iFanboy Upstarts: Mirko Colak

You don’t have to be super-powered to be a superhero, and in comics you don’t have to be American to work in American comics. Comics have been home to talent from around the globe for decades, but now more than ever are comics truly an international affair. And we’re better for it. Serbian-based artist Mirko Colak is about to wow people when his 3-issue stint on Dark Horse’s Conan The Barbarian begins with February’s 13th issue. But he’s come a long way in a relatively short amount of time.

Colak cut his teeth back in the mid-00s on several Serbian comics that were never released outside his country, but made a step up when he did a series of French comics and eventually partnered with the publisher Soleil for a series of projects including Atlantide Experiment, Marie and the recently released Templier. After years of attempts, Colak found himself a way into American comics when he cornered Marvel talent scout C.B. Cebulski at a Makarska cafe in 2010. That unlikely meeting put Colak in place to help out on the final issues of Secret Warriors in 2010.

While he didn’t earn many fans on the outside with that fill-in work on Secret Warriors, he earned the respect of Marvel editors who picked him to be the artist on Greg Pak’s Red Skull: Incarnate series in 2011. Colak’s work there gave American readers their first full-fledged look at Colak’s work, and Colak put a lot of himself in those pages – including basing the likeness of the young Red Skull on Colak’s own son, Luka. That series earned Colak and Pak an Eagle award, and set Colak up with his next project – doing a two-issue stint on Greg Rucka’s Punisher with #11 and #12 this past summer. Although only a fill-in for regular artist Marco Checchetto, Colak’s work on Frank Castle showed more diversity and grit.

Now with the previews Colak’s shown so far about his upcoming run on Conan The Barbarian, fans and comics pros alike are scheduled to see just how great this Serbian artist can be. Colak seems to have all the basics down pat but with a style that makes him one worth buzzing about, so the sky’s the limit as to what Colak could do.