Ungoliantschilde

some Goran Parlov in black and white

supaart:

Whenever I think of my all-time favorite comic writers, three names pop in my head:  Alan Moore, of course, and two lesser appreciated guys, Mark Gruenwald and John Ostrander.  

Who are your favorite comics writers?

Grant Morrison, Bendis, Matt Fraction, Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Ed Brubaker, Chris Claremont, Larry Hama, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Jason Aaron, Neil Gaiman, J. Michael Stracynzski, Roy Thomas, Jeph Loeb (only w/Tim Sale. Strictly!) Darwyn Cooke, Greg Rucka, Barry Windsor-Smith, Dan Slott, and more that I’m forgetting at the moment.

Of the above list, I will follow a select few to whatever book they write, regardless of my previous opinion of the character/book. Those select few are:

Bendis, Morrison, & Fraction.

Been more than 10 years since I answered this one. My answers were based on what I was reading at the time.

Bendis’ work on Ultimate Spider-Man and his Avengers run hold a very special place in my mind. Great at dialogue, great at pacing. And he’s fun at conventions. He’s an easy pick.

Morrison’s grand opus of DC Comics, that culminated in Final Crisis is one of the finest arcs I can think of. Morrison’s DC comics work alone is incredible. Add in NEW-X-MEN, and he’s this… guru.

Fraction’s Iron Fist and Hawkeye were stellar, but he actually got better once he started working on Sex Criminals with Zdarsky. Once Fraction wrote from his own heart, he got sooo much better. His Jimmy Olsen book is goddamn gold.

Alan Moore’s mainstream work has an undercurrent of cynicism and anger that turns me off. The whole deconstructionism period is kind of about breaking characters and explaining why they’re silly. And there’s an anger in that. A resentment towards the characters he grew up loving, and it’s coming through in his recent interviews where he casts further scorn on the genre and characters that he is most well known for writing. His best writing was on his own titles, especially the ABC Comics titles like Tom Strong and the League. “From Hell” is his masterpiece in my mind. Alan Moore is always gonna be the best writer in comics. But a lot of his work turns me off. I read Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and his compilation of DC stories. I own From Hell because of how good it is. That’s enough for me.

Neil Gaiman has become so much more prominent in the years since he was regularly writing comics. Those of us that read him from the beginning told ya so.

Kinda meh on JMS these days. And he’s a dick at conventions. Like he’s a bit miffed about signing comics. He’d rather you ask him about Babylon 5 or something.

Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale remains one of the greatest partnerships in the history of comics.

Darwyn Cooke is severely missed. Parker is sooo good.

Paul Dini should write more ongoing books, because he’s a got a very enjoyable voice for his characters. Watch Batman: the Animated Series again. The Paul Dini episodes are the gems.

Preacher got made into a show. The Boys is the best show on Amazon Prime. It’s a shame that no one figured out how to correctly adapt his Punisher run before Marvel sent Frank Castle out to pasture. Garth Ennis is goddamn brilliant. Especially his later work, focusing on Punisher and Nick Fury. Fucking amazing.

Busiek and Waid are still easy picks for a good read.

Roy Thomas wrote my favorite era of Marvel.

BWS is still a god.

Larry Hama is a longtime favorite.

Claremont needs to learn to shut up and let his artists tell the story.

Jason Aaron is like the marvel architect these days, and we’re lucky for it.

Hickman is a beast too, for that matter.

Brubaker wrote the best Captain America run I can think of.

Haters of Geoff Johns need to reread his Green Lantern run.

King’s Batman was flawless.

Mignola has quietly built one of the best universes in all of comics.

And, lastly, Mark Millar. His early 2000s stuff has aged weirdly. He’s still writing the same bombastic, fun comics though. And he’s still fun to read. And you can’t look at the box office and tell me his ideas don’t make money.

the Punisher, as written by Garth Ennis. the art is by Goran Parlov, Lewis Larosa, and Leandro Fernandez.

“There’s a dream I have from time to time. And in the dream I don’t stop. I kill the soldiers and the hitmen. The extortioners and the racketeers, the dark old fucks who send them out to fight — I hold the trigger down until they’re ALL GONE — but I don’t stop. The innocents are watching, just like always. The slack-jawed thousands, gazing at the beast. My family lie red and shredded in the grass. I face the crowd and bring the weapon to my shoulder. If my world ends, I tell them, so does yours. The recoil starts and I wake up. It’s just a dream, I always tell myself. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

-Garth Ennis (from pages 19-22 of Marvel MAX: the Punisher # 19)

I posted this rather dark bit from that series because it pretty well summarizes what Ennis had to say on the character. The Max series (in particular) was Ennis talking about the effect of Warfare on the human mind, and the effect it has had on the American way of life. The simple fact of the matter is that FDR got us out of the Great Depression by getting us involved in World War II. All the factories, the industry, and the boom of the Baby Boomers came about after World War II. A lot of our industry is still about defense contracting. NASA wouldn’t exist without the help of some very helpful Bavarian scientists that didn’t want to die at Nuremberg. Look it up.

