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GV10: [Results]: Best Writer: Check Page 2 for Results!
DJ Eebs
Moderator, Administrator admin
Moderator, Administrator admin
Our next category is Best Writer.
This category is for your favorite comics writer of the past ten years. They don't have to have debuted in that time, they just have to have produced work you loved over the course of the past decade. And if you like a writer/artist, you can nominate them here, if you want.
Rules
1) Nominate as many writers as you want! There's no limit
2) We're going to do something a little different, for the next few categories, to keep nominees to a manageable level. To make the voting rounds, a writer will need three nominations. That's a nomination and two seconds.
3) Remember, this is your place to make your case for your favorite writer. Voting will be in a Google form, as usual
4) And: keep it civil. This isn't a place to be shitty to each other.
Alright, and nominations are open...NOW
Put your nominations in BOLD TEXT. You don't need to all caps them, though
This category is for your favorite comics writer of the past ten years. They don't have to have debuted in that time, they just have to have produced work you loved over the course of the past decade. And if you like a writer/artist, you can nominate them here, if you want.
Rules
1) Nominate as many writers as you want! There's no limit
2) We're going to do something a little different, for the next few categories, to keep nominees to a manageable level. To make the voting rounds, a writer will need three nominations. That's a nomination and two seconds.
3) Remember, this is your place to make your case for your favorite writer. Voting will be in a Google form, as usual
4) And: keep it civil. This isn't a place to be shitty to each other.
Alright, and nominations are open...NOW
Put your nominations in BOLD TEXT. You don't need to all caps them, though
DJ Eebs on
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Grant Morrison basically wrote 75% of the stuff I like that DC has done in the past 10 years
Jonathan Hickman has made me care about a summer event for the first time ever
Matt Fraction's Hawkeye is just a pleasure to read
Ed Brubaker - his work with Sean Phillips over the last ten years has been astonishing. Just an absolute master of bad people doing the wrong thing and compromised people doing the right thing and also the wrong thing.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Matt Fraction for reinvigorating Hawkeye and Iron Fist, and giving the world Lucky the Pizza Dog
Kieron Gillen for having possibly one of the greatest single runs of a comic in Journey Into Mystery, and for the Wicked & the Divine
Brian Michael Bendis
Jonathan Hickman
I agree with Matt Fraction.
I add Brian K. Vaughan for Saga, it's simply wonderful.
Also, I nominate Charles Soule for the short lived She-Hulk series which was a wonderful balance between super hero action and lawyering and it was awesome.
Next - Grace Ellis for the amazing Lumberjanes series. I was thrilled when they declared it was going to be a normal monthly ongoing, and it hasn't disappointed. My favorite little touch was in the back of the first story-line each issue had a Mix CD playlist by one of the characters.
Also - I'd like to nominate Warren Ellis - specifically for Supreme: Blue Rose. It was such a great series, well written (and absolutely beautiful as a bonus).
Finally G. Willow Wilson for Ms. Marvel. The interactions between Kamala and her family are perfect examples of the superb writing in this series.
I love this series of threads - I just bought Rat Queens vol 1 last night specifically because of all the positive things folks said about it in the team thread.
And this doesn't even include all his creator owned stuff. East of West is fantastic, Manhattan Projects is fantastic, The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Redwing, these all border from good to great.
Seriously, people, this guy has done so much great work in such a small timeframe, he could stop right now and he would still be one of the best comic writers ever. Quality AND Quantity, you can't beat it, #1 is his.
Kurt Busiek, no one loves comics more than this guy. Probably the best living comic writer to date, but the past ten years haven't been too shabby either. Astro City has been nearly perfect since he made it and has been the most consistent franchise, Arrowsmith was fantastic, his Conan made me actually pick up stories about the barbarian, his short JLA run had the best Crime Syndicate story, his Superman work was fun if only hampered by delays from his artist and Action Comics, Trinity was, I believe, a success and House of M done right, the guy is fantastic. He wrote a Krypto issue so great and full of emotion lawyers had to come in and literally slap an injunction on it because it was too powerful for written words, there is no hyperbole or misunderstanding in this sentence whatsoever. No Avengers event since Busiek, until Hickman, ever came close to reaching the Kang Dynasty. And I think Superman Secret Identity just missed out on the timeframe but is perfect and you should all read it and love it and place it next to your copy of Superman: Birthright. And he was writing diverse, inclusive characters well before anyone else was, he just never made a big deal about it or focused around splash pages or big shocks, every issue was a nice, in and of itself story that is the way comics should be.
And that's the real shame, the guy does everything right but isn't flashy and therefore doesn't get the recognition he deserves from current fans. This is where you can change this.
