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The Colan Mystique

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Author Topic: The Colan Mystique  (Read 307 times)
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Every Picture Tells a Story
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« on: June 03, 2020, 08:04:51 pm »

Gene: He gave me a written plot, but he also discussed it with me over the phone, or I called him... I don't know which it was... but we did speak over the phone about it.

CBA: Issue to issue, or would you talk longer term, like what you would do in a series of issues?

Gene: I would ask him questions about the plot he'd written out, just to make sure I understood what he was looking for, what I should play up. I tended to ask questions, rather than to have him assume that I got the idea. I didn't want to take it all up for credit myself, because I always felt that the writer was getting somewhere, was getting to a point, and I wanted to get to that same point.

CBA: How did you feel about Marv's approach to the character over time?

Gene: I didn't feel Dracula was evil enough. I think that he was above-ground more than he should've been, and there should've been more action trying to eliminate him.

CBA: That's interesting, because in the early stories, Dracula's very much the villain, and the idea is you've got this band of vampire hunters hunting him down. Marv seemed to turn that around, and say, "You know, you can't base the entire series on a villain; we've got to find people who are more villainous than Dracula." He almost made him a little more heroic. Now you're saying you'd like to have seen Dracula a little more evil.

Gene: Much more evil. When I saw Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula, that was the good Dracula. They concentrated in the film on how to get rid of him, and it was almost impossible to do. Also, there was magic in the film that never appeared in the [comic book], because I didn't have that kind of idea. Like, if Dracula wanted, he could've turned into a snake. He could ooze out of a room, turn into mist to get through a doorway or something. Or he could flatten himself out. That would've been great to show in the comic book.
Marv also put in Harold H. Harold—that was a good character! But he would dominate the Dracula book to the point where it wasn't Dracula! And although I enjoyed drawing him—it was a comical break from the seriousness of it, and Dracula came in at the end or the middle a little bit—you didn't see much of Dracula.

CBA: Well, that was the risk, because on that book you did have an ensemble cast. You always had Quincy, and Frank Drake, and Rachel, and all these characters challenging you to pace it.

Gene: Marv was very easy-going; he relied a lot on me. He didn't give me any trouble, and I didn't give him any trouble!

Because numerous pages intended for Tomb of Dracula #71-72 were discarded as the story arc had to be truncated into #70, there exists a number of unpublished TOD pages. Wanna share? One contributor (whose name was—yikes!—lost) sent us this image. ©2001 Gene Colan.

CBA: How did your own visual approach to the character change over time?

Gene: I tried to make the character look more real, visually. I tried to show what an evil character he was. You know, the movie Night Stalker came out—it was nothing to do with Dracula, but it was about vampires—and I liked the feeling of throwing the viewer off balance into thinking this is a present-day situation where a guy thinks he's a vampire. I loved that part, because it set you off-balance, I never expected him to really be a vampire, maybe 300 years old! I loved that.
I did some things in Dracula on my own that weren't in the script, and then I would call up Marv and say, "What do you think of this?" For instance, Dracula would be floating along the floor, you'd see his face, but the rest of him would be like a snake, floating, and I thought it was a good idea. I kind of needed permission to go ahead and go off-field a little bit.

CBA: But you must've felt comfortable trying. Apparently the relationship there was good.

Gene: It was very good; it was easy to talk to Marv. He never said no to anything, really. I don't ever remember him rejecting anything.

CBA: Was there a difference between Marv the writer and Marv when he eventually became Marvel's editor-in-chief, your boss?

Gene: No. Marv was always Marv. I got along with him easily.

CBA: As you were drawing that, you'd been doing super-heroes for years before that. How did it feel, being in the vampire business?

Gene: Very good. Super-heroes usually don't deal with the frightening, as a rule. Instead, it's the villain versus the good guy, all the time. But the occult, the mystery of the unknown, probably from early on frightened the bejeebers out of me. When I saw Frankenstein, oh my god, I was totally traumatized, and ever since I've been intrigued with horror things.

CBA: You gravitated towards things that scared you?

Gene: Yeah, I did. One day as a kid, I wanted to see one of the Frankenstein movies—it could've been Son of Frankenstein—and I stood outside the movie theater. This was for a Saturday matinee, and I could've taken myself in for a quarter to see it, but I couldn't get the nerve to go in! I just couldn't! I would be in a dark theater by myself, so I couldn't do it!

CBA: Was there any feeling that you were missing anything while you were doing Dracula? You weren't doing Daredevil or any of the better-selling super-hero titles.