Garth Ennis was also born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Google some pictures of that sometime. Photographs of Ireland in the 70s are fucked up. Photographs. Imagine living there as a kid. Garth Ennis writes about this stuff because it’s his worldview.

A U.S. senator was quoted within the last year as saying that: “The U.S. cannot afford to stop going to war.”

That’s… That’s fucked up. My apple TV just started showing previews for a documentary about U.S. Special Forces going into dangerous parts of the world and taking care of problems before they get bigger. People find that shocking. I don’t. Americans are very, very happy to enjoy the fruits of being the dominant military presence on Earth. We are not happy, however, to hear the details of how and why we maintain that position.

Garth Ennis’s take on the Punisher is a very, very ugly one. And you know what? It’s a mirror image of the U.S. Military. I am not attacking veterans or soldiers. God bless them and keep them safe, please. Did you know that almost every single person on the team that killed Bin Laden is dead. And a couple of them died from Self-Inflicted gunshots. Suicide rates among military veterans are higher than they have ever been.

So, ask yourself, what happens when a Navy SEAL does 3 or 4 tours of Duty in Afghanistan. And then he comes home, and he can’t find a job, and he can’t reenlist because he got shot. What happens when a person is that highly trained, and things go really bad in their life? If I see a Veteran anywhere, I make it a point to say “Thank You” for what they have done.

Anyways, my recommendation for a read order is as follows:

01. Marvel MAX: BORN, #s 1-4.

02. Marvel MAX: Punisher-the Tyger (One Shot).

03. Marvel Knights: Double Shot # 1 (a 10 page story by Ennis with Art by Joe Quesada!).

04. Marvel Knights: Punisher, Vol. 1 ‘Welcome Back, Frank’, #s 1-12.

05. Marvel Knights: Punisher, Vol. 2 #s 1-37*.

*the Ennis Punisher Omnibus reprints the double shot, and the two volumes of Marvel Knights. But, it is now out of print, and consequently very expensive on the second-hand market. It’s worth every penny, but it’s pricey.*

06. Marvel MAX: the Punisher #s 1-42.

07. Marvel MAX Presents: Barracuda #s 1-6.

08. Marvel MAX: Punisher: the Cell (One Shot).

09. Marvel MAX: the Punisher #s 43-60.

10. Marvel Knights: the Punisher-War Zone #s 1-6 (the second volume, a six issue miniseries that had Art by Steve Dillon).

11, Marvel MAX: Punisher-the End (One Shot)*.

12. Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe (One Shot)*. 

*the last two books are -essentially- ‘What If…’ stories, so they should be read as epilogues to Garth’s tenure as the writer of the Punisher (IMHO, anyways).*

These pencils by Bernie Wrightson (original owned by Jimmy Palmiotti)were the basis for cover painting by Joe Jusko that became cover for Marvel Knights Punisher #3

Really awesome art, sadly nothing could save the idiotic Frank Castle as an Angel storyline.

All the covers for this series were done this way. Bernie Wrightson, with Colors painted by Joe Jusko.

(Looks like a production stat).

And yeah, it was a ridiculously stupid storyline with beautiful artwork.

Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s seminal work on the character began shortly after this dumpster fire of a series was canceled. Garth gave Frank a one liner in that first issue that threw away the whole angelic concept in Garth’s gloriously terse voice for Frank.

And then, we had 8-9 glorious years of the best Punisher comics ever published.

Frank Castle and Nick Fury in Vietnam, illustrated by Goran Parlov from the Marvel Max Fury series he did with Garth Ennis.

some Goran Parlov artwork in black and white.

from the Boys, Vol. 1 # 27 Pages 09-11, written by Garth Ennis, and illustrated by Darick Robertson.

This here is a Blériot XI (Series 2), a French plane used early in WWI.

LOOK AT IT

A FIGHTER/TRAINING AIRCRAFT

WITH LITERAL BICYCLE WHEELS

I recommend reading this:

Garth Ennis is a big, big fan of War Comics and he does exhaustive research.

There are a lot of interesting historical tidbits woven into the story. Like the fact that the Allied Troops had to make sure they had enough gas to fly both across the English Channel and then Back, but their planes were so light that if the winds shifted, they could be stranded or crash into the ocean. And the Huns knew that, and used it as a tactical advantage.

