Who Are Your Favorite Comics Writers?

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
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Heck yeah my man, DEATHLOK. You read the Casey series?! Man, I need to get Premium just to give you some rep.

I think Deathlok might’ve appeared in McDuffie’s Beyond! miniseries. I think I saw him on a cover. But I never read the story. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Casey’s series anyway. No idea when anyone will do another Deathlok series. I remember hearing something about a Deathlok movie in development, though, so who knows. Maybe Marvel will do an Essential Deathlok someday.

That reminds me… Hasn’t Pat Lee made screwing people over his middle name in the comics biz? I don’t know if I can say that it’s “very hard” to screw someone over in this business. Maybe it isn’t that easy, but it can’t be that hard, either.

Well, I don’t think Alan Moore stays up late thinking, “Damn DC, they better give me the rights to Pre-Crisis Superman and Swamp Thing!” Nowadays, when creators take on work-for-hire, I’m pretty sure they understand that they don’t own the characters on which they work. The controversy/gray area is when they create someone new while working for the company. Like when Moore created Constantine, for example.

And I’d imagine that creators today have an even better understanding of their rights. I don’t think BKV is pissed off that Marvel owns the Runaways, even though he created them. Now if Marvel started making a Runaways movie or TV show, should they pay BKV, and if so, how much? That’s the real question, I think. Morally, I think they have to give the creator credit and money, but exactly how much is the question. But that’s what lawyers and shit are for.

We’re talkin’ about DEATHLOK!!!

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Chris Claremont did excellent on the X-titles. No pun intended. 'Natch!

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Warren Ellis - Currently reading Black Summer, Fell

Brian K Vaughn - Y The Last man, Pride of Baghdad, Runaways

David lapham - He’s gonna do terror Inc for Marvel

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It is hard to screw people because the cost of fairly buying work and/or property from somebody, in this day and age, is invariably less than the cost of screwing somebody out of it and dealing with the subsequent lawsuit. The establishment does tend to play fair by default. Usually if the artist ends up with a bad deal, it is because he signed it that way–not because the guy on the other side of the desk was trying to backstab him or treat him unfairly.

To clarify, I was originally referring to stuff like Watchmen and V For Vendetta. Properties he’s created, not properties he’s only worked on.

And there is no gray area for Constantine. DC owns Constantine, just as fairly and legally as it owns any of its other characters. If Moore wanted to own Constantine, he might have held out for a more equitable deal. Perhaps DC would have turned him down, but that’s part of the price of creative ownership. Rather than take his business elsewhere, Moore opted to do the work and take the money, and that is why DC owns his character. No screwage involved, no gray areas, no ifs, ands, or buts.

If I work for you, and I come up to you one day and say, “Hey, I’ve invented this great character and I’m willing to sell all the rights and title to you if you’ll pay me a fee I find agreeable,” and you accept, then you have no moral obligation to do anything for me beyond what we agreed upon in the deal. Would it be right for me if I one day noticed how big the character was getting, walked into your office, and expected that you’d tear up our contract that I signed fair and square? The only rights I have in this situation are the ones that we’ve hashed out and agreed upon right up front. The only immoral act is if one of us somehow violates the terms that we originally agreed upon.

Now, if I’m smart, and I think there is a chance that this character will really turn into something someday, I can negotiate some additional rights while we’re still figuring out the terms of the contract. I’ll say, “Hey, Zephyranthes, maybe this character will be in a movie someday. If that happens, would it be too much trouble to put a clause in the contract that guarantees me a cut of the gross and the merchandising?” Maybe you’ll give it to me. Maybe you won’t. If you don’t, I have the option to take my character over to whoever else is accepting work at the moment. The choice is mine, but once I’ve signed my name on the paper, all that we owe each other is laid right out in black and white.

Of course, failing all that, my buddies can get together 40 years from now and publicly embarrass you into cutting me a better deal. It happened to DC twice.

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Garth Ennis - big fan of the Punisher MAX series. Also enjoyed Preacher, Hitman, War Stories, and the Fury spin-off. Like his style of violent humor/ humorous violence, and often witty dialogue.

Brian Azzarello - while I’m enjoying 100 Bullets, the main plot is becoming damn hard to keep up with. I’m really into his Loveless series, which is easier to follow (so far…).

