Picture of author.

Gene Colan (1926–2011)

Author of Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 1

105+ Works 1,134 Members 25 Reviews 2 Favorited

About the Author

Also includes: Adam Austin (2)

Image credit: comicbookresources

Series

Works by Gene Colan

Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 1 (2003) — Illustrator — 131 copies
Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 2 (2004) — Illustrator — 82 copies
Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 3 (2004) — Illustrator — 69 copies
Essential Doctor Strange, Volume 3 (2007) — Illustrator — 51 copies
Tomb of Dracula Omnibus, Volume 1 (2008) — Illustrator — 37 copies
The Life of Captain Marvel (1990) — Illustrator — 32 copies
The Curse of Dracula (2005) — Illustrator — 27 copies
Stewart the Rat (1980) — Illustrator — 25 copies
Marvel's Greatest Superhero Battles (1978) — Illustrator — 24 copies
Drácula — Illustrator — 19 copies
Tomb of Dracula - Volume 1 (2010) — Illustrator — 18 copies
Black Panther Epic Collection: Panther's Prey (2021) — Illustrator — 11 copies
The Tomb of Dracula: Day of Blood! Night of Redemption (1991) — Illustrator — 7 copies
DAREDEVIL OMNIBUS VOL. 2 (2023) 5 copies
Marvel Super-Heroes, Vol. 1 #13 (1968) — Illustrator — 4 copies
Secret Origins (1986-1990) #05 (1986) — Illustrator — 4 copies
Detective Comics # 536 — Illustrator — 3 copies
Tomb of Dracula [1972] #18 — Illustrator — 3 copies
Tales of Suspense #94 (1967) — Illustrator — 3 copies
Howard the Duck (1976) #4 (1976) 3 copies
Captain Marvel, Vol. 1, #1 — Illustrator — 2 copies
Doctor Strange [1968] #183 — Illustrator — 2 copies
Howard the Duck (1976) #26 (1978) — Illustrator — 2 copies
BB, 02: Batman vs. Poison Ivy — Illustrator — 2 copies
Tales of Suspense #95 — Illustrator — 2 copies
Howard the Duck (1976) #8 (2000) — Illustrator — 2 copies
Tales of Suspense #78 (1966) — Illustrator — 2 copies
Tales of Suspense #76 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #79 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #81 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #80 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #92 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #93 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tomb of Dracula, Vol. 2 # 6 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #75 — Cover artist; Illustrator — 1 copy
Dracula Pin-ups — Illustrator — 1 copy
Voices! 1 copy
Daredevil, Vol. 1 #368 (1964) — Illustrator — 1 copy
Detective Comics # 540 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Tales of Suspense #77 — Illustrator — 1 copy

Associated Works

Blade II [2002 film] (2002) — Screenwriter — 319 copies
Son of Origins of Marvel Comics (1975) — Illustrator — 142 copies
Essential Howard The Duck (2002) — Illustrator — 128 copies
The Savage Sword of Conan, Volume 3 (2008) — Illustrator — 114 copies
Blade: Trinity [2004 film] (2004) — Screenwriter — 111 copies
Captain America: Road to Reborn (2009) — Illustrator — 106 copies
Essential Moon Knight, Volume 1 (2006) — Illustrator — 105 copies
Essential Daredevil, Volume 1 (2002) — Illustrator — 87 copies
Blazing Combat (2009) — Illustrator — 86 copies
Showcase Presents: House of Mystery, Vol. 2 (2007) — Illustrator — 71 copies
Hellboy: Weird Tales (2014) — Illustrator — 69 copies
Wonder Woman: A Celebration of 75 Years (2016) — Illustrator — 59 copies
Essential Werewolf By Night, Volume 1 (2005) — Illustrator — 50 copies
Essential Killraven, Volume 1 (2005) — Illustrator — 49 copies
Legion of Super-Heroes: The Curse (2011) — Illustrator — 49 copies
Batman in the Eighties (2004) — Illustrator — 40 copies
Essential Marvel Horror, Volume 2 (2008) — Illustrator — 29 copies
Wonder Woman: Featuring over Five Decades of Great Covers (1972) — Illustrator — 29 copies
Marvel Romance (2006) — Illustrator — 26 copies
The Very Best of Marvel Comics (1991) — Illustrator — 26 copies
Wolverine Epic Collection: Back to Basics (2019) — Illustrator — 20 copies
Showcase Presents: Sea Devils Vol. 1 (2012) — Illustrator — 19 copies
Marvel Firsts: The 1970s Volume 1 (2012) — Illustrator — 19 copies
Blade: Black & White TPB (2004) — Illustrator — 16 copies
Detectives Inc.: A Terror of Dying Dreams (1999) — Illustrator — 16 copies
The Son of Satan Classic (2016) — Illustrator — 16 copies
Secrets in the Shadows: The Art & Life of Gene Colan (2005) — Illustrator, some editions — 13 copies
Werewolf by Night: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1 (2017) — Contributor — 13 copies
Creepy - The Classic Years (1991) — Illustrator — 12 copies
Perverts, Pedophiles & Other Theologians (1997) — Illustrator, some editions — 11 copies
Daredevil : the Man Without Fear — Illustrator — 9 copies
Monsters Unleashed (1973) #4 — Illustrator — 6 copies
Captain America Homecoming #1 (2014) — Illustrator — 5 copies
The Bronze Gazette (#89) — Illustrator — 1 copy
DC Sampler (1983) #2 — Illustrator — 1 copy
Marvel Super-Heroes, Vol. 1 #28 — Illustrator — 1 copy

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Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

Shallow and dated storyline. Gene Colan art work is good.
 
