Denys Cowan

Denys Cowan (; born January 30, 1961) is an American comics artist, television producer, media executive and one of the co-founders of Milestone Media.

Early life 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. Cowan attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City. 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. He was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986. 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. His other comics credits include the Batman story arc "Blind Justice" in Detective Comics #598–600 (March–May 1989) with writer Sam Hamm, which introduced the character Henri Ducard. 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.

Cowan and writer Dwayne McDuffie collaborated on a Prince comic book in 1991. Cowan co-founded Milestone Media in 1993 with McDuffie, Michael Davis, and Derek Dingle, and later worked as a producer on Static Shock, an animated series based on Milestone character Static.

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 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.

Cowan drew the cover art of the GZA/Genius of the Wu-Tang Clan's album Liquid Swords.

Awards Cowan and inker Rick Magyar were nominated for an Eisner Award as "Best Art Team" in both 1988 and 1989 for their work on The Question.

Cowan received an Inkpot Award at San Diego Comic-Con in 2013.

In 2026, Cowan was selected for inclusion in the Eisner Hall of Fame.