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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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The first thing to notice about Cooke’s issue of
Solo is that the first three pages offer more
artistry and visual dynamism than every other comic
book series DC Comics will put out this year. Reading
all 48 pages of this comic it is clear the reason why.
Cooke, through his experience as a graphic designer,
art director and pure talent as a cartoonist, just has
that ability to create a comic that takes full
advantage of the medium. From his brilliant coloring
(one of the most striking things about this book) all
the way down to the way he letters certain captions,
Cooke proves that he can stretch out his ability at
cartooning to match all of the subjects he is
passionate about.
What Cooke seems very much passionate about is a
bygone era of art deco, commercial illustration and
comics that is all but lost to us. In the inside front
cover there’s a glib remark that Cooke “wishes
Eisenhower was still in the White House” (Cooke’s
previous work, New Frontier, ended with an
excerpt from a President Kennedy speech). This
nostalgia for the late-1950’s and 1960’s is one that
makes sense for such an artist as Cooke. In those days
Cooke’s talents would have gelled quite easily with
the look of the time. The beginning of King Faraday
spy story features a splash page that resembles an
advertisement you would find in “Life” more than
anything else. There’s a wonderful gag panel featuring
Catwoman that wouldn’t seem out of place following a
John Updike essay in “Playboy.” One of the stories is
even an autobiographical tale of Cooke’s childhood
during those years, when a kindly neighbor first
infused in him that infatuation with art. The figures
drawn with perfectly placed bold lines resemble
something in between Hank Ketcham’s work and an UPA
cartoon.
This partiality to a specific time in history might be
a bit of a turn off to some, which is certainly fair.
Yet I see Cooke’s power is that he communicates his
enthusiasm so well he creates these books that are so
spectacular looking. All this romance for the past is
in service of creating a great comic, never a means to
itself. With a book like this or New Frontier
Cooke proves the Orson Welles quote "Even if the good
old days never existed, the fact that we can conceive
such a world is, in fact, an affirmation of the human
spirit."
-- Ian Brill
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Solo #5