

Colan penciled the final pages of Blade vol. 3, #90-91 (Aug.-Sept. 1972).

In the late 1980s, Colan, in addition to his art, taught at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts and Fashion Institute of Technology, and had showings at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York City and at the Elm Street Arts Gallery in Manchester, Vermont. He had relocated to nearby Manchester Center, Vermont, from New York City in 1990 or 1991, and was living there as of 2001. By 2009 at the latest, they had returned to New York City, settling in Brooklyn.

On May 11, 2008, his family announced that Colan, who had been hospitalized for liver failure, had suffered a sharp deterioration in his health. By December, he had sufficiently recovered to travel to an in-store g in California. He continued to produce original comics work as late as 2009, drawing the 40-page Captain America #601 (Sept. 2009), for which he won an Eisner Award.

Link to more accomplishments/life of Colan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Colan

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