Remembering Gene Colan: Jaws 2 by Marschall, Colan, and Palmer.

As you no doubt know, we lost the great Gene Colan late last week. I think about all the hours and years of joy he brought to so many with his unique and amazing art style. Daredevil. Sub-Mariner. Iron Man. Dr. Strange. Captain America. Tomb of Dracula. Howard the Duck. And that's just scratching the surface of his Groovy Age/Marvel work. In the 80s he took his super-powered pencils to DC to great acclaim. Throughout the 90s and up until just recently, Gene kept giving of his talent. The man was a true artist. Many claim he almost literally painted with his pencil, and anyone fortunate enough to have seen his original art would no doubt agree.

I wanted to pay him a tribute today. Many throughout the internet already have, and have done it much more eloquently or authoritatively than I'm able to do. I'm just a fan with a blog, but I know one thing: the Greatness of Gene Colan will be sorely missed, but his legacy will be remembered for at least as long as I live. For my humble part, I decided to pull out something that might be forgotten, and will probably never see print again. It's one of my all-time favorite comics, Jaws 2 from Marvel Super-Special #6 (Summer 1978). Gene's pencils are inked and painted by the one man who, in Ol'  Groove's opinion, totally "got" Gene's pencils and made a perfect partner, Tom Palmer. The adaptation of Jaws 2 is also significant in that it's Marvel's first attempt at "Super Marvel-Color", a painstaking and breathtaking "next step" in comicbook evolution that's forgotten today, buried under mountains of computer-colored slick comics. For Marvel it started right here, Groove-ophiles.

Usually if a story is over ten or so pages, Ol' Groove breaks it up into a big splash and tons of thumbnails in order to share it with ya. Today, in honor of Mr. Colan, every page in this 46 page adaptation is super-sized. It'll make for a lot of scrolling, but I think these pages are worth it. Don't you?

Godspeed, Mr. Colan.