colleen doran

Colleen Doran made her first comic when she was twelve, and she's still writing and drawing it today. A Distant Soil stands apart as a unique project within the comics sphere; an epic longform story that has spanned decades in the real-world, and yet remained contemporary and compelling. Doran has also worked at Marvel and DC, and collaborated with writers including Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis. Along the way she's gained many admirers, but also vocal critics who tried to push her out of the industry. ComicsAlliance looks back over some of the milestones of her career, to chart how she became one of the most acclaimed artists in the industry today.

The weekend is here! Take a look back at what’s happened in the past seven days. New comics, new stories, new podcasts, new art being made — it’s all part of the ComicsAlliance Weekender!

It’s the end of the year! We’ve made it through 2016, a year of departures, returns, arrivals, civil wars, and young animals. Valiant was building up Faith, Top Shelf completed its March, and Mike Mignola wrapped up Hellboy’s grand journey. Mildred Louis sent the Agents of the Realm off on further adventures, Wonder Woman celebrated her 75th anniversary, and Bleach reached its final chapter. It’s been another staggering year for comics everywhere. So where does that leave us for 2017? As we hit the end of the year, so we reach the ComicsAlliance Yearender once more. Read on; there are so, so many great comics waiting for us all next year!

Q: What is the definitive Christmas comic? — @Koltreg A: "Definitive" is a pretty tricky requirement to meet. You have to find a comic that's not just definitively Christmas, with all that goes along with it, it has to be definitively comics, too --- and if you think it's difficult for people to agree on what Christmas is all about, just wait'll you try getting them to pin down one single issue that defines comic books as a medium. At least religion has centuries of scholarship; comics just has loudmouths writing columns about them on the Internet. That said, I do think I've found one that's as close as we're going to get: 1989's Christmas With The Super-Heroes #2.

Some people say that politics and politicians have no place in comics, but that's just not true. Captain America Comics #1 saw the hero punching out Adolf Hitler on the front cover; FDR was in an issue of Detective Comics two full issues before Batman debuted; and this November, Valiant's premiere female superhero teams up with presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Faith #5.

We've known for a while that Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods is coming to TV in 2017, as a series on the Starz network, but it turns out it's also coming to comics, as a Dark Horse series adapted by P. Craig Russell with art by Scott Hampton and others. The plan is to adapt the novel over 27 issues, which will be collected in three hardcovers (and presumably paperbacks down the road). The story arcs are titled Shadows, My Ainsel, and The Moment of the Storm. Russell will also provide some interior art, as will Walt Simonson, Mark Buckingham, and Colleen Doran.

Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran's Orbiter might be one of the most underrated comics of either of those creators' considerable careers. Released as an original graphic novel in 2003, it told the story of a space shuttle that returned to Earth after being missing for ten years, and it's the kind of beautifully rendered high concept story that makes you wonder why Ellis and Doran don't work together more often. Now, though, 13 years later, they're reuniting for a new project: Finality.

Trina Robbins is often not given the credit she deserves both as a legendary creator and as a force for real change within the comic book industry. A trailblazer her entire career; she designed the classic Vampirella costume, was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman, and was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013 in recognition for her lifetime of work in comics. Robbins deserves many more eyes on her work, which is why it's so exciting that a Kickstarter has been put together by Drew Ford under the It's Alive imprint to collect and publish her adaptation of Sax Rohmer's 1919 novel, Dope.

Legendary comics artist Colleen Doran is contributing a gorgeous variant cover to the landmark 50th issue of Valiant's X-O Manowar. Her cover, seen above, is an homage to Michelangelo's sculpture The Pietà, with the titular armor in place of Jesus Christ. The mix of sci fi and Celtic fantasy imagery (not to mention the androgynous white-haired figure), while appropriate for X-O Manowar, is also reminiscent of Doran's own magnum opus, A Distant Soil.

Colleen Doran was born on July 24, 1964, and she was an artistic prodigy from her earliest years, winning a Disney art contest at five and finding a place at an ad agency at fifteen. She had already begun work on the saga that would most define her comics career, A Distant Soil, when she was twelve.