Ed Brubaker. Books of Doom, Daredevil, and Immortal Iron Fist really are fantastic books.
James Roberts. Transformers More than Meets the Eye is one of my favourite books I'm currently following. This is a book that stars a lot of relatively unknown transformers and makes you give a damn about them. He also co-wrote Last stand of the Wreckers which did the same thing!
Nick Roche. See what I wrote about Last Stand of the Wreckers. Also, I'm one of the few people who enjoyed Spotlight: Kup, so he has that going for him as well.
Mairghread Scott. She took what looked like a boring Geisha looking Transformer and made not only a interesting character, but also a fun book. Looking forward to seeing more of her work.
Brian Michael Bendis. I know he has a habit of ignoring other character's previous development and forcing Bendis Speak on every character, but I love Ultimate Spider-man so damn much I can't not vote for him. Over the years of Peter's run, it just kept getting better and better, with the relationship with Kitty Pryde, the Aunt May's House for Superpowered Teens, the friggin Clone Saga, and he even handled the character's death really well! Then he created a new Spider-man worthy of the title! He also made a Jessica Drew I actually care about.
G. Willow Wilson. Holy crap the new Ms. Marvel book was such a pleasant surprise. Who would have thought a Pakistani Muslim superhero would be so well received in this era. She's hardly the first Muslim superhero, but I don't think any other one has been this popular.
Eric Shanower. I just really, really, REALLY love the Marvel Oz books. They're so damn cute!
Warren Ellis. His Moon Knight is so damn good. I also liked what I've read of his Thunderbolts.
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
Most of them have already been named, but off the top of my head:
Jason Aaron: who finally wrote a Wolverine series that could interest me again for the first time in years. That is an achievement by itself. Add in Scalped.
Garth Ennis: while I'm hesitant to nominate a writer who has already done so much great work before the last ten years, series like Punisher MAX and Fury: My War Gone By deserve to be mentioned.
Lewis Trondheim: A choice for the Europeans among us. His Texas Cowboys has been one of my favourite comics for the past five years. And for a guy who has officially retired, he still does a lot of diverse work.
Also, I will forever be sad that S.W.O.R.D. was so short-lived.
On a less-personal, more objective note, yeah, I'll second Jonathan Hickman. The work he did with the Avengers is mythical, and I mean that in a literal sense. You can put it on the shelf next to the Iliad.
Finally, I'll also second Grant Morrison. I think he sometimes needs an editor to reign him in, but when his stuff works, it soars. Seven Soldiers is one of the coolest stories I've read (and does some interesting experimentation with the narrative); Final Crisis had some problems, but I think that when read as a trade, in one sitting, it works really well; his Batman/Batman and Robin/Batman, Inc work is simultaneously a very solid run, and also a very Morrison-y experiment; and most recently, Multiversity finally came out and it's actually way better than I thought it would be. I suggested at the start of the "GV10 - Best Of" thing a "Best Issue" category, but that was (justly) turned down for being needlessly specific. Well, I had a best issue in mind when I suggested that: Multiversity: Pax Americana. I'm still feeling a little breathless about that issue.
seconding ennis, ellis, BKV, aaron, brandon graham, james roberts and more for his underrated swamp thing run, charles soule
Oh, and another note on Matt Fraction, who I already nominated/seconded: He wrote two of my favorite single issues of the decade (or of all time, if we're being picky): Punisher War Journal #4, centering on Stilt Man's funeral, which is a love letter to goofy, ridiculous superheroes featuring lines I still quote to this day (what's a gibbon?), and the Sensational Spider-Man Annual, which is one of the single greatest MJ and Pete stories that's ever been done, just in time for it to disappear. Oh, and there's the Hawkeye issue from the dog's perspective.
Antony Johnston - Just on the basis of Wasteland, Fused and Umbral, I think Johnson is one of the best underappreciated indie stars out there. I'm looking forward to what he does in 2015.
Jeff Lemire - Another indie darling who can do superheroes. His Animal Man and Sweet Tooth were amazing, and I am excited to see him work in the Valiant Universe on The Valiant.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
Matt Fraction
Warren Ellis
Ed Brubaker
G. Willow Wilson
Brian Michael Bendis
Gail Simone
Mark Waid
Peter David
Kelly Sue Deconnick
Nathan Edmondson
He wrote Animal Man, not Swamp Thing
And All Star Superman is the best Superman story of all time.
Thanks. Fixed.
