Talkin’ ’bout the sea and the sky, and I’m talkin’ ’bout you and I. The sea, the sky, for you and I and I know we’re all blues, all shades, all hues, all blues.” From All Blues, written by Miles Davis.
(Author’s note: I was going to write about this last week, but I got wrapped up writing about myself instead. As Miles said, we’re all blues.)
Graphic Samurai – The Art of Denys Cowan, by Michael Stradford, Gizmoe Press, 2025. $60.00, 314 pages, 233 pounds or so.
Denys Cowan likes to take on the public demeanor of a tough, slightly repressed fighter with a “don’t fuck with me” look that could melt aluminum on a winter night. Do not let that intimidate you. Denys actually is a very nice guy, very funny, a good conversationalist and, really, one pussycat of a martial arts expert.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, Denys’ dance card had some open slots. That’s scary for a freelancer; however, for a freelancer-hirerer such as myself, it was an opportunity. My cell-mate Denny O’Neil and I just hammered out the concept for a revival of Steve Ditko’s The Question. When developing something new, I often take on the role of expectant father, but this time I knew our newborn truly had very serious potential.
A number of artists came to mind. I first mentioned it to the great Ernie Colon, who liked the concept but didn’t grok the overall environment. The Question, was the “hero” to be sure, but the star was Hub City. The Question was about a corrupt, almost impossible city that was based upon East St. Louis. And by “based,” I mean Denny and I both knew about the real town and some real incidents might not be believable to our readers. Think about that. We do a lot of apocalyptic science fiction, and we stuff gorillas into stories whenever possible.
I had my eye on Denys’ work. Hard not to. I’m a fan; I don’t just play one on the Pop Culture Squadcast. And I loved his work. I gave serious thought to putting DC Comics’ money where my mouth was and mentioned it to Denny, who mentioned it to a couple mutual friends at Marvel. Within 24 hours I received three phone calls from friends saying Denys couldn’t hit a deadline if it had been a chaw ad painted on the side of a barn.
As a habitual contrarian, I saw this as a challenge. Besides, I received such pushback from people whenever I was looking at hiring Black talent, be they writers, artists, colorists, or editors. It was a passive sort of racism that I rarely encountered when hiring white folk. Denys was the right person for the job, so…
… So I gave him a fill-in issue of The Vigilante, not to test out his deadline skills but to test out our working relationship. Several weeks later, I got the job, and it was absolutely swell, as was our work together. I found Denys to be a highly dedicated and thoughtful storyteller, more so than what I had been accustomed to. So I politely told those mutual friends to fuck off.
Of course I was polite. I said “please.”
It was Denys who brought Bill Sienkiewicz to the project. Bill’s talent goes without saying but not without seeing. We had done a little work together, and I loved (and still love) Bill’s worldview and attitude. Rick Magyar and, later, Malcolm Jones joined us on inks, and the breathtaking talent known as Tatjana Wood was the color artist.
I don’t think I’d ever seen a team work harder on an ongoing series. I am genuinely proud to have been part of this experience.
But Denys has done, and continues to do, a whole lotta stuff. Michael Stradford wrote and gathered Graphic Samurai – The Art of Denys Cowan, following in the wake of his book Steve Holland: The Torn Shirt Sessions, and his work with Howard Chaykin on Fargo: Hell on Wheels. A musician and a filmmaker, I had known of his biography of the astonishingly great Miles Davis, and I recalled after whom Denys Cowan and Chantal d’Aulnis named their child.
Gizmoe Press does solid, heartfelt stuff. Check ‘em out at https://gizmoepress.com/books/.
Right now, Denys is collaborating with Bill, writer Bryan Edward Hill and stand-up philosopher Charlamagne tha God (white people might recognize from The Daily Show) called ILLuminati, published by AWA Press. Appropriately, AWA stands for “Artists Writers and Artisans.”
That’s great. Everybody should stand for that.
Graphic Samurai contains interviews and essays by people in Denys’ lane, including a typically wordy exchange with me. There are lots and lots of pretty pictures, faithfully selected by people who know their stuff. Designer Jason Medley did a wonderful job.
There are lots of “The Art Of…” books out there. Denys Cowan deserved one over a decade ago, but, damn it, Graphic Samurai was worth the wait.
