Last Friday morning, it was announced that artist Darwyn Cooke was receiving palliative care after suffering from an agressive form of cancer. Less than 24 hours later, his family announced that Cooke had passed away around 1:30am on May 14th, 2016. 53 years old is far too young for anyone to die.
For a brief family trip, we drove up to Michigan Friday night. Driving through the rain of south-western Michigan, I spent a lot of the time thinking about Cooke and his comics. I can't say that I always enjoyed his stories. The plot of a lot of his books (except for the extremely excellent DC: New Frontier) lacked a bit of conviction for me but his storytelling never lacked anything. The way that Cooke drew his stories was the work of an artist who was in complete control of every aspect of the page.
When we got to our final destination, I began tweeting my thoughts. Just before midnight Eastern time, the news that Cooke had passed away began circulating but that seems like it was a few our premature so you may notice that my writing varies between Cooke being very much in the present and in the past.
Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to Cooke's friends and family.
The family notes that donations in Cooke's memory can be made to the Canadian Cancer Society and Hero Initiative.
