You can always expect a few surprises with Comic Book Creator, usually involving creators I’ve never heard of, such as Carol Lay, who has worked in various aspects of the American comic-book and animation industries. Editor Jon B. Cooke goes over her career. I’m not sure I like all of her art, but she certainly has the right to show it.
Cooke looks back at artist Mark Wheatley, who worked on Myron Fass’ seven-issue run of Gasm in the late 1970s and, no, you’re not mistaken about where that name came from. The covers look great, but looking online, I could find only a limited number of pictures and just one showing the interior art in black and white. I suspect the covers would have been the key selling point.
There’s a lot packed into this issue. The second part of the interview with creator Jack Katz focuses on the latter part of his career, when he worked on The First Kingdom and other series. A short interview with comic-book artist Bob McLeod shows how difficult it was for him to break into the industry.
The second part of Joe Hill’s interview, conducted by Glenn Cadigan, explains a lot about the process of deciding which of his stories are better suited to comic books and which to prose, giving some idea of the thinking involved.
Of course, as the cover suggests, the meat of this issue is a transcript of a celebration of Gene Colan’s 75th birthday at the 2001 San Diego Comic-Con, disguised as a lecture by him on erasers. Something I ought to remind people of here is that Colan didn’t read the entire plot before he started drawing but worked through it a page at a time. As a consequence, he sometimes found himself squeezing the story into the final pages.
Writer Tom Field wrote Secrets In The Shadows, a biography of Gene Colan. Here, he goes over his friendship with Colan, highlighting some of the artist’s history and later life. There’s also a lot more of Colan’s art. No one has ever tried to copy Colan’s art technique, which the artist laughingly said was because no one had been good enough. Colan was also a keen film buff, especially when it came to westerns, which explains his interesting choice of angles within the panels.
I suspect the amount of Gene Colan material will have his fans buying this edition of Comic Book Creator, so make sure you get a copy.
GF Willmetts
September 2026
(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 82-page illustrated magazine. Price: $10.95 (US). ISSN: 401-783-1689. Direct from the publisher, you can get it for $10.95 (US))
Check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and Comic Book Creator #45 at TwoMorrows Publishing
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