Cloonan and her friends produced a comics anthology that they called
Meathaus. Cloonan created
minicomics as a member of the
Meathaus collective before collaborating with
Brian Wood on
Channel Zero: Jennie One in 2003. Since then, her profile (and workload) has steadily risen; her best-known work to date has been the twelve-issue comics series
Demo (2004), also with Wood.
Wizard named
Demo its 2004 Indie of the Year. The series was also nominated for two
Eisner Awards in 2005, for Best Limited Series and Best Single Issue or One-Shot (the latter of which was for
Demo #7, "One Shot, Don't Miss"). Cloonan's first solo graphic novel,
East Coast Rising Volume 1, was released by
Tokyopop in 2006.
East Coast Rising: Volume 1 marked Cloonan's third Eisner Award nomination in 2007, this time for Best New Series. She also collaborated with writer
Steven T. Seagle on the
Vertigo Comics series
American Virgin, which was cancelled with the 23rd issue. In 2012 she became the first woman to draw the main
Batman title. and
Shaun Simon. In 2014/2015, she also co-created and did cover art and stories for
Gotham Academy from DC Comics. In 2015, she was voted #3 of the top 50 female comics artists of all time. She was also one of only two creators to make the list as both writer and artist, voted #14 among all-time top writers. In 2017, Cloonan was one of several artists participating in the Pow! Wow! Worcester festival, the purpose of which was to bring large public murals to buildings throughout
Worcester, Massachusetts. Cloonan painted her mural, which she completed on Labor Day, on the building housing the comic shop
That's Entertainment. In July 2021, DC Comics announced that Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad would co-write
Batgirls, a new series which would focus on
Barbara Gordon's mentorship of
Cassandra Cain and
Stephanie Brown. The debut issue was released on December 14, 2021, and garnered a positive review from Dustin Holland of
CBR.com. In 2024, Cloonan won the
Eisner Award for Best New Series for her work with
Tula Lotay on
Somna: A Bed Time Story published by
DSTLRY ==Bibliography==