With his tilted angles and grim shadows, Gene Colan was one of the undisputed masters of horror art and he proved it time and time again during his lengthy run on Batman comics, in the early eighties. Colored by the excellent Adrienne Roy and (over)written by Gerry Conway and Doug Moench, those comics had quite a moody style, sometimes not miles away from the Saga of the Swamp Thing series coming out at the time. So, keeping with this month’s theme, I figured it’d make sense to highlight a trio of sequences drawn by Colan that wouldn’t look out of place in any self-respecting spine-chiller…
Let’s start with Gene Colan’s first issue. Inked by Adrian Gonzales and lettered by Ben Oda, ‘A Man Called Mole!’ pits the Dark Knight against a monster who travels under the earth. Although perhaps not scary enough to make Wes Craven crap his underwear, this suspenseful sequence early on establishes the villain’s modus operandi while crafting a menacing crescendo that culminates in a nasty punchline:
Batman #340
Moving on to another stylish opening, this one from an issue in which Poison Ivy seeks to manipulate the photosynthesis of her living plant-men mutations so that they’ll receive and store energy, not from sunlight, but from the brainwaves of executives of the Wayne Foundation. As a plan, it’s as delightfully farfetched as usual, but Gene Colan beautifully nails the executives’ disturbing, hypnotized look:
Detective Comics #534
From Knightfall to Batman R.I.P., there is a long tradition of having the Caped Crusader brutally beaten down and disparagingly dragged through the mud before somehow bouncing back with a vengeance. This really used to be a thing in eighties’ adventure stories – and while The Dark Knight Returns and The Cult are probably the best-remembered examples from the world of Batman comics, there was a vicious tale that came before, vividly yet bleakly illustrated by Gene Colan. Here is a great sequence from that tale, done through Batman’s P.O.V.:
“With his tilted angles and grim shadows, Gene Colan was one of the undisputed masters of horror art… ”
So, so true. Colan’s style was made for horror – especially vampires. I used to love his stuff in Marvel’s Dracula and Blade stories. Funny thing, I always preferred his work in black and white, his style seemed more suited to that. In the UK during the 70s we had the comic ‘Dracula Lives’ which reprinted US stories mostly in b&w. I fell in love with his style then, and when I finally got to see some US editions in all their-coloured glory it was actually a bit of a let-down. But b&w Colan will always be THE horror artist for me.