Denys Cowan was first inspired by superheroes as a child from reruns of the 1950s TV show Adventures of Superman with George 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 of Jack Kirby's New Gods.[3] Cowan attended the High 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 and Deathlok creator Rich 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 in Weird War Tales #93 (Nov. 1980) for DC Comics.[5] He was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986.[6] Cowan gained prominence as the primary artist on The Question, a comic book series written by Dennis O'Neil and published by DC beginning in February 1987.[7] His other comics credits include the Batman story arc "Blind Justice" in Detective Comics #598–600 (March–May 1989) with writer Sam Hamm,[8][9] which introduced the character Henri Ducard.[10] Cowan was the penciller on the latter half of the 1990 Deathlok miniseries, published by Marvel Comics, which was written by Dwayne McDuffie and Gregory Wright as well as on the subsequent regular title of the same name.
As Senior Vice President of Animation at BET, 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 of the prime time animated series The Boondocks.
Serving as Senior Vice President of Motown Animation and Filmworks, he created and developed a number of shows with Fox, ABC, Disney, and Nickelodeon.
^ abCowan, Denys (December 2018). "How I broken into comics with...Denys Cowan", DC Nation #5, Page 2, DC Comics (Burbank, California).
^Bails, Jerry (2006). "Cowan, Denys". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Archived from the original on April 1, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
^Manning, Matthew K.; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1980s". 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.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^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 of Detective 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.; Dougall, Alastair, ed. (2014). "1980s". Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 178. ISBN978-1465424563. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Daniels, Les (1995). DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. p. 232. ISBN0821220764. The Milestone principals include writer–editor Dwayne McDuffie, artist and creative director Denys Cowan and president Derek Dingle; a fourth partner, Michael Davis, quickly dropped out to run Motown Animation.
^Weiss, Jeff (March 26, 2008). "GZA's Liquid Swords of Truth". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on April 8, 2013. Retrieved August 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.
