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.
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 comic books. One of the first comics being adapted will be Cooke's "DC: The New Frontier". Cooke will co-write the film with Stan Berkowitz and also provide art direction. The movie will be produced by Bruce Timm.
Darwyn Cooke is also currently writing the first six-issue story arc of the new Superman monthly series,
Superman Confidential, which debuted on November 1, 2006. Superman Confidential is a series that will feature stories set in the early years of Superman’s career. In June 2007 Cooke was awarded the
Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer" for "Superman Confidential".
rss feed