Neither would 3 of the guys you listed, there's only 1 winner, but he certainly would be the favorite fo some people here. If it only counts if they win, then you should only list 1, because the others won't win either. And knowing this board, Miller wouldn't win either as there's not a lot of Miller fans here (I'm a fan but I'm more of an exception in that among the folks here).

It comes down to what are you asking-which is the community's favorite, or which of your favorites does the community like the most. If gauging what the community's favorite is, you need to include options that aren't your favorites or that you don't think move the needle because the overwhelming response of "other" in this poll shows the ones you picked aren't moving the needle either.

-M

PS and honestly from the way you worded the title of the thread, I thought you were starting some kind of March Madness bracket showdown for people to vote on their potential favorite writer/artists until a winner is crowned and I was going to commend you on taking on such an ambitious project...

Icctrombone clearly did not just "pick his favorites" for this poll, I want to point out Liefeld was actually excluded (who is both a writer and artist, though that's debated by some here).

I joined you.

But I also thought of Eisner and Kirby.

I have to go with Stan Sakai...there are few others people mention, but I think some of those are not really writer/artists, but more artists that write sometimes.

Two more, Steranko and Dave Stevens. Limited but awesome output.

I chose other, but it's a big Other.

Both Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
Dan Clowes
Terry Laban
Wiil Eisner
Carl Barks
Howard Chaykin
Jeff Smith
Eddie Campbell
Colleen Doran
Sarah Dyer (Action Girl!)
Mathias Schultheis
Quino
Mordillo (his work is silent, but it tells a story, within the gags)
Mike Grell
Dan Brereton (love his Nocturnals)
Scott Roberts and the wonderful Patty Cake
Kirby
Mike Mignola
Michael T Gilbert
Tim Truman
Pepe Moreno (though his best work was in conjunction with Archie Goodwin)
Daniel Torres (Rocco Vargas, most especially)
Franco Saudelli
Guido Crepax
Druillet
Liberatore-RanXerox
Jije
Franquin
Osamu Tezuka (though he had assistants, as did a large swath of the manga creators)
Leo (Worlds of Aldebaran)
Jacques Tardi
Vittorio Giardino-both Sam Pezzo and Max Fridman
Nina Paley

If you include comic strips, I can go on and on.

Starlin and Simonson Irate higher, as writers than Miller or Byrne, but I felt Starlin peaked with metamorphosis Odyssey and then it declined across Dreadstar and definitely with later work. Simonson is just really entertaining, especially when he does double duty.

I am less and less enamored of Miller the older I get. In college and soon after, I was all over his stuff; but, as I grew older and recognized more and more his influences, he dropped in stature. That, aided by the fact that I really didn't like Sin City after the first couple of storylines and the more I saw how the female characters were treated. I thought his best writing was with other artists, like Dave Gibbons, on Martha Washington, and Geoff Darrow, in Big Guy and Rusty, and to a lesser extent, on Hard Boiled (not a fan of the writing, but love Darrow's art). Daredevil, I thought, was better with McKenzie writing and I liked Mazuchelli, as a visual storyteller, better. I'm not a great admirer of Miller's art, especially after he started aping Jose Munoz, by way of Kriesten.

Byrne I am not overly awed by his writing. I enjoyed Next Men, when it started out, but less so, as it went on and less in looking back. The Torch of Liberty was the one thing I really enjoyed, as well as Batman & Captain America, plus some of his Superman revamp; but not much aside from that. he was far better with a good writer, like Chris Claremont or Rogert Stern.

Mignola. I've loved almost everything of his I've touched. Hellboy in Hell was underwhelming, though.