Gene: No, I was thoroughly enjoying it. [Super-heroes] was something I'd left behind. I was after something new, and I knew [Dracula] was a winner, so I put everything I had into it.

CBA: I know upstairs in your studio you've got all sorts of CDs with war noises and things to get you in the mood for your jobs. What did you do for Tomb of Dracula to get in the mood?

Gene: I played very eerie music. Mostly movie soundtracks,or I take out some of the classics; I play Tchaikovsky... Sound effects, any kind of sound effects, mostly storms. All I'd have to do is play thunder and lightning sound effects, and it would take me right up to it.

CBA: Did you go anywhere, visually, to pick up bits for Dracula?

Gene: Well, if I needed a cemetery thing, I'd either take it out of a book, or I'd go to a local cemetery for tombstones. One time I went away to New England, where I felt was a good place for a couple of cemeteries. I'd take my camera with film and photograph [the cemeteries].

CBA: Looking back now, years later, how do you regard the Dracula experience in your career?

Gene: Just one of the jobs that lasted the longest.

CBA: It wasn't anything more than that?

Gene: Honestly, no.

CBA: What was the pace like in the '70s for you? You were drawing pretty much all the time, the equivalent of about two books a month.

Gene: Every day the goal was doing two pages.

CBA: You couldn't have had any time for outside activities.

Gene: It was terrible, if you think about it. It was a terrible price to pay, and looking back on it, I wish I could've slowed down along the way, lived a life around the same time I drew these [comics]. It wasn't a nine to five job! If I had been as fast as John Buscema or Mike Sekowsky—they could do a story in a day!

CBA: Let's talk about some of the other characters you drew at Marvel in the 1970s. What did Captain America mean to you? That's a character that seems to represent a lot of your ideals.

Gene: Captain America is the kind of man, like a Gary Cooper type, where you wish you could be like him, wish you knew him. That's how I looked at him, like someone I would've liked, or would have liked to have had the principles he stood for. I wanted to be like him.

CBA: Your version of Doctor Strange was very different from Steve Ditko's. What influenced you?

Gene: I enjoyed those [stories] very much. During the '70s, he was not a mean character, but I took him to various places. [The comic] had atmosphere, lots of atmosphere. It was just a night character.

CBA: What did you bring to that series?

Gene: Pretty much what I was doing for Dracula. Same kind of mystery. I also was hooked on amphetamines when I did Doctor Strange. That's what kept me going, because of the hours that I kept, I had to stay in good health to meet the deadlines.

CBA: But you couldn't have been getting personal fulfillment out of that.

Gene: Yes, I did.

CBA: You're working like hell, having to take chemicals to keep awake! Where's the satisfaction?

Gene: It's in the art. I'd think of what I've got on my board, and what I thought should be different, and somehow when I got to it the next morning, it'd be—for me—straightened out. I'm still drawn to the art, trying to give it the very best I can, and to do things in a different way. Just the opportunity. The more freedom I'm given on a project, the better it turns out.

CBA: Do you have memories of the writers you worked with on Doctor Strange?

Gene: It didn't much matter to me, to tell you the truth, who wrote any of them. For me, it was a plot to draw.

CBA: What about the inkers?

Gene: The inkers I never had control of. My problem ended once [the pages] left my room, and they received it. I did the best I could; the rest was up to them.

CBA: Did you get sick of Doctor Strange at a point?

Gene: Sure, because it kept going to the same place. I was looking for ways to make it fresh—that's when I started to change the appearance of his room. I'd say, "Gee, that would be good to warp the room, make it look smaller than it is, or bigger than it is, like a fish lens on a camera, where everything would be elongated." I'd thought of elongating some of the characters themselves, just to give myself a boost, and give me something different to do.

CBA: You did a memorable Savage Sword of Conan issue. Care to comment on following John Buscema on that?

Gene: I thought that Buscema was so far above and beyond anyone else in that period. What could I add to it that he hasn't already done?

CBA: You ended up drawing the Hulk magazine. How was that?

Gene: I didn't like that character. He was ugly as sin, big and clumsy, didn't look good on the page, and I couldn't relate to him. He was more like a big dumb Lenny (from Of Mice and Men) than anything else, and I couldn't deal with him.

CBA: So, you started the '70s doing Daredevil and Captain America—life is pretty good. By the end of the '70s, there's no more Dracula, there's no more Howard the Duck, Marvel sort of doesn't know where to put you... sounds like nothing was much fun.
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