Comic Writers

[Bub, Andrew]

It's late, I'm tired, I took care of my daughter all day who is suffering from a bad allergic reaction to Penacillin. Basically her hives have hives and it looks like she desperately wants to get out of her skin.

Now, after that placing that image in your heads, let me get to my geeky trollish post. We've got a few writers here and seems like a lot of comic book readers. So....

If you could write any comic out there, what would you choose? Top five maybe. Here's mine.


6. Wonder Woman
5. Captain America
4. Hellblazer
3. Dr. Strange
2. Fantastic Four
1. Thor

All the above weren't really favorites when I was a kid. As an adult I've been reading old issues and what strikes me is the tremendous amount of freedom they offer. The above are pretty damn challenging, when compared to X-Men Mutant Mania, Spidey baddies, Batman, Daredevil. The only one I'd like to add, but can't, would be Superman or the Hulk... but I can't imagine writing for those two. What hasn't been done already?

EDIT: Added #6

[Toddy]

Cool topic idea.

1. Amazing Spider-Man/Spectacular Spider-Man
3. Hellblazer
4. Fantastic Four
5. Detective Comics
6. Legion of Superheroes
7. Daredevil
8. Incredible Hulk

[Dirt]

"The only one I'd like to add, but can't, would be Superman or the Hulk... but I can't imagine writing for those two. What hasn't been done already?"

A story about a young Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, discovering his powers for the first time along with his parents? :wink:

1) Captain Marvel (Fawcett/DC version; the Original!)
2) Dr. Fate
3) JSA
4) Usagi Yojimbo (though only Stan Sakai can do it justice)
5) Nightwing
6) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a different team than from a different era than Moore's)

[Bub, Andrew]

1) Captain Marvel (Fawcett/DC version; the Original!)


Now that would be a real challenge Dirt. Bring back the Big Red Cheese!

[Tyjenks]

Can I interrupt long enough to say I hope your kid gets better? Poor little tyke. :)

I am not the comic afficianado that you guys are but...

I always had a soft spot for the Ghost Rider stories and my jumbo comic of Superman vs. Ali for championship of the world to fight the alien champion with the universe's fate at stake.

Maybe I should revisit my collection.

[Bub, Andrew]

Can I interrupt long enough to say I hope your kid gets better? Poor little tyke.

Yes, thank you.

[Miramon]

Commiseration on that horrible allergic reaction. When I was a kid I had the same reaction myself, and was utterly miserable for a couple of days. The annoying thing is we were never really sure if it was actually a Penicillin reaction or not (I had taken Penicillin recently, but there was still a span of days before the reaction), but this is the kind of thing that they don't like to mess with for fear of provoking an even more severe second reaction.


Anyhow, back to comics. I really have no idea what the current state of the mass market comics is. Every once in a while I wander into a shop and look to see if there are any graphic novels or bound collections I might want, but I never wind up buying a Marvel or DC type offering.

While I stopped reading the superhero comics when I was a kid, I fondly remember the old Marvel version of Captain Marvel (i.e. the alien guy Marr-Vel or whatever his name was.) I thought that series was cool because:


a) Captain Marvel had these really cool looking energy bolt things he could blast about.

b) They gave hints about there being this vast galactic panorama of conflict, the Kree-Skrull war*, all that kind of thing, wisely without ever really going all that deeply into it, giving a sort of impression of depth and complexity to the world.

c) The series essentially ended as I recall when this evil Skrull guy actually found the ultimate artifact in the universe and became God himself, and therefore found out that he was omniscient and omnibenevolent and so on and therefore nothing changed at all. Though even as a kid I was aggressively agnostic, I thought it was a fun conceit. I realize now this was not entirely original, but I still find it remarkable that the publisher could permit such a plot line to be presented in a mass market comic, since it is so heretical to more or less all current religions....


I gather that many years later Marvel resurrected this plot line with some character named "Quasar" which amused me because for years that had been my usual login at college and later at work.



*Geez, how can I remember something as obscure as this from so long ago.

[Anonymous]

1. Dakota North Adventures, if the original artist was brought back.
2. Night Nurse.
3. Metamorpho.
4. Tomb of Dracula.
5. Howard the Duck.
6. Son of Satan.
7. Ghost Rider.
8. The Defenders.
9. Hellblazer, if I was given an unlimited travel budget to the UK/Ireland for research.
10. The Trouble with Girls.

[Jim Hoffman]

1. Invisibles
2. Dr. Strange
3. WildCATS
4. Hellraiser
5. Bone (my 4-year-old son likes me to read him this one)

[Mark Asher]

I always liked Dr. Strange. I think Nick Fury and the Agents of SHIELD would be fun to write.

I think mostly I'd like to write for those anthology comics that had different stories each month and didn't use recurring characters, beyond a narrator, perhaps. I'm thinking of the horror comics and the sci-fi comics.

For example, I always wanted to write a story for horror comic about some hillbilly type who lives alone and never vacuums. He sits on his couch and drinks beer and watches TV and picks his nose. He flicks the boogers into a corner, and year after year his pile of boogers grows until if finally takes on consciousness and flicks the hillbilly into the corner with bone-crunching force. A terrifying morality tale!

[Tyjenks]

For example, I always wanted to write a story for horror comic about some hillbilly type who lives alone and never vacuums. He sits on his couch and drinks beer and watches TV and picks his nose. He flicks the boogers into a corner, and year after year his pile of boogers grows until if finally takes on consciousness and flicks the hillbilly into the corner with bone-crunching force. A terrifying morality tale!

