Everyone by now knows that legendary artist Gene Colan is not in the best of shape. A few weeks ago I wasn’t privy to that fact when I e-mailed him. You see, we’re trying to close out issue three of Comic Foundry Magazine (which is also why the blog has gone bone-dry), and I was working on this big feature package we’re doing that’s full of tips, tricks and advice on creating comics. I’d been reaching out to a lot of incredibly talented people to contribute and Gene was on my short list. So I e-mailed him, asking if he’d be interested. I got an e-mail the next day from him explaining that he was not only interested, but he’d already written something up for us. Fantastic. Drawing advice from Gene Colan — does it get much better? Obviously I was floored. And then I found out he was sick. For him to make the time to do a write-up for me on top of his condition — that was something that tugged on the heart strings.

The honorable Clifford Meth has been helping organize a call to action and had been requesting donations in various forms from cool artists and writers. And while we’re certainly not either of those, I wanted to do something. So, any issues of Comic Foundry Magazine you buy through our site next week, from the 18th to the 24th — those proceeds will go in full to Gene Colan.

And as a bonus here, I wanted to share the advice Gene gave the magazine for someone who wants to be a better penciller:

“The best advice I can give an aspiring penciller is to draw. Draw everything. Everything you see. draw it! if there’s no time at that moment, then photograph it and draw it later. Carry a camera everywhere. Draw people talking, sitting, running, reclining. draw from every angle. That’s a point I notice few novices understand. You can’t keep drawing something dead on. There’s no way to tell a story in a comic book with everyone shot from the same dead on perspective. Draw women, not just pretty. Old, ugly, beautiful. Same with men, children. Draw someone getting out of a car. Walking into a store. Literally everything you see that you’d think is mundane, is the stuff story telling is all about. You can’t draw a superhero or villain if you don’t know how to draw all the elements around them! Always have a camera, pencil and sketch pad. try out all sorts of art pencils to see how your work looks with them and which you favor.

Best Wishes to you all! Gene”