Also going to nominate Greg Rucka, Greg Pak, Scott Snyder
I often roll my eyes at art about the process of making art, but Farel Dalrymple managed it. And he did it by wrapping it in a post apocalyptic time bending story of child gangs fighting adults who became demons. His book, The Wrenchies, is viciously weird, touching, action packed, and horrifying sometimes all in the same page. It was not only my favorite comic of last year, but it's edging into being one of my favorite comics of all time.
(and I'm going to toss in an eight or whatever for Matt Fraction because... Hawkeye. Seriously. And a 4th for G. Willow Wilson for Ms. Marvel, who I had put off reading until the new character thread and holy shit why did I wait this long?)
Look, he made something so great with Mini Marvels that Marvel stole his idea and made it worse with Superhero Squad, and then cancelled Mini Marvels so there would be no competing ideas. I'm not being facetious when I say that's very high praise.
edit: seconding Chris G.
make sure you 2nd the nomination so he gets into the voting then. Remember the new rule in the Op says they need at least 3 Nomnations (or 2 seconds) to get to the final voting.
Scott Pilgrim was an awesome story, but I gotta say I really think his recent graphic novel Seconds was the superior, and really showed growth as a writer. Its always nice to see a good self contained storyline. He may not do work for the big two with superhero stories, but what he does, he does well.
also one I am REALLY surprised I haven't seen nominated already Bill Willingham for the various Fables series. This guy took a simple idea, and made a MASSIVE world and multiple series of books surrounding it (including an amazing game as we saw in the Games nomination thread, and some really good prose pieces that go into some other characters in more depth). He created (I cant even say adapted really, because the characters really are so different from the ones they are based on by this point) an amazing cast of characters where even the tertiary characters can become leads as the story progresses. and with all of that. He actually has the balls to end all of the series on his own terms (and with an absolutely massive final issue that will be an entire trade paperback volume to itself.)
Actually something I noticed. all 3 of the authors Ive nominated are ones that I regularly go back and read their works again and again. I think I read through all of Fables at least once or twice a year now, and I'll probably do it again when the last 2 TPBs release in a couple months.
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning: While they're not working together anymore, I can't really say one or the other is deserving solely of the praise. While Giffen was reinvigorating cosmic Marvel with Annihilation, D&A took Nova and turned him from a Spider-man homage into the premier cosmic superhero for the next five years. Taking the boy and turning him into a man and saving the universe from Annihilus, earning him a new ongoing where he chewed out Tony Stark for the Civil War before he even got to the fourth issue! While continuing Nova's cosmic oddyssy, they also took the reigns of the Cosmic landscape, penning the Annihilation: Conquest event. And again, they took the work Giffen did and turned Star-Lords rag-tag suicide squad into the Guardians of the Galaxy, galvanizing the team into a fan-beloved favorite.
From there, they took their two ongoings through the War of Kings, penning the event as well as the Ascension miniseries, followed by the Realm of Kings one-shot and both the Inhumans and Imperial Guard minis, until finally both ongoings culminated in D&A penned Thanos Imperative, tying up threads going back to the early days of the modern cosmic era. D&A went on to write the two Annihilators miniseries, but they didn't take off and the cosmic scene died for awhile; until the GotG peaked Marvel Studios enough to begin production on a movie, which in turn ressurected the GotG, and lead to a glorious rebirth of the cosmic scene. Sadly, D&A have since stopped working together, though Abnett does work for Marvel still (Penning the current Guardians 3000 series, as well as the "Rocket Raccoon & Groot: Steal the Galaxy" and "Avengers: Evereyone wants to rule the world" prose novels.
Going to nominate Brian Clevinger for Atomic Robo. Robo has been a solid book that manages to capture action and adventure, humor and sadness, and all while staying pretty family friendly. That's a tough balancing act to pull off these days, but it's definitely a book I could recommend to almost anyone.
Pure superheroics? He bridged JMS and Fraction's Thor runs, and in his short time was better than either, and his Iron Man run had some fantastic arcs, often in spite of terrible art.
Pop music? Phonogram: The Singles club wove a half-dozen stories through a single night in a club, with pop music, magic, heartache and heartbreak, self-discovery and self-hatred all intertwined, and The Wicked + The Divine is Pop Gods taken amazingly literally.
History? Three is a painstakingly researched rebuke to Frank Miller's 300, and to the ionization of the Spartans in general, and got Gillen invited to speak at a conference for the University of Nottingham's Classics department
Alt-history? Uber is one of the angriest comics I've read this side of Bitch Planet, a violent, brutal, but in it's own way honest and non-exploitative take on superhumans in World War 2. This is grimdark violent "adult" comics done right.
That the same guy who wrote Young Avengers writes Uber speaks volumes for Gillen's ability and range. Whatever he writes, he writes very, very well.