Greatest Comic Book Writer of All Time and Why

gorfias

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In another thread I'm reading that the great Grant Morrison was the primary inspiration for the Matrix movie which was, IMHO, revolutionary for Sci-Fi action movies of crazy influence over the last 20 years. I think Grant had some influence, but, IMHO, the greatest comic book writer of all time with Miracle Man was much more the influence.
And that is who I would nominate as the GOAT comic book writer, Alan Moore, comes again to the top of my mind.
He was the inspiration for The Matrix with his series, "Miracle Man".
Author of "The Watchmen"
V for Vendetta
Swamp Thing
Some of the best Superman comics ever.
The Killing Joke.

I can think of some other crazy great contributors to comic book story telling. Maybe you prefer them. Or not. Who do you choose and why?
 

Breakdown

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I'd be torn between John Wagner or Pat Mills. They've never had much success in America but their work in 2000AD and other British comics is great.

John Wagner has the likes of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Robo Hunter and Button Man.

Pat Mills can be a bit hit and miss but was on a real hot streak in the 70s, 80s and early 90s with Charley's War, Flesh, Slaine, Nemesis, ABC Warriors and Marshal Law.

So yeah it's pretty hard to pick between them.
 
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Absent

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The boring one
René Goscinny. I like Alan Moore a lot, and he has that literary value (his comics feel move "novels" than "graphic", and I mean it as a compliment). But I'm a sucker for french/belgian comics of their golden age. I keep re-discovering it, and being amazed by the genius of Goscinny, when it came to setting up his jokes, his characters, his plots.

I'd also say it's easy to overlook Hergé, because his Tintin have fluctuated so much. They've evolved from plot-less naive (and racist) randomness to full-fledged, meticulously crafter epic adventures, to whole deconstructions with very progressive undertones. Because hey, they've been written by one person in the course of a whole life, through his personal evolutions and the evolutions of his century. Started nazi (raised by pro-hitler priests) and ended hippie (or at least claiming in an interview that Tintin would have been a hippie). That's quite the journey. I wish Hergé had lived more, to see where he would have gone after his latest anti-adventures.

But anyway, what I'm saying is that, after his naive starts, Tintin stories became impressively crafted plots and character constructions. And of course I'm biased because it's my culture, much more than costumed super heroes, and because it has this "founders of the medium" aura. But still, each time I get back to Hergé and Goscinny, I'm in awe. These are unassuming cathedrals. Taken as granted by modern authors who didn't manage to racapture this level of craft ever since.
 
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Bedinsis

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I'd also say it's easy to overlook Hergé, because his Tintin have fluctuated so much. They've evolved from plot-less naive (and racist) randomness to full-fledged, meticulously crafter epic adventures, to whole deconstructions with very progressive undertones. Because hey, they've been written by one person in the course of a whole life, through his personal evolutions and the evolutions of his century. Started nazi (raised by pro-hitler priests) and ended hippie (or at least claiming in an interview that Tintin would have been a hippie). That's quite the journey. I wish Hergé had lived more, to see where he would have gone after his latest anti-adventures.
I also wish he had lived more since I prefer people not dying, but his last album, Tintin and the Picaros, seemed to be a lot more cynical in its outlook. I mean Tintin directly refuses to partake in the plot to start with and at the end of the day the revolution has led to a new regime in the country but the people are explicitly shown to be no better off. I don't know if I'd like to see Tintin grow grumpy.

The comic as a whole is also a bit written with a boy's scout mentality. I am talking about how libido is non-existent and there is a total of one major female character.
 
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Absent

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I also wish he had lived more since I prefer people not dying, but his last album, Tintin and the Picaros, seemed to be a lot more cynical in its outlook. I mean Tintin directly refuses to partake in the plot to start with and at the end of the day the revolution has led to a new regime in the country but the people are explicitly shown to be no better off. I don't know if I'd like to see Tintin grow grumpy.

The comic as a whole is also a bit written with a boy's scout mentality. I am talking about how libido is non-existent and there is a total of one major female character.
I actually love this album's grumpy tone. Tintin's goody-two-shoes mentality is entirely inefficient in it, because the plot features no good and bad side, just a cynical struggle for power between two equivalent dictators (as the last panel shows), one of which is an old friend of Tintin. And another old friend betrays him. Tintin is just an idealistic kid in a world too rotten for heroes to have a point. All the good he succeeds to do is to break (once?) the tradition of executing political prisonners. It's deliciously cynical and despaired.

Now, libido and women are another matter. Comics of these times were still rooted in traditional christian culture, meaning that they had to be very clean, very moral, very educative, very edifying. In a conservative religious boarding school way. Which meant that sexuality (and thus, romance, and thus women) were explicitely out of the question. And while such rules were established by the likes of Hergé and Dupuis, other authors felt very frustrated by them (Franquin smuggled in his Spirou series the character of Seccotine to push these boundaries). These rules would eventually explode, but it would take new chief editors, new journals and a new generation of authors. The Hergé/Dupuis generations were entrenched in their era's education. This gives all of it a very kiddy tone, because indeed, the characters were simply not allowed puberty. Female characters would raise the question of romantic/sexual relationships, and the matter was taboo.

Also we're talking about male authors there. It would take ages for female writers to join them (Bretecher has been an exception for a long time). It was really like a shy boys' club, from a time where classrooms were split by gender. I see an echo of this in the way Obelix or the professor Calculus/Tournesol blush whenever a woman appears...

I... I like the history of french/belgian comics. :giggle:
 

Chimpzy

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Oh well, since he's been mentioned, André Franquin, largely because I was practically raised on Spirou and Gaston. Both his writing and art exhibit this wonderful energy that's just such a joy to read. Goscinny is obviously great too, and I'm also partial to Cauvin and Van Hamme.
 
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XsjadoBlaydette

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A ginger pessimist from Glasgow. How more cultured can a poor boy get? 😉

Most appropriate review;

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