Darwyn Cooke, the mastermind behind the animated title sequence for the BATMAN BEYOND tv show, the NEW FRONTIER comic series and the relaunch of WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT was interviewed at Wondercon by editor Scott Dunbier.
Newsarama has the breakdown here.
What's interesting to the pulpster contingent reading this is how Cooke breaks down the idea of simplicity - something we've talked about here on the blog:
"Further explaining Toth’s influence on his work, Cooke said that his work is “fairly simple and open” and he finds himself always trying to figure out how to connect with his audience on an emotional level given his “simple” art. To illustrate that point, Cooke pointed out how that, if you took a photo-realistic painting of a person smiling, the simple yellow circle with two dots and a curved line will express the feeling more clearly, due to its simplicity. Cooke said he is always striving for what Toth had in his art – to use the simplest image to get the emotion across, from artist to audience."
Simplicity is hard to do, it requires you to strip your characters down to their main components and discard the "pinstriping" that seems in vogue with many writers (and artists) these days. But when you do strip your characters and their story down to the essentials - you are able to more directly communicate with your audience. They "get it", and more importantly -- they remember.
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