Taking potshots at sacred cows

This is a comic book rant. Deal.

I'm going to comment on my feelings about a number of writers (mostly the Brit crowd) who are held in especially high regard by comic fandom, and I can't for the life of me understand why.
First off, one that is not considered all that great. Mark Millar. Some of his stuff is okay (see the Ultimates). But he can't make a deadline, and if he deals with characters he didn't invent, he cannot do characterization at all - if he were a roleplayer I'd be deducting XP for being completely out of character. Anybody he gets his hands on are bent all out of recognition - take a look at the Civil War in Marvel - this guy is the Rob Liefeld of writers.


Now on the cows the thread title is named for. 4 guys - Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman.
I'll start with the worst of the lot Garth Ennis, here is a guy writing comics books, and who has spent half his career doing superheroes. Guess what, he has mentioned he hates superheroes. So that seems a really good career choice, Garth. His Hellblazer sucked, Preacher sucked, his Authority sucked (well all the Authority comics suck), Hitman was annoying, and his current claim to fame is writing a character that is a rip off of ghostwritten action novel hero Mack Bolan.

Next up Warren Ellis. Authority - he created that travesty so we came blame him. Transmetropolotan was one of the most annoying comic books it was my displeasure to try to read. He does have some bright points though; his work in the Ultimate universe has not been bad, and Planetary is one of the best comics out there- in this comic he wrote the story he was born to write - he doesn't have to do any more.

Neil Gaiman - not bad as the others are, but just, well, boring. His continuation of the horrible Moore Miracleman was incredibly average (which was an upscale from the horribleness of the Moore stuff), Books of Magic was derivative, and his seminal work, Sandman started off well, but - I got so bored reading it I drifted off after the second or third trade paperback, and never felt the need to try and finish.

And lastly Alan Moore. One of the biggest jerks in the industry, but personality issues aside, the guy is so erratic in quality that it feels like Let's make a deal - you either get a car or you walk out with an ant farm. His good stuff (Watchmen, LXG) are amazingly good, however in both cases he uses other peoples characters (a thinly disguised Charlton characters, and even more obvious in LXG*). Killing Joke was average, and the only good that came of it was the later writers creating Oracle from what he did for shock value - according to reports he was running around the office shouting "Kill the bitch, kill the bitch" about the sequence. Swamp thing was near unreadable. Read the trade "The DC work of Alan Moore" and be prepared to cry - I read almost every one of those and hated them all.

Sorry for the rant, but I keep seeing these guys held up as demigods of modern comic writing - I had to vent. If you want to look for good comic writing look at Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns or even Judd Winnick (most of the time).

* One of his biggest complaints about the V for Vendetta film was how they changed things he created. I'm sure the writer of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm would have a few words to say to him about his handling of the character in LXG. Hypocrite.