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Friday, April 15, 2005
Gene Colan for Hall of Fame
I don't really have much to say about the Eisner nominations. The part I'm probably most excited about is that I hope, I really hope, that Gene Colan gets into the Hall of Fame.
Colan has always been a favorite of mine since I found his work through Marvel's spiffy Essential line. First it was Essential Howard the Duck, where his masterful mix of funny animal style, sci-fi superhero work and his own brand of sweeping panel layouts and seductive facial structure made me want to read more of this guy. The Essential Tomb of Dracula reprints offer up Colan's artwork in a setting perfect for it: a dark tale of vampires and the adventurers after them. No one else can better put across the evil genius of Dracula or the mood of London at midnight with monsters on the prowl than Gene "The Dean" Colan. Since then I have found his work in the 1987 Spectre series, a character perfect for Colan's artwork but Doug Moench's writing (it was originally meant to be HTD's Steve Gerber!) isn't too good, and the Superman mini-series The Phantom Zone. I'll get around to buying the Essential Daredevil books soon enough, but I also hope Marvel sees fit to reprint his work on Dr. Strange and DC reprints more of his work on Batman, some of which ended up in the volume Batman in the Eighties. If you can find it, pick up What If? #21 which gives us the rare glimpse of Colan drawing the Fantastic Four.
Colan is a master of comics who has delighted millions of fans with his own startling and original style of "painting with pencils." There are many people on the list of Hall of Fame nominees who deserve to get in (and it makes no sense, other than to be needlessly sadistic, to list Hall of Fame nominees so we all know who didn't make the grade this year) and Colan is definitely one of the most deserving.
As for the rest of the Eisner nominations I only have the following thoughts: Kevin Huizenga beats all for short story, that issue of Demo was one of the weakest (I stopped buying the rest of the series after it), I'd love to see Johnny Ryan make an acceptance speech, Astonishing X-Men and Ex Machina are being drawn by artists too good to be doing those books and Tokyo Tribes should win for best foreign material (I'm sure the other works are good but do they have guys being fucked to death by big fat crime bosses? Where's that issue of Daredevil?).
I attend the Eisners last year. I liked some of it, but combining award shows with comics leaves one with a depressing feeling only heroic amounts of alcohol can fix.
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