Comic Book Creator Ernie Colón Dies at 88

The legendary artist, writer, editor (and more) had worked at DC, Marvel, Harvey Comics and other companies across a 60-year career.

Legendary comic book artist Ernie Colón has died of cancer, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. He was 88.

His death Thursday was first reported on his Facebook page Friday morning.

Colón’s career spanned more than half a century as well as multiple publishers and genres, and saw him take on multiple roles, including comic book editor (for DC in the 1980s), writer, colorist and letterer. He was, however, best known for his artwork on titles including Marvel’s Damage Control, DC’s Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, as well as the illustrated edition of the 9/11 Commission Report.

His first credited work appeared in 1967’s Wham-O Giant Comics, although its known that he’d earlier worked on various Harvey Comics titles without his name being attached; from there, he moved to Gold Key Comics and Warren Publishing, with his work appearing in multiple issues of the latter’s iconic Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie titles. At DC, he would co-create two of the company’s 1980s fantasy mainstays, Arak, Son of Thunder (with Roy Thomas) and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (with Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin), as well as work as an editor for three years on titles including Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern.

Moving to Marvel in the mid-'80s, Colón was a mainstay of the publisher’s short-lived Star Comics imprint aimed at younger readers, and he also worked on the superhero comedy property Damage Control and the sci-fi series Doom 2099 and wrote, drew and did lettering on the fantasy graphic novel Ax.

In the latter years of his career, Colón kept busy with a variety of projects, including the weekly strip SpyCat for the Weekly World News, comic books based on Monsters in my Pocket, and a number of nonfiction projects with writer-editor Sid Jacobson, including adaptations of the 9/11 Commission’s report, the Warren Commission’s report into the assassination of John F. Kennedy and biographies of Anne Frank and Che Guevara.