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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 21, 2020 13:38:30 GMT -5
4. Alan MooreWhat can I say that hasn't already been said about Moore's work? He's written a number of my favorite stories, which also make frequent appearances on those "comics you must read" or similar lists, like Marvelman/Miracleman, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, his run on Swamp-Thing... He's just a great writer who seems equally at home in any sub-genre, from superheroes to horror and everything in between and combinations thereof, and he can be dark (but not dark for dark's sake) or light-hearted and humorous, or philosophical or ... you get the picture. Some of my very favorites by Moore are those little stories that often slip past most people's radar, like the amusing Green Lantern Corps stories "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" or "In Darkest Night" or the wonderful Pogo pastiche that appeared in Swamp-Thing #32 ( which also appeared on my 12 days list last year):  Like I said in my post about it last year, I just love this bittersweet tribute to Walt Kelly's strip, and in one single issue it showcases why Moore is one of my favorite writers.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 21, 2020 16:35:45 GMT -5
4. Pierre Christin Co-creator of Valérian & Laureline with the amazing Jean-Claude Mézières, frequent collaborator of the divine Enki Bilal on books like Partie de chasse, Christin is, more than just about anyone else I can think of, the intellectual's comic-book writer. His stories, while always entertaining at face value, have serious mythological and political undertones. You get the impression that he must have been on a first-name basis with many great political figures of the XXth century, so "in the loop" he seems to be. Holder of a degree in political sciences and founder of a school of journalism, writer of plays and prose works, he is a great example of the brilliant generation of creators who starred in the journal Pilote in the 1970s. The kind of authors whose books could easily come with massive footnotes, but do not require them because their storytelling is so masterful.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 21, 2020 19:21:43 GMT -5
4. Marv Wolfman
Comics resume: Tomb of Dracula, Spider-man, New Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, Nova, Action Comics, Deathstroke and much more
Marv Wolfman was one of the hottest writers in the 80’s for DC comics , but he was quite the star before doing the New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths. I discovered him while he was doing the Fantastic Four. He started with # 190 and wowed me in a storyline that culminated in #200 which had the Reed Richards regain his powers and face off against his eternal enemy, Dr. Doom. He also wrote a great story arc wrapping up his Nova series and having Galactus face off against the Sphinx. Just great FF stories which i feel kept up the amazing tradition that Lee and Kirby started. Of course he wrote most of the Tomb of Dracula which was probably comic history's most famous monster series. When he went back to DC, he co created with Len Wein, the New Teen Titans which was DC’s hottest best selling book for a good while. He and Collaborator George Perez could do no wrong at that point and went on to do the COIE which changed the DC universe forever. Okay, maybe not but it was the first time DC was reset in that manner. Throw in his Nightforce, Deathstroke and Action runs and I have to say he was one of the top talents in comics in that era. The showdown with Galactus  The ending of COIE gives us a new Flash  {More} Nightforce was such a good book 
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Post by foxley on Dec 22, 2020 2:16:48 GMT -5
4. Marv WolfmanI think the surprise for on this year's list is that Wolfman comes in at #4. A few years ago, he almost certainly would have been #1 or #2. but I guess your tastes change over the years, and even nostalgia ain't what it used to be. When I was staring to get seriously into superhero comics in the early 80s, the book that really captured my imagination was The New Teen Titans. And that was due in equal to parts to the glorious art of George Perez and the brilliant plots of Marv Wolfman. I always found the characters far more identifiable that the X-Men, and I cared deeply about what happened to Dick, Gar, Kory, Raven and Vic. For whatever reason, the book just clicked with me. It was this book that really hooked me on superhero books, and stopped me from drifting away. I can honestly say that Marv Wolfman is a big part of the reason I am still a comic book fan today. There are a couple of niggling points that prevent me from ranking him higher. The relationship between Donna Troy and Marv's author avatar Terry Long was, quite frankly, creepy. And his attempt to force his pet character Danny Chase down Titans fans' throats at the expense of the characters we loved was just painful. And even in recent interviews, Wolfman has said the failure of Danny chase to catch on was the readers' fault for not 'getting' the character. No Marv, we got him, we just didn't want him. No one, not even Marv wolfman, can sit down and say "Today I am going to create Fonzie!" These, however, are minor quibbles and forgivable for the talent that gave me stories like "The Judas Contract".
