MEET GENE COLAN LIVE AND IN-PERSON!

ITEM! That’s right, Frantic Ones! This is your chance to meet one of the artful architects of the Marvel Age of Comics live and in-person! Where-oh-where can one be granted an audience with Gentleman Gene Colan you ask? Why, at Lee’s Comics in Mountain View, Californ-i-ay on Saturday, December 6 from 2:00-4:00 p.m... that’s where! And if you’ve never ever set foot inside this proud winner of the first-ever Excelsior Award for Comic Shop Excellence, then this is your chance to correct the mistake of a lifetime! For details and up-to-the-minute information, just go to Lee’s Comics website and enjoy web-browsing at the website of a comic shop so hip, slick and cool that only Alex Ross could have designed their logo! I kid you not. So what are you waiting for? Latverian New Year? Gas up the car or buy a plane ticket and get thee to this earnest event! You’ll be glad you did!

Excelsior!

Smiley

ART DIRECTOR PAR EXCELLANCE

ITEM! While most folks mainly remember my 1945-1972 stint as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Comics for my witty writing, dramatic dialogue, elegant editing, and peerless promotional propaganda, the fact is that I was also one helluva Art Director as well. Sure I had some great guys like Kirby, Ditko, Romita, Colan and others who were actually producing all of that art, but at the end of the day who was responsible for the overall look-and-feel of the whole furshlinger comic book line? If you said Sol Brodsky, go sit in the back of the class, pilgrim. Yours Truly was the final say on everything. Well... the final say except for Uncle Martin. And that’s my Uncle — Martin Goodman — not Bill Bixby’s. But I digress...

Much like late-great PBS art show host Bob Ross, who wanted everyone to paint “happy trees,” I was forever extolling the Bullpen to draw things “more like Kirby.” Say what you will, but it was art direction like that which got our sales up over Brand Ecch’s in the early 70s, and we've never looked back since. Still, not everyone was comfortable with my art directorial style. For example, see the over-the-top, over-done, over-alliterative cartoon below, submitted to the ol’ Sock It To Stan emailbox by MMMS member Rob Steibel. Your specially primed and armed Nuclear No-Prize is on it’s way to you, Rob. Who says your Uncle Stanley can’t take a little joke?

Excelsior!

Smiley

A TRIBUTE TO GENTLEMAN GENE COLAN

ITEM! Now at a Local Comic Shop near you — A Tribute to Gene Colan! You gotta go and get your malingering mitts on this one right away, pilgrims. Besides being an authoritative anthology of some of Gentleman Gene’s very best Marvel work, portions of the proceeds go directly to Mr. and Mrs. Colan to help offset medical expenses from Gene’s recent illness. In addition to proceeds from the tribute book, Marvel has also awarded Gene a nice retirement bonus and just generally stepped up to the philanthropic plate — and rightly so! And it’s all because Marveldom Assembled, Clever Cliff Meth, and Frantic Ones just like you demanded it! So say we all! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVEL DOES RIGHT BY GENTLEMAN GENE COLAN

ITEM! It’s good news day here in Soapbox-land! It seems that Marvel is actually going to help out Gene Colan and his wife Adrienne Colan with some much needed financial and medical assistance — thanks largely to efforts by Clever Cliff Meth, as well as peerless pressure from Marvelites everywhere just like you. Genial Gene certainly deserves it. Everyone likes to shout about how Marvel is the House that Lee-kirby built, but there were many, many hands on deck without which we wouldn’t have the rollicking characters and comics that we all still enjoy today! Gentle Gene Colan was one of those early Marvel architects without whom we would’ve never had classic ishes of Iron Man, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Tomb of Dracula or even Howard the Duck! Oh, and he co-created a little character you may have heard of: Blade the Vampire-Slayer!

It just goes to show some things work even better than hordes of over-paid attorneys — things like spreading the word via the Intrawebs, and fans of Genial Gene banding together to shout a message as one. Good work, pilgrims!

Excelsior!

Smiley