Consistently best writers?

For another fairly recent one, Kieron Gillan.

Hm, there's gotta be more female writers on the list other than Gail... I mean, I can think of some great *art* names (Fiona Staples, of course), but writing's a bit harder. Though some of the good female artists do contribute to the writing, like Becky Cloonan.

Originally posted by krisblaze
How much has Rucka done? any opinion on him?

A good amount, and 'very good'.

I'm currently reading Lazarus, which takes a concept that I thought I wouldn't be grabbed by (in a somewhat post-apoc world, an enhanced female character with a sword fights for her family, as the family engages in internal politics and clashes with other families) and makes me love it. Absolutely love-love it, one of the top books I'm reading right now.

He did Gotham Central, one of the best Gotham books ever. He made Batwoman and did her Elegy miniseries. One of the writers in the original 52. Checkmate. One of the very best runs on Wonder Woman (leaves the Azarello run in the dust). Various other works for DC and Marvel.

I'm familiar with Lazarus, his 52 work and Gotham Central, but these are so good that I can't imagine them being representative of his average, haha.

I'm not familiar with his other work though, but I'll gladly take your word for it.

Gillan is good, I like über and some of his Thor stuff. I haven't really been impressed outside of that though, his x-men stuff was disappointing.

Originally posted by Q99
He did Gotham Central, one of the best Gotham books ever.

Aside from that, I've always enjoyed how he's treated Mxy, and the Imp-World.

Hurts to see Gotham on TV when material like Gotham Central exists.

Originally posted by krisblaze
I'm familiar with Lazarus, his 52 work and Gotham Central, but these are so good that I can't imagine them being representative of his average, haha.

Rucka also did Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood, the one where Helena gets trained by Richard Dragon.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis: OMAC (the Ted Kord and aftermath thereof, in short).

And a smattering of others. Even his stuff which isn't in the league as the top ones mentioned, are still very solid, at least out of what of his I've read.

Two of the series by him I haven't mentioned or read have won Eisners (Whiteout and Queen & Country), which speaks well of what I *haven't* read, for that matter.

Didn't know that Rucka was behind OMAC 👆

He's a contender in my book then. This thread is about consistency after all, not peaks.

And I simply haven't seen a bad book by Rucka, ever. Maybe at some point he did make a bad one, even some writers that get on most people's lists do (Morrison for example), but if so I've not encountered or heard of it.

Originally posted by Q99
Two of the series by him I haven't mentioned or read have won Eisners (Whiteout and Queen & Country), which speaks well of what I *haven't* read, for that matter.

Morrison, Moore, Danny O'Neal, Elliott S Maggin (who is IMO one of the most underrated writers ever), Brian Azzarelo, Snyder, Busiek etc.

Also Rucka did the blackest night WW mini which was total garbage.

Originally posted by Juntai
yeah. Loeb.

Batman The Long Halloween.
Dark Victory.
Hulk Grey.
Daredevil Yellow.
Spiderman Blue.
Our Worlds at war.
Superman for all Seasons.
Emperor Joker.
Hush.
Superman/Batman for over 2 years (including the Supergirl and Public enemies storylines.).
Fallen Son.
Heroes Reborn.

Superman/Batman was fun, but that's not interchangeable with good. There was no actual good writing in most of his books in that series.

Pre Death Son Loeb was good though with spats of shit. Looking back on his entire career and you can see the spats of shit just pouring through. The shitty writing he put out sometimes became the norm. But I would never call him consistent at any stage in his career.

Adam Warren's a pretty consistent one. While maybe not top tier, his quality has been a fairly steady upward curve over the course of his career, and his latest work, Empowered, includes some *really* fantastic emotional gut punches, as well as some of the best relationships in comics.

Having some of the best art in the business doesn't hurt, either. No one does cheesecake quite like Adam. 🙂

^Wut? Empowered has some of the worst art I've seen.

Originally posted by krisblaze
^Wut? Empowered has some of the worst art I've seen.

.... ok, we have massively different standards.

Varied body types, dynamic action that's not hard to follow, expressive faces....

Originally posted by Juntai
Moore Morrison Gaiman Snyder Brubaker Johns Kirby Gerber Loeb Waid, Jurgens Giffen Dematties Byrne Ennis Willingham Miller Dixon Azarello O'Neil and Millar.

waid, morrison, gaiman, synder, azarello, millar are all very good. scott mcdaniel wrote my fave daredevil arc of all time, fall from grace. o'neil has done some great stuff as well. claremont did some great stuff back in the day and someone who was WAYYYYYY advanced for his time was gardner fox (who imo inspired the whole flashpoint, and maybe ALL the crises-related stuff....)

johns for sure would make my top 10. morre wouldn't make my top group. i've always thought he was overrated.

anyone want to take a crack at naming their top 5 and their fave arc by that writer....?

I'd differentiate between consistency and "best at their peak," but for me the list is largely the same. It begins and ends with Ellis and Gaiman. Everyone else is just scrambling for a very distant 3rd. I like other writers, but there's none even approaching those two for me.

Originally posted by krisblaze
Anyone for Mike Carey?

Also, Brian K Vaughan's self-contained stories (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Saga) have all been favorites of mine, and his Runaways work is praised pretty consistently.

Apparently Pride of Baghdad is really good, though I personally haven't read it.

Originally posted by Digi
I'd differentiate between consistency and "best at their peak," but for me the list is largely the same. It begins and ends with Ellis and Gaiman. Everyone else is just scrambling for a very distant 3rd. I like other writers, but there's none even approaching those two for me.

Agreed.

Was shocked when a friend called Gaiman a hack, not realizing the dogpiling on him outside of his comic book work. But that's kind of par for the course when a writer's successful in anything outside of serious literature (Like how Yale professor's love to take Rowling and King down a peg, which just makes them look petty imo..)

Originally posted by cdtm
Agreed.

Was shocked when a friend called Gaiman a hack, not realizing the dogpiling on him outside of his comic book work. But that's kind of par for the course when a writer's successful in anything outside of serious literature (Like how Yale professor's love to take Rowling and King down a peg, which just makes them look petty imo..)

I read a short story collection by Gaiman called "Fragile Things" and it was excellent. But short stories don't capture most peoples' interest either. I've heard that his novels are more hit-and-miss. As someone who's done some professional writing, and attempted some styles of writing that I'm not normally used to, I can tell you unequivocally that not every writer is made for every genre or literary form. So it's entirely possible he isn't just as consistent in his other work; but I haven't read any of his novels to find out.

He's also done some screenplays for movies (mixed reviews), written cross-genre stories like Stardust (which was fairly well-received, both as a book and a movie), and has written an episode or two for Doctor Who (one quite positive, one quite negative). So he's not always brilliant, but that kind of versatility with ANY measure of success is a form of brilliance in itself.