Comics are awesome.

[Sparky Prime]

As far as Ultimate Spidey goes, no idea, never really read it because of Bagely, but it looks to be about the same.

I considered dropping USM after Bagely left myself because Bagely is one of my favorite artists. And as I mentioned before, I never cared for Immonen's work on the book and while I think Lafuente is somewhat better I think it's a bit overly cartoony looking, and it still doesn't compare to Bagely's work.

Green Lantern: Rebirth really didn't do it for me, between everything interesting ever done with Jordan being Giant Yellow Space Bug and Jordan, who hadn't moved in years, being able to one-punch Batman, I was just left yelling "Bullshit" at the book. But I did try reading some of the later Green Lantern stuff...the first arc or whatever, and then some of the Sinestro Corps War stuff, but it just bored me so bad I couldn't finish either collection.

Kyle was always my favorite GL, so I wasn't too excited for Hal's return in Rebirth. But Johns has done good work in actually making Hal more interesting to me, although I still think Kyle is a better character. But the thing that I enjoy most about Johns take on Green Lantern is the introduction of the other Lantern Corps.

But y'know, different tastes and all.

True enough.

[Shockwave]

And to further answer Scouge's question, I don't even bother reading who the writers or artists are, I just buy the comic, read it and hope it doesn't suck. If someone mentions a comic writer or artist by name, I'm usually like "who?" Even for stuff that I've read consistently. Like Ultimates. I have no idea who's written or drawn that. Well I know Millar and Loeb now but only because of discussion of them here. Speaking of which I did finally read Millar's interview and his comment wasn't nearly as bad as Dom made it sound. All he said was that "the quality dipped in places..." Hell, he could have been talking about his own run for that matter.

[Dominic]

There are a few points in that interview where it looks like Millar is saying "these idiots jacked it all up".

"....I do not mean this as a slight to the other creators, but it really did dip in quality in places." I comes off as him saying "it was all so much better when Brian and I were in charge."

As for creators, how can you avoid knowing, especially on the books you read? Any discussion of a comic inevitably goes to "this guy's run on whatever book" I reflexively check every book I read. Granted, it does not always work.

For example, Dini's name gave me confidence that "Countdown" would not suck. Dini is now on my "low-confidence" to "avoid" list. I might not drop a book if Dini starts writing it. But, I will likely avoid new books he is involved with.

I do not understand reading exclusively for character, (as many people do), as everything the character does is determined by the writers. Granted, a bad story can ruin a character. (Sue Dibny by Meltzer. Spiderman by Strazynski. Every character ever written by Geoff Johns. GI Joe by the current team of writers, including Hama and Dixon.) But, that is more Pavlovian association than anything else.

Dom
-and now, Archie gets it.

[Onslaught Six]

Indeed, the writer will oftentimes make me choose what I read--the artist, not so much. Sandman, for example, had a plethora of artists working on it through the time, but the art doesn't exactly change massively from issue to issue--it all looks, remarkably, consistant--and it works out.

Just as an example, I'll read just about anything Frank Miller wrote about Batman in the mid-80s, because I like the way he did it. It's different than how Batman is normally portrayed (or at least, how he was before--I can't even begin to think how he's written now) and I enjoy what little I've read of Sin City because it's basically the same premise, only turned up to eleven, and ridiculously over-the-top.

On the other hand--you have Transformers. I don't like Furman that much these days. He cranked out some decent writing in the 80s, and the Matrix Quest and accompanying arcs are still decent reads simply because if there *has* to be a Huge Epic Cosmic Gibberwank TF Story, Furman might as well write it. The problems I had with Furman always tend to err on the side of He's Doing Unicron Crap Again Or Something Similarly Stupid And Crappy, and he didn't do that in Maximum Dinobots--which is why I enjoyed it.

But! Just because I don't like most of Furman's recent output doesn't mean I will refuse to read a TF story written by him--because it's 'TF.'

And on the other end of the spectrum--the only TF story that Nick Roche wrote is Spotlight: Kup. And that was 'awesome.' So I'm excited to see the new story he's writing with Kup in it for the next issue of Coda.

So yeah, I look at who's writing it--but only if it's not TF. Not that I buy every TF comic that comes out, but still.

[Sparky Prime]

"....I do not mean this as a slight to the other creators, but it really did dip in quality in places." I comes off as him saying "it was all so much better when Brian and I were in charge."

That quotes comes off more to me as: "I don't mean to insult the other creators here, but the quality of their work hasn't been their best at times." That's hardly as bad as you made it seem earlier.

[Shockwave]

As for creators, how can you avoid knowing, especially on the books you read? Any discussion of a comic inevitably goes to "this guy's run on whatever book" I reflexively check every book I read. Granted, it does not always work.

I pick up the issue skip right to the story read it, look at the next issue teaser and move on to the next book. As long as the story doesn't suck then I don't care who wrote it. And if it does suck, then said writer doesn't deserve the honor of recognition.

[BWprowl]

And on the other end of the spectrum--the only TF story that Nick Roche wrote is Spotlight: Kup. And that was 'awesome.' So I'm excited to see the new story he's writing with Kup in it for the next issue of Coda.

There's that. And there's also that upcoming Wreckers mini he's doing, which I'm equally jazzed for. Admittedly, I should hold my enthusiasm for when AHM 15 comes out and we find out if Roche was a one-hit wonder, but I just can't help myself.

