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PROLIFIC COMICS ARTIST ERNIE COLON, DEAD AT 88

 Quote:
Ernie Colón, an artist whose career in comics goes back over sixty years, passed away at his home yesterday, according to a statement released by his family via his official Facebook page. Colón, who worked on a wide range of comics over the decades and who co-created Amethyst of Gemworld, a character currently making a resurgence in Brian Michael Bendis's Young Justice series, was 88 years old. While his early career ran the gamut from children's comics to horror books, his later career focused on non-fiction; he made it into the news, and the bookstore market, with graphic adaptations of The 9/11 Report, The Warren Report (on the assassination of John F. Kennedy), and similar projects. Per the brief statement, Colón apparently passed away following a year-long battle with cancer.

Born on July 13, 1931, Colón began his career as a letterer for Harvey Comics, sometimes pitching in with uncredited artwork for comics like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich. In the late 1960s, he would draw Gold Key Comics' Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom, and in the '70s he would turn to Warren Publishing, where he illustrated comics Vampirella, Creepy, and Eerie.


Even after he moved to the Big Two he would combine original properties like Amethyst with licensed books like Marvel's Battlestar Galactica and Thundercats. Titles like Arak, Son of Thunder, Weird War Tales, and Young Love at DC showed off Colón's range, while Atari Force and Damage Control (which he co-created with the legendary Dwayne McDuffie) would give him a chance to show off a more traditional adventure comics/superhero style.

"Ernie was a master illustrator and our recent revisit of gemWorld only showed us how timeless his designs and ideas were," Young Justice writer Brian Michael Bendis told ComicBook.com. "We are so glad we were able to honor his work! Please go read the original series of amethyst and celebrate real and beautiful creativity."

Along with Ruben Moreira, Colón was one of the earliest and most influential Puerto Rican artists working in the comics industry.

"Ernie Colón was a prolific artist, one of the only Puerto Ricans in the 1960s to professionally break into comics," said Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, whose work for victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico earned him the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award this year at Comic Con."
"His career, first as a letterer, then uncredited illustrator on Harvey's Casper (which we had all over our apartment as a child) to his universe creating work with DC on Amethyst, he truly was a visionary. Late into his career in the 2000s he continued to work with his own creator owned projects like Ax, Spycat, and more. He will be greatly missed, his art will be celebrated, and I will always champion his legacy in my work."





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Some of my favorites of his were his Seaboard-Atlas work in 1975, on GRIM GHOST 1-3, and TIGERMAN 1,
As well as another Tigerman story in their black and white magazine (to compete with Warren and Marvel b & w magazines) THRILLING ADVENTURE STORIES 1. And an anthology story in WEIRD TALES OF THE MACABRE 1.

Another really cool story was a 3-part "Manimal" story in the Sal Quartuccio HOT STUF' issues 6-8 (1977-1978). About a scientist in his 30's working in a lab in New York City, that employs a number of aging Nazi war criminals, living under new identities. The scientist in his 30's is Jewish, and decades earlier his parents were tormented in the Auschwitz concentration camp, subjected to human experiments which, as revealed, turned him, their son, into a werewolf! He's there seeking revenge on the aging war criminals, for what they did to his family and to him.

Colon's run on ARAK in 1981-1982 is another of my favorites of his, particularly the first two issues, and the preview in WARLORD 48. All well written stories, and beautifully illustrated.

The last things I recall by Colon offhand are his work in EPIC ILLUSTRATED.
And his AMETHYST, PRINCESS OF GEMWORLD.
I guess after that, he was more in animation and less in comics.

All books I've re-read within the last year. Colon will live on in the work he left behind.



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A Seaboard/Atlas house ad, that ran in many of their titles in 1975, of their complete line of characters. GRIM GHOST (by Colon), Sgt.Stryker (by McWilliams, Sparling in SAVAGE COMBAT TALES 1-3), The Tarantula(by Pat Boyette, in WEIRD SUSPENSE 1-3), THE DESTRUCTOR (by Ditko, 1-4), THE BRUTE (by Sekowsky/Marcos 1-2, Weiss/Abel 3), TARGITT (by Howard Nostrand 1-3), TIGERMAN (by Colon issue 1, and then Ditko 2-3), and THE SCORPION (by Chaykin 1 and 2, and Jim Craig 3).
These are the artists who did the series art, it was interesting to see Colon's take on the characters in this house ad.

Often run as this one page, it is actually a 2 page ad, for some reason the 2nd page often not used. To my knowledge, the double-page version only appeared in the black and white magazines, not in the color comics.


https://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2013/08/ernies-atlas-ads.html

http://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/16goodman.html




MOORLOCK 2001 (by Milgrom/Abel 1 and 2, Ditko/Wrightson 3), PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (by Broderick/Mclaughlin 1 and 2, Heath 3), DEVILINA (Seaboard's Vampirella-styled b & w magazine anthology host character, by Estrada, Marcos, Duranona, Reese, Sparling, Summers, Thorne), IRON JAW (by Sekowsky/Abel 1, Marcos 2-4), WULF THE BARBARIAN (by Hama/Janson 1 and 2, Summers 3, Jim Craig 4), Kid Cody, gunfighter (by Wildey, in WESTERN ACTION, 1 issue), PHOENIX (by Amendola 1-3, Estrada/Giacoia 4, the best written of their titles), Comanche Kid (by Abel/Milgrom, in WESTERN ACTION, 1 issue)
This image from the color comics, cover-dated Jan and Feb 1975, and again, nice to see Colon's version of the characters, in contrast to how they looked by other artists in their own series.


