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5 Writers (October 2010)

Taking a cue from the 11 O'Clock forums and borrowing a bit of list making from David Brothers and 4th Letter, this week at Wednesday's Haul will be all comic related Favorite 5 lists.  Now the usual disclaimer should be in place:  these are just my opinions right now.  I reserve the right to change these at any time.  As well as listing out my current favorites, I'll also be talking briefly about a key work of theirs. 

These are all creators and works that have had some kind of influence on my and the way I look at comics. 

Here's the schedule:

Monday:  5 Writers
Tuesday: 5 Artists
Wednesday: 5 Writer & Artist Teams
Thursday: 5 Writers/Artists (single person)
Friday: 5 creators to watch in 2011

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Up first, 5 Writers:

 

  • Grant Morrison-- Invisibles V3 #1:  Grant Morrison has this neat trick that he pulls out on occasion.  After he finishes a long form story, he pulls out a coda and gives you more to think about.  That’s why I love “For Tomorrow,” his final arc on New X-Men.  It’s both unnecessary but has all of the keys to understanding his New X-Men run.  Before that, he did the same trick with the Invisibles, having Frank Quitely draw the last issue of The Invisibles, in a story that occurs in 2012 at the end of the world.  The penultimate issue (actually numbered #2 of Volume 3, when they were indulgently counting down with the issue numbers) wrapped up the grand plot that Morrison was telling but left all of the characters on their own while entering the 21st century.  While we saw glimpses of the new century during the run, we never really knew what King Mob’s own fate was.  Morrison caught us all up with these characters one last time, giving them a proper ending while giving us clues about how to go back and read the entire Invisibles saga. 

  • Neil Gaiman-- Sandman: Season of Mists:  I think this is where I knew that Gaiman was writing a future classic.  After tying his Sandman into some Shakespeare stories, Gaiman goes and decides to incorporate Milton and Paradise Lost into his story as Lucifer gives up the keys to Hell.  And even as his story truly goes epic, Gaiman keeps things close and personal with Sandman and his bickering family.  This is one of those books that struck at the perfect time for me as I was an English Lit major back in the early 1990s and Gaimain was writing about the things that I was studying in class.  But I also really like his Dream character, this all-powerful endless character who was just as love-sick and heart broken as any mere mortal.  Maybe Sandman was emo or goth but I wasn’t nearly cool enough at the time to really know what either of those were. 

  • Ed Brubaker—Sleeper: Here’s where Ed Brubaker’s career started for me.  His first collaboration with Sean Phillips has everything in it that the two would later expand upon in Criminal and Incognito.  Coming out during what will be known as the golden age of Wildstorm, Sleeper is a dark and dirty story that couldn’t be told with any existing hero or villain.  Holden Carver is the prototypical Brubaker hero, a good man caught in bad situations and the puzzle is to see how the hero adapts or fails to adapt to those situations.  In that way, there’s little difference between Carver and Brubaker’s Bucky or his Daredevil.  All these men are tugged in different directions by their past and their present. 

  • Matt Wagner—Grendel: Wagner is the modern pulp writer.  While he’s probably best known for the work that he both writes and draws (Mage & Grendel,) that over looks a great boy of work that Wagner has written for other artists.  Starting with the hyper-stylized Pander Brothers and then flowing into Bernie Mireault, J.K. Snyders III, Jay Geldof, Tim Sale and Patrick McKeown, Wagner’s Grendel cycle is an ambitious story ultimately about a concept and how it permeates into a society.   Grendel is his storytelling masterpiece but look at the work he’s done on Sandman Mystery Theater, Madame Xanadu and Zorro.  Wagner has the heart and soul of a pulp writer but expresses himself in very modern ways.

  • James Robinson- Starman:  I don’t really care what the man has done since, but Starman is one of the best stories that DC Comics have told in the past 30 years.  While it’s been 10 years since the adventures of Jack Knight disappeared from the stands, he still feels more real to me than most comic characters do.  Robinson created a true character in Jack, not just a mannequin who’s sole purpose was to wear a costume and fight bad guys.  Back in the early 90s, Robinson was on a roll with Malibu’s Firearm (a character that’s sadly faded into obscurity,) The Golden Age, a fun graphic novel called 60 Seconds but Starman was his masterpiece.   Jack Knight came to mean even more to me after I became a father and could see the character’s arc in a different light.  The ending of Starman is just perfect to me and I don’t ever really want to see Robinson or Tony Harris go back to the character.  I’ve got my story and it was almost perfect. 
Tomorrow: 5 Artists...