I voted Ellis. For me personally he has the best catalog of work to his name, and the stuff he was doing in the early 2000 at Wildstorm with Stormwatch and ultimately Authority was hugely influential on the superhero comic medium. For better of worse Ellis started the "blockbuster widescreen storytelling" that is prevalent in the medium today.
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He wasn't included in the poll for good reason, and that is because he was not a very good writer. Co-creating some interesting characters and an interesting setting means little when you cannot tell a particularly interesting story. Try reading some of his older comics, the plots were incredibly simplistic and formulaic and the dialogue was practically infantile. Comics of that time were simply nowhere near the literary medium that they are today.
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Still requires some disambiguation imo. As you put it, "Best based on proficiency in writing/storytelling assessed by today's standards" ...is different than "Who do I personally think is best by today's standards." I'd say Ellis to the latter, but would have to include more than just my own opinion in the former, and would probably get into range and versatility in writing styles, critical reception, etc. Exactitude is your friend.
Also, the numerous posters saying Stan show that they didn't unanimously understand your intent. A few may doggedly stick with him anyway out of reverence or nostalgia, but few would persist in that answer based on your criteria.
He ushered in and popularized the idea of comics as a serious medium. However, he didn't perfect the art (imo, of course).
I think Morrison is overrated. Not gonna get into it with his backers, because overrated /= bad, and I don't want to imply that. I just don't think he's as good as his reputation.
Gaiman is a close 2nd for me, but he's not as married to the genre as some comic writers. He's a brilliant writer and author, but a lot of his work is in movies, TV, stories, and novels....not comics. Most of the authors in the poll created numerous titles, characters, franchises, etc. or added greatly to them. Take away Sandman and Gaiman wouldn't even be known in comics-only circles.
Not necessarily at all and absolutely not as far as my intended message when I said that is concerned. I feel it goes without saying that what people consider the best in fields such as writing and storytelling is largely a subjective process and that rarely would somebody choose to ignore the subjective areas and focus solely on the objective merits of those disciplines. That is absolutely how I meant it, and how I feel most people would approach this topic, to the point that I feel it isn't worth making the extra effort to specify as much.
People see the word "best", their natural approach is what they personally consider the best, likewise if they see the term "of all time" usually they think of applying a universal standard. Being unnecessarily exact in these matters can be a subtle form of inefficiency.
Not necessarily as the people who mentioned Stan Lee maintained that position after I drew the distinction between "best" and "greatest" and -PR-'s response seemed to indicate that he simply valued certain aspects of his style and methodology, and his imaginative character-building over such things as dialogue and scientific accuracy, in considering him the best.
Last edited by Ben "cA" Risa on May 7th, 2013 at 08:21 PM
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this is a hard question in that each had some great moments, and most had some....not so great moments. i think the best high for me was likely gaiman's sandman and related materials (but he's not a typical comicbook author, and i have read all his novels as well and loved most of them) but it's tough to look at the jla stuff morrison did and NOT say that was equally as good, just different. one was much more traditional. i think if i were to come up with an idea and had to have one author pen it for me, it would be morrison. but then, it would depend on the idea i guess. hrm. tough call.
i do agree with part of what pr said--lee was great, but i also think that by the standards of today, his early stories don't match up. but that's not his fault. he started something that others--over years and years--have had a chance to hone. comparing across eras is always tricky, but if you're mentioning lee, you really should be lumping kirby in there as well imo.
oh, an honourable mention to denny o'neill whose work with neal adams in batman pretty much redefined the character and i think sort of paved the way for miller.
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