Here's a Gene Colan-drawn tale of a girl trying way too hard to find love and romance. This is another cautionary story from the Marvel Romance Department credited to Stan Lee. Marge is unsuccessful at finding a boyfriend, even though she is cute and a lot of fun. After reading a romance comic book she happened to have lying around the house, Marge realizes that she is changing her behavior and sabotaging her own relationships. She then vows to change but just continues on the same course, not really changing even though she believes she does. She goes from one extreme to another.
Marge then takes relationship cues and adapts her behavior by emulating the characters from such sources as comic books and popular cinema all with disastrous results. Predictably, Marge tries and fails at love using one false persona after another until she finally takes on the long-forgotten character of the one special girl any boy would be sure to fall in love with!
But who could that be? Read and find out!
That's right! Marge choose to be just herself and found true love! Of course, her real self is a flaky, weird, neurotic schizoid with a tenuous grasp on reality as only Stan Lee could write her, but she's cute as heck! Yet, that is okay. As every boy knows, attractiveness goes a long way to balance out the crazy side of the scale.
From Our Love Story #36 (October 1975).
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Share the Gene Colan love!
Friday, May 16, 2008
My two cents on Gene Colan
As many have reported, comics veteran and my personal fave comic artist Gene Colan is ill and is having difficulty meeting the expenses of health care. There are available auctions of his work and some creators have pledged that a portion or all of profits from their material will go to Mr. Colan.
While buying some more Colan goodies is fine, I prefer the direct donation approach the TCJ recommended. You can go to Paypal and make a direct donation to Gene at genecolan@optonline.net. Now, I am by no means rolling in cash myself but I can spare a few bucks out of my Economic Stimulus check for the Colans. While the Government would probably prefer I go buy a television with it I'm using it to reduce my bills a bit and give myself a break, just like much of the populace of America will likewise be doing. Instead of buying that new memory card for the camera, patio furniture or that Starbucks travel mug you had your eye on skip a few coffees in the morning and make a donation to Gene, who gave us all so much over so many years. You'll never miss it and you'll do a good thing.
Get well soon, Gene!
The page above from Tomb of Dracula #50 is actually one of the few pieces of original art I own I have not divested myself of. When I saw it way back in the 1980s at the San Diego Comic Con I just had to have it. No, it isn't for sale and it never will be. When I do part with it I will probably donate it a museum or library or something.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Happy Birthday to Gene Colan, Master of Shadow
In recognition of Gene Colan's 80th Birthday, I'm presenting one of the reasons why he is my favorite comic book artist.
He drew an invisible horse with the anatomy clearly defined by the use of light and shadow. Death's-Head was clearly a Scooby-Doo villain in that it was all special effects. He knew it, his victims knew it and Daredevil knew it. Gene Colan left no doubt that the bad guy of this story was not a supernatural creature but just an murderous bastard with a few clever tricks. Exactly the kind of creep that Daredevil should always fight. In drawing the Hollow Horse, lesser artists would have outlined the mount using dotted lines or drawn the rider as if it was riding only a skeleton, which for the story would have been artistically sloppy.
Not only did Gene Colan break from the Marvel style of emulating Kirby, he was one of the first to use rough pencils in mainstream comics as a way of story-telling, most notably in the Ragamuffins series for Eclipse comics.
All you comic noobs, treat yourself and read some Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula and Nathaniel Dusk. Let "Dr. Colan" heal the scars cut deep into a brain viciously wounded by the art-thugs of Liefeld, Ramos, Bachalo and pretty much anyone else who started working in comics in the 90's.
Other Colan entries *
Groin Injury Saturday: Dracula
* Heh-heh