Basically, the Hun had two ways of destroying Allied Fighters. They could defeat them in battle, either with dogfighting tactics or with aid from artillery forces, or they could just delay the pilots and keep engaging them until the Allied pilot ran out of fuel or had to ditch his “kite”.

The comic also gets into the complicated history of figuring out how to time the machine guns with the props. Different planes had different engines, and the timing was different for each plane. The different planes also had different weights - which massively affected handling, maneuverability, and most important of all - flight time.

Marvel MAX: the Punisher, Vol. 1 # 01 Page 07 by Lewis LaRosa, with Inks by Tom Palmer, Colors by Dean White, Letters by Joe Caramagna, and a Script by Garth Ennis.

an Unpublished Marvel MAX Punisher cover by Lewis LaRosa, with Inks by Tim Bradstreet.

the Punisher, as written by Garth Ennis. the art is by Goran Parlov, Lewis Larosa, and Leandro Fernandez.

“There’s a dream I have from time to time. And in the dream I don’t stop. I kill the soldiers and the hitmen. The extortioners and the racketeers, the dark old fucks who send them out to fight — I hold the trigger down until they’re ALL GONE — but I don’t stop. The innocents are watching, just like always. The slack-jawed thousands, gazing at the beast. My family lie red and shredded in the grass. I face the crowd and bring the weapon to my shoulder. If my world ends, I tell them, so does yours. The recoil starts and I wake up. It’s just a dream, I always tell myself. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

-Garth Ennis (from pages 19-22 of Marvel MAX: the Punisher # 19)

I posted this rather dark bit from that series because it pretty well summarizes what Ennis had to say on the character. The Max series (in particular) was Ennis talking about the effect of Warfare on the human mind, and the effect it has had on the American way of life. The simple fact of the matter is that FDR got us out of the Great Depression by getting us involved in World War II. All the factories, the industry, and the boom of the Baby Boomers came about after World War II. A lot of our industry is still about defense contracting. NASA wouldn’t exist without the help of some very helpful Bavarian scientists that didn’t want to die at Nuremberg. Look it up.

Garth Ennis was also born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Google some pictures of that sometime. Photographs of Ireland in the 70s are fucked up. Photographs. Imagine living there as a kid. Garth Ennis writes about this stuff because it’s his worldview.

A U.S. senator was quoted within the last year as saying that: “The U.S. cannot afford to stop going to war.”

That’s… That’s fucked up. My apple TV just started showing previews for a documentary about U.S. Special Forces going into dangerous parts of the world and taking care of problems before they get bigger. People find that shocking. I don’t. Americans are very, very happy to enjoy the fruits of being the dominant military presence on Earth. We are not happy, however, to hear the details of how and why we maintain that position.

Garth Ennis’s take on the Punisher is a very, very ugly one. And you know what? It’s a mirror image of the U.S. Military. I am not attacking veterans or soldiers. God bless them and keep them safe, please. Did you know that almost every single person on the team that killed Bin Laden is dead. And a couple of them died from Self-Inflicted gunshots. Suicide rates among military veterans are higher than they have ever been.

So, ask yourself, what happens when a Navy SEAL does 3 or 4 tours of Duty in Afghanistan. And then he comes home, and he can’t find a job, and he can’t reenlist because he got shot. What happens when a person is that highly trained, and things go really bad in their life? If I see a Veteran anywhere, I make it a point to say “Thank You” for what they have done.

Anyways, my recommendation for a read order is as follows:

01. Marvel MAX: BORN, #s 1-4.

02. Marvel MAX: Punisher-the Tyger (One Shot).

03. Marvel Knights: Double Shot # 1 (a 10 page story by Ennis with Art by Joe Quesada!).

04. Marvel Knights: Punisher, Vol. 1 ‘Welcome Back, Frank’, #s 1-12.

05. Marvel Knights: Punisher, Vol. 2 #s 1-37*.

*the Ennis Punisher Omnibus reprints the double shot, and the two volumes of Marvel Knights. But, it is now out of print, and consequently very expensive on the second-hand market. It’s worth every penny, but it’s pricey.*

06. Marvel MAX: the Punisher #s 1-42.

07. Marvel MAX Presents: Barracuda #s 1-6.

08. Marvel MAX: Punisher: the Cell (One Shot).

09. Marvel MAX: the Punisher #s 43-60.

10. Marvel Knights: the Punisher-War Zone #s 1-6 (the second volume, a six issue miniseries that had Art by Steve Dillon).

11, Marvel MAX: Punisher-the End (One Shot)*.

12. Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe (One Shot)*. 

*the last two books are -essentially- ‘What If…’ stories, so they should be read as epilogues to Garth’s tenure as the writer of the Punisher (IMHO, anyways).*