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ene Colan is a comic book artist.  Not just any comic book artist, but one of the all-time top masters in the field.  Some comic book artists, such as Gene, develop unique styles all their own, while others follow one "house-style" or another.  Many eventually end up looking dated, but Gene's dynamic, naturalistic style has remained fresh and modern for over 50 years.

I have a personal view that to be truly great, like Gene, a comic book artist must have a singular conception of the human form, all his own, that is instantly recognizable.  For some writers and editors, comic books are about the telling of the story above all other considerations.  As a fan, I don't necessarily disagree with that view, but comic books are typically more enjoyable when the art has a certain "gosh-wow" appeal, and much of that appeal comes from face and figure drawing — beautiful women, handsome men, memorably ugly villains and scary monsters.  The problem is, certain artists specialize in rendering that surface appeal to the exclusion of almost everything else.  They lack good storytelling skills and/or their approach is suited only to a certain genre.  Gene Colan has the all-too-rare gift of combining dynamic, splashy appeal in his draftsmanship, along with masterful storytelling.  His pacing and use of varied camera angles are so good he could have been a movie director.

If Gene wishes to draw in crisp, definite outlines, he does so, and for many other artists that's as far as they can go, because line drawing in the literal sense is what they know how to do.  They may be able to spot patterns of dark areas in their illustrations for visual balance, but they don't go beyond that. Where Gene's talent really sets him apart is his ability to "paint in pencil," with mastery of light and shadow so that he can suggest, with great subtlety, forms and actions emerging from deep within darkness.  Gene dramatically displayed this technique throughout his long tenure on Marvel Comics' gothic horror title Tomb of Dracula, which many people consider to be some of his finest work.  (There is one panel in particular by Gene from the Dracula series that I recall quite vividly ― a corpse with a sign on it that read, "don't bury me again."  I was in college when that came out, yet it still gave me the creeps.  If I find it, I'll post it here.)

Colan understands the human form better than just about any other comic book artist, in my opinion, and he's drawn some of the most powerful and convincing illustrations of superhero characters ever composed.  There's something about Gene's rendering of people that really gives the viewer a sense of the skeletal structure inside the body (sometimes the skeleton by itself is what the story calls for!).  So many other artists seem to have absolutely no idea how people are put together and/or they rely too much on pictures of body builders pumped up on steroids for reference material.  Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee has rightly observed that "Gentleman Gene," as Stan sometimes referred to him, can take the most mundane settings and situations, such as people sitting around a room talking, and make them interesting.  It's been said before, and it's quite true, that Gene can make a hand reaching for a doorknob look suspenseful.  I really can't think of any other comic artist who can pull that off (for that matter, a lot of artists can't even draw hands!).

The first time I saw Gene Colan's artwork was in 1966, in issue #20 of the Marvel comic book Daredevil, the Man Without Fear ― one of the characters with which Colan would become closely associated.  Through an accident (involving radiation, of course) the senses of a man named Matt Murdock were heightened tremendously, with the exception of his sight, which he lost in the accident.  Later, seeking justice against the gangsters who murdered Matt's professional boxer father, Murdock takes action in the persona of Daredevil (aren't origin stories great?).  It is somewhat ironic that Gene illustrated so many stories about a blind superhero, as he later developed serious eye problems.  Ironic for me, as well, that my first exposure to Gene's work was the Daredevil character, as I eventually developed my own serious eye problems.

The samples of Iron Man art on this page are from Tales of Suspense #93 (Sept. 1967).  By the time it came out, I'd been a Gene Colan fan for over a year.  I don't know exactly why this particular issue is such a favorite of mine, but it has an especially strong nostalgic tug.  Gene's version of Iron Man is for many fans, including me, the definitive one; although I must say that the first Iron Man artist, the late Don Heck, consistently did a superior job.  I think more fans would agree with me if Heck had inked every issue himself, as Steve Ditko did for The Amazing Spider-Man.  Click on the panel of original Iron Man art above to watch an Iron Man cartoon (note: it's based on art by Don Heck).  Take note that the voice of Tony Stark's driver, Happy Hogan, is that of actor Paul Soles, best remembered as Hermey, the effeminate elf that wanted to be a dentist in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.  Tony Stark's voice is the late actor John Vernon, who was Dean Wormer in Animal House. Click here to see Wikipedia's entry for Gene.