Worth repeating: Gene Colan and motion

I've said it before...

I think one of the few artists who can effectively convey a sense of motion in their art is Jack Kirby and my own personal comic-deity, Gene Colan. As Erik Larsen observes in a recent Comic Book Resources column One Fan's Opinion:

One of the many things we don't have in comics is motion. Motion, sound, smell, taste-- most of the big ones-- we don't do. In movies, characters move. In comics, we can only approximate it, at best. Gene comes about as close as we're likely to get. Gene's characters are often a blur of motion. I've heard he's a big movie buff and it shows on every page. While most of us struggle to make a guy in a suit look like anything other than a mannequin standing in a store window, Gene pulls it off with ease. His characters live and breathe.

When was the last time you saw a character get hit and the artist effectively included the illusion of impact? Probably almost never, I bet. Most artists, even the technically proficient ones, may as well be posing action figures and using them as art references. Using Phototshop to blur a scene is a trick, and while pretty and useful, is not art. Colan can give still images inertia and convey realistic cause and effect.


Rachel Van Helsing gets Drac-slapped in Tomb of Dracula #68 (Feb 1979)

Wonder Woman never has her breasts fly in opposite directions when she gets punched.