Darwyn Cooke on the Spirit

I talked yesterday with Darwyn Cooke, the writer and artist on the new monthly Spirit comic coming from DC in December. He also co-wrote (with Jeph Loeb) and illustrated the “Batman/The Spirit” one-shot that should be arriving in comic-book shops today.

The Spirit, of course, is the creation of the legendary Will Eisner, who died in early 2005. Cooke says he was naturally intimidated at the idea of being in charge of the character and it took a while for him to decide to take the gig.

What he realized was that he could never top Eisner, so he wouldn’t try. The key, he says, was to not try to re-create the Spirit of the ‘40s and ‘50s, but to set him in the present. “Because then I’m not doing an homage and I’m not trying to live up to something that’s already there.”

I’ll have more on Cooke and the Spirit in a future Comics Fan column.