Colleen Doran

In 2022, Z2 Comics contracted Doran to produce work for officially licensed graphic novels for Blondie (band), Melissa Etheridge, and the 30th Anniversary of the Tori Amos album Little Earthquakes.

Forbes Magazine announced another Neil Gaiman/Doran collaboration for the adaptation of the Gaiman prose short story "Chivalry" from Dark Horse Comics. Released in March 2022, Doran hand-painted the work in watercolor, ink, and 18K gold after studying illuminated manuscript techniques.

In April 2022, Doran was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators who contributed to Operation USA's benefit anthology book, Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, a project spearheaded by editor Scott Dunbier, whose profits would be donated to relief efforts for Ukrainian refugees resulting from the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In 2021 Doran produced art for the Z2 Comics graphic novel anthology The Doors: Morrison Hotel, an official graphic novel collection based on the music of the band The Doors. Her work was also used for limited edition prints and the bookplate.

In 2020, For "Wonder Woman 750" Doran and Gail Simone teamed up for a story featuring their "breakout" character Star-Blossom, whose first appearance was the Wonder Woman 75th Anniversary Special in 2016. Doran wrote and illustrated a short story for "Sensational Wonder Woman", and illustrated another Wonder Woman short story for "Wonder Woman Black: and Gold" in 2021. She also produced work for DC Comics' "Generations: Forged" and cover art for "Batman: Urban Legends".

Her 2019 graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story Snow, Glass, Apples, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel. It won the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium, and Colleen Doran was also nominated for the Eisner for Best Penciller/Inker. Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples was also nominated for the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society for Best Graphic Novel. It won the 2020 Ringo Award for Best Graphic Novel with Doran nominated for Best Artist. It received an Honorable Mention at the Rondo Classic Horror Awards for Best Comic.

In 2019, Dark Horse Comics published Doran's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" which was described by The Comics Journal as a work which "...solidifies her place as one of the greatest cartoonists of her generation." The Horror Writers Association presented "Snow, Glass, Apples" with the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel award for 2019. It also won the Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium, and the Ringo Award for Best Graphic Novel.

She did the art for an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story "Troll Bridge" as a graphic novel for Dark Horse, released in October 2016. She also worked on issues of Faith and X-O Manowar for Valiant Comics. She produced work for the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. She was the artist for the series Finality with Warren Ellis at Line Webtoon.

Doran produced cover art for The Walking Dead No. 1 (2015, Image Comics), Red Sonja (Dynamite, 2014), Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. No. 4 (2015), and Squirrel Girl No. 7 (2016). For DC Comics, she wrote and drew stories for The Vampire Diaries (2014), based on the TV show, and art for Justice League 3001 No. 6, 9 and 10 (2015–2016). For IDW's Womanthology (2012), she contributed biographical essays about classic cartoonists Rose O'Neill and Ethel Hays.

In 2015, she illustrated the autobiography Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, co-written by Lee and Peter David.

Gone to Amerikay, a graphic novel drawn by Doran and written by Derek McCulloch, was released in 2012 from DC/Vertigo. It is a "multi-generational Irish saga." Gone to Amerikay themed cover art was featured in the St. Patrick's Day edition of the Irish Echo, which was then presented to President Barack Obama by Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Northern Ireland. An excerpt from Gone to Amerikay was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Comics 2013.

Doran is featured in the films Ringers (a documentary about The Lord of the Rings fans), Scenes From the Small Press: Colleen Doran by Rich Henn, Sex, Lies and Superheroes, the documentary The Cartoonist about Bone creator Jeff Smith, and Captured Ghosts, a documentary about writer Warren Ellis. She was also featured in the December 12, 2011 episode of "Stalked: Someone's Watching," a Discovery ID television series that profiles stalking incidents, focusing on interviews with victims.

Doran illustrated young adult novelist Barry Lyga's first graphic novel for Houghton Mifflin, Mangaman in 2011.

Doran was a web columnist for Wizard Magazine in the early 1990s, and illustrated Super Idol for Warren Ellis in 2001, an early webcomics format experiment at Artbomb.

Doran's premiere at Marvel Comics was in 1986, Swords of the Swashbucklers No. 9 and 11, with issue 11 having the dubious distinction of being one of the books confiscated in the 1986 Friendly Franks "obscene" comics raid that precipitated the formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Swords of the Swashbucklers was eventually excluded from the prosecution proceedings.

Doran landed her first work for an advertising agency at age fifteen. She attended Christopher Newport University for one year and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh online for one semester and used her professional works for curriculum credit. Science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas was her mentor, and she apprenticed with him in the early 1980s.

A Distant Soil was published in fanzines as early as 1979, then scouted by The Donning Company Starblaze imprint before it was contracted by WaRP Graphics. Doran left the company after nine issues due to an acrimonious dispute with WaRP, which attempted to claim copyright and trademark on her work. The WaRP version of the story has never been reprinted despite its unusual all-pencil style, and Doran's ownership of the publishing rights.

She broke into the comic book industry when still a teenager, scouted by Tom Long for his fanzine Graphic Showcase. Long hired Doran to draw a revival of the 1940s character Miss Fury. Underage Doran quit the assignment due to its adult content. She also contributed illustrations to the Hugo Award nominated fanzine Lan's Lantern.