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A review by unladylike
Batman: Ego and Other Tails Deluxe Edition by Darwyn Cooke
4.0
I didn't realize until recently how incredibly talented Darwyn Cooke was, both as an artist with a distinctly cartoonish, nostalgic art style and as a writer. (See my review of [b:Absolute DC: The New Frontier|107171|Absolute DC The New Frontier|Darwyn Cooke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387700874s/107171.jpg|2732007]) Amanda Conner opens this collection of Cooke's contributions to the Batman world by recounting how she was shot down and forced to change her style from the very kind of animated/cartoony illustrations that Cooke was praised for with many awards. Her resentment is understandable, especially in an industry that has for a long time been a boys' club. But "cartoonish" is certainly not suitable to every comic, superhero, or more specifically, Batman story. If you grew up with the incredibly ahead-of-its-time Batman: The Animated Series of the '90s, that's the kind of cartoonish style Cooke employs to great effect. And that series was how he came to be recognized by DC as a great talent, and moved from working on the after school cartoon show to comic books. Darwyn Cooke died two years ago of lung cancer, which is probably why DC is reprinting this collection.
The first entry, Ego, was in fact Cooke's first Batman story, and was initially proposed as an animated endeavor, but years later he turned it into his Bat-debut in print. His afterword suggests great humility and a critical eye through years of growth since the story was written, but it really is a significant and ambitious Batman story. Cooke both wrote and illustrated this one, as well as the four-part heist story/"graphic novel" Catwoman: Selina's Big Score, but in a few instances throughout this book, he is credited as either the illustrator or the writer, but not both.
The first Batman: Black and White issue Cooke drew for writer Paul Grist is really good, but I agree with his ultimate assessment in the afterword that Selina's Big Score is the best. (He goes so far as to say it's the best story he ever wrote and illustrated, at least as of 2007, when this collection was first printed.) This Catwoman stand-alone story is a classic heist "tail," and apparently helped convince DC to re-launch an ongoing title devoted to her.
Following that miniseries, we get a single issue based on the first Batman comic Darwyn Cooke happened to acquire as a child in the '70s, which he cites as his all-time favorite Batman story.
After the 200-page mark, it started to lose my interest. I would give it 5 stars up to that point, but I've never cared for Will Eisner's The Spirit, even in a rare cross-over with Batman. Those two characters have an astonish number of parallels, but putting them in the same world, interacting with each other's rogues galleries, just did not end up being very exciting for me. Fans of The Spirit might love it though. Samesies for the final story, from Harley Quinn, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner (neither of whom I'm a big fan of tbh).
Overall, this is a must-read for Bat-fans, and adds to my desire to get a hold of Darwyn Cooke's other interesting gifts to the comics world.
The first entry, Ego, was in fact Cooke's first Batman story, and was initially proposed as an animated endeavor, but years later he turned it into his Bat-debut in print. His afterword suggests great humility and a critical eye through years of growth since the story was written, but it really is a significant and ambitious Batman story. Cooke both wrote and illustrated this one, as well as the four-part heist story/"graphic novel" Catwoman: Selina's Big Score, but in a few instances throughout this book, he is credited as either the illustrator or the writer, but not both.
The first Batman: Black and White issue Cooke drew for writer Paul Grist is really good, but I agree with his ultimate assessment in the afterword that Selina's Big Score is the best. (He goes so far as to say it's the best story he ever wrote and illustrated, at least as of 2007, when this collection was first printed.) This Catwoman stand-alone story is a classic heist "tail," and apparently helped convince DC to re-launch an ongoing title devoted to her.
Following that miniseries, we get a single issue based on the first Batman comic Darwyn Cooke happened to acquire as a child in the '70s, which he cites as his all-time favorite Batman story.
After the 200-page mark, it started to lose my interest. I would give it 5 stars up to that point, but I've never cared for Will Eisner's The Spirit, even in a rare cross-over with Batman. Those two characters have an astonish number of parallels, but putting them in the same world, interacting with each other's rogues galleries, just did not end up being very exciting for me. Fans of The Spirit might love it though. Samesies for the final story, from Harley Quinn, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner (neither of whom I'm a big fan of tbh).
Overall, this is a must-read for Bat-fans, and adds to my desire to get a hold of Darwyn Cooke's other interesting gifts to the comics world.