And it's the second time he's appeared on the countdown already.

-M

#9 Dean Motter



Now, Dean Motter is an artist; but, he has done relatively little art in comics, particularly compared to his writing. It's actually quite a treat when he does draw, but, he is a tremendous writer. He's on my list for two things: Mr X and Terminal City, which we eventually learn exist in the same world. I would also throw in his little seen Electropolis, though he actually drew that one, so it doesn't count here.

Mr X was a character he originally drew for an album cover, which he eventually developed into an architect whose work is driving the citizens of Radiant City mad, and he is trying to do something about it. Mixed in there is a tale of political corruption, hubris, and quite a lot of social satire. Originally, it was intended for Paul Rivoche to draw it, but aside from some conceptual and marketing designs, Rivoche couldn't do it. Then, Los Bros Hernandez were contracted by Vortex to do it; but, had a falling out with the publisher. Motter continued with various partners, but what was consistent was the sharp writing.

Now, flash forward a few years and Motter and Mark Askwith are creating an authorized sequel to the seminal British tv series, The Prisoner. Motter did the art, so that is off the table, but, it's a great work.

The book that really made Motter tops in my world is Terminal City. Like Motter, I love art deco and Modern Design. Mister X was steeped in it, but Terminal City wallows in it. It is the reality of those utopian futures that you would see in magazines and advertising pieces, with the gleaming deco cites, the monorails, airships, and the like. Motter took that concept and showed the flawed reality; but, did it in an engaging and delightfully satirical way, along with collaborator and artist Michael Lark. The city is filled with puns, like a statue called the Colossus of Roads, the hotel The Herculean Arms, and an artificial beach, called Cast Iron Beach. This was a planned city, the setting for the Brave New World's Fair, where everything went wrong. Now, a mysterious man turns up dead, and a steel worker, a pair of conmen, named Micasa and Sucasa (who look like Abbott & Costello), an old film star, a hotel manager, a waitress and a former Human Fly-turned-window cleaner are all caught up in the mystery. Then, there is the mysterious Lady in Red. It's classic noir mystery, set in this failed futurist experiment, with a bit of Monty Python thrown in, for good measure. The Herculean Arms has a robot desk clerk, called BZL-100, who says the robot bellhops are on the fritz and calls for the Manual. Just remember not to mention the war!

The series is a delight and works on all levels, from the mystery, to the engaging characters, the dialogue, the background details and Michael Lark's dense art. This is a world to savor. Motter also provided reading lists on the letters pages, which helped introduce me to Taschen's Icons series of mini-books, with features on Futurist illustrations, modern design furniture, modern architecture, graphic design and more. Then, there was High Ferris The Metropolis of Tomorrow, filled with architectural renderings of skyscrapers, planned cities, bridges with apartments built in, elevated roadways and the like. It was a series that both entertained and educated.



Motter and Lark came back for a second mini-series, Aerial Graffiti, which introduced Charity's (the manager of the Herculean Arms) sisters and some more fun with our favorite characters, including a skywriter with a sort of professional Tourette Syndrome.

At Image, Motter would return with a new city in this world, Electropolis, with a hardboiled robot detective, his human partner, and another mystery, plus an appearance by Mister X. You have to love a city who gets its electricity from Emerson, Lake & Power!. Alas, Motter drew this one, so it doesn't count; but, the writing is there, just the same.

9. Frank Giroud



Giroud's series Le Décalogue is one of the finest achievements in comics, in my opinion. Teaming up with ten different artists (one for each of the ten books in the series), Giroud crafts a rich tapestry mixing fiction with actual history in such a way as to blur the distinction between the two (just like Umberto Eco did with the wonderful conspiracy described in Foucault's Pendulum.)

Told in reverse chronological order, this multi-generational saga follows, at first, the history of an old and rare book and the amazing watercolors that originally illustrated it. Among the images are one representing a camel's shoulder blade with, written on it in archaic script, the alleged final sura of the prophet Muhammad. Said sura, if authentic, would cause a theological revolution in the Islamic world. 

Each chapter of the series takes us back a little bit more back in the past, and belongs to different genres; from police investigation to international politics, from the Armenian genocide to New York gangster stories, from closed door family dramas to Napoleonic war epics to Egyptian mysteries to the founding of Islam, it reveals its plot like an onion, layer by layer, upping the ante with each new book.