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A sample page of of Colon's "Manimal" series from HOT STUF' anthology, and not even the best example page.



Very detailed and clean work for Colon, some of it flashbacks to uniformed SS soldiers in WW II death camps, some of it set in 1977-1978 New York City. There were two movies out about that time involving aging nazi war criminals and 1970's nazis, The Boys From Brazil(1978), and Marathon Man (1976). Colon's series has similarities to both, with Nazi-hunters, and modern nazis engaaged in new conspiracies for global dominance. Although neither of these films have a supernatural element. And I love the symbolism of the protagonist character unleashing his rage and vengeance as a werewolf.


There's also a Colon pin-up page, unrelated to the series.

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https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a23541/kennedy-assassination-graphic-novel/


Pretty cool, apparently ESQUIRE magazine has a very favorable opinion of Ernie Colon's artistic talents, on this THE WARREN COMMISSION REPORT graphic novel. And from 2014, not that long before his death.

 Quote:
The Warren Commission Report by By Dan Mishkin, Ernie Colón, and Jerzy Drozd © 2014, Abrams ComicArts

Few historical events are more complex, rife with inconsistencies, and mired in controversy than the Kennedy assassination. The circumstances surrounding the events of November 22, 1963 have been pored over by federal agencies and amateur conspiracy theorists alike for decades, but what actually happened is likely to remain a mystery. Pieces of new information have come to light over the years, but the Warren Commission Report, the 889-page result of an investigation requested by JFK's successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, remains the most thorough examination of Kennedy's death. For anyone looking for clarity, the report is the most necessary, but also the most daunting, collection of evidence to tackle.

The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation Into the Kennedy Assassination is a new, 160-page comic book that attempts to clarify the findings of the Warren Commission through a series of visual storyboards. Written by Dan Mishkin and illustrated by Ernie Colón — whose previous book, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, served as inspiration — the "comic book documentary" attempts to distill the densest of documents into an easily digestible graphic account of the Commission's findings. Says author Dan Mishkin:

"The major goals of our book are to show how the different interpretations of the events surrounding Kennedy's death arose and why the disagreements about the facts persist; to illuminate the times in which the assassination occurred and which were the context for compiling the official narrative; and to explore the influence of the Warren Report on the years and decades that followed. Whether we lived through those times or not, we're all living with the consequences of how the Warren Commission conducted itself."

Below are some exclusive excerpted pages from The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation Into the Kennedy Assassination, as well as some additional insight into the creative process from Mishkin.

Looking back, I think I was startlingly overconfident about how easily all the pieces would come together. The challenges weren't so much in determining the broad sweep of what would be covered as in figuring out how deep into the weeds we needed to get. When was it enough to lay out the basics of a particular dispute over the evidence — showing an event as it would have appeared under one interpretation and then under the other — and when did we need to really delve into the argumentation, which would require finding oral testimony so we could show a person talking (in order to make the narrative as "comic book-y" as possible)? And when do we put an end to the otherwise endless theorizing? Is it absolutely necessary to give credence to the people who think that Jacqueline Kennedy had her husband murdered?"


"There was the challenge we always face in comics, which is how to find for each panel the single image that can stand as the representative of all the others we're not showing, a task made more difficult in a story so dependent on split-second timing, the precise location of bodies, and minute differences in the interpretation of physical evidence."


"Although our book is emphatically not about presenting our own whodunit theory of the case, it does level some serious criticisms at the Warren Commission, which, even if one argues that they did get the main facts right, made serious and consequential mistakes that have haunted the last fifty years of American history. In an email with my editor, I could state the cultural-political-historical case for the commission's failings pretty succinctly; but turning a political science critique into a visual narrative did not come easily. "


"It was tough to figure out how to handle the gory parts that are at the center of this whole story. When does a graphic medium become too graphic? Even though I had to look again and again at frame 313 of the Zapruder film, the one that shows blood and brain matter exploding from the president's skull, did I want to subject the readers to that? [Illustrator] Ernie [Colón] — as a visual thinker — argued in favor of more gore, for not shying away from the violent reality; so there are a couple of pages where that's more in evidence than I was initially comfortable with, though it falls well short of shocking or grotesque. I think that's a good thing."


"The distinction between simplifying and clarifying is hugely important. Comics have a great capacity to bring light and understanding in a way that dense prose can't always do — and it's hard to get denser than the Warren Report. Images have the power to fix important details in the readers' minds and allow them to see the relationships between those details more clearly. When the facts are in dispute, as they are in the case of the Kennedy assassination and the findings of the official investigation, being able to hold on to that clarity and those relationships is even more crucial."



I never heard of it till now, it actually looks quite good.

And that rare thing for a small press comic, in color!


I included the article since it might not stay online later. And for the quotes of Mishkin on creative priorities in doing an illustrated version of an important event in history.

Would that there were some Colon quotes.



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Here's a lengthy interview from the COMICS JOURNAL in 2007, surprisingly late in his career for the JOURNAL to finally get around to interviewing him.

http://www.tcj.com/the-ernie-colon-interview/

Some samples of his art with the interview, one area of Colon's work neglected in the images is his black-and-white work for Warren and other magazines.


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