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Post by berkley on Dec 22, 2020 3:45:13 GMT -5
4. Alan MooreWhat can I say that hasn't already been said about Moore's work? He's written a number of my favorite stories, which also make frequent appearances on those "comics you must read" or similar lists, like Marvelman/Miracleman, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, his run on Swamp-Thing... He's just a great writer who seems equally at home in any sub-genre, from superheroes to horror and everything in between and combinations thereof, and he can be dark (but not dark for dark's sake) or light-hearted and humorous, or philosophical or ... you get the picture. Some of my very favorites by Moore are those little stories that often slip past most people's radar, like the amusing Green Lantern Corps stories "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" or "In Darkest Night" or the wonderful Pogo pastiche that appeared in Swamp-Thing #32 ( which also appeared on my 12 days list last year): Like I said in my post about it last year, I just love this bittersweet tribute to Walt Kelly's strip, and in one single issue it showcases why Moore is one of my favorite writers. I read this Swamp Thing comic when it came out and from memory, at the time I thought it was a clever but relatively lightweight story, a little breather between heavier, more serious multi-part epics. But when I re-read it a month or two back it hit me in a very different way: "bittersweet tribute" describes it nicely, and I tink the bitterness struck more deeply this time around, perhaps because I'm that many years older, but also because Ive been reading Pogo itself and find that I appreciate that too more than I did when I used to read it in the paper as a youngster. The skillfulness of the dialogue the way it isn't a straight imitation or reproduction of Kelly's style but a kind of parallel to it that fits Moore's story, its premise, its characters but at the same time pays tribute to the emotional essence of the original is a master-stroke; and the same can be said for the plotting, the characterisation, the work itself as a whole. A tour-de-force all round and an all too rare example of how to pay tribute to the work of another creator without producing a soulless facsimile or patronising, ironic "wink-wink" imitation of the original. |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2020 5:10:14 GMT -5
4. Alan Moore  Take yer Swamp-Thing, put it in yer Watchamacclem, mix it with yer MiracleMarvelManBoy and youse don even com close to the coolness that is D.R.& Quinch the adventures of 2 wholesome, misunderstood, clean-cut, responsible, and just downright nice schoolboys, going forth and spreading goodwill and cheer and thermonuclear bombs. S'Alright Man.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 22, 2020 5:33:35 GMT -5
4. Alan MooreWhat can I say that hasn't already been said about Moore's work? He's written a number of my favorite stories, which also make frequent appearances on those "comics you must read" or similar lists, like Marvelman/Miracleman, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, his run on Swamp-Thing... He's just a great writer who seems equally at home in any sub-genre, from superheroes to horror and everything in between and combinations thereof, and he can be dark (but not dark for dark's sake) or light-hearted and humorous, or philosophical or ... you get the picture. Some of my very favorites by Moore are those little stories that often slip past most people's radar, like the amusing Green Lantern Corps stories "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" or "In Darkest Night" or the wonderful Pogo pastiche that appeared in Swamp-Thing #32 ( which also appeared on my 12 days list last year): Like I said in my post about it last year, I just love this bittersweet tribute to Walt Kelly's strip, and in one single issue it showcases why Moore is one of my favorite writers. I read this Swamp Thing comic when it came out and from memory, at the time I thought it was a clever but relatively lightweight story, a little breather between heavier, more serious multi-part epics. But when I re-read it a month or two back it hit me in a very different way: "bittersweet tribute" describes it nicely, and I tink the bitterness struck more deeply this time around, perhaps because I'm that many years older, but also because Ive been reading Pogo itself and find that I appreciate that too more than I did when I used to read it in the paper as a youngster. The skillfulness of the dialogue the way it isn't a straight imitation or reproduction of Kelly's style but a kind of parallel to it that fits Moore's story, its premise, its characters but at the same time pays tribute to the emotional essence of the original is a master-stroke; and the same can be said for the plotting, the characterisation, the work itself as a whole. A tour-de-force all round and an all too rare example of how to pay tribute to the work of another creator without producing a soulless facsimile or patronising, ironic "wink-wink" imitation of the original. I will admit that the Pogo tribute story went way over my head. I never read a Pogo strip. Not one. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 22, 2020 5:39:01 GMT -5
While I recently heard about the Terry Long avatar thing, I never read the interview that had him bashing fans over the Danny Chase character. Maybe I can write it off as him being a cranky older man at this point. Someone made a reference to Warren Ellis being a morally terrible person too, maybe it doesn't pay to get into these creators heads too much and just enjoy their work.
