Comic Book Cats, number 166: Love Romances #101, penciled by Gene Colan and inked by Dick Ayers, published by Marvel Comics in September 1962.
Welcome to the first Comic Book Cats entry of 2021. I am bringing it back as an occasional feature, rather than a daily series. Whenever I happen to come across a comic book cat by an artist I have not yet spotlighted I will feature it here.
It took me a while, but I finally located really nice cat artwork by legendary comic book artist Gene Colan. “He Never Said A Word” is the story of a young woman who is constantly getting hit on by guys with lame one-liners. Sitting in the park to reflect on her dim romantic prospects, she sees a dog chase a cat up a tree. A young man who was sitting in the park reading climbs up the tree and gets the poor kitty down… and it’s love at first sight.
Gene Colan’s career in comic books stretched from 1944 to 2009. His moody, atmospheric art style was well-suited to horror, supernatural and mystery titles, although he was certainly versatile, also working regularly on super-heroes, on Steve Gerber’s satirical funny animal series Howard the Duck, and (as seen here) on romance stories. Colan passed away in June 2011 at the age of 84.
Inking is provided by another longtime artist, Dick Ayers, who was also known for the range of his material, working on super-heroes, war, Westerns, horror and sci-fi.