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All right, so a couple weeks ago Mike Carey was at the Isotope so I had a chance to shake his hand and chat and stuff. At that point, I had only read a few of his comics. I had My Faith In Frankie (an under-the-radar Vertigo miniseries) and the Hellblazer: All His Engines OGN. Both of those are really great, especially the All His Engines book, which may be the quintessential John Constantine book. But other than those two books, I didn’t really have too much of his stuff. (Although I have been reading X-Men, which is great.)

But I just read the first volume of Crossing Midnight and it basically blew me away. After this one volume, I think this could be the best Vertigo series of its generation. I borrowed the first volume of Lucifer from a buddy, so I’ll get started on that at some point. I also got his Regifters book from DC’s Minx line, which is in the queue.

So yeah. Mike Carey is my new comics writin’ hero. He was a very polite gentleman, which just goes to show how great a writer he is if you’ve ever encountered any of the twisted stuff he’s written in Hellblazer.

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are you saying that he replaced bru as your writing hero?

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Oh no, I’m saying he’s now in my “pantheon,” so to speak, of writing heroes. He’s in there with Moore, Morrison, Milligan, Ennis, BKV, Bru, Bendis, and Gaiman. I have built each of these men monuments. In my heart.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah - Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, blah blah blah. Everyone loves them, it’s illegal not to.

Aside from that, most of my thoughts have already been covered here.

BKV and Robert Kirkman just write excellent comic books, and their stuff is consistently very excellent month to month, and there’s a lot of respect I have for consistency in a monthly comic series. JMS too - Amazing Spidey and Supreme Power are awesome every single month.

Warren Ellis has got to be one of my top favourites. His stuff doesn’t really touch the mind-bending “creativity” of some of Moore or Morrison’s more insane stuff, but he’s gotta be right up there. Yeah, he’s kind of like a Morrison-lite sometimes, but that can be a good thing. It’s like a poppier version of Grant Morrison’s stuff…I’m going to attempt a musical analogy here, Zephy - back me up in case this fails.

Ellis is to…Bloc Party as…Morrison is to…British Sea Power…? With those writers in mind, I couldn’t really think of a non-American parallel.

Ellis is definitely one of my top favourites though.

Same with Geoff Johns, who I forgive for Infinite Crisis because he does such awesome, fun, superhero stuff on Green Lantern.

And Garth Ennis is great for what he is, and I like how he just sticks with what he does. He’s got Bendisittis with The Boys though…not digging that book at all, which is almost like a self-parody of Ennis’ usual “screw superheroes and let’s have this guy fuck this other guy’s eyeball out” style. Damn, Preacher was good.

Mark Waid has been responsible for some of my favourite runs of all time (Flash, Captain America, JLA, etc.) but I have no idea what he’s been doing since Empire. Which was pretty good too.

Bendis is fantastic when he’s on. I just don’t think that monthly comic books are really conductive to his style - maybe this goes back to the Alan Moore discussion. His pacing is so drawn out and inconsistent that there’s no possible way you can enjoy some of his series on a month-to-month basis. I couldn’t read Daredevil at all with thirty days between each issue, and getting nothing but pages and pages of just text and repeating panels of non-moving heads…it killed me.

But then you put them together in trade format, and it’s awesome. So you have to respect his ability as a writer, because when he’s good, he’s really good. (Compare that to Jeph Loeb on Hush, which were really fun monthly issues…but collected together…the less said about that the better.) I blame this guy for killing comics though - everyone’s stretching out three issue miniseries into seven now, and there’s no sense of pacing at all because everyone gets so dialogue happy. But that only worked with Bendis because he wrote such great dialogue. And no one will ever stop him, because why sell three issues when you can sell seven with absolutely no dropoff in sales for the extra four issues? I get it. I just don’t like it.

Just like how Ma$e killed rap and hip-hop with the monotone, reading style rap and everyone today tries to do the same thing. But I loved Ma$e, so same thing here.

Chuck Dixon’s one of my personal favourites - I just love all the crazy action fight crap he does. Way Of The Rat? COME ON, SON! Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Richard Dragon, Connor Hawke, a couple of Batgirl issues…I love that stuff.

Oh yeah, and The Bru’s not bad either.

And Paul Jenkins had a great Spidey run, and of course wrote one of my favourite series of all time with Inhumans. …and I think that’s about all he’s ever done. Yup, can’t think of anything else.

