Sinnott Inking Challenge Spotlight on Gene Colan

Gene Colan first broke into the comic book business in the Golden-age in 1944 at Fiction House before he did a short stint in the Army Air Corps towards the end of WWII and returning to civilian life and Timely Comics, the precursor to Marvel Comics, in 1946. He was hired on staff and worked on Captain America Comics until the majority of staff was let go in the 1948 industry downturn and he went to freelance at National Comics, the precursor of DC, as well as taking on some Atlas assignments (what Timely became before Marvel). After the Marvel Silver-age launch, Gene was hired for superhero work in the mid-’60s under the pseudonym “Adam Austin” for Sub-Mariner in Tales to Astonish and Iron Man in Tales of Suspense. Stan Lee was able to convince Gene to move over to Marvel and use the “Marvel Method”, using his own name in credits, which lead to series stints on Doctor Strange, Daredevil and Captain America, where he worked with Joe Sinnott and co-created the first African-American mainstream superhero, the Falcon. He also co-created the Kree-born Captain Marvel and the original Guardians of the Galaxy. In the 1970s, he started a long, uninterrupted run with Marv Wolfman on Tomb of Dracula (most-brilliantly inked by Tom Palmer) for 70 issues, where he co-created Blade the Vampire Slayer, did most of the issues of Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck series and even a brief return to Daredevil. After a falling out with Marvel editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, Gene moved over to DC Comics in 1981, where he had memorable runs on Batman and Wonder Woman and new properties like Night Force, Silverblade, Jemm, Son of Saturn and Nathaniel Dusk. This would be followed by independent work at Eclipse, Archie and Dark Horse before returning back to Marvel in the late 1980s into the 2000s, even returning to characters Dracula and Daredevil. In 2005, he would be inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame. His final work was for Captain America #601 in 2009 for which he won an Eisner Award before passing away in 2011 at the age of 84.