Artists and their PERFECT run

All of the artists below have had great runs on many titles... some guys like George Perez and John Byrne have been at it for 25 years and are still going strong.

But some artists are almost defined by a particular run on a titles (Simonson's Thor), much like the characters become defined by the artists (Batman by Adams).

Neal Adams - Batman, X-Men, Spectre & Green Lantern
Adams is the ultimate artist. His stuff revolutionized the comics medium and he took Batman from camp to cool. He put the dark in the Dark Knight. His socially relevant stories with Denny O'Neil in Green Lantern-Green Arrow still hold up today.

John Byrne - Fantastic Four & X-Men
Byrne's Fantastic Four run is second only to Stan Lee and Jack kirby's for both length and originality. You never knew what you were going to get each month and the art was just beautiful. His X-Men with Claremont is legendary. 'Nuff said.

Jim Aparo - Batman, Aquaman
Aparo is the artist I most equate with Batman. He drew it for so long and so well that I have a hard time picturing anyone else's Batman.

Walt Simonson - Thor
Simonson made Thor both interesting and cool. his Thunder god is still the pinnacle of the original series and that's including Kirby's stuff.

Frank Miller - Daredevil
Without Miller the gritty noir style book Bendis writes would not exist. Miller drew the book to suit his stories resulting in the quinticential Daredevil.

Norm Breyfogle - Batman (Detective Comics)
Along with Aparo Breyfogle defined Batman in the 1990's. His dynamic art wow'd you each and every month.

George Perez - Avengers, Teen Titans
Perez was one of the first artists I intentionally bought comics because of. Even ones I didn't collect that he drew I would buy because of his ultra detail and action. Each character had a different face, expressions and Perez was consistent. He always delivered.

Mike Kaluta - The Shadow
Who doesn't think of Kaluta when you mention the Shadow? He defined the character and though there were many artists before Kaluta that drew him none captured the mood.

Mike Grell - Warlord & Green Arrow
Grell IS Warlord. Grell IS Green Arrow. Grell's Green Arrow was and is the picture perfect way to draw (and in his case write) the character. Grell drew Ollie at street level, dark and moody. It was a perfect blend of art and story.

Jack Kirby - Everything!
He's not called the King for nuthin!
New Gods, FF, Avengers, Captain America, Demon etc. Everything he drew was gold.

Trades over monthlies? NO WAY!

I believe that JUST buying trades hurts the industry... it means fewer new issues are sold and as a result the cover prices go up causing more readers to drop more books which iin turn causes marginal books like She-Hulk or Runaways to get canned because people HAVE to have their X books.

The cost of the trade is usually the same as the single issues anyway.

Then there's the addition aspect. The actual act of reading through a varied number of comics on Wednesday IS my actual fix... what I'm addicted to. I also like the fun of the comic shop every wednesday! It's like Christmas once a week!!!

And LASTLY (and IMO the most important reason...) THE FUN!!!! Take a book like Batman the Long Halloween... the very foundation and concept of the book hinged on readers GUESSING who Holiday was... there was rampant speculation, rumours, Wizard did an odds on favorite to be Holiday... and it was FUN to guess... because you had to wait the TORTUREOUS 30ish days for the next issue and see if that month gave any new hints to the identity of Holiday. Now imagine you get the whole thing, flip to the end and know who the killer is. Even if you don't the suspense is GONE. (Insert Identity Crisis here or any such book.)

You lose the fun... not to mention the difficulty of trying to avoid spoilers on a message board as you wait several months for the book to come out in trade... where's the fun in that????

There are several instances where I will buy trades. If it's an older series that would be hard or annoying to track down. I got all of Sin City in trade, all of Preacher and all of Sandman because I really missed the boat on them (ESPECIALLY Preacher!) and it would have been cost prohibitive to get the monthlies.

Speaking of cost... Trades or the Archive/Masterworks are also the only way I'll EVER get Amazing Fantasy 15 and all the early Spidey's and Fantastic Four's and so on, so I'll get them in that format. Otherwise it's all new monthlies for me!

Why I dislike the current state of the Batman comics

Judd Winick: I read his Batman and all my entheusiasm goes away and I'm usually left bored and wanting another writer.

The lack of new characters vs return of dead ones: Every great character started SOMEWHERE and wasn't instantly over with the fans. And you can overuse the classics like Joker and Two-Face and Ivy to the point where no one wants to see them... and then what? You're stuck with nothing because no new characters were brought in to keep things fresh. Returning characters from the dead isn't always the answer either... because you're just recycling instead of inventing.

Current state of the Bat-books: Gotham Knights is a train wreck... Nightwing is sinking faster than the Titanic... and my feelings on Winick on Batman are stated above... Tec #815 helped though.

I've read Batman a loooooong time... 22 years now and I've collected back past that... my lowest Batman issue is #38... and I've seen pinnacle's of greatness like the O'Neil-Adams run, or Rucka's run or the Englehart-Rogers-Austin run or Miller's Year one and so on... and it pisses me off that DC would dedicate an entire series to Hush (Gotham Knights) and Red Hood (Batman) and basicilly tell the same story over and over and over again without ANY resolution.

I like a sequential story that has sub-plots and mysteries and plot points that are picked up in subsequent issues. Claremont is great at it. But Winnick is not.

Tell me if you've heard this story before: Red Hood terrorizes Black Mask and kills a bunch of bad guys. Red Hood is confronted by Batman but manages to escape. I've just described the last year of Batman stories.

Here's another one. Hush terrorizes and plots against Batman. After a brief confrontation where Hush calls Batman Bruce and Batman calls Hush Tommy Hush manages a get away. Wash, rinse, repeat.

How many times can Batman act like an idiot and allow his two most constant tormentors to get away... again and again?

THAT is why I'm pissed at the current state of Batman books. No forward progression. At all. Batman looks like anidiot instead of the worlds greatest detective and there's no attempt to create any new rogues for Batman to get out of the Hush-Red Hood cycle.

Art or story? Which is more important??

I am going to take the easy way out and say I think the Story and Art have to go hand in hand... because comics is a visual medium as well as a written one.

Jim Aparo art can tell a story on its own. In fact IIRC it did in Batman in the 430's... during The Many Deaths of the Batman part 1... there were no words or captions... everything had to be conveyed through the art.

Another reason why art may be JUST as important as story is no matter HOW good the story is if the artist does a series of splash pages and doesn't know how to tell a sequential story through art... the best written story would be lost.

I don't want to bash Rob Liefeld... but put Alan Moore on a book with Rob Liefeld and you would get a totally different story than if you put Alan on the SAME book with Gene Ha. Gene knows how to tella fantastic sequential story while Rob is more in your face action... but Gene could get all the nuances of Moore's story while I think Rob might fail at that.