Colan was innate in the Bronx, New York City, and deliberate at a Art Students League. He served in the Philippines during World War II. Fallowing his go to, he began working witharound comedian in 1944, illustrating the science fiction adventure series Wings Comics. From either 1946, he worked for both DC Comics (originally National Publications) and Marvel Comics (originally Timely Comics).

When you took a 1960s Silver Age of comic books, Colan illustrated several of Wonder's major characters including Dr. Strange, Captain America, and signature character Daredevil. Colan's long haul on the Daredevil series continued into the 1970s, an era for which Colan illustrated the complete rerun of the acclaimed horror title Tomb of Dracula and most issues of writer Steve Gerber's cult-hit, Howard the Duck.

Colan's extremely fluid figure drawing & extensive utilise of shadow wwhen unusual among Silver Age laughable creative person & became supplementary thus as his career progressed. Though he commonly worked as a penciller (Klaus Janson and Tom Palmer were his most frequent collaborators when inkers), he was a foremost mass-market risible creative person to break from either the penciller/inker/colorist assembly-line system by creating finished drawings around graphite and watercolor. Notable examples include a DC Comics miniseries Nathaniel Dusk (1984) and Nathaniel Dusk II (1985-86), & a feature "Ragamuffins" in the Eclipse Comics umbrella series Eclipse #3, 5, & 8 (1981-83). Everthing these were written by frequent collaboratgor Don McGregor.

Indepedent-comics function includes a Occultation black-&-white graphic novel Detectives, Inc.: A Terror Of Death Dreams (1987), also written by McGregor, & reprinted inside sepia tone as an Occultation miniseries.