Tue May 27, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg

Happy Birthday: George Freeman

All hail Captain Canuck!

Born in Canada in 1951, George Freeman didn’t start out in comic books. He was actually designing tombstones in 1975 when he encountered the first issue of a new Canadian comic book, Captain Canuck. Intrigued, Freeman went to see series artist and co-creator Richard Comely in Winnipeg.

Comely was impressed by Freeman’s art samples and hired him on—Freeman colored the second issue, inked the third issue, and penciled and inked the fourth issue. When Comely moved to Cardston, Alberta in fall 1976 to run the local weekly newspaper, Freeman and colorist/inker/French translator Jean-Claude St. Aubin moved with him and got jobs on the paper while continuing the comic.

A few months later, they left Cardston for Calgary, which was less to Freeman’s liking—he returned to Winnipeg instead. He rejoined the Captain Canuck team in early 1979.

Captain Canuck ended with issue #14 in 1981 and Freeman moved on to other comic book work. He drew Green Lantern, Aquaman, Jack of Hearts, and The Avengers, drew a story in Batman Annual #11, and was one of the artists on the horror comic anthology Wasteland.

He also worked on the Elric series for First Comics, the Black Orchid series for Vertigo, and more recently, the Albion series for Wildstorm, among others. In 1996 Freeman was nominated for an Eisner for Best Colorist on The X-Files.

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