Category: Comics

I was sadden to hear that Canadian cartoonist Darwyn Cooke had died earlier this month from lung cancer, age 53. I never had the opportunity to meet Cooke in person, but I liked his adaptations of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels very much, and thought that The New Frontier, his elegant tribute to Silver Age comics, could reinvigorate a superhero genre mired in cynicism. His work — reminiscent of Will Eisner, whose The Spirit he also drew — was full of charm and joy. Cooke’s friend Nathalie Atkinson wrote his obituary for the Globe & Mail:

Although he was a proud Canadian, it was John F. Kennedy’s Camelot – with its Cold War tensions, social upheaval and cool aesthetics – that held an enduring fascination for him. His masterwork ‘DC: The New Frontier’ (2004) sets the origins of the Justice League and the characters of the DC Silver Age into a powerful narrative set in the America of that era. The six-issue comic book series, named for the JFK’s 1960 Democratic nomination acceptance speech, would win Mr. Cooke the first of his 13 Eisner Awards, the industry’s most prestigious accolade, and he won many of its others – Reubens, Harveys and several Shusters, the Canadian comics awards named for the Canadian co-creator of Superman… His dynamic illustration, panel design and thoughtful approach to writing transcended mere nostalgia, whether he was telling hard-boiled stories of anti-heroes or exploring heroism through superheroes. Although whenever it was suggested to Mr. Cooke that he was an auteur he’d reply, “I’m more like John McTiernan,” the director of Die Hard, one of his favourite movies. “That’s the kind of creator he thought he was,” his friend Michael Cho says. “An entertainer.”