ME.

No, it's Rafael as he mentions upthread. I didn't know who to vote for, so I voted for Mark Waid since I generally like him.

I read comics ever since I started reading at 4 or something. Mostly kids' stuff and later I graduated to superhero comics. I wish I could say I read great stuff, but I didn't. It was mostly mediocre stuff (Post Death of Superman comics) or flat out crap (90's comics). I still loved the comics, and I loved the DCU, but I was getting bored at that point and ready to leave them. But then DC announced a title written by some weird Vertigo writer who I had never heard of before. But it was the Justice League! Batman! Superman! all the awesome guys. And I read how this writer viewed the characters, as modern gods! and his insights into them, so much like I viewed them. So I tried that one last title. And it was pretty good. Lots of action and extremely cool fights. And then, during one of the storylines, I encountered this page:



"This is the first time you have met me but not the first time I have met you. The next time you meet me will be the first time I met you. It's difficult to render this into third-dimensional language."

I read that line five or six times in a row, not because I didn't understand it, I got it the first time, I was the kind of kid who explained the rather simple time travel plot of Back to the Future 2 to every other kid and adult I knew when I was 9, no, I read it several times because it was so cool. As a 16 or so year old teenager whose main exposure to superhero comics was lame Superman and X-Men comics it was like a bucket of cold water. That was it. I was hooked to comics again. And this weird Vertigo writer? He was soon to be the first writer I would follow to whatever work he would do next. I've said sometime how I mainly follow writers, that's how I view and enjoy my comics, and Grant Morrison is the cause of that.

His next work like a godsend. He was going to do X-Men! At last the X-Men would be awesome! Except I hated every single thing of it. From, may God forgive my ignorance and lack of taste, Quitely's art to how he wrote the characters. I've since revisited the run and I like some parts of it, but there are some parts I still haven't warmed up to. While most of Morrison's work speaks to the wonder of the medium and are odes to imagination, NXM is a negative commentary on the nature of the characters he was writing, full of the proverbial ENGORGED ENNUI by his own admission. Morrison was succumbing to his own Anti-Life Equation there, instead of destroying it as in the rest of his work. Just for its uniqueness I appreciate it, but it's still my least favorite Grant Morrison run.

But I was a fan already. It was a new millenium and I had now so many opportunities to explore his work. The delicious transquadromuralism of Animal Man and the postmodernist weirdness of Doom Patrol and brilliance of Flex Mentallo, probably his best and, at 4 issues, most condensed work. His past Batman work, including his arc Gothic, which I would discover was one of the few thing that has ever truly scared me, more quirky Vertigo work like Sebastian O, Kid Eternity, Kill Your Boyfriend.

Then he returned to DC, a move I expected with anticipation. Vinamarama was ok, but the rest? BAM! Pure winners. The wonder of Seaguy and the warmth of We3, but what blinded me was the brilliance of Seven Soldiers, aided beautifully by what I consider the finest assembly of comic book artists I've ever encountered. Of course, then there was All-Star Superman, a series that needs no praise for me given how it's liked by all souled comic book fans.

And then there is his much-maligned Batman run. That's what put him over the top for me. It wasn't merely the convergence of one of my favorite writers on my favorite character, that pretty much didn't work as well on the X-Men, but it's that, just like with the JLA a decade ago, he saw the character like I did. I see Batman as a wealth of possibilities waiting to be explored, as the most versatile and adaptable character in comics with a treasure trove of history and influences to draw from. He works in horror (Gothic, AA), detective (The Black Glove) or straight superhero (JLA, Final Crisis) stories. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks Batman shouldn't have a sci-fi closet. If any character should have one, it's Batman. But not only that, Morrison sees Batman as Ultimate Myth. His story is the last one to be recorded just before the heat death of the Universe, after all. Batman is also the Ultimate Human, and seeing how for Morrison Darkseid is the Ultimate Evil, it was not only natural, but inevitable, that they would meet. If we consider Batman as merely a guy in a ridiculous suit then, no, he has no business facing an immortal superhuman being, but Batman and Darkseid are also ideas, and from that perspective, The All Over vs The Hole in Things, their battle makes perfect sense. As I said in other thread, I've read hundreds of stories of Batman chasing criminals and I would be surprised if I found memorable a dozen of them, but I'll always remember when Bruce Wayne beat the Hyper Adaptor against all odds.

I guess I could go on and on ("more?? jeez..") about why I like his writing. Insane theories about physics, thermodynamics, entropy, hyperreality and the interaction between reality and ideas in a four color panel defined by two dimensional borders, but that's merely the cherry on top. Ultimately, Grant Morrison is my favorite writer because he writes the kind of stories I love to read. As simple as that.



tl;dr version: I like Grant Morrison because he writes cool and weird stuff, Batman as the most kickass human who has ever lived and it's usually accompanied by very pretty drawings. And it all ultimately started because he once wrote about a non-linear meeting between a space cop and a robot from the future. Go figure.

