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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 20, 2020 12:04:06 GMT -5
I have most of Davids Hulk run and enjoyed his other projects like Aquaman. My only problem with David is that his dialogue becomes dated quickly. He makes references to events that are only happening when he's writing his books. It reads very dated, if you pick up the book years later.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2020 12:11:18 GMT -5
Do you think he’s alone in that? Or does it in a higher or lesser degree than others? (Those aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m interested in your view).
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 20, 2020 12:15:54 GMT -5
Do you think he’s alone in that? Or does it in a higher or lesser degree than others? (Those aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m interested in your view). He more than any writer I can think of , makes jokes about very temporary news bits. It's like mentioning Jersey Shore in a joke. 10 years later a new reader won't know what he's talking about.
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Post by brutalis on Dec 20, 2020 12:44:10 GMT -5
Do you think he’s alone in that? Or does it in a higher or lesser degree than others? (Those aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m interested in your view). He more than any writer I can think of , makes jokes about very temporary news bits. It's like mentioning Jersey Shore in a joke. 10 years later a new reader won't know what he's talking about. Let's just hope in 10 years there will be new readers. Or that comic books will still be around! But there is the point too: why NOT include "current" hot topics as that is what current readers will recognize? As the writer you write for NOW in sales and readers, not for tomorrow. Yes it will make it dated, but isn't part of the fun with a lot of comic book readind in seeing those past connections? I don't laugh at Flash Gordon/Buck Roger's wires and sparklers effects versus 50-60's rubber suited monsters versus 70-80s bluescreen and physical models versus 90's early CGI versus todays CGI. It's all a part of the time for when it was created.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2020 12:54:24 GMT -5
I’m sort of half in agreement with ICCtrombone while recognising brutalis’ very valid point.
It can be distracting. I mean, there was mention of O.J. Simpson in the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon. That’ll age badly (or, in some cases, folk might ask who he is).
But I understand why they do it. I mean, at times it might be unavoidable, e.g. if the president has to appear in a comic, it’s gonna be whoever is serving right now. Of course, that means in years to come, people might look at a Batman or Superman comic and feel it’s dated if Nixon or JFK are mentioned.
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Post by Farrar on Dec 20, 2020 16:04:48 GMT -5
#8 - Al FeldsteinMy list is shorter because I have not read nearly as many comics as most of you have; I only read comics for 5 years (LOL, yes, I'm that "5 year fan" that Weisinger and others spoke of once upon a time). Anyway, this means the majority of list comprises my favorite comics that I read from way back when I was a kid. This particular selection, however, is based on work I've only come to as an adult, when I got back into comics (well, comics history) about 10 years ago. For the past few years it seems like every other day I can't resist buying some ECs from eBay or wherever. Initially I was seeking ECs out for the glorious art, but thanks to all the print and online resources we have access to I realized that many of my favorite EC stories were by Al Feldstein. Most of us are aware of his vast resume so I won't go into that. What I will say is I would have had him on my list for "Judgment Day" alone. I've cobbled together parts of page 6 and page 7, including of course the very famous last panel. Art by Joe Orlando. In interviews I've read, Feldstein has said Gaines would come in and talk about something he'd seen or read (not just Bradbury's stuff , but news stories, etc.) and come in with a "springboard", sometimes just a sentence, which could be used for stories. These were the plotting sessions; then Feldstein would do the scripting. It's amazing to me that EC was tackling racism, gender roles, sexuality, etc., in the early 1950s! The stories didn't have happy or neatly-tied up endings either, unlike some of the stuff I've read over in DC sci fi books (though I enjoy those too; but the DC stories' effect was different). Feldstein's stories were like a mirror for the reader and forced the readers to look at themselves. And here's another story that is celebrated (justly) for the art, but I think Feldstein's prose is captivating as well. What team he and Wood were!
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 24, 2020 8:38:38 GMT -5
Sometimes all I want out of a comic book is an exciting, well-crafted super-hero tale. And nobody delivered such tales more consistently than 8. Len Wein I have a confession to make: I sometimes read my comics out loud (probably because my mother used comics to teach me to read) and, believe you me, nothing points out bad writing faster. That's never an issue with Wein, whose dialogue and narration simply flow across the page. He is my favorite writer on Justice League of America and Incredible Hulk, and among my favorite writers on Batman, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Thor, Iron Man, Defenders, and many more. And, of course, he gave us Swamp Thing and the new X-Men. In short, I've never been disappointed by a Len Wein script and that's pretty high praise coming from me. Cei-U! I summon Mr. Dependable!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 24, 2020 8:46:38 GMT -5
Len Wein was indeed an awesome writer. I particularly like his run on Spider-man in the 1970s.
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Post by Calamas on Dec 24, 2020 23:55:32 GMT -5
Bob Haney
Okay, let’s get it out of the way. Yes, he destroyed the personalities of established characters, and would write them differently again when they eventually made return appearances in Brave & the Bold. And he ignored continuity, even his own. And wrote some of the worst dialogue ever published, in any form. And then there was that occasional panel where Batman would shake his fist in the air and scream, “I’ll get you, Joker, if it’s the last thing I do!”; and return to casual conversation with Commissioner Gordon in the very next panel. Yes, all that. But the man believed in story.