I think you are pretty close to ripping off Stephen King's character from Creepshow. Just subtitute meteoric fungal growth for the boogers. :)

[Bub, Andrew]

Good call Mark, I think writing something that single-handed would be difficult. Anthologies almost never have a single creator.

[Dean]

I'd like to write a stunningly original comic that becomes an instant classic. Hmmm. I guess I'd have to have an original concept first.

Barring that, I'd like to revive some Golden Age moldy oldy, but give it hip sensibilities. Oh wait, that's been done.

Uh... Batman? How about Batman? Get back to detective work, and cut down on the angst. Must every villain be a super villain? How about your average psychotic?

Y'know what would be really cool? A baseball comic. Two great things that should go great together. Sandlots, summertime, and a kid with a bit of talent and a dream on his way to the big city to break into the majors...

And then we could do baseball cards of our fictional ballplayers.

[William Harms]

1. Werewolf by Night
2. Moon Knight
3. Mister E

[Bub, Andrew]

I have 3-4 issues of Moon Knight William. They're the only one's I bought way back when. I remember thinking the art was cool, but wonky. It was the infamous Werewolf storyline pencilled and inked by Sienkiewicz (sp?) and I only learned years later that they're classics.

Great issues, those. I'm just guessing that maybe those issues are why Moon Knight is on your list.

[William Harms]

Yeah, those are some classic comics. And I love the art.

[Bub, Andrew]

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Sienkeiwictz
... sigh...
the Demon Bear rules!

[Desslock]

I gotta say the X-men, provided I had the same creative freedom Claremont had in the 80s, before there were a zillion ancillary books.

Otherwise, anything original, with full creative freedom over the characters.

[DrCrypt]

I've long nurtured an idea for an original comic book, edgily based on the life and times of The Messiah. The comic would be called "The Adventures of The Jesus Man" - whom is immortal, gravity-defying, and whose mutant powers is shooting nails out of his palms.

He is the leader of a super-hero team, Avengers-style, called the "Mighty Apostles", but unfortunately, He's a pacifist so most of the comics involve a lot of preachy, Reed-Richards-esque moralizing without any of the smash-bam! action that comic readers crave.

I've drawn heavily on the Apocrypha to fill in some of the blanks in Jesus Man's life - for example, His epic battle with Wolverine, which is suspiciously missing from the Bible (I suspect Catholic suppression). The thirty-third issue is going to be a black-bagged "Death of JesusMan" issue. But that's as far as I've gotten planning it out - after that, except for an idea of not really having him die but instead time-travel back to have adventures in Ancient America, I'm coming up blank for inspiration.

[Anonymous]

There's already a comic called "Battle Pope."

They beat you to the blasphemy punch.

http://4colorreview.com/news/wrath_of_god_03.jpg

http://www.funkotron.com/battlepope/popebg.jpg

[Jakub]

I remember back when I was in Poland around the early '90s, there was this one comic (probably a translation) about this Viking dude who got stranded somewhere. I'm not sure if it's the best comic I've ever read (since obviously I only had youngster tastes then), but it's the one that struck me the most. Maybe because it had so much to do with the real world.

I've always wanted to do a Wing Commander comic. Two, actually - one for the Privateer setting, one on the Tiger's Claw. The Tiger's Claw one would be limited run, since there's only so many stories you can do about a prolonged war without getting goofy, repetitive or strange. Paladin would be the protagonist, though I'd change him around a bit. Give him a healthy dose of Odysseus and a touch of Faust.

I wouldn't mind doing Exo Squad comics (based on the '90s cartoon show. It stole a lot from World War II but I loved it for its seriousness and continuos storyline.)

Young Indiana Jones would have been interesting.

I'd love to do Sam & Max, but I'm just not comic enough to pull it off!

[Anders Hallin]

I remember back when I was in Poland around the early '90s, there was this one comic (probably a translation) about this Viking dude who got stranded somewhere. I'm not sure if it's the best comic I've ever read (since obviously I only had youngster tastes then), but it's the one that struck me the most. Maybe because it had so much to do with the real world.

Might it be that you're referring to Thorgal?
http://www.thorgal.idk.com.pl/
Which actually seems to be Polish. I've read it in Swedish and it really is great. As far as I can remember, it was a few years ago.

[Anders Hallin]

After checking around the website I realize that not all Thorgal books have been published in Sweden. I've only read the one about the archers and two where they go to South America.
By the way, Kriss of Valnor is cool as hell:
http://www.thorgal.idk.com.pl/img/_recenzje/09_lucznicy_05.JPG

[Jakub]

I remember back when I was in Poland around the early '90s, there was this one comic (probably a translation) about this Viking dude who got stranded somewhere. I'm not sure if it's the best comic I've ever read (since obviously I only had youngster tastes then), but it's the one that struck me the most. Maybe because it had so much to do with the real world.

Might it be that you're referring to Thorgal?
http://www.thorgal.idk.com.pl/
Which actually seems to be Polish. I've read it in Swedish and it really is great. As far as I can remember, it was a few years ago.

Oh damn, it IS a Polish book.

Who knew my culture was able to produce anything but quality drunks :D

[Brad Grenz]

I wouldn't mind doing Exo Squad comics (based on the '90s cartoon show. It stole a lot from World War II but I loved it for its seriousness and continuos storyline.)

That was a great cartoon. I used to get up at like 6 in the morning before school every day to watch it. It had the best action figures too. I think I've even got an Exo Squad comic, issue #0, around here. I was pretty bummed when the mysterious new aliens appeared and it looked like the humans and neosapiens were going to have to join forces, but then there were no new episodes.