I turn 49 in just four short months, but I become a child again when I get a note like this one:Hey, Cliff,
Even sight unseen-- thanx for your Stan Lee quotes in your Colan book.
I hope it's a best seller and Gene gets a lotta cash and you get a lotta cash and glory!
Excelsior, Mr. Biographer!
Stan
The Invincible Gene Colan is scheduled for release from Marvel Entertainment in February, 2010.
We're convinced that Clifford Meth is 1,000 years old at the very least. You step into the world of his fictional creations within the first paragraph of everything he's ever published; and his worlds are never ones we're familiar with...yet we are. It's the humanity, the truth of human nature he observes so keenly as to put Shakespeare on alert. We want to cry, even when the sadness is not overtly expressed, or bust out laughing, even though a moment is bitter. It's impossible to articulate why or how Cliff does this to his audience. It's impossible to know how he, in his one singular life, can so deeply know and express the lives of others... You marvel at his genius at turning a phrase and virtually creating new words by complimenting them and combining them with others, but he never fails to sweep me away and leave us humbled and awed by his talent."
--Gene & Adrienne Colan
If I've been cranky or unresponsive it's a combination of the flu (for days, apparantly) and an inner ear infection that the doctor told me I caught in the nick of time, but may still end up rupturing my eardrum. Just in time for the October Classics.
As we await Gene's return home tomorrow, let's return to my interview notes with Gene, which were done in preparation of Marvel's forthcoming INVINCIBLE GENE COLAN:Your Iron Man was more emotional than Steve Ditko's, Jack Kirby's, and Don Heck's earlier versions of the character. Was that difficult to portray?
Gene: I thought the eyes and the mouth were the most expressive part of Iron Man's emotions. I felt something had to be left out [of the mask] because of the fact that his face was mostly metal. He has to see and in order to keep a sort of masculine, heroic look, I would have to put the eyes in.
I played down any protrusion of what would indicate his nose. See, the eyes and nose are the things that complete a face. I didn't want to "complete" the face. So I had to leave something out. By eliminating his nose, the eyes would tell it all: whether he was angry, sad...whatever the emotion, it would be revealed by the eyes and mouth. I left an ever so slight opening on the mouth. Actually (laughing) I no longer remember how I did it! But it certainly was a challenge! And thank God for the eraser! I developed his face with tremendous help from the eraser as I went along with the plot by adding and subtracting facial expressions until I got what I wanted.
Meth's special blend of bitterness and hope makes his dystopian tale intriguing, disturbing, and vaguely uplifting... In a future where America has fallen to off-shore corporate interests, the best career path for a young man and woman is to be beautiful...Though beauty may be only skin deep, it turns out that the advertising tattoos Meth's protagonists sport go further than anyone knew...Supported by spot illustrator Dave Gutierrez, the writer questions if true love can survive, even flourish, in a society so inundated by messages that everything has become meaningless.
At long last... October 24 at The Crazy Donkey in Long Island.
That night I’m sitting at a bar around ten o’clock, watching people, and sure enough I notice Frank Sinatra sitting down the corner of the bar with two blondes. Sinatra goes to play pool and I witness a scene between Sinatra and a guy named Harlan Ellison, and I write it down on a shirt board. But I don’t get it all, so I go up to Ellison and ask him if I can talk to him the next day. He gives me his phone number and address.When we speak in person I ask him not just what everyone said, but what he was thinking. I always ask people what was on their mind. Were you surprised by Sinatra? Had you me him before? Did you think he was going to hit you, or did you want to pop him?
From what I recall, Sinatra made a Jew crack at Harlan. From what I recall, no one created a petition to protest the matter.
Cliff: Was it particularly challenging following Jack Kirby on Captain America?
Gene: I certainly admired Jack Kirby's work tremendously. I really was weaned on his work. His work prepared me for the comic book world in a significant way. His action was very compelling and dynamic and I wanted to use it as a springboard to do even more--to see how much further I could take my action... beyond where Kirby took his. Certainly, it was abig challenge. Like if he had bricks and rocks coming at the reader, which he did very often and very dynamically, I tried to will the rocks to actually hit the reader (laughs). I wanted the reader to actually feel the blow from the rocks and fists... Of course, I couldn't really do that, but I tried.
I was intimidated by Jack's work, yes, but it made me a better artist. I became more of an artist and less of a cartoonist by trying to top Jack.
"I always wanted my own full length book and Daredevil was my first opportunity. I was thrilled to get my own character. I never thought that would come about because John Romita had it for a while. No one stuck with it and I just knew whatever book they gave me, if it was a full length book, I would stick with it.
"What made Daredevil special for me was he couldn't see and yet he could see better than people with sight. That intrigued me because that challenged me to show the reader how things might be without sight: How he sensed things a split second before they happened. It allowed me to be very dramatic with a different kind of artwork. One way was depicting reality; the other was by using effects to show how I thought a blind person might picture life--maybe through his other senses. Also, all the acrobatics he had to employ were challenging and exciting for me to choreograph in order to capture the audience's interest.
"Daredevil was also the first character I ever drew that fought injustice. And I liked that. I liked to portray how he would battle crime... I honed my craft on Daredevil for anything else that followed. I was high on the challenge of making and keeping this a successful book!"
I have two copies of Hulk 181 that just went up for sale, along with some other Silver Age gems. Click here for the list.
(pictured from left to right: Marv Wolfman, Jo Duffy and Dave Cockrum)
There was a houseful of wrestlers & martial artists at the Meth home Saturday night hootin' and hollering for our boy Dan Henderson in UFC 100. And no one hooted louder than I when Dan dropped Michael Bisping in the 2nd.
As noted here and there, I trained for many years with Hanshi Richard Lenchus. He gave me flying lessons (so to speak), my first blackbelt, and a second set of balls (the brass ones). The blackbelt prompted a letter of congrats from celebrated Sensei Chuck Norris, an old sparring partner of my sensei's... As a boy, no one ever frightened me like Rick Lenchus. And after that, nothing could.
Chris Claremont pictured with Paty Cockrum at Heroescon yesterday. Dave Cockrum was there in spirit (photo courtesy of Richard O'Hara).
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