Unfortunately, to some, he believed too much in this story. Exclusively. We need Green Arrow to be a money hungry obsessor. Okay, let’s do that. This time we need him to be a smooth-talking seducer of women. Then let’s do that. Many fans could not get past this philosophy, going so far as to create their own alternate earth: Earth-B (which is said to be named for the most frequent perpetrators: Bob Haney, Murray Boltinoff, and Brave and the Bold.) But for those of us who could see past the technicalities, we were regularly reminded why any three of these comics provided more entertainment than any hour of television.
Haney could fashion a story out anything. Sometimes he would riff on classic literature. Other times he plucked something out of reality. The Bicentennial Freedom Train is touring the nation. Okay, let’s do the Liberty Train. The Atom can shrink to any size. Let’s have him animate a comatose Batman. Haney was willing to try anything, go anywhere. Most of the time he pulled it off.
Of course this meant that when he failed, he failed spectacularly. “But Bork Can Hurt You” is one of the worst comics ever written. The Flash spends the entire issue trying to destroy a statue. But these were the exceptions. He could write the ridiculous--intentionally, despite the claim of his detractors--and he could have fun with these stories, and he could do something completely original, which he proved when he was allowed to create Metamorpho.
Haney almost always accomplished what he set up to achieve. The problem is that what he wanted to achieve never evolved. Superhero comics had become more sophisticated around him. Coupled with people who no longer felt the need to tolerate his idiosyncrasies coming to power at DC, his run on Brave & the Bold came to an abrupt end. Superheroes had passed him by. But not comics. His work on Unknown Soldier continued to be a great read. Not great comics, however. To my knowledge he never produced a great work. Obviously, consistently entertaining was enough for me.
It’s why Bob Haney regularly ended up at the top of my comic stack.
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 28, 2020 14:19:35 GMT -5
8. Chris Claremont
For X-Men and other good stuff at Marvel in the mid-70s.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 28, 2020 15:16:21 GMT -5
8. Gardner Fox Adam Strange, JLA, Hawkman, Green Lantern, Flash, AtomI guess you could argue that there were no plots less character-driven than those of Gardner Fox, the mainstay of Julius Schwartz's stable of Silver Age writers, and you'd be right. You could argue that if you put the Flash into one of his Batman stories and vice versa, nothing about the story would really change, because Fox was all about plot, plot, plot, and then plot. Still, Fox was only doing what Julie told him to do, or what Julie made him figure out to write in order to match some insane cover idea he'd come up with. And there's a lot to be said for a decent plot, even when you resort to the Silver Age of sciencey-wiencey to make it work. Better space opera than soap opera, as far as Fox was concerned. Too much of either wasn't a good thing and Fox did a great job supplying the fruit and vegetables in a comic fan's balanced diet. The JLA weren't going to waste time yelling at each other. They had a universe to save eight months a year. GL had a whole space sector to protect. The Hawks often had two planets to save in addition to curating a world-class museum, and the Flash and the Atom were both accomplished scientists in their "real lives." And Adam Strange had no time for navel-gazing and gobs of self-pity even though every one of his adventures ended in melancholy. Fox might get criticized for being less flashy (no pun intended) about creating vivd characters than say, Stan Lee, but Fox always went for subtlety. Look at Barry Allen, who drove his fiancee, super-professional magazine writer Iris Allen, absolutely bonkers because he was forever a tardy slowpoke. Or Ray Palmer, who drove his fiancee, super-professional attorney Jean Loring, absolutely bonkers because he was forever nagging her about nailing down a wedding date. Or super-professional businesswoman Carol Ferris, who drove Hal Jordan absolutely bonkers because she wasn't at all interested in him, but in his assumed identity as Green Lantern! The Halls? Those partners in work, play and heroism? Well who wouldn't want to be either one of them? They were grown-ups in love. Yowzah! All you had to do to find human beings in Fox's stories was to read them carefully. Oh, and Gardner Fox resurrected the Golden Age heroes in all their glory. What was not to like? Fox is on my list because he made a young Silver Ager stretch his imagination and his attention span to encompass more than just the action and lunacy of "The war That Time Forgot" in Star Spangled War Stories or the comfort food served up in Superboy and Adventure. Fox made me jump through all kinds of intellectual hoops in his JLA and Adam Strange stories, so much so that rereading them was a necessity. These were serious stories for serious readers, not the histrionics and emotional upheavals on display in Spider-Man and Fantastic Four.
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Post by berkley on Dec 29, 2020 22:00:40 GMT -5
8. Stan Lee
Stan has been moving up and down and even on and off my tentative list since I first started thinking about it. On the one hand, he's responsible or pârtly responsible for many of my favourite comics memories, on the other, it's often hard to decide just how much he was responsible for. But at the very least, I've always enjoyed his snappy dialogue, the soap-opera sub-plots, the elevated, over-the-top drama ("Shall Man Survive ...?") and melodrama, so he has to be on there somewhere. On another day, I might place him quite a bit higher or lower, but today, he's number 8 on my list.
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