Flagged
wvlibrarydude | Jan 14, 2024 |
Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

After Don McGregor's Black Panther run from Jungle Action was cancelled back in 1976, he actually got invited back two more times: he did a story called Panther's Quest published in Marvel Comics Presents in 1989 and a four-issue prestige miniseries called Panther's Prey in 1991. This "Epic Collection" collects both of them, along with five short Black Panther tales by other creators from the same era.

Panther's Quest sends the Black Panther into South Africa in order to find his mother, missing since childhood. Sure, we did apartheid in a thinly fictionalized version of South Africa in the immediate previous Black Panther storyline, but why not do it again in the real place? This story ran twenty-five biweekly installments of (usually) eight pages... and it is interminable. Like, eight pages will go by and all that's happened is Black Panther has punched a guy. One thing I liked about McGregor's Panther's Rage was how it really made you feel the difficulty of what the Black Panther did, but this goes too far with it, because everything is immensely difficult, everything is enormously slowed down, it never feels like we're getting anywhere, being crushed under the weight of McGregor's enormously wordy style. Being set in South Africa means we again lose the worldbuilding that made Panther's Rage so interesting, too. It has it moments, including some nice side characters in South Africa, but ultimately, a tedious slog with little to say.

Panther's Prey almost has the opposite problem: this is made up of four forty-page installments and is all over the place. Wakanda is modernizing, connecting with the outside world more—this is nicely demonstrated by the appearance of a food court selling pizza. But with the benefits of connecting to the outside world also come the downsides, and someone is smuggling crack into Wakanda and vibranium out... using an army of cyborg pterodactyls, of course! The story follows this main storyline, but also T'Challa's mother acclimating to life in Wakanda, what Monica Lynne's been up to in the U.S. since we last saw her in Jungle Action (McGregor ignores her later appearances), the guy organizing the drug smuggling operation, and updates to various members of Black Panther's Wakandan supporting cast. There's a lot of nice moments here but overall not much actually seems to happen despite the fact the story runs over one hundred and fifty pages. Black Panther doesn't even meet the villain until about ten pages from the end, and beats him by luck in about six seconds. And in the end, crack is still a problem in Wakanda! Way to cheer me up, McGregor.

The other stories here are nice to have for completism's sake, but not very memorable.

What's interesting to me reading Black Panther in terms of publication chronology is to see the development of the character I know from the movies. His mother, Raimonda, debuted in this volume, but she's not the imperious ruler of screen, but a South African woman romanced by T'Challa's father who returned to her homeland after her husband died. Many elements of the mythos have yet to appear at all. There's also still no sense of cohesion: McGregor doesn't really acknowledge that anyone used the character other than him since 1976. (Can't imagine why the "Black Musketeers" don't come up in discussions of T'Challa's family!)
… (more)
 
Flagged
Stevil2001 | Oct 30, 2023 |
If you ever need proof that you can't go back again, this, right here, is your proof.

I'll leave it to everyone else to expound on how marvelous Wolfman and Colan were on their original Tomb of Dracula run (and they'd be right). Instead, I'll focus on a couple of things here.

At the beginning of this volume, Wolfman talks about how writing horror is different from most other writing, because you have to grab the reader by connecting with their fears and common dreads, about emotion. He states, "Horror demands that you create a nightmare from which the reader cannot awaken."

He's not wrong.

Unfortunately, he doesn't follow his own rule. Instead of connecting to our fears, he connects to our boredom with a facile political story that refuses to hook us because he takes absolutely no time to allow us to connect with either his heroes or Dracula himself. The characters are sketched in with the most rudimentary strokes and put through their low-stakes (pardon the pun) tasks.

There's no connection. And instead of creating a nightmare from which I couldn't awaken, he created a sleep aid that I couldn't fight off.

Colan's art was okay, but once again, nowhere near his best. Dracula deserves the deep blacks and rich reds that ink and a good colourist can bring. Greyish pencils and muted colours do a disservice to his art.

Go back and read this team's Marvel Dracula, but avoid this.
… (more)
 
Flagged
TobinElliott | 2 other reviews | Sep 3, 2021 |

Awards

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Sam Rosen Letterer (175, Avengers 61)
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Marina Ariza Translator
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Statistics

Works
105
Also by
48
Members
1,134
Popularity
#22,631
Rating
3.8
Reviews
25
ISBNs
106
Languages
4
Favorited
2

Charts & Graphs