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Post by foxley on Dec 22, 2020 7:13:35 GMT -5
While I recently heard about the Terry Long avatar thing, I never read the interview that had him bashing fans over the Danny Chase character. Maybe I can write it off as him being a cranky older man at this point. Someone made a reference to Warren Ellis being a morally terrible person too, maybe it doesn't pay to get into these creators heads too much and just enjoy their work. The interview about Danny Chase (well, it's not specifically about Danny Chase, but it is about that era of Titans) is in The Teen Titans Companion from TwoMorrows. To me, it smacks of someone refusing to admit they made a bad creative call and trying desperately to justify it.
And I do enjoy Marv's work, or he wouldn't be no. 4 on my list.  |
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Post by MDG on Dec 22, 2020 10:22:16 GMT -5
I read this Swamp Thing comic when it came out and from memory, at the time I thought it was a clever but relatively lightweight story, a little breather between heavier, more serious multi-part epics. But when I re-read it a month or two back it hit me in a very different way: "bittersweet tribute" describes it nicely, and I tink the bitterness struck more deeply this time around, perhaps because I'm that many years older, but also because Ive been reading Pogo itself and find that I appreciate that too more than I did when I used to read it in the paper as a youngster. The skillfulness of the dialogue the way it isn't a straight imitation or reproduction of Kelly's style but a kind of parallel to it that fits Moore's story, its premise, its characters but at the same time pays tribute to the emotional essence of the original is a master-stroke; and the same can be said for the plotting, the characterisation, the work itself as a whole. A tour-de-force all round and an all too rare example of how to pay tribute to the work of another creator without producing a soulless facsimile or patronising, ironic "wink-wink" imitation of the original. I will admit that the Pogo tribute story went way over my head. I never read a Pogo strip. Not one. I wonder if I had thought more of Moore in terms of his single stories--Pog, Man who has Everything, Pictopia--he might've made my list. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 22, 2020 10:55:25 GMT -5
Random thoughts on Day Nine (to the extent there are people we haven't talked about before)
Larry Hama - I'm not convinced I've ever read anything written by Hama. I was too old for the second generation G.I. Joe toys and I avoided toy tie-in comics like the plague.
J.M. DeMatteis - I liked DeMatteis' work on the early days of the JLA/I/E. Funny stuff and a nice change of pace from what we'd seen before. I have tried a few times to read Moonshadow and never managed to make it past issue two. I'm sure I've probably read other stuff he's written but none of it comes to mind.
Mark Gruenwald - I know I've read some things that Gruenwald wrote. But have at best only vague memories of them. I was mostly really down on Marvel for most of the time that he was a thing, so he's largely a blank slate.
Pierre Christin - I've read the first couple volumes of Valérian & Laureline. They were pretty okay, but I've never gotten around to reading more.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 24, 2020 9:48:40 GMT -5
4. Roger Stern
I really wish Stern had written more comics.. he's had alot of short runs on things there were really good (Cap, Avengers, Spidey) but never seemed to stick around too long. What I do know is that I've never read a bad comic written by him.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 24, 2020 11:03:12 GMT -5
4. Grant Morrison Morrison's the most contemporary writer on my list this year. He was the one that kept me most engaged in the last years of my regular purchasing of new comics. He's disparaged and considered over-rated by some of my fellow forum members, but I've always appreciated him for the grand scope and the big ideas, never on better display, in my opinion than on his Seven Soldiers of Victory mega-series. That one really ticked my boxes by reviving and reworking obscure and neglected DC properties from my formative comics-reading days, creating an interconnected sub-universe that the reader could take some individual initiative in unpacking, with plenty to read between the lines, and plucking tiny details from long-forgotten corners of DCU history--I remember being very proud of immediately knowing when in DC history the Vigilante became infected with lycanthropy, even though Morrison didn't positively verify it on-panel. I was also quite taken with the ambitious Final Crisis, with its Kirby-like generation of new concepts that could/should have fueled a decade of new comics, and came back to comics to enjoy Multiversity, one of the best, most varied set of alternate comics universes ever.
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Post by Calamas on Dec 26, 2020 21:25:58 GMT -5
Mark Evanier
I've always thought of Mark Evanier as the Rated G Comic Book Writer. If “Rated G” sounds familiar it can be found adjacent to PG in the Motion Picture Association rating system. A movie designated G means it is appropriate for all ages. I don’t think they make them anymore.
