The Johnny Bacardi Show

One of the most noteworthy stories from the last few days in the world of comics is that the great GENE COLAN is suffering from liver failure, and does not have adequate medical insurance to help meet his expenses. Writer Clifford Meth put out the word, and called for everyone all over the Blogosphere to send him cards, or post tributes on their own blogs, to try and help raise his spirits. I haven't gotten a card yet, but I realized that I had scans of at least three outstanding Colan-illustrated stories that he did for Warren magazines in the mid-60's, and I thought I'd post one of them to help draw attention to his situation, and also pay tribute to a man whose work has been absolutely essential- and who has worked on many seminal comics series in the last four decades, equally at home with the mundane and everyday as he is superheroes and the supernatural. The impression it has left on me alone, as I at first hoped to be a comics artist and later simply as someone who loved the medium, has been incalculable.

Anyway, I thought I'd try something new this time and since I recently set up a Flickr account, I thought I'd create a slideshow and post the pages there.

Click here to read "Fitting Punishment", which is admittedly a not-so-subtle EC-style tale by Archie Goodwin with a somewhat improbable ending...but Colan's wonderful atmosphere-enabling inkwash technique and his vertiginous, cut-and-paste-style page layouts make it something special. See if you agree. If this slideshow doesn't work properly, pages out of order, etc., please leave a comment and I'll just repost each page here.

ETA: I think I should make it a bit clearer that many efforts are underway to raise money to help the Colans in their time of need. I had hoped that those who would click on the links above would find their way to the proper venues to get information on how they can help...but I'm thinking I should just come right out and put it here. Loath as I am to link to Journalista, Deppey is spotlighting the information (I'm assuming) every day for the near future, so click here to get the info written in a more concise, informative, and entertaining fashion than I can manage, I'm sure. Basically, you can bid on eBay Colan art auctions, or send money directly to them via PayPal- their account is genecolan@optonline.net, and you'll probably want to put "donation" somewhere in the comments so it will be easier to find for them. This is probably what I'll do later on this week when I get paid.