Posted in: Comics | Tagged: amethyst, arak, damage control, Ernie Colon

Ernie Colón, Co-Creator of Arak, Amethyst and Damage Control, Dies Aged 88

Today the family of Ernie Colón posted the following statement.

I'm posting today with a heavy heart. The extraordinary Ernie Colón passed away yesterday afternoon in his home at the age of 88, surrounded by family, after over a year battling — and I mean battling — cancer. He did things on his own terms. The legacy he leaves behind is astonishing; a 60+ years career in comics, not to mention the work he did in other mediums including painting, writing, sculpting… I don't think there was anything he couldn't do. He loved to create — he was always creating. When people asked if he was "still drawing," he said, "No idea what else I would be doing, since I would draw even when not paid for it. (half the story of my life).

Ernie Colón, born in Puerto Rico in 1931. and raised in the US, he began work in comics as a letterer, before drawing Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom for Gold Key in the late sixties, moving on to Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella in the seventies and drawing an adaptation of Battlestar Galactica for Marvel Comics.

In the eighties, he co-created the historical fantasy Arak, Son of Thunder with Roy Thomas for DC Comics, followed by Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn. He also worked as an editor for DC.

In the nineties, he worked for Marvel Comics, co-creating Damage Control with Dwayne MacDuffie, created the graphic novel Ax solo, and worked on Doom 2099 and Bullwinkle and Rocky.

It was the editor of that last project for Marvel, Sid Jacobson, that Ernie may have created his most public work decades later, a graphic novel version of the 9/11 Commission Report titled The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation published in 2006 and followed by After 9/11: America's War on Terror in 2008, as well as A Graphic Biography: Che in 2009 and in 2010, Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography. While he reunited with Amethyst's Dan Mishkin for The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation Into the Kennedy Assassination in 2014, in his mid-eighties.

Paul Levitz, former President and Publisher of DC Comics, wrote,

Noting the sad passing of Ernie Colon, a wonderfully talented artist who I had the pleasure of working with at DC during the relatively short stretch of his career when he sat behind an editor's desk. Ernie's diverse stylistic range enabled him to move from years of Richie Rich and Caspar to horror, fantasy and even the best-selling graphic novel version of the 9-11 report. Even got to work with him on a Legion story along the way. We didn't work together closely enough that I have any great tales to tell, but I delighted in his distinctive work on Amethyst, one of the great projects of the '80s that was probably a bit too far ahead of its time.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!