EDIT: And Darwyn COOOOOOOKE!!!1111? How did I forget about him? Yeah, he’s one of my favourites too. Yes, as a writer.

Others…

I’m always amazed at the awesome writing of Bill Willingham on FAAAAABLES!!!1111 and the relative mediocrity of all his other stuff. Robin and Day of Vengeance weren’t very distinguishing at all…even Jack of Fables is kinda meh and doesn’t deserve the FAAAAABLES!!!111 label.

Is it enough for the writer of your favourite monthly to be one of your favourite writers overall…even if all his other books suck?

Hurm.

Mark Millar’s a straight up hack - I won’t even hide my disdain for his overrated nonsense. Has never finished a book well, and goes batshit insane in a wannabe-Morrison way but doesn’t quite get it. Absolutely no subtlety to his writing. Wolverine and Elektra can’t just fight a whole templeful of ninjas, no they have to fight literally fifty thousand of them in the twightlight mystical city of Handville or whatever the fuck it was. Ultimate Iron Man can’t just be an alcoholic - he’s gotta hold a martini in every single panel just to make sure every single reader gets it, in case they just joined us mid-panel, mid-issue. Midnighter and Apollo aren’t just gay, they are REALLY GAY and must make mention of this every appearance, even during fights.

BY THE WAY, DID YOU KNOW THAT THEY ARE “TOGETHER” IN THAT WAY, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE BOTH PROTOTYPICAL MALE SUPERHEROES??? THIS IS BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY!!!

He’s got a lot of cool ideas and there’s a lot of plots that start off really great…but the guy is just so inconsistent and lazy in finishing up stories.

AND BY THE WAY MIDNIGHT AND APOLLO = BATMAN AND SUPERMAN SO I AM REALLY SAYING BATMAN AND SUPERMAN ARE GAY IN A WINK WINK FASHION!!!

I DON’T THINK ELLIS MADE THAT CLEAR ENOUGH SO I WILL REPEAT IT AGAIN EVERY ISSUE

And my impression of Jeph Loeb has been souring every issue I’ve read since The Long Halloween. And now when I go back and read over it, it’s honestly not that all that to start with anyway. Definitely a great, great comic book story, but clearly leagues below stuff like DKR or Year One. …A Superman For All Seasons is one of my all time favourites though. …maybe it’s Tim Sale.

Also, Will Eisner, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby…ALL SHIT. What have they ever done for comics? NOTHING. Fuck those old guys.

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Brubaker- Fuckin’ owns Daredevil.

Kevin Smith- Really talented, his Green Arrow “Quiver” story was fantastic, made GA one of my all time favorite DC heroes.

Ellis rocks when he’s on the ball.

I agree with Carpet Lint, other than introducing these great characters, Stan Lee and his wild bunch did complete shit work. I don’t see why so many people hang on their testicles so much, they wrote for money, not creativity. That’s why Spider-man had a damn buggy people!

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the bru isn’t bad? i hope you burn in hell.

oh yea, jenkins wrote this gem of a story called origin. i think it’s about wolverine. i can’t believe you forgot that. seeing as how you love it so much.

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I was just being sarcastic though, because they were actually indeed really awesome. It’s all about context.

…this is awkward now.

In terms of older runs, John Byrne’s run with Claremont on Uncanny X-Men is like the greatest run of comic books of all time.

…too bad they both went batshit insane.

And also Walt Simonson run on Thor back in the day was pretty boss as well.

…nope, absolutely no memory of that.

Good thing it never happened though, because it’d be like the worst idea for a comic book ever.

33

you mean you don’t remember this?

you know this is your favorite mini of all time.

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Fables/Jack are the only comics I read regularly… there’s something incredibly honest about the way Bill writes the characters. I think he’s jumped the shark a bit, in Fables TPB 8 (up to issue 51) I got sick of having his views shoved down my throat. With 51+ he has a clean sheet, I just hope he doesn’t use it to preach.

And about Jack, I think it’s decent, but with some room for improvement. I like Jack’s character, and the different tone - lighter than Fables, more self-reverential.

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Sure, that works. Actually, your observation is pretty astute, considering I always had you pegged as a fan of A Simple Plan and Bowling for Soup. Guess Canada can surprise you sometimes.

