Denys Cowan is a comic and animation creator, and the co-founder of Milestone Media. He has worked on comics like Deathstroke, Blind Justice, Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers, and The Question, and co-created Hardware, Static, and Blood Syndicate. Cowan directed and produced the Static Shock animated series, developed and produced the first season of The Boondocks animated series, and he developed and produced the Black Panther animated series. While at Baltimore Comic-Con, Cowan took a break from meeting fans to discuss his career with Scoop.

Scoop: Are you having fun this weekend?
Denys Cowan (DC): I’m having a great time in Baltimore, yes.

Scoop: What do you like about this show?
DC: The people. The people, the honest to goodness, real comic book fans. I’m sure there’s some celebrity autograph seekers around. But so far, we haven’t seen many of them. We just see die-hard comic book fans here. That’s always good.

Scoop: What does it mean to you to be able to meet fans at shows like this?
DC: Well, you get people showing you appreciation for the things that you’ve done. They want to meet you because they love your comics. So, you want to try to give them the best experience of meeting you. I just love meeting fans. And fans are really why we do what we do.

Scoop: You’ve illustrated so many iconic characters – Static, Batman, Black Panther – to name a few. Which ones are the most fun to illustrate?
DC: Static. Yeah, the stuff that I created.

Scoop: How does working in animation compare to comics?
DC: Totally different. The only thing that’s similar is that you both draw. Like you can draw in both. But it’s two different disciplines. One moves and it’s designed to move. And one is static and designed to be looked at in a static way. So, some people think that they have a lot in common. Sometimes the styles of drawing, but the actual physical process of drawing works completely different.

Scoop: What do you find more challenging?
DC: Animation.

Scoop: Which of the characters you created or co-created stand out as your favorites?
DC: All the milestone characters. Icon, Static, Hardware, Blood Syndicate, you know, first four books, and then everything that came afterwards. Those are my favorites.

Scoop: They’re great characters. What advice would you give to somebody who wanted to get into comics?
DC: I get that question, and I never know how to answer it. I don’t know what kind of advice… it’s much tougher than when I was trying to get in to comics. Now you can publish your own stuff. Now you can go on Instagram and have a portfolio that everyone can see every day. There’s so many ways to get attention. What you have to do is develop your chops. Don’t rely on AI, which will get you halfway there, maybe. But then, you know, you can’t really do the work. And make sure that you’re consistently putting your stuff out there online so people can see it. Talk about yourself. There’s all kinds of ways to promote yourself now. And that way, people at DC and Marvel and all the other publishers will notice you, because that’s where they’re going to look for material.

Scoop: What characters or books would you like to work on that you haven’t worked on yet?
DC: I’ve done almost everything. There isn’t anything that I’m dying to work on so bad. I think the one character I haven’t drawn is Thor. Like, I’ll draw the blond white dude with the hammer, you know? I’ll try that. But other than that, there is something I’ve done pretty much all of them wanted to do.

Scoop: Has anybody brought up any deep cuts of your work at this convention?
DC: I get deep cuts all the time.

Scoop: Yeah.
DC: Yeah. I did a book called Nightcat – watch everyone look it up – with Stan Lee, Jimmy Palmiotti, Joe Jusko did the cover, and I think Jim Lee did some of the covers too, did one of the covers too. And it’s so obscure, such a deep cut, that nobody ever heard of this, right? Accept the four copies I signed in Baltimore, where people were looking at me like Nightcat’s their favorite thing. It was based on an obscure ‘90s pop singer who got a comic book, because her boyfriend had a lot of money.

Scoop: What are you working on now?
DC: Currently, I just finished a big crossover with our character and one from Marvel. I just did a thing in The New Gods. You know, DC has a book called The New Gods. And I just did a four-page story with Ram V. That worked out really well.

Scoop: And are you doing any more shows this year?
DC: I think I do the [Motor City Comic Con] in November.

Scoop: Thank you so much.
DC: Thank you.