Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Darwyn Cooke's books

Darwyn Cooke’s Followers (370)

Darwyn Cooke

Born

in Toronto, Canada

January 01, 1962

Died

May 14, 2016

Genre

Comics & Graphic Novels, Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction

edit data

Darwyn Cooke was an Eisner Award winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier and Will Eisner's The Spirit.

In 1985, Cooke published his first comic book work as a professional artist in a short story in New Talent Showcase #19, but economic pressure made him leave the career and he worked in Canada as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer for the next 15 years.

In the early 1990s Cooke decided to return to comics, but found little interest for his work at the major publishers. Eventually he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation after replying to an ad placed by animator Bruce Timm.

He went on to work as a storyboard artist for Batman: The An Darwyn Cooke was an Eisner Award winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier and Will Eisner's The Spirit.

In 1985, Cooke published his first comic book work as a professional artist in a short story in New Talent Showcase #19, but economic pressure made him leave the career and he worked in Canada as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer for the next 15 years.

In the early 1990s Cooke decided to return to comics, but found little interest for his work at the major publishers. Eventually he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation after replying to an ad placed by animator Bruce Timm.

He went on to work as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, and in 1999 he animated the main title design for Batman Beyond. He then worked as a director for Sony Animation's Men in Black: The Series for a year.

DC Comics then approached Cooke about a project which he had submitted to the publisher years earlier which eventually became Batman: Ego, a graphic novel published in 2000.

The critical success of that project led to Cooke taking on more freelance work, such as X-Force, Wolverine/Doop and Spider-Man's Tangled Web for Marvel Comics and Just Imagine... Stan Lee for DC.

In 2001, Cooke and writer Ed Brubaker teamed up to revamp the Catwoman character. They started with a 4 issue serial "Trail of the Catwoman" in Detective Comics #759-762 in which private detective Slam Bradley attempts to investigate the death of Selina Kyle (AKA Catwoman).

The story led into a new Catwoman title in late 2001 by Brubaker and Cooke, in which the character's costume, supporting cast and modus operandi were all redesigned and redeveloped. Cooke would stay on the series, which was met with critical and fan acclaim, up until issue #4. In 2002 he would write and draw a prequel, the Selina's Big Score graphic novel which detailed what had happened to the character directly before her new series.
Cover to DC: The New Frontier #6.
Cover to DC: The New Frontier #6.

Cooke's next project was the ambitious DC: The New Frontier (2004), a six issue miniseries which sought to tell an epic storyline bridging the gap between the end of the golden and the start of the silver age of comic books in the DC Universe. The story, which was set in the 1950s, featured dozens of super-hero characters and drew inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period as well as from Tom Wolfe's non-fiction account of the start of the US Space Program The Right Stuff. The major DC characters are introduced in "The New Frontier" in the same order that DC originally published them, even down to the correct month and year in the story's timeline. In 2005, Cooke won an Eisner Award for "Best Limited Series", and a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on the series.

Most recently, Cooke contributed to DC's artist-centric anthology project Solo. His issue (#5, June, 2005) featured several different stories in different styles with a framing sequence featuring the Slam Bradley character. In 2006, Solo #5 won an Eisner Award for "Best Single Issue."

In July 2005, it was announced that in 2006 Cooke and writer Jeph Loeb would produce a Batman/Spirit crossover, to be followed shortly afterwards by an ongoing Spirit series written and drawn by Cooke. Batman/The Spirit was ultimately published in November 2006, followed in December by the first issue of Cooke's The Spirit. In June 2007, Cooke and J. Bone won a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artists" for their work on "Batman/The Spirit", and Cooke won "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on "The Spirit".

In July 2006, it was announced that Warner Bros. Animation and DC Comics would release a series of direct-to-DVD animated movies based on important DC com ...more

82 posts
Darwyn Cooke's Blog

Darwyn Cooke isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Another big book coming of Darwyn's works

Cal here. DC recently announced a new Absolute Edition collecting some of Darwyn's Bat-stories.

here's the info from the publisher:

Batman by Darwyn Cooke: Absolute Edition

Featuring work by Darwyn Cooke, with Babs Tarr, John McCrea, Greg Capullo, and Curt Swan

"A Bold Vision of the Dark Knight—Collected in Absolute Perfection."