Although there are definitely times when I think Morrison is “poppier” than Ellis. I mean stuff like Animal Man, JLA, New X-Men, WE3, and even his Doom Patrol is pretty accessible. It’s just the guy wrote The Filth and now everyone thinks he’s some weird, drugged-out, freak.

I like Kirkman, too, but I think he’s got Bill Willingham syndrome in my eyes. I think The Walking Dead is one of the greatest comics around, and compared to that title, all of his other works fall short to me. Even Invincible, which I think is great fun, just isn’t as compelling as my hardcore favorites. Although Invincible, Brit, Marvel Team-Up, and Marvel Zombies are all easily better than Jack of Fables and especially Day of Vengeance/Shadowpact.

Yeah, I don’t blame him for any of his crappy stuff. It’s all DC’s fault for making Geoff Johns look bad. It’s pretty rotten how Flash and Teen Titans just started sucking when the Crises struck.

You don’t dig The Boys? You need to get your eyeballs fucked out. Anyway, I think Ennis is still more of a varied/versatile writer than Frank Miller and J.M. DeMatteis (both of whom I also LOVE but even I have to admit lots of their stories are very similar thematically). What’s sexy about Ennis is that at least he does his best to introduce non-superhero genres into mainstream comics. It’s just that when he does do superheroes, he tends to make them a mockery.

His Fantastic Four owned me for a while back then. Then he moved back to DC and started wasting time with garbage like 52. But I don’t hold that against him (or Morrison, or Johns, or Rucka). Sometimes a man’s just got to pay rent. As far as guys who basically just write straightforward, traditional superhero comics, Waid is pretty much at the top of the list with Johns and Busiek in my mind.

Wait, did you just say that Alan Moore’s style isn’t conducive to monthly comics?

Anyway, you can’t fault Bendis for “killing comics.” He’s just writing them the way he knows how, and it’s all the wannabes who can churn it out like he can who are making his style look bad. I mean, what you’re saying is basically like blaming Radiohead’s The Bends album for the death of rock music because ever since that came out, everyone else has been trying to imitate the style and formula. Hate Snow Patrol, not The Bends. It’s not Radiohead’s fault.

Psht, Chuck Dixon? CHUCK DIXON? Come on, son, come on. COME ON! All that guy is trying to do with his comics is just trying to show us how manly and tough he is. What a showoff. When I read a comic book, I want to know that the writer is a stuffy little nerd who can’t get a date and has no life. I don’t want the author trying to prove to me how masculine he is by writing an action sequence so vivid that my fingers tremble with excitement as I flip through the pages.

You forgot, Paul Jenkins also wrote a classic (CLASSIC) story detailing the origin and livelihood of one of comicdom’s most significant antiheroes of all time. Yeah. That’s right, baby. You know what I’m talkin’ 'bout and you love it like hell. Jenkins placed his indelible stamp on one of the most exciting super-powered characters of our time. Oh yeah.

I’m talking about his run on… The Darkness.

What? You were thinking of Wolverine?

I don’t see why not, as long as you can still look at yourself in the mirror when you wake up in the morning.

Sounds like you have some unresolved issues regarding Mark Millar. And I don’t mean comic book issues.

But you know what? Mark Millar gets a lifetime pass of unlimited diplomatic immunity. Why? Because he makes me laugh, no matter how over-the-top his characterizations are. Just read Wanted again. Or The Ultimates.

Basically, “You think this letter on my head stands for France?!” means Millar can never, EVER do ANYTHING wrong for the rest of his life. But I don’t expect YOU to understand, Canucklehead. It takes an AMERICAN to understand and appreciate the unbridled GENIUS of the greatest one-liner in the history of human civilization.

Co-signed.

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I like Millar…I think I’ve said this before but he is like Jeph Loeb with talent

and The Boys owns your soul!

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You must be joking. Those three guys, by themselves, have done more for comics than literally every single other person you mentioned.

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Goody, you got to read the posts before you jump on people. Clinty is the founder of the Canadian Comic Book League. He knows what he’s talking about. If he says Eisner, Lee, and Kirby are shit, then they are. Clinty knows what’s up.

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Fun fact: comic book authors usually avoid giving characters the name “Clint” because the “l” and the “i” together tend to look like a “u.”

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Chuck Austen