Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier

I've always been more of a Marvel and Dark Horse Comics fan: I picked up a ton of Hellboy, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-Man and Iron Man comics over the years, but only the occasional DC comic: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen currently sit on my shelves. Superman, Green Arrow and most of the others really haven't interested me over the years, until I came across Darwyn Cooke's artwork.

Cooke died the other week, and the outpouring of grief populated my Twitter and Facebook feeds with excerpts of his artwork. I was hooked immediately, and ordered a copy of his book, DC: The New Frontier.

It was a lot bigger than I expected, and it was a read that I sank into with glee. I loved his artwork: bold, simple art deco that feels both nostalgic and futuristic at the same time, the perfect epitome of the 1950s/1960s.

The story for this comic was fantastic, but what I really appreciated was that this comic was fun. It wasn't a grim, dark story that deconstructed the nature of superheroes. It was an adventure, exactly everything a comic book story should be.

It's a shame that Cooke passed away, but I'm looking forward to discovering more of his work.