Which do you do? For me, I can't really wrap my head around simply following certain characters, regardless of who's writing them. At the same time, the idea of thinking, "I love Writer X, but I'm not going to read certain books by him/her" also makes no sense to me.

Which do you do, and why?

There are certain characters that I always give a shot regardless the writer - Spectre, Metamorpho, Creeper, Machine Man, Beast, Hawkeye... When writers stray from the genres I enjoy, I start to lose interest (Marv Wolfman horror titles, Grant Morrison Vertigo stuff) - So I'd say I'm more inclined to follow character over creator... or at least give a new project a chance based on character first.

Generally speaking, writers. I'll buy anything from Alan Moore. And I'll give a fair shot to most anything by Claremont. Back when I bought more comics, I picked up anything by PAD or Frank Miller too.

There are certain characters and franchises that have an appeal distinct from writers. X-Men is one, although that is mainly because of the life that Claremont invested in it, so arguably that's still a case of the writer dictating what I'll buy. But I will buy non-Claremont X-Men if it looks interesting. I was picking up the ABC books even after Alan Moore stopped writing them.

Daredevil and Fantastic Four are appealing enough concepts that I might pick something up starring those characters. In the case of the former, DD has just had so many good writers attached to him -- so it's sort of a "both." I'd pick up a DD comic because I know or have heard the writer is good, AND because he's just a cool character anyway.

I guess it almost always *starts* with the writer, and then with a franchise character -- if the writer's done his or her job -- I might continue to follow the character even after the writer I liked has left.

I only follow one writer and that's Alan Moore. He's the only one who's convinced me that no matter what he writes, it's worth picking up. The only other guy that held that position for me was Frank Miller... but then Hell & Back... then DKSA... then ASBAR...

I'm in this mainly for the art. That's the only thing that'll get me to buy a book almost every time -- Jack Kirby, Mike Mignola, Jim Lee, Art Adams, Frank Cho, Frank Quitely, Mike Allred, Ed McGuinness, Mark Schultz... etc. Also, Erik Larsen, but that's more of a package deal.

However certain combos work well -- Bendis and Oeming on Powers or something else is worth getting, but I wouldn't buy a book for just one of those guys exclusively. Morrison with certain artists will get me to buy a book. He's one that could be up there with Alan Moore but it's so hit and miss for me. JLA is the balls but then I'm left ambivalent to most of Final Crisis. Warren Ellis is a pretty strong writer but again, I just don't get a fire under my ass to run out and buy everything he does.

Generally, I'm just not impressed with most comic book writers or writing.

I read about characters I like, first and foremost. If a writer/artist impresses me, I may pick up something non-traditional they've worked on and check it out as well. That's how I end up reading stuff like Cooke's Parker, Bru's Criminal, and so on. It's not an automatic though; Brubaker's run on the Batman book wasn't very good, for instance, and if I hadn't already been buying Batman no matter what I sure wouldn't have started picking that up.

I tend to follow writers, mainly, but sometimes is a combination of writer, concept and character. I get everything from Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis no matter if it's an established character or bizarre Chtulhu porn. I suppose I could also put Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman in that category, but they are not very regular comic book writers.

That being said, there are a few characters I always tend to keep an eye on like Supes, Bats and the X-Men. Comic book art/artists interests me very little, so unless it's a writer/artist I'm unlikely to ever follow one just for the art.

At the end of my buying, I would follow artists. There are writers that are always interesting, like PAD years ago, Claremont, but the good writers usually get the good artists, so it I could get the best of both worlds.

I'll follow characters I like written by writers I like. I'll follow writers I like if I like the concept of the book they're writing. There's nothing I slavishly follow anymore. I mean, I like Jeff Smith or Bill Willingham or Ed Brubaker a lot, but if any of them wrote Punisher or Hulk I wouldn't touch it. Conversely, I love the Legion of Super Heroes, but I didn't read their books during that whole "Legion Lost" crap, and I tried the Mark Waid and Jim Shooter reboot runs for an issue or two and couldn't stand 'em.

Characters. Kids tend to follow characters more than they follow authors, and I guess I'm pretty much a kid when it comes to comics.

I follow creators.

That said, I always keep an eye on what they are doing with Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, New Teen Titans, Alpha Flight and the Outsiders as I really like these characters.

Curious -- why? While there are favorite characters of mine as well, having say, Superman in a comic doesn't really guarantee any level of quality. In fact, I'd say 90% of Superman comics published in the last 20 years are unreadable shit.

However, having Warren Ellis on a comic usually guarantees a certain amount of quality -- while there might be a few clunkers in his body of work, I'm pretty certain there will be a level of entertainment I receive from purchasing one of his books.

I follow characters. I can't think of a single comic book writer whose work I would buy just because they wrote it. The only exception is Kevin Smith but he wrote for some of my favorite characters (Spider-Man and Daredevil). I did buy his two Green Arrow runs. But after that I haven't checked out anything else he's written.

Almost entirely writers. For every character I like, there's a carload of junk coming out at any giving time which features that character.

The character helps get me enticed into thinking I might like a book.

But the writer is a much more "definitely will sample" criterion for me. And good writing keeps me coming back.

I'm not a collector at all. I have no problem with dropping or not buying a book that is boring. Character has zero to do with the decision. I'm not even "completist" about a character at any point in time. I'm trying Batman Inc. right now because it's Morrison's "next idea" for Batman. I'll probably buy any supplemental books that he also writes, and ignore the entire Batman family of books otherwise.

This hobby is so terribly unsatisfying when I follow characters. Guaranteed to be buying junk that's a waste of money when I do that.

IAWTP

Yep.

S'what I'm sayin'.

Because I do. I collected Batman and Spider-Man, not Jim Aparo, John Byrne, Roger Stern, or whoever. Those were the characters I wanted to read about.

Thinking more on this, however, my habits are very, very different these days. I dumped all those lousy 90s comics and "War Games" and up Batman, say. When I read something now, it's as likely to be Fables, Walking Dead, or Promethea as anything featuring classic comic characters. Maybe more so. I guess you could say that as a comic collector for almost 20 years, I followed characters, but as a casual reader of modern trades I follow creators although it's still project dependent.

1. Artist

2. Writer

3. Character

Writers - definitely - i look back on my reading habits as a kid and I see how the characters i liked were shaped by great writers. (same with great directors and movies i like/liked).

I will automatically buy (or try) anything by Warren Ellis, Andy Diggle, Mark Millar, Jason Aaron, Garth Ennis, BKV, Ed Brubaker, Mike Mignola, and Greg Rucka.

Will check out work Roger Stern, Grant Morrison, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Mike Grell and a few others.

That's a good order.

I'm more of a Writer, Artist, Character in-that-order guy.

Anymore I don't follow either artists, writers, or characters (although a familiar character is more likely to at least get a look). I read and buy comics strictly on a case-by-case basis, based on overall impressions. Both the art and the writing have to be something I believe I'd enjoy.