Denys Cowan was first inspired by superheroes as a child from reruns of the 1950s TV showAdventures of Superman withGeorge Reeves. He did not yet know what a comic book was, and would not learn about them until the third grade. After Cowan's mother died, he moved in with his grandparents, and attended school in that district, where he met a future fellow comics creator, Derek Dingle, who drew comics with his brother. Dingle showed Cowan his first comic book, an issue ofJack Kirby'sNew Gods.[3] Cowan attended theHigh School of Art and Design in New York City.[4] One day in the school lunchroom, the 14-year-old Cowan met someone who worked for artist andDeathlok creatorRich Buckler. This led Cowan to pay a visit one day after school to Buckler's studio, where Buckler hired Cowan as his assistant. For a year, Cowan performed a number of tasks, including running errands, cleaning the studio, looking up references, for which Buckler paid him in the music albums that he had played in his studio, which increased Cowan's appreciation for music.[3]
Cowan's first published comics work was a three-page story inWeird War Tales #93 (Nov. 1980) forDC Comics.[5] He was one of the contributors to theDC Challenge limited series in 1986.[6] Cowan gained prominence as the primary artist onThe Question, a comic book series written byDennis O'Neil and published by DC beginning in February 1987.[7] His other comics credits include theBatman story arc "Blind Justice" inDetective Comics #598–600 (March–May 1989) with writerSam Hamm,[8][9] which introduced the character Henri Ducard.[10] Cowan was the penciller on the latter half of the 1990Deathlok miniseries, published byMarvel Comics, which was written byDwayne McDuffie andGregory Wright as well as on the subsequent regular title of the same name.
As senior vice president of animation atBET, Cowan was responsible for the creation, development and production of animated programming for the entire network. This included the development and production of the premiere season ofThe Boondocks.
Serving as senior vice President of Motown Animation and Filmworks, he created and developed a number of shows withFox,ABC,Disney, andNickelodeon.
^Manning, Matthew K. (2010). "1980s". In Dolan, Hannah (ed.).DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom:Dorling Kindersley. p. 227.ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9.Formerly part of the Charlton Comics line, the Question carved his mysterious niche into the DC Universe with the help of writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Denys Cowan.
^Greenberger, Robert; Manning, Matthew K. (2009).The Batman Vault: A Museum-in-a-Book with Rare Collectibles from the Batcave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:Running Press. p. 41.ISBN978-0-7624-3663-7.In the pages ofDetective Comics,Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm took advantage of that year's ongoing writers' strike to write a three-issue story entitled "Blind Justice", which culminated in that title's 600th issue.
^Manning, Matthew K. (2014). "1980s". In Dougall, Alastair (ed.).Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom:Dorling Kindersley. p. 178.ISBN978-1465424563.
^Weiss, Jeff (March 26, 2008)."GZA'sLiquid Swords of Truth".LA Weekly.Archived from the original on April 8, 2013. RetrievedAugust 13, 2013.the GZA tapped famed DC Comics artist Denys Cowan to hand-draw the album cover — cloaked ninjas in Wu insignias slaughtering people across a chessboard — and Cowan directed and co-wrote each of the album's four indelible videos.
