Not sure if this is what you're asking, but...

There are two guys from the past generations who, when I spoke to them at shows, always exhibited a love of the comics form and their favorite creators: Al Williamson and Murphy Anderson. Anderson especially loved Lou Fine and when approached by one of the big auction houses to do recreations of some of his covers, only agreed if they'd also let him recreate some Five covers as well. And I think Williamson was all but retired, but jumped at the chance to do that 2-issue Flash Gordon for Marvel in the 90s.

This is right on the money with the spirit of my question, and I'm already learning new things. I'm a huge Williamson fan but never really knew that much about his thoughts on the industry, and very cool to hear he loved the comics form. And I have never read the 90's Flash Gordon he did, so also in the spirit of my question, I now have new reading added to my list!

I share that love of Lou Fine with Anderson, and again was not aware of his affinity for the medium and Lou in particular. Great info, thanks!


I very much agree, while a product of the 80's, he seemed to somehow capture a "classic" sense of the team out of the gate that felt like an old familiar friend again.

Loved the medium, as in great comic fans? Or loved the medium as in loved creating comics?

John Romita Sr. always seemed to have a lot of love for the medium and the creators who influenced him. He mentions having been inspired by the death of Raven Sherman in Terry and the Pirates and the effect it had on him as a reader to come up with the idea to kill Gwen Stacy off, hoping that it would affect audiences in the same way. He also spoke about how getting to work on the Captain America character was a big deal for him, because he was such a fan of Kirby's original work on the character, and being starstruck the first time he met George Tuska.

I think there were a lot of creators who were fans of the medium, but weren't fans of the particular content they worked on most of the time. For this, John Buscema comes to mind. He was a huge fan of the adventure strips before he got into the industry, and enjoyed drawing and telling stories, and when he got assignments where those things intersected, it showed, but for the large part of his career he was drawing material he was not interested in and it was just a job and he was a professional. He was a fan of the medium of comics, he was a fan of adventure stories, he just wasn't a fan of super-heroes. And all too often super-heroes and comics are synonymous with a lot of fans and that colors their perception of the creators who worked in the industry. We can even see it in places that comic fans congregate online (and here is no exception) by looking at the engagement thread and posts about super-hero comics get versus those that deal with other types of comics. We have a fair number of members who like other types of comics, but the engagement levels on super-hero comics dwarf those on other types, and there emerges a sentiment there about creators and other fans at times that if they aren't fans of super-heroes they aren't fans of comics. And that's just not true, even if it seems to be a "truth" held in a lot of fandom.

Kirby was a huge fan of telling stories and of the potential of the medium. He did super-heroes but his true love since he was a kid was science fiction, and that showed later in his career when he had a little more freedom to explore in the books he wrote & edited as well as drew, and even a lot of his super-hero stuff from that period was infused with sci-fi elements and concepts. But that doesn't mean he didn't produce great stuff even in other genres that he worked in.

And sometimes being a fan can work as a negative, because you are too close to the material and can't take the step back and look objectively at something to see it's flaws and where it needs a strong editorial hand to make it work better as a story or a visual narrative because you enthusiasm overrides your critical eye. Pouring your love and passion about something can be great and take something to another level, but that's not always a level up, sometimes it's a level down if they pay less attention to the needs of the story or art than they do to the wants of the creator's fandom. It can lead to excesses or stories that are overly self-indulgent that result in poor quality stories to an audience at large.

And it's a fine line that divides these two sides of the coin. I am always excited for someone to be able to do something that is a passion project for them, but results can vary on how that actually turns out.

Remember, Liefeld always said Captain America was one of his all time favorites and doing Cap was a passion project for him. he loved the medium and loved the character. Didn't prevent the result form being bad comics and bad stories. Brian Wood loves comics. He said he was a huge fan of Howard's Conan and that doing Conan the Barbarian was a dream project for him. His run on Conan is one of the most reviled among Howard fans. It was overly self-indulgent to the point of being a Brian Wood comic not a Conan comic. But he was a huge fan of the material he was working on. Didn't make it better. Didn't make it good.

The assumption that being a fan of something makes the work you do on that thing better is just that, an assumption. It can bring positive to a project, it can sometimes do the opposite. Talent, mastery of craft, a solid critical or editorial eye about one's on work, and an understanding of the needs of a story or character (which can or cannot come form being a fan of it) are all more likely to bring something positive to a work than being a fan of the property or medium. That said, for some folks, being a fan of the property or medium can be the juice that leads them to developing those things when working on projects of the things they are fans of, but for others it's what causes them to lose sight of those things. If being a fan of something were enough to ensure top quality products, every work of fan-fiction would be pure gold...

-M

Fully agreed! When I mentioned "And most importantly, it's not just about simply citing old comic book references, it's taking elements of what made them interesting and attempting to bring new inspired works that stand on their own merits", I think similar to what you shared, it's not enough just to have the affinity.

I view it this way...the legacy of comics is so extensive, having the love and knowledge as a reference can be an additional tool in the toolkit for content creation (and sometimes an exciting one for us retro fans). But it does not alone translate to master craftsmanship, that is still fully attributable to the creative process and talent of the individual themselves.

I'm overall heavily weighted towards traditional superhero fare in terms of reading interests, but I do adore my non-superhero comics as well (heck, most of my recent purchases fit into that latter category), even though I know they will generally gain less interest as a discussion topic if I post about them. I've assumed it's more just popular tastes...like if I am talking to folks about sports at work, the vast majority are going to talk about football even though I would much rather talk about tennis (and I rarely find anyone else interested in that topic). But nobody ever says, "well, you don't REALLY like sports then" even though they probably don't understand how I live in central Ohio and don't worship the Buckeyes lol.

But back on comics, I think the superhero thing is moot despite the TV and movies exposure. It's really all a manga world now...

I figure most people who broke into the industry from the 70s onward love the medium, but a special shutout to the indie creators and the self-publishers. Those guys must truly love the medium to strive to get their stories published. As far as mainstream comics go, Kurt Busiek strikes me as a guy who loves the medium. Astro City is the finest love letter to comics that's ever been penned. I really love the way Matt Wagner handles retro stories, and of course Darwyn Cooke was brilliant.