Eh-pril day two! Celebrating Canada's best comics creators and characters! Today: somebody everyone loves. I mean it.

4/24/07

114. Darwyn Cooke

Darwyn's a Toronto native whose work first appeared in comics in DC's New Talent Showcase. Comics weren't paying the bills, though, so he moved into the animation field, working on the Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, and Men in Black animated series as a storyboard artist, animator, and director. DC came crawling back, and he published a graphic novel called Batman: Ego. This led to a ton of cool mainstream comics work on X-Force, Wolverine/Doop, Catwoman, and Tangled Web. He did a terrific Eisner-winning issue of Solo (#5! Hit the bins now!), the lovely DC: New Frontier mini which is now collected in a gorgeous Absolute edition, and now, he's succeeding Will Eisner as the writer and artist of the Spirit, every month as DC. He also did some DVD covers for Criterion lately. You can see 'em here.

What I love about Mr. Cooke's work is that he gets it. He understands what makes comics fun and worth loving, and he shows it. His stories first reduce the characters and events to their simplest elements before building them back up again. His art is evidence of this, too. Of course, he has the background of an animator, so yeah, it's "cartoony," but it's beautifully rendered, and the man is a master of multiple styles, as you can see in that Solo issue you all should've bought. I know, I suck at this critic thing, but I'm a little pressed for time and totally stressed out at the moment. Help me here, audience! Tell everyone why Darwyn Cooke is awesome!

I'll put it this way: Darwyn Cooke is one of my absolute favorite people currently working in the medium.

But now: the art! Here's a beautiful gallery of delicious Darwyn Cooke images:

Man, there's so many more I could post... He's a fine, fine creator. Thanks, Canada!