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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 14, 2020 11:18:22 GMT -5
So why only eleventh place? Well, like Slott, these two runs are all I really enjoy from Englehart. He definitely wrote some other solid stories but nothing really connected with me the way his Batman did. Ironically, Englehart will be appearing on my list quite soon, and I've yet to even read his work on Batman/'Tec! Oh man, you need to read his Batman, I think it would be right up your alley |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 14, 2020 11:30:26 GMT -5
Day two bringing the funny... 11. Frank Jacobs (Mad Magazine)
 Jacobs burst on to the Mad scene in 1957 when he placed five bylines in issue #33. In the ensuing years he would to appear in 300 issues of the magazine, the second most of pure writers after Dick DeBartolo. Jacobs can do anything. But he was the go-to versifier, making parodies of popular song lyrics...yes, he was Weird Al before Weird Al. He also created the "Do-It-Yourself Newspaper Stories" and a ton of fake celebrity obituaries. But he's really here because of his work as a versifier. And in that role he created, with the immortal Wally Wood, what I consider to be the funniest thing that ever appeared in Mad Magazine, The Mad Comic Opera. Jacobs and Wood took almost every comic strip character then in existence, tacked on a silly story and some of the most brilliant song parodies ever.  |
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Post by Farrar on Dec 14, 2020 11:30:32 GMT -5
#11-Arnold DrakeDoom Patrol. That says it all for me. As a wee little tyke v visiting my grandparents up in Po Payson I bought a grab bag of comic books at their local thrift store. In that pack was 2 issues of Doom Patrol. I was captivated by the characters and their quirky oddball status as freaks outside of the regular world. They were friends, more true and real than I had seen in comics. They argued, teased and complained but they ALWAYS came through in the end, supporting one another and saving the day if not the world. They were FAMILY. Drake hit a nerve in me that made me a DP lover. And this was years after the series was cancelled! They were an instant cult classic for me and I seldom saw or found the series! For years I had just those 2 issues, then might find a singularly beaten up used cheap copy. Then Teen Titans brings them once more into the spotlight and a golden age is reborn. DC reprints a few stories and back issues are appearing once more. The group of freaks were stupendous, funny, silly, unique and a favorite. Now I have a pair of Showcase and color Omnibus collecting ALL the kitschy goodness. And I can read their series over again and again while still enjoying it. That is quite an accomplishment I would say! Great to see this, brutalis Drake's on my list too, and for chiefly the same reason-- the Doom Patrol! (I only have about 10 on my list, so I'll be posting on later days...) |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2020 12:07:02 GMT -5
#11 Garth Ennis
for his runs on Hellblazer and Preacher.
Sure, his humour can be so outré that it can turn off people; Ennis really enjoys his ridiculous gross-outs. I didn't follow his career after Preacher, so I don't know if he kept tapping the same vein (I would imagine he did) but few superhero comic-book writers played with the ridiculously violent nature of the genre with as much unassuming glee.
Ennis would be a one-trick pony if all he did was make us laugh at characters meeting absolutely revolting fates; however, his plots are often very ingenuous and he has created some of the most attaching and colourful characters of the last few decades: Kit Ryan, Jesse Custer, Tulip O'hare, Herr Starr and more.
He is also quite gifted when it comes to presenting both sides of an issue. Most writers can write eloquently about certain social issues they hold dear, and Ennis is no exception, but he's always ready to also show how "the other side" can have a pretty good point as well. Depending on the issue of Preacher you read, it could be very hard to decide what his politics are like! (I'd say some kind of socially-conscious libertarian myself, but even that isn't certain).