I read comics ever since I started reading at 4 or something. Mostly kids' stuff and later I graduated to superhero comics. I wish I could say I read great stuff, but I didn't. It was mostly mediocre stuff (Post Death of Superman comics) or flat out crap (90's comics). I still loved the comics, and I loved the DCU, but I was getting bored at that point and ready to leave them. But then DC announced a title written by some weird Vertigo writer who I had never heard of before. But it was the Justice League! Batman! Superman! all the awesome guys. And I read how this writer viewed the characters, as modern gods! and his insights into them, so much like I viewed them. So I tried that one last title. And it was pretty good. Lots of action and extremely cool fights. And then, during one of the storylines, I encountered this page:



"This is the first time you have met me but not the first time I have met you. The next time you meet me will be the first time I met you. It's difficult to render this into third-dimensional language."

I read that line five or six times in a row, not because I didn't understand it, I got it the first time, I was the kind of kid who explained the rather simple time travel plot of Back to the Future 2 to every other kid and adult I knew when I was 9, no, I read it several times because it was so cool. As a 16 or so year old teenager whose main exposure to superhero comics was lame Superman and X-Men comics it was like a bucket of cold water. That was it. I was hooked to comics again. And this weird Vertigo writer? He was soon to be the first writer I would follow to whatever work he would do next. I've said sometime how I mainly follow writers, that's how I view and enjoy my comics, and Grant Morrison is the cause of that.

His next work like a godsend. He was going to do X-Men! At last the X-Men would be awesome! Except I hated every single thing of it. From, may God forgive my ignorance and lack of taste, Quitely's art to how he wrote the characters. I've since revisited the run and I like some parts of it, but there are some parts I still haven't warmed up to. While most of Morrison's work speaks to the wonder of the medium and are odes to imagination, NXM is a negative commentary on the nature of the characters he was writing, full of the proverbial ENGORGED ENNUI by his own admission. Morrison was succumbing to his own Anti-Life Equation there, instead of destroying it as in the rest of his work. Just for its uniqueness I appreciate it, but it's still my least favorite Grant Morrison run.

But I was a fan already. It was a new millenium and I had now so many opportunities to explore his work. The delicious transquadromuralism of Animal Man and the postmodernist weirdness of Doom Patrol and brilliance of Flex Mentallo, probably his best and, at 4 issues, most condensed work. His past Batman work, including his arc Gothic, which I would discover was one of the few thing that has ever truly scared me, more quirky Vertigo work like Sebastian O, Kid Eternity, Kill Your Boyfriend.

Then he returned to DC, a move I expected with anticipation. Vinamarama was ok, but the rest? BAM! Pure winners. The wonder of Seaguy and the warmth of We3, but what blinded me was the brilliance of Seven Soldiers, aided beautifully by what I consider the finest assembly of comic book artists I've ever encountered. Of course, then there was All-Star Superman, a series that needs no praise for me given how it's liked by all souled comic book fans.

And then there is his much-maligned Batman run. That's what put him over the top for me. It wasn't merely the convergence of one of my favorite writers on my favorite character, that pretty much didn't work as well on the X-Men, but it's that, just like with the JLA a decade ago, he saw the character like I did. I see Batman as a wealth of possibilities waiting to be explored, as the most versatile and adaptable character in comics with a treasure trove of history and influences to draw from. He works in horror (Gothic, AA), detective (The Black Glove) or straight superhero (JLA, Final Crisis) stories. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks Batman shouldn't have a sci-fi closet. If any character should have one, it's Batman. But not only that, Morrison sees Batman as Ultimate Myth. His story is the last one to be recorded just before the heat death of the Universe, after all. Batman is also the Ultimate Human, and seeing how for Morrison Darkseid is the Ultimate Evil, it was not only natural, but inevitable, that they would meet. If we consider Batman as merely a guy in a ridiculous suit then, no, he has no business facing an immortal superhuman being, but Batman and Darkseid are also ideas, and from that perspective, The All Over vs The Hole in Things, their battle makes perfect sense. As I said in other thread, I've read hundreds of stories of Batman chasing criminals and I would be surprised if I found memorable a dozen of them, but I'll always remember when Bruce Wayne beat the Hyper Adaptor against all odds.

I guess I could go on and on ("more?? jeez..") about why I like his writing. Insane theories about physics, thermodynamics, entropy, hyperreality and the interaction between reality and ideas in a four color panel defined by two dimensional borders, but that's merely the cherry on top. Ultimately, Grant Morrison is my favorite writer because he writes the kind of stories I love to read. As simple as that.



tl;dr version: I like Grant Morrison because he writes cool and weird stuff, Batman as the most kickass human who has ever lived and it's usually accompanied by very pretty drawings. And it all ultimately started because he once wrote about a non-linear meeting between a space cop and a robot from the future. Go figure.

Hickman is the one I'm most impressed by at the moment. I'm not even sure I can explain what it is I like about his work, beyond the craftsmanship of it, but it just always works for me. That said, this is a pretty great time for comic writers. Morrison, Brubaker, Waid, Snyder, Azzarello, Aaron, Fraction, Bendis, Ellis, Millar, Vaughn, Carey, Lemire, Rucka and Remender are all putting out fantastic work.