On this subject, I could probably mention that I do this a lot with manga. Negima's easily my favorite series currently (and has been for some time) but I really only started reading it because it was from Ken Akamatsu the Love Hina Guy. And I was ecstatic when Viz released ZOMBIEPOWDER. because I love Tite Kubo's art to bits and was interested in seeing how he evolved. Hell, I love Hiroyuki Tamakoshi's art so much that I bought ELEVEN VOLUMES of Gacha Gacha before it became apparent that not even gorgeous art could save that series (I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to let that guy *write* a series). I'm also an absolute whore for anything with Suzuhito Yasuda's name on it. And I'd gladly read more Kenichi Sonada stuff if Dark Horse would get off their ass and rerelease Cannon God Exaxxion (of course, DH hasn't even finished up Gunsmith Cats Burst yet, so). And I've gone so far as to track down old doujins by Kiyohiko Azuma and Kouta Hirano.

Also done with the creators of them manga-ish indie comics. I only paid attention to RE:play after I found out it was by Christy "Next Exit is awesome and I'm never ever gonna finish it" Lijewsky, and I searched for quite a while before I found 'Lost at Sea', Bryan Lee O'malley's EXCELLENT pre-'Scott Pilgrim' comic.

God I'm such a dork for everything.

[Onslaught Six]

I pick up the issue skip right to the story read it, look at the next issue teaser and move on to the next book. As long as the story doesn't suck then I don't care who wrote it. And if it does suck, then said writer doesn't deserve the honor of recognition.

I think the point Dom is trying to make is, if one examines the writer and/or artist more closely than you're doing, one can more easily make an educated guess as to whether you're going to think the book sucks or not in the first place. For example, I think Frank Miller has declined a lot in recent years and anything he creates now is probably crap. I flipped through the first bit of All-Star Batman & Robin and it was atrocious, hence, I'm probably not likely to buy anything Miller makes in the near future 'because' I already know he does it. This very principle is actually what led me to avoid Maximum Dinobots during its original single-issue run--I assumed, like most of the time Furman writes the Dinobots and Grimlock, it was going to suck and be stupid, but Dom and 86 were all, "No no, it's good!" and I was all "Okay, I'll read it when I find it."

Similarly, I was reading about some of the other Batman stories set around the time of Year One and The Long Halloween (which I bought--I'm a whore) such as The Man Who Laughs, Batman And The Monster Men and Batman And The Mad Monk--but none of these are written or illustrated by the same teams as Year One or TLH so my enthusiasm was diminished. They do look kind of interesting, but nothing I should track down heavily or anything--because they aren't written by those guys.

On another note, though, I read (most) of the Valiant Shadowman run without worrying about who wrote it because I was just interested in reading everything there was. It's one thing when there's a 'finite' amount of material like that--as opposed to an ongoing.

There's that. And there's also that upcoming Wreckers mini he's doing, which I'm equally jazzed for. Admittedly, I should hold my enthusiasm for when AHM 15 comes out and we find out if Roche was a one-hit wonder, but I just can't help myself.

Ooh, he's 'writing' the Wreckers mini? I'm excited now. I just wish, though, that it was a post-AHM tale and focused on the Wreckers just going around in space 'doing stuff.' Like every issue's a Spotlight, kind of.

On this subject, I could probably mention that I do this a lot with manga.

I would, but my problem with that is that I have a very narrow definition of stuff I like when it comes to anime and manga, to start with, and also the things that I *do* like tend to be written by people who haven't done much else. I like RuroKen--what else has Watsuki done, though? That other cruddy looking thing I don't want to read?

God I'm such a dork for everything.

And I'm not? The find-out-everything-that-exists-about-things-you-like issue is one I've had since I was a mere child. It drove me to learn about the Valiant universe! All because of a cool video game.

[Shockwave]

My comic collecting is title based. I'm obviously a huge Transfan so I buy TF comics whether they're good or not and regardless of who wrote or drew it. Same with Buffy and even Gargoyles when that was going. I had several Marvel titles I was getting for a while but had to drop them because of our shitty economy. Conversations of who wrote/drew comics doesn't always come up, look at the AHM thread. Over there we're debating why the scientists in the Sunstreaker story are so retarded, the ultimate answer being that it was a shitty story with shitty writing. But the writer's name only came up once and I don't care enough to look it up. Sometimes I might read something so good or so bad that I might look and think "who's writing this?" but it's rare when that happens.

[Dominic]

McCarthy and Furman came up a few times in the AHM thread.

I used to buy every TF book. But, a lack of money and space forced me to be more selective. After dropping cover variants, (effectively halving my expenses on TF comics), I dropped the UK reprints, (which I have read all of in Titan compilations). I have not dropped any main or movie continuity books. But, I can see myself doing that.

I was talking to Scourge the other day about this.

TF is what is keeping me in comics. From '99 to '02, I was down to 1 or 2 books a month. (I even purged my collection in 2000.) By early '02, I was very close to being out. But, I saw those preview pages from Dreamwave...and I fell in love. I tried to resist. But, by the time the first G1 series, (with its terrible mistake in issue 6), ended, "Armada" and "War Within" were out. I fought...mightily, to resist. By late '02, I had several issues of "Armada", and was reading "War Within" off the rack.

And, I had started picking up "Star Wars" comics....and "GI Joe" was something I read sporadically.

If Dreamwave had released their TF books 6 months later, I would have been out of comics.

In '04, when DW collapsed, I was reading "Star Wars" and "GI Joe". Then, in '05, when I had again dropped "GI Joe", and was down to just "Star Wars", IDW started their TF series.

Now, TF is the only current comic I read consistently. And, it does not look like it is getting cancelled anytime soon.

Dom
-was kept interested in the toys by Minicons.