Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.84: Denys Cowan

No.84: Denys Cowan

Denys Cowan was one of the new breed of African-American comic artists. Cowan studied at the High School Of Art and Design in New York but he was put on his professional path thanks to meeting someone who worked for comic artist and Deathlok creator Rich Buckler. Cowan went to visit Buckler at his studio and he was soon hired as the artist’s assistant. Words: Joel Meadows…

photo by Luigi Novi

Cowan made his solo art debut on a short story in Weird War Tales#93 published by DC in 1980 which led to a number of fill-in issues at both Marvel and DC on books like Superman, Spectacular Spider-man and The Flash. From 1982 to 1983, Cowan found a regular home on Marvel’s Power Man and Iron Fist. It was with DC’s critically acclaimed The Question series with veteran writer and editor Denny O’Neil though which launched in 1986 and ran for three years that really brought him to people’s attention though. He also pencilled a three-issue special Batman story in Detective Comics to celebrate that book’s 600th edition in 1989.

Cowan’s angular lines and dramatic camera angles gave hm a career moving between DC and Marvel but his next prominent run was as artist on Milestone Media’s Hardware title, DC’s imprint focused on African-American superheroes. Cowan was also one of the founders of this important comics company.

Cowan as well as a very impressive comics CV has also worked creating variant film posters for films like John Wick 2 and Black Panther with his friend and regular collaborator Bill Sienkiewicz. In 2020 he returned to drawing the Question with Sienkiewicz inking on The Question: The Deaths Of Vic Sage.

Cowan’s career has also come full circle coming back to pencil Hardware for the relaunched Milestone Media at DC.

He continues to create dynamic and kinetic comic art even five decades after he started to work as a professional artist.

JM

Read the first sixteen entries so far here too

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.85: Ross Andru

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.86: Paul Gustavson

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.87: George Evans

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.88: Michael Golden

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.89: Matt Baker

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.90: Todd McFarlane

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.91: Fiona Staples

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.92: Carl Barks

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.93: Carmine Infantino

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.94: Alan Davis

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.95: CC Beck

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.96: Syd Shores

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.97: Bob Fujitani

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.98: Tim Sale

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.99: Jim Aparo

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.100

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.101