I also don’t believe Evanier intentionally set out to write “clean” comics. I believe he did it unconsciously, that it was an inadvertent reflection of who he is and what he believes. You don’t need violence when action works just fine. You don’t need sex appeal when romance is stronger. You don’t need to kill your characters when you can achieve suspense by simply coming close to doing so. And to think he achieved this and so much more in a World War II comic.
It’d be easy to believe the only reason he found such success (at least critically, anyway) with his Early 80s relaunch of Blackhawk was because he was paired with the perfect partner in Dan Spiegle. Yes, it’s true that Spiegle is one of the most underappreciated artist of all time, but Evanier would soon provide us with more accomplishments. While Blackhawk was dying a slow death a DC, he would release DNAgents at Eclipse. This time he found success, so much so that it allowed him to spinoff Crossfire, again teaming with Spiegle. And another oddity. As Crossfire failed to gain the same success as DNAgents, Evanier altered the title, allowing the tone to match its more serious subject matter. Evanier could write with a heavier touch. It just wasn’t his preference. Sadly it didn’t save Crossfire. Yet another short run. Looking back, I’m surprised at how little work Evanier produced during this era because I found his comics endlessly entertaining.
It’s why Mark Evanier regularly ended up at the top of my comic stack.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 27, 2020 13:05:45 GMT -5
4. Roy Thomas
Kree-Skrull War
All-Star Squadron
Invaders
Conan
Avengers
Roy was probably the first writer to breach the wall between fandom and the “big leagues.” (The original fanboy, I guess.) Anyway, Roy quickly rose from being Stan Lee’s assistant to being his alter ego, as Jack Kirby seemed to make clear in his Fourth World characters Funky Flashman and Royboy. However, Roy was much more than that. While Stan and Jack may have created the contemporary Marvel Universe, Roy took it upon himself to connect it to what had gone before. His scripting was more cutting-edge then that it reads now, heavily influenced as it was by Stan’s flair for melodrama and a love of those prototypically purple Marvel turns of phrase, like this one spoken by “ the jungle-spawned juggernaut:” “ That will hardly be necessary, archer! Or have you forgotten why I am called… the Black Panther?” ( Avengers 56) Or this bit of narration from Avengers 99, as Hawkeye flirts with the Scarlet Witch: “Other, time-honored activities continue but little abated… the way of a man with a maid…” Or this, from Avengers 75? “It is a proud and lonely thing to be butler of the Avengers’ Fifth Avenue digs – but sometimes, a man named Jarvis wishes it were even lonelier---!" And how natural does this sound, from the splash page of Avengers 81 as Cap addresses a few of his Avenger teammates?  Who talks to his pals like that? Yes, Roy took narration as dialogue to a new level in books like this, and later, in All-Star Squadron, went even further, as he relentlessly wedged in every possible historical, cultural and comical book fact he could into line after line of dialogue:  HOWEVER! HOWEVER! His love and reverence for the past, and the debt he and all of his readers owed to those who had gone before outweigh all the “big fellas,” “Misters,” “Bright-eyes,” and “Ol’ Grill-faces” he dropped into any number of super-hero stories. And his adaptations of Robert E. Howard more than made up for all of the histrionic, over-the-top dialogue he scattered elsewhere. As did his beloved creations like the All-Star Squadron and the Invaders. And leave us not forget the majesty of the Kree-Skrull War and the return of such luminaries as The Fin! It was clear Roy loved comics, every pulpy, four-colored bit of them, and he did everything he could to make us love them, too. And it worked. And, let’s face it, for young fans like me back in the 60s and 70s, Roy’s consciously theatrical dialogue, which he had learned from Stan Lee, and his love of the epic, and of knitting together every stray strand of history, comical book and otherwise, which we now call continuity, was a big part of the fun. (Besides, since we read our comics silently, the dialogue registers more as prose than as the spoken word, and it all sounds okay. Which explains why few of us read our comics aloud, because when we do, most of the dialogue sounds pretty corny.) And if you disagree, than as Dr. Doom proclaimed in Fantastic Four 157, “Let cries of battle fill this castle, nay, the land – and Hell yawns widely for the first fool who gasps for quarter!” If you don't love that, you don't love comics.
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