I was waiting for Darwyn Cookes next thing.
Everyone who loves comics was waiting for Darwyn Cookes next thing.
Just when I thought I remembered all the amazing high points, more kept popping up.
It was on her terms.
(Cookes Spirit also turned sidekick Ebony White into something more than a jigaboo caricature, thank God.)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3t3r8n
That buzzy, deconstructed opening sequence for Batman Beyond?
Cookereportedly cranked it outon an old iMac he had sitting around.
Id been looking at Darwyn Cookes work for a while without realizing it.
A return to comics soon followed, as his distinctive style elevated titles like X-Force and Spider-Mans Tangled Web.
His first solo writing gig, Batman: Ego, flew under my radar when it first came out.
I read it years later, and was stunned by Cookes grasp of Bruce Waynes tortured psyche.
This guy could write as well as he could draw, I thought.
That was the thing with Darwyn Cooke.
I distinctly remember when Cooke became a guy I decided I needed to keep track of.
It was a 2003 interview onComic Book Resourcesabout The New Frontier.
This was the thinking of an artist who was weaving research and stylistic preference into a bespoke reality.
Cooke wasnt going to just draw muscular naked bodies and color them blue, red or green.
He was creating people with heft and dimension.
But he never just plumbed nostalgia for its own sake.
Cookes innate talent was to boil down the characters he worked on to their most appealing angles.
It never felt like Darwyn Cooke did anything he didnt believe in.
Youll see that conviction in every panel, every cover, every convention sketch that he produced.
Making comics or comics-based adaptations can be a cool way to make a buck.
But, with Darwyn Cooke, it always felt like more than that.
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