
In November that same year, Cates became the new writer of Hulk, with Ryan Ottley joining as artist. In June 2021, Cates and Stegman started their own production company entitled KLC Press, named after a Todd McFarlane quote ("Kids Love Chains"), with its first title set to be the book Vanish by Cates and Stegman.

Later that year, he would reteam with God Country artist Geoff Shaw on the book Crossover. In January 2020, Cates took over as the new writer of Thor with Nic Klein as artist. This led to him penning multiple company-wide events, including Absolute Carnage and King in Black. After the success of these titles, Cates was given writing duties on Venom, where he was paired with artist and podcaster Ryan Stegman. His first long-term Marvel works were runs on Doctor Strange and Thanos. With this title he attracted the attention of editors at Marvel, who offered him a contract. Cates eventually began writing for Image Comics, where he released God Country. Between 20 Cates also wrote stories for IDW Publishing, including an entry in Star Trek: Waypoint and a one-shot, Star Trek: Deviations. Satisfied with these stories, Dark Horse gave Cates the green light for later projects like Buzzkill, The Ghost Fleet with Daniel Warren Johnson and The Paybacks. It was followed up three issues later with Hunter Quaid: The Only Things We Have to Fear… are Nazis and Creepy Monsters. Co-written by himself and Eliot Rahal, the title of this story was Hunter Quaid: Armageddon Outta Here. Career Ĭates' first comic work was a short story in Dark Horse Presents vol. After a chance meeting with a Dark Horse Comics staffer at C2E2, Cates was given the opportunity to write short stories for the company. At the advice of Marvel editor Mark Peniccia, Cates left the program after a year to pursue writing his own comics.

While interning, Cates stole a Diamond Distributors Gem Award awarded to Astonishing X-Men #1. Cates majored in sequential art, but left the school after being accepted into a Marvel internship program. Cates graduated from Garland High School and attended the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he would meet future artistic collaborators Tradd Moore and Geoff Shaw.

Raised in Garland, Texas, Cates states that he was taught to read by his father using comic books. Early life ĭonny Cates was born in Dallas, Texas. Donny Cates (born September 14, 1984) is an American comic book writer, artist, and podcaster, known for his work on titles like Venom, Thanos, Doctor Strange, Thor, and Hulk.
