By: Nick Winstead on June 24, 2011
A giant of the comic book industry has fallen. Media sources report today that noted comic book artist Gene Colan has passed away after complications from a broken hip and a battle with liver cancer. He was 84 and passed away late last night around 11PM, and leaves a lasting legacy of startling iconic work. Colan got his start in 1944, drawing adventure comics before enlisting in the Army Air Corps. From there his career vaulted into fame and notoriety, as he took off in the Silver Age with his work on Daredevil, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and, perhaps most famously, his work on The Tomb of Dracula in the 1970s.
In 2005 Colan was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame for his work, and even won in 2010 a Best Single Issue Eisner for his work on Captain America #601. Another milestone in his career is his co-creation of The Falcon, one of the very first mainstream African-American suerheroes in comics. In the early to mid 1980s he worked on Detective Comics and had a brief stint on Wonder Woman as well. Colan said of his work, ““I kept [my art] fresh and original by approaching it each time as if it were the first time…I wanted to be confusing, and I wanted to be complex, and I wanted the reader to think about it a little bit, even though it’s not a thing to take seriously. But I wanted them to take it seriously, because I took it seriously.”