A bit like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, it is when you have read the whole thing that you are floored by how tight the intricate plot is, and how simply amazing the whole thing is.

As far as I know, although it has been translated in several languages, it is not yet available in English... which is a crying shame. But just for this series, Frank Giroud makes it to my list of favourite comic book writers.

9. Dave Michelinie

Comic resume: Avengers, Action, Spider-man, Ironman , Valiant- Rai, Hard Corps, Turok, Magnus, Created Taskmaster, Venom, and Scott lang


Dave Michelinie was one of those creators that didn’t have the rock star appeal like some of the other writers in the bronze age but he snuck up on me as the person that did many of the books that I collected faithfully. I’m not sure if he’s more known for Spider-man as one of the creators of Venom, but to me , he was part of the dream team that made Iron Man an A list hero. His pairing with Romita Jr. and Bob Layton compares with any dream run in comics history. I’m putting that team on par with Lee/ Kirby/ Sinnott , Claremont/Byrne/ Austin , Oneil/ Adams or Thomas/ J. Buscema. THAT’S how much I regarded his Iron Man run that ran from 116-157. He also did most of the writing for the Avengers book from 181 through 205 where he paired with Byrne and Perez to bring us some nice tales of the assemblers. He Created Venom, the Taskmaster and Scott lang. Not bad. I feel in some ways he was underrated in his time.

#9-Brian Wood

A 50 issue series of Vikings you say? I am so in for that! Aaaaaand Wood doesn't go for the easy sword fights or barbarian plundering (though there is plenty of that to be found) of movies and myth. Wood takes the real history and creates emotionally stirring stories. Adventures of sweat, blood, tears, grief and bloody battles! A dream come true for exploration of the Viking heritage and concepts that motivate and captivate the thoughts of us armchair warriors.

And from there on I have been willing to go and find earlier Wood series (DMZ anyone?) while grabbing up anything new he creates like Rebels. His works are well worth the spending on, for you get your money's worth with every re-reading to come.

Just avoid his Conan run for Dark Horse. I discovered Wood with Couscous Express and read a lot of his stuff, but his Conan was so bad it killed a lot of enthusiasm I had for his work.

-M

9. John Ostrander


John Ostrander was an early contender for my list, but one that I rejected almost straight away, as I kept thinking of him primarily as writing in partnership with his wife Kim Yale. However, something made me go back and check my recollection and I'm glad that I did. Turns out that he was the sole scripter for more than half the run of Suicide Squad, with the rest be co-written with Yale (apart from two: one of which was plotted by Ostrander and scripted by Robert Greenberger, and the other being co-written by David M. DeVries).

And it is primarily for Suicide Squad that Ostrander earns his spot on my list. This series spun out of the Legends miniseries, and was largely in the shadow of George Perez's reboot of Wonder Woman that also came out of Legends. I fell in love with the title immediately: it was the Mission: Impossible meets The Dirty Dozen starring a cast of second-string DC supervillains. Ostrander could make you care about this ragtag bunch of misfits, most of whom were horrible people. No small feat.

But Suicide Squad punched well above its weight, and had an influence on the DC Universe out all proportion to the book's popularity. It is a debatable point whether Ostrander or Len Wein created Amanda Waller, but it was Ostrander who established the Wall's background and personality, and her hard-nosed, 'take-no-crap' power broker whose influence would be felt across the DCU. It was Ostrander who turned Deadshot from a one-note, third-string Batman villain into one of the the DCU's most popular bad guys. He rescued Bronze Tiger from years in the comic book wilderness, and made him an interesting character. He could find the emotional core of characters like Captain Boomerang and Count Vertigo, forever changing the way these characters would be perceived and written.

(And many readers might be surprised to that the transformation of Barbara Gordon into Oracle occurred in the pages of Suicide Squad. Talk about a decision that would shake the DCU to its core. But this decision was made by Ostrander and Yale in collaboration, so is strictly outside the scope of this year's list.)

So Ostrander is a master of showing what can be done with characters no one else wants. Truly he shows that there are no bad characters, just bad writers.