Evan Dorkin

Comic Book Ephemera Item Of The Day

Added 2023-02-16 02:05:59 +0000 UTC

Sarah and I met Gene Colan at a New York Comic Con, I can't remember which one, I can't remember what year. he and his wife, Adrienne were very nice to talk to and generous with their time. Sarah had the beginnings of a sore throat and they gave her a cough drop. We bought a page of art (from Marvel Super-Heroes #15, FYI, a generic title if there ever was one) featuring Medusa for Sarah, Mr. Colan signed it to her, and handed us his business card. The Medusa page was only $100, which seemed low to me. Many of his other pages featuring characters he was better known were priced more expensively, but I thought this was a great page with a cool layout/character and was worth more than what we paid for it. Not that I was complaining. Heck, no. Even if it was inked by Vinnie Colletta (ha ha, it's actually a solid job overall, panel 2 especially looks like decent care was put into it).

We always remembered how nice it was to meet the Colans, so it was especially depressing when it was revealed that Gene Colan's wife was physically abusing him. She was arrested and there was an order of protection imposed against her. There was talk of her running through the couple's money (including a large retirement payment from Marvel), of missing artwork (either stolen or destroyed), there was talk of another party being involved in criminal activities leaving Gene Colan in financial need. If you want to read about it, there's background and speculation available online. I wasn't privy to any of it, I was an outsider like most folks.

And a huge fan, like most folks. A very unfortunate situation. I'm glad I got to meet him but it's a bittersweet memory in light of everything else.