Written by Darwyn Cooke
Art by Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone
Published by DC Comics
Darwyn Cooke is one of those comic creators working today that can pretty much follow his own muse. For whatever reason, Cooke is currently housed over at the DC building, where he's churning out work-for-hire comics based on characters that he'll never own the rights too.
God bless him for that. After all, if Cooke was eking out work for Fantagraphics or Drawn & Quarterly, he'd be sure to be getting all the acclaim that means (a lot of love from an even smaller subgroup of the group that's buying the new Gen13 series, which is about the equivalent of people who were watching that TV show E-Ring.) For now, Cooke seems content to play with corporate toys--his work on Catwoman and, of course, New Frontier, are some of the best things DC has published in the last few years. (And New Frontier contained what could arguably be the best use of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern in the characters abysmally long career.)
Still, knives have been at the ready for Cooke's re-imagining of Will Eisner's long-running Spirit character--a character that's been referred to for so long as "Will Eisner's The Spirit" that the reader almost expects for the character to be called that in the comic itself. The comic itself is only three issues in, and so far it's been exactly like what one imagined--Cooke's brand of neo-revivalist art mixed with the bittersweet archetypal characters he's so clearly mastered. It's an odd beast--his art, as always, is so archaic and whimsical that while it may make one crave the past, the historical fact is that very little cartooning was ever as good as what he's doing. While he's certainly not going to supplant Will Eisner anytime in the next 10 years (give him 30, than maybe) Cooke's already doing much prettier stuff. The story here is little more than an updated version of Eisner's classic femme fatale out for revenge, but that's to be expected this early in the series. (Considering that the original Spirit fills over 20 hardcover collections, Cooke has a massive pool to draw tales from if he so wishes.) While Cooke's skills as a storyteller would clearly be wasted if he spends too long on the Spirit (one hopes he goes out on his own, and soon) as long as he's behind the wheel, the comic is one that will remain a must read.
-Tucker Stone, 2007
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