Comic Book Writers

[Taco-Calamitous]

Anyone here read comics? Who then, is your favorite comic book writer or writers? Admittedly, my list of comics read on a regular basis is rather limited; the only ongoing comic book series I've read on a regular basis since I was young has been Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog. It has seen it's fair share of writers, all of which have had their strengths and flaws. I don't know that I would list any of them among my favorite writers. Of their writers, however...

...the one whose stuff I remember most readily is Ian Flynn's, as he is the most recent writer. When he first started writing for the comic, I thought he could do no wrong; he was helping it recover from a few terrible years that had very few glimpses of light in them. His style was more fun than the last writer's, as it focused less on teen angst (Tails shouting "I HATE YOU!!" at Sonic after finding him kissing his crush, Fiona the Fox, in the bushes-and Sonic knew she was his crush-comes to mind) and more on lighthearted humor and action. Beyond that, the characters had more definable personalities now; Fiona being a character who actually now had a personality.

However, as Ian continued on with the series, I can't help but notice his tendency to want to simplify the series for the newer, younger readers, a la killing off older characters he felt were "loose ends" or "hadn't been doing much" or "Some people told me they didn't like them." His handling of Locke-Knuckles' father-in particular I found questionable. He has a tendency also to focus on one personality trait of a character, and amplify it; so Locke became this crazy, irrational, narrow-minded old man whose only answer for stopping his possessed son was to kill him. He ended up seeing the error of his ways in the end and sacrificed himself for his son; a good way to go out, but leading up to that...

So while characters now have discernable personalities, they have a tendency to exaggerate that one trait that defines them, rarely ever showing anything else. He also tends to brush over things too quickly-we'll see a glimpse of a character developing scene, and then it's gone. There's only been one issue that I can think of where he took a break from action the whole book and instead used dialogue and the like (in an effective manner. One other issue comes to mind that was rather boring...) However, a new comic, "Sonic Universe," will help with that, giving him more room to fill out his story. I also have to praise him for his witty dialogue, his humor, and his handling of dramatic scenes, which he does pretty well. I suppose he's also trying to reach the younger audience more than the previous writers were, so that may have some effect, too... doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

My favorite writer for an ongoing major series that I've read: Judd Winick. Back in '03 or '04, I picked up an issue of his series "Exiles" for Marvel Comics, because it had Gambit in it, and I wanted to read a comic with Gambit. Soon after, I realized that this comic's incarnation of Morph was awesome, and he became the reason I followed the comic for the next 7 or 8 issues, until Walden Books stopped carrying it for a time, for some reason... it came back several issues later, I didn't know what was going on anymore, so I didn't pick it back up. I've bought the first three volumes of Exiles, and I've also been reading the first three issues of his "The Outsiders," featuring a DC cast. I borrowed them from my brother, not knowing he wrote them; I just decided that if I was going to read a DC comic, it would be one about Nightwing. Once again, however, my favorite character is one different from the one I thought would be my favorite: a tie between Arsenal and Shift.

I really appreciate this writer's witty dialogue; though I don't laugh out loud (it's hard to get that reaction out of me) I find the banter between the heroes to be a lot of fun. I also appreciate his ability to juggle half a dozen characters at one time and have each of them seem fully developed and important. I can't really think of anything negative to say about him, although sometimes I don't get why his characters think the way they do; Nightwing has come off as quite a dick for the first several issues (not just by his name) and I don't completely understand his reasoning. At the end of his time with the Teen Titans, Donna Troy died, and so he was like "We're ending the team!" and "I'm not going to be close to anyone anymore!" Kinda overreacting. Shit happens, man. It's nobody's fault. There is also this other character-Grace-who the entire cast refers to as a bitch, but whom I don't really have that much of a problem with; she just has a bit of an attitude. A little rough around the edges.

Although I only read one graphic novel by Doug TenNapel, (Creature Tech) I really liked it, and consider him one of my favorites, too. He has a unique artistic style, and I enjoyed his references to his religion in his comics (though I've read a lot of negative responses to this on the internets. People can cry me a river.) I also thought it had some decent humor in it, and it was fairly intelligent as well. (Doug TenNapel was also the creator of Earthworm Jim.)

This Summer, I read Jeff Smith's Bone: The Entire Epic. It was great. It made me sympathetic towards all the good characters (even Phoney Bone.) I really enjoyed the seemingly indifferent, cigar-smoking dragon, the animal children (they were cute) and Bartleby the rat creature was pretty awesome, too. I thought the way the characters talked-"th'," "t'," etc.-was a little odd sometimes; I'm not sure what accent they were supposed to have. Oh well. In any case, it had me reading it nonstop for a whole week, and when it was over, I had that feeling of longing that you get when something is over and you don't want it to be. I need to read his spinoff series.

I've rattled on for long enough now (although it's the literature forum; you all should have enough patience to read my entire post ) Wow... I went to post that, and I had timed out a long time ago, apparently. Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[sonicisrad]

Ahaha can't beat the Sonic the Hedgehog Series brutha. But Asterix & Obelix takes the cake for me, awesome series, and awesome charactersx aha.

A good online comic bok 'series' is the Super Effective Comics, ahahaha, funny Pokemon shots!! Funniest Stuff around for a while. ahaha.

SUPER EFFECTIVE

as well as The Cyanide and Happiness comics, funniest Comics to hit the Internet.

http://www.explosm.net/comics/839/ (juts hit random to see more)

Yea boi.

[Violet]

My favorite comic books? Hmm.. Well, I've been looking all over the internet for some of the latest X-Men ones, but I haven't dug deep enough. I really want to read them, too. The art looked well drawn and I'd like to see what the characters are like.

Other than X-Men, I'm gonna have to say, Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics are awesome. I recommend them to anybody. Here's a look at what they are:

Endless (comics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you're too lazy to click the link, here's a summary:

"The Endless spend most of their time fulfilling their functions as embodiments of natural forces. For example, Death leads the souls of the dead away from the realm of the living, while Dream oversees the realm of dreams and imagination ("The Dreaming") and regulates dreams and inspiration. In The Sandman (vol. 2) #48, Destruction describes the Endless:

"The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more... And even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the Universe.
"

The concepts are very interesting. Each article has unique drawing patterns. Neil tells the story and he gets different artists to draw every segment. It's definitely something you should keep your eye out for in a comic store (or any big book store).