Celebrate the legacy of Darwyn Cooke with this Absolute edition o

Combine Editions
Darwyn Cooke’s books

Average rating: 4.08 · 90,535 ratings · 7,008 reviews · 252 distinct works • Similar authors

	DC: The New Frontier, Volume 1 by Darwyn Cooke (Writer, Artist), Dave Stewart (Colourist), Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer) 4.18 avg rating — 11,361 ratings — published 2004 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke (Author/Illustrator), Richard Stark 4.17 avg rating — 8,217 ratings — published 2009 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Absolute DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke (Writer / Artist), Dave Stewart (Colorist), Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer) 4.39 avg rating — 7,744 ratings — published 2006 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	DC: The New Frontier, Volume 2 by Darwyn Cooke (Writer, Artist), Dave Stewart 4.32 avg rating — 7,586 ratings — published 2004 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit 4.25 avg rating — 4,534 ratings — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Batman: Ego and Other Tails 3.94 avg rating — 4,775 ratings — published 2007 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Richard Stark’s Parker: The Score by Darwyn Cooke (Adapter, Illustrator), Richard Stark (Source) 4.30 avg rating — 2,839 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner (Illustrator) 3.74 avg rating — 2,956 ratings — published 2013 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1 (of 6) by Darwyn Cooke (Writer, Illustrator), Len Wein (Backup writer), John Higgins (Backup illustrator) 3.89 avg rating — 1,991 ratings — published 2012 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Richard Stark's Parker: Slayground 4.11 avg rating — 1,699 ratings — published 2013 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Darwyn Cooke…

Series by Darwyn Cooke

DC: The New Frontier (Single Issues) (7 books)
by

Darwyn Cooke,

David Bullock,

J. Bone

4.28 avg rating — 27,271 ratings

DC: The New Frontier (2 books)
by

Darwyn Cooke (Writer, Artist),

Dave Stewart

4.28 avg rating — 26,689 ratings

Parker Graphic Novels (5 books)
by

Darwyn Cooke

4.18 avg rating — 19,049 ratings

Before Watchmen: Minutemen (6 books)
by

Darwyn Cooke (writer, illustrator)

3.84 avg rating — 7,109 ratings

Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre (4 books)
by

Darwyn Cooke,

Amanda Conner (Writer, Illustrator),

John Higgins (Backup writer/illustrator)

3.68 avg rating — 4,966 ratings

More series by Darwyn Cooke…

Quotes by Darwyn Cooke (?)

“People have an amazing ability to cope with the madness of life. It's called denial. It'll take you a good mile, but only if life's horrors stay on the page of the newspaper where they belong.”
― Darwyn Cooke, Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre

tags: coping, coping-mechanisms, denial, madness

4 likes

“Two things become clear to me. The first is that this is a world where good and evil struggle in all levels of existence. I want to be a force for good.

The second thing is that I need to find employment if I want to obtain any more currency.

As I'm sure is the case for many earthlings, I find my answer on the television.

My martian name is J'onn J'onzz. Here on Earth I shall be known as John Jones.

Police detective John Jones. I'll be one of the good guys.”
― Darwyn Cooke, Absolute DC: The New Frontier

2 likes

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
All things Fandom: 2011 Authors	88	313	Aug 29, 2011 03:43PM
Graphic Novel Rea...: Optional Book Club Discussion: Richard Stark's Parker #1: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke - October 2012 (may contain spoilers)	9	53	Oct 26, 2012 09:07AM
All things Fandom: 2013 Authors list	18	92	Aug 24, 2013 12:10PM
The Sword and Laser: Are older comics better (more story)?	28	141	May 10, 2014 11:14AM
Crazy for Young A...: A-Z Author Names	790	509	Sep 09, 2014 01:21AM
2014 Books!: 2014 Book List	802	220	Dec 31, 2014 06:52PM
The Seasonal Read...: Summer Challenge 2016: Completed Tasks: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS THREAD	2596	496	Aug 31, 2016 09:00PM
The Seasonal Read...: Completed Tasks: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POST IN THIS THREAD	2555	479	Nov 30, 2016 09:00PM

More…

Darwyn Cooke’s Followers (370)

Darwyn Cooke

82 postsDarwyn Cooke's Blog

Another big book coming of Darwyn's works

Combine EditionsDarwyn Cooke’s books

Series by Darwyn Cooke

Topics Mentioning This Author

82 posts
Darwyn Cooke's Blog

Combine Editions
Darwyn Cooke’s books