Favourite Artists: Darwyn Cooke - Six Pack Stories & The Adventures of Dutch Courage

 

I’m a great admirer of the work of Darwyn Cooke and I believe that I own most examples of his comic book work, as well as the various hardback adaptations he did of Richard Stark’s anti-hero Parker. I love the way that he would adapt different styles to the material at hand - sometimes cartoony, at other times a pastiche of 1950s styles in the vein of Jim Mooney, and sometimes a more painterly approach.  I’m not aware of another American mainstream comic book artist who consciously varies his or her style to suit the material to the same extent.

I first came to appreciate Darwyn's work in DC's The New Frontier, and then avidly tracked down everything of his that I could find. One of my most prized possessions is The Adventures of Dutch Courage.

The Adventures of Dutch Courage is a 10-panel comic strip, drawn by Darwyn and written by Jimmy Palmiotti, published as custom labels on the bottles of session ale (brewed with juniper berries and lemon peel) for Arcade Brewery in Chicago a decade ago.  I've consumed four of the six bottles, but two bottles remain unopened.

The Adventures of Dutch Courage was only available on 18th November 2015 at four locations in Chicago ; The Beer Temple, Capones Liquor, Prestige Liquors (Westmont), and Binny’s (Lincoln Park). Luckily my eldest son was living close to Lincoln Park that year, and was able to secure me a six-pack.

At the time Darwyn was quoted “If you stop and think about all the beer Jimmy and I have consumed over the years, it’s about time we did something like this.”

Line 'em up!

Panel from Bottle #1

The six-pack packaging even has a bonus ad-page on the bottom of the carton.

Since Darwyn left us in 2016, I’ve looked for other artists that evince that same cartoony style imbued with humour and love for the material. David Aja and Jorge Fornes are good alternatives to Darwyn's "50s" style but Elsa Charretier is by far the closest in terms of being able to evoke Darwyn's cartoony style, humour and love of the medium. It is interesting that these three individuals I've noted are either Spanish or French, bringing European comic influences to a North American art form.

I've included a Wonder Woman piece by Elsa Charretier below.

© DC. Artwork by Elsa Charretier.

 ----------- Update as of April 2nd 2024-----------

Here are all six labels of the Dutch Courage adventure. Labels 2 to 6 are scanned from the bottles rolling them on my scanner - it is the best I can do without removing the labels from the bottles!