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 14, 2020 13:07:58 GMT -5
#11 Otto BinderIt's hard to come up with great names of writers from the Golden Age, since most went uncredited, though you find the usual suspects of Will Eisner, Jack Cole, Gardner Fox, Bill Finger, Charles Biro, William Woolfolk and Otto Binder. Since we are not allowed writer/artists, except as pure writers on something else, that narrows things. Regardless, Otto Binder is one of my favorites under any criteria. Why? Captain Marvel. I first discovered Captain Marvel in the early 70s, with DC's revival, in the pages of Shazam. My first comic I got to pick out was Shazam #10. A neighbor got a few other Shazam issues and I collected the whole series, in later years; but, the one thing I found was that I preferred the reprint stories over the new stuff and that reprint material primarily came from the typewriter of Otto Binder. Binder wrote about 70-80% of the Marvel Family stories, introducing us toe Mary Marvel and writing the stories of Captain Marvel Jr (to the delight of one Elvis Aaron Presley). His brilliant, creative mind gave us such classic characters as Black Adam, Uncle Dudley, Mr Tawky Tawny and the evil worm, Mr Mind. The stories were colorful and memorable and easily withstand the test of time. Binder also wrote such features as Bulletman, Golden Arrow and Captain Venture at Fawcett. With the demise of Fawcett, he soon found himself working for DC, where his contributions to Superman raised its Silver Age profile, bringing in those elements that led to Captain Marvel outselling Superman and one of the prime motivating factors in DC's lawsuit. He gave the world Supergirl, the Legion of Super Heroes, Krypto the Superdog, Beppo the Super Monkey, Titano, Lucy Lane and more. He wrote the seminal "Superman's Return to Krypton, turned Jimmy Olsen into Elasti-Lad and gave Lois Lane her first "imaginary story." There is just so much sheer delight in Binder's stories and an imagination that was unparalleled. He would be here, alone, for his Superman work; but, it is with the Marvel Family that I put him here. Stories of Black Adam, the unstoppable mirror of Captain Marvel, who is defeated by the non-powered Uncle Dudley and a simple trick, to the legendary Monster Society of Evil, where Captain Marvel's enemies are united by a single malevolent mind, who turns out to be an alien worm, who speaks through a little radio receiver, strapped around his "neck." Even more gonzo than that is that when he is captured at the end of the serial, he is put on trial and sentenced to the electric chair and actually executed!  No one has ever topped that!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2020 13:51:31 GMT -5
#11 - John Wagner (Various UK titles) Wagner, perhaps best known for creating Judge Dredd, has never taken a breather. He’s like the Energiser Bunny. His early work for various UK comics such as 2000 AD and Eagle never failed to captivate me. The guy seemed to have inexhaustible energy. And his work is quite eclectic. There’s the horror, the science fiction and the fantasy, but there’s also the more “down to earth” stuff such as football (soccer) and military exploits. However, while the likes of Dredd have to be fantastical, Wagner seems to infuse even the mundane stuff with a dose of something fantastical. In much the same way it is said that professional wrestlers are just hyped up versions of their real-life personas, it feels like Grant could take a character - such as a cop or footballer - and make them fantastical while keeping at least one foot in reality. That can’t be an easy balancing act, right. I remember reading about the keyword “verisimilitude” during the making of 1978’s Superman. Well, I feel Wagner is your man to go to if you want something rich and fantastical, but with a relatable verisimilitude. One strip he wrote (under a pseudonym) was The Thirteenth Floor in Scream!. It featured the adventures of a sentient computer, Max, who looked after the welfare of his tenants in an apartment block. Of course, he took his programming to extremes, destroying anyone he thought was a threat to his tenants’ welfare. Here’s a panel: 
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2020 14:17:00 GMT -5
One strip he wrote (under a pseudonym) was The Thirteenth Floor in Scream!. It featured the adventures of a sentient computer, Max, who looked after the welfare of his tenants in an apartment block. Of course, he took his programming to extremes, destroying anyone he thought was a threat to his tenants’ welfare. Here’s a panel: That's one very Eisneresque page!!! |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,199 
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Post by Confessor on Dec 14, 2020 14:18:11 GMT -5
One strip he wrote (under a pseudonym) was The Thirteenth Floor in Scream!.Ahhh... Scream! comic. Gone, but never forgotten. I can guarantee we'll see Wagner in this year's Classic Comics Xmas again, at least once.  |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 14, 2020 14:48:19 GMT -5
11. René GoscinnyGoscinny probably needs no introduction – he was one of the legends of European comics in the 20th century, writing some of the best loved comics in France, Belgium and beyond from the 1940s until his untimely death in 1977 at the age of 51. The reason I’m writing about him, though, is the series he created together with artist Albert Uderzo: Asterix, the absolutely delightful series featuring the adventures of the titular Gaulish warrior, his best pal, the voluminous and mighty Obelix, their canine companion Dogmatix, and all of their friends and comrades-at-arms in the only village in Roman-era Gallia that the Roman army never managed to conquer. Besides being beautifully illustrated by Uderzo, these are such fun, funny and intelligently written comics. Among other things, I love how Goscinny incorporated historical references but also digs at modern society and politics, while never being obvious or heavy-handed. And sometimes he even threw in a little meta-commentary:  Asterix is still being published to this day, but honestly, I think they really lost something after Goscinny’s death. The few post-Goscinny volumes I've read, which are both written and illustrated by Uderzo, aren't bad, but they just seem to lack snappy, sharp humor of the earlier stories. Here I also have to give a big shout-out to the translators of most of the English editions I’ve read, Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. I think they did a bang-up job conveying the charm and humor of Goscinny’s scripts.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 14, 2020 19:56:06 GMT -5
