[8][9][10][11][12] She also illustrated the works of Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Joe R. Lansdale, Anne Rice, J. Michael Straczynski, Peter David and Tori Amos.

[15] 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[16][17] She broke into the comic book industry when still a teenager, scouted by Tom Long for his fanzine Graphic Showcase.

[20] 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.

[21] Doran left the company after nine issues due to an acrimonious dispute with WaRP,[22] which attempted to claim copyright and trademark on her work.

Doran discarded the 300 pages of work she did at Warp, and rewrote and redrew the entire A Distant Soil story from scratch, first with Donning, then as a self-publisher.

[42] Doran worked as a creator rights activist and as a lobbyist in Washington D.C., and served on the advocacy committee of the Graphic Artists Guild.

[43] She spoke at CREATE: Protecting Creativity from the Ground Up at the Newseum in Washington DC, with Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Rick Carnes President of the Songwriters Guild of America, musician Suzanne Vega, and other artists and technology policy specialists.

"[46][47] 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.

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.

[50][51] She wrote script and 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.

"[57] The Horror Writers Association presented "Snow, Glass, Apples" with the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel award for 2019.

[67] 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.

[68][69] Forbes Magazine announced another Neil Gaiman/Doran collaboration for the adaptation of the Gaiman prose short story "Chivalry" from Dark Horse Comics.

[70] Released in March 2022, Doran hand-painted the work in watercolor, ink, and 18K gold after studying illuminated manuscript techniques.

[71] In April 2022, Doran was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators[72] 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.

[78] Funded on Kickstarter, to be produced by the Terry Pratchett estate publishing company Dunmanifestin in 2024, the Good Omens graphic novel set a crowdfunding record for a comic book project with a final tally of approximately $3.1 million dollars.

[79][80] In April 2024, it was announced the Good Omens project would be delayed to spring 2025 to allow Colleen Doran time to recover from cancer treatment.