Hey, it’s not Wednesday, what the hell am I doing here? Well, I’ll tell you.
I was reading an article on Girls Read Comics Too about the DC vs Marvel debate, and the blogger presents a very interesting, and valid, point; why bother following one company over the other with fanatical devotion if you don’t like the content? She also pointed out that while she follows stories from many different companies, she’ll follow books by certain artists and writers in pretty much anything they do. Maybe not in those exact words, but you get my drift.
We all have our favorite artists and writers and while some of them stick to one company over another due to preference or contractual obligation, it doesn’t matter to us. If a book has Gail Simone as the writer, I’m going to at least skim through it if not buy it on the spot. I see Darwyn Cooke in the artist credits, yeah, I’m buying it. Alternatively, we all have creators whose work we either refuse to touch after a certain point (I’m looking at you, Damian Scott.), or only pick up because we hope, in some little desperate, masochistic part of our minds, that that particular creator has gotten better since last we partook in him (WINIIIIIICK). Often, he hasn’t. And we die a little inside. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society Sorry, I’ve been watching old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? to see if they still scare me (some still do). Without further babble, I present to you a list of some of the, in my opinion, greatest creators the comic indistry has to offer and their better works. Enjoy.
Writers-
Gail Simone: Secret Six (Villians United), Birds of Prey, Welcome to Tranquility for Wildstorm, formerly: Wonder Woman, Gen 13, Deadpool, The All New Atom, Agent X
Jimmy Palmiotti: Jonah Hex, formerly: Power Girl, Hawkman, Terra, Wednesday Comics, JSA: Classified, Secret Six (the second mini)
Mark Waid: formerly: The Flash, Impulse, 52, Legion of Superheroes (threeboot), JLA, The Brave and the Bold (new series), Valor, L.E.G.I.O.N., Legionnaires, The Kingdom, Xmen, Kingdom Come, Justice League Quarterly, Deadpool
Todd Dezago: formerly: Impulse, Young Justice: Sins of Youth
Tony Bedard: R.E.B.E.L.S., Gotham City Sirens, Green Lantern Corps, formerly: Legion of Superheroes (threeboot), Birds of Prey, Lobo
Grant Morrison: If it has his name on it, just give it a try. If you don’t like the book, feel free to comment me and tell me why. He only comes off as a crazed loon 10% of the time, you know.
Neil Gaiman: formerly: Sandman, Books of Magic, Wednesday Comics, Neverwhere, 1602, Death
Paul Dini: Zatanna, formerly: Detective Comics, Streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens, Mad Love, Jingle Belle, Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul (with Grant Morrison!), Heart of Hush, and of course, Batman the Animated Series and Batman Beyond
Marv Wolfman: formerly: The New Teen Titans, The New Titans, Tales of the Teen Titans, Deathstroke the Terminator, Nightwing, Vigilante, Crisis on Infinite Earths, History of the DC Universe
Keith Giffen: Booster Gold, Justice League: Generation Lost, formerly: Justice League International, 52, Justice League Europe, Legion of Superheroes, Justice League of America, Blue Beetle, L.E.G.I.O.N., Midnighter, Lobo
Arists-
Todd Nauck: formerly: Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!, Wildguard, American Dream, Spiderman, Legends of the Legion
Amanda Conner: formerly: Power Girl, Terra, The Pro, JSA: Classified, Wednesday Comics, Gatecrasher
Guillem March: formerly: Oracle, Gotham City Sirens
Ed Benes: Birds of Prey
Kevin Maguire: formerly: Justice League International, I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League, Formerly Known As the Justice League, L.E.G.I.O.N., Justice League Europe, Velocity: Pilot Season
Karl Kerschl: formerly: Wednesday Comics, Teen Titans Year One, The Flash
Ivan Reis: formerly: Green Lantern, Blackest Night, Brightest Day,
Doug Mahnke: Green Lantern, formerly: Black Adam
Ethan Van Sciver: formerly: Impulse, Flash: Rebirth, Green Lantern, New X-Men
Ian Churchill: formerly: Supergirl, Titans, Deadpool
Darwyn Cooke: Jonah Hex formerly: The Spirit, DC: The New Frontier, Spiderman’s Tangled Web, Superman: Confidential, Batman: Ego, The Last Resort, Catwoman
George Perez: formerly: The New Teen Titans, Tales of the Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman, Justice League of America, The New Titans, Infinite Crisis, Legion of Three Worlds
Ross Campbell: Wet Moon, Shadoweyes, formerly: The Abandoned, Water Baby, Too Much Hopeless Savages
Scott Kolins: formerly: The Flash, Rogue’s Revenge, Blackest Night: The Flash
Jim Lee: formerly: Xmen, All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder
Whew, whatta list! Those are some of the greats, you guys. Or, at least according to me. You may notice a suspicious lack of Geoff Johns on this list. Well, there’s a reason for that.
Geoff Johns is an excellent writer, but lately, he’s been pissing me off to no end. Take the last issue of Flash, for instance. Iris Allen is going to become evil.
Iris Allen. The most amazing woman in the Flash legacy. Who has done so many things in her life, even when she knew that no one would, that no one could come to her rescue if she were in trouble. The bringer of Bart Allen. She whose devotion to her family spread across a thousand years. The woman should be officially cannonized as a saint for all the crap she’s been through to make sure history goes exactly as it’s supposed to, even to the point of having to forcibly remove herself from her family.
Nope, Word of God says that she’s gonna become evil. But she’s not just going to go evil, oh no. She’s gonna be one of Barry’s greatest enemies, even though she’s his true love. In other words, she’s gonna be Carol Ferris.
FAIL
Geoff, I loved you once. You did some amazing things with the DC universe that made you one of their most valuable creative assets. So what happened? Why have you begun to suck so very hard. It’s Hal, isn’t it? I knew that Jordan boy was bad news.
Ahem, creepy monologue aside, I now bring you to a very, very short list of creators whose works I won’t touch with a ten-foot pole unless the creative team also includes one of the names above, or someone forces me to at gunpoint. These people are,
The Shitstomers:
Judd Winick (WINIIIIIIICK!)
Adam Beechen
Frank Miller
Damion Scott
Frank Quitely
The five individuals above should be considered insane. They break the laws of continuity, believe that with enough whores, swearing, and communicatable diseases, plot doesn’t matter, and have little to no perception of what the human body looks like. Repeat after me, Quitely: Robin is TEN, his face should not look FORTY. They have rare moments of genius, though. Miller’s “Goddamn Batman” launched an internet meme that has yet to end. In short, if you aren’t being forced to read books by these creators, don’t your brain, eyes, and wallet will thank you.
By the way, this is the lovely blog that got me thinking along these lines. The blame is all on her.
http://girlsreadcomics.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/dc-vs-marvel-why-is-it-even-a-debate/
Hope you all had a great weekend, see you Wednesday. This is ToG reminding you to have your children spayed and neutered. Peace out.
Wallace Cooper said,
August 31, 2010 @ 2:08 am
came across your blog. I see you don’t get a lot of comments. Hang in there. Just because no one is reading what you do right now, doesn’t mean that they won’t ever read it. The fact that you do it every week is commendable.
again, keep at it, hang in there.