11. Michael Fleisher...first came to my attention as the scripter on The Spectre, in Adventure Comics:  That series already had two components that made it an instant sale with me, the art of Jim Aparo and the very character of The Spectre. But as we've seen in chadwilliam's excellent Spectre review thread, it's not that easy to write a satisfying Spectre story. For rookie comic book writer to revive this series and get right at the core of the concept, breaking mainstream mores and somehow getting away with it, giving us a Spectre that for once had a clear and consistent take on what Jim Corrigan and The Spectre were with respect to each other, never resorting to super-villains who somehow manage to overpower the nigh omnipotent Ghostly Guardian, well, it's quite a feat, and I lamented the day that the letters page announced it was all over. But Fleisher had more up his sleeve, because at the same time, he took over the scripting of Jonah Hex in Weird Western Tales #22, through the remainder of his run in that series and then in all 92 issues of Jonah Hex. And it was his stories, 100%, that got me buying WWT, the first and only Western comic I got on board with enough to follow, maybe not regularly, but it was a book I could count on to never disappoint, should I pick up a random issue. And I sure couldn't say that about most of the superhero comics I leaned towards in the 70's. And unlike many fondly-remembered series from that era, it holds up to modern day scrutiny and still entertains as solidly. A complete run of Fleisher's Jonah Hex would not be a bad desert island choice. It was many decades past its original publication that I sampled the first few installments of Fleisher's creation Scalphunter, who replaced Jonah in WWT when he went off to his solo series. To what should have been no surprise, the adventures of Brian Savage were almost as satisfying as Jonah's: brutal, grim, and thoughtful stories for a series that would be better remembered had not Fleisher left the book to be replaced by Gerry Conway (who will not be appearing on my list, and I'll leave it at that).
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 14, 2020 20:38:15 GMT -5
11. Alan Brennert
Comics Resume: Brave Bold, Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2, Detective 500Of all my 2020 picks, he has the least amount of books published but each one that I read was a gem. He caught my eye in the Brave and the Bold books that teamed up Batman with Hawk and Dove, the Earth 2 Robin and a tale involving the Earth 2 Batman. All three books touched my heart and transcended the superficial emotions that comics would usually display. It’s too bad he didn’t do more work. The Christmas story involving Deadman was another heart breaker. Track it down. Now. 
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Crimebuster
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Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Dec 14, 2020 23:02:20 GMT -5
11. Alan Brennert
It’s too bad he didn’t do more work. I believe he just had a new Namor one-shot published earlier this year. |
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Post by foxley on Dec 15, 2020 2:02:44 GMT -5
11. Cary Bates
Truth be told, Mr. Bates might not have made my list had I not decided to reread Silverblade: a flawed but fascinating work. Not that Silverblade is the reason he makes my list. It is a little too steeped in 1980s New Age mysticism. I have no idea if this reflects Bates' own beliefs, or if he just thought it made cool set-up for the story, but there is no way this tale could have been written, or set, any time other than the late 80s.
But it meant that Bates was in my mind when Cei-U announced this year's topic. And I thought to myself "Didn't Cary Bates write a whole bunch of Flash stories I really liked back when I was in my early teens?" (which was just after the Napoleonic Wars, IIRC).
And, lo and behold, he had. He wrote two long story arcs--"The Murder of Iris Allen" and "The Trial of the Flash"--at a time when such things were rare. And, more importantly, he did many, many stories of the kind I like: the done-in-one (or done-in-two) where a costumed supervillain presents a challenge to a superhero who finds a clever way to defeat them, without anyone getting raped or having their face cut off or any of those things young people seem to like these days. (Damn young people coming in here and trampling over my hobby! I don't interfere with their face-tocking or planking or whatever it is kids are into these days. No respect, that's the problem.)... *wanders off to yell at a cloud*
Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes, and with the Flash, Bates had access to DC's second best rogues gallery (behind Batman's).
So pure nostalgia gives Cary Bates the no. 11 spot on my list.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 15, 2020 4:24:53 GMT -5
(...) But it meant that Bates was in my mind when Cei-U announced this year's topic. And I thought to myself "Didn't Cary Bates write a whole bunch of Flash stories I really liked back when I was in my early teens?" (which was just after the Napoleonic Wars, IIRC). (...) Don't be silly, it wasn't *that* long ago. (It was actually just after the Franco-Prussian War, sometimes people mix those up.)
Otherwise, I also like the rather extensive Bates run on Flash in the 1970s.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 15, 2020 4:41:06 GMT -5
Cary Bates was on my long list on the strength of all the great Superman Bronze Age books.
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