robin2099

Thought this might be fun. What are characters, writers, artists or anything industry related that you feel don't get the recognition that they should from the comics community and the mainstream? Here are a few of mine.

-Dick Tracy and The Phantom: Both came before Batman(Tracy in 31 Phantom in 36). But a lot of what made Batman successful and Superman as well came from these two. Tracy had the wacky rogues gallery first, and The Phantom pretty much set the look that all superheroes would follow. Plus No one seemed to care that they've been published longer than Batman or Superman.

-The Batman Adventures: Probably was the most consistently fun Batman comic in the 90's. It's success also caused there to be a whole bunch of comics based on the animated Timmverse unitl those shows went off the air. They are still really fun to read and even caused Bruce Timm and Paul Dini to get involved with Mad Love.

-Steve Engleharts Batman run: I always thought this was a great run that people always forget about.

So anyone else have any opinions?

PhantomStranger

I've always thought Rising Stars by J. Michael Straczynski was a fantastic comic that should have been adapted into a television series. It's one of the best limited series of the past two decades.

It was tailor-made to be a premium cable series. The material is more accessible than say Watchmen but has enough depth to fill several seasons, ala Game of Thrones.

mrhan

Don Newton. He drew Batman from 78-85. He died hen he was only 40.

http://donnewton.com/default.asp

Hokeyboy

David Michelinie/Bob Layton's IRON MAN run in the 80s was phenomenal, and always seems to fly way under the radar when it comes to great Marvel/80s/superhero comics.

fujishig

I remember being really hyped for this when it came out, losing track, and then buying the digital omnibus for cheap much much later. I think the delays were massive, but even reading the whole thing straight through it kinda fizzled out at the end there. In fact I can't even remember what happened.

Unfortunately now I will always link JMS to the Goblin/Gwen rape story. Or love story. Whatever.

PhantomStranger

I had no idea he died so young. I thought he had retired or something.

I've purposely avoided Straczynski's Spider-Man work after hearing so many things about it.

majorjoe23

It looks like Newton was almost 50 when he died. Still young, but a ways from 40.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Newton

mrhan

I chalk that up to old age. I didn't look it up but recall reading a little article about it in Direct Current or some letter page in a comic back in the 80's.

rocket1312

I'd put Scott Kolins on the list of under-appreciated artists. He has a unique style that doesn't work with just any character, but ever since his awesome Flash run with Geoff Johns, he's just sort of bounced around from one b-list title to another, or been stuck doing fill-in work. I think some of that is due to bad luck (for example, he left Flash to be the artist on Avengers a few months before Bendis took over and blew the whole thing up) as well as his own decision to tinker with his style over the years. Hopefully he gets a nice long run on the new Blue Beetle series. It's only been one issue so far, but it seems like a great fit.

I don't know, I think that run is pretty widely considered the definitive Iron Man run. I also don't think it belongs in the top tier of late 70's/early 80's Marvel. It's good, but I'd put it a notch below stuff like Claremont X-Men, Miller Daredevil, Byrne FF, and Simonson Thor.

stingermck

OK, I'll flip the script and say what needs respect. JMS run on Spider-Man. It was the run that got me into reading Spidey again, after dropping everything after the Clone story line. But now it gets all this flack because of 1 story in his entire run. Sorry everyone precious Gwen had a dark story told about her.

Now she is a Deadpool mashup character and no one bats an eye.

End rant.

fujishig

Isn't Gwenpool like some alternate reality like Spider Gwen? I actually have no idea.

I guess I have a problem when you bring back someone long dead in flashbacks to crap all over them and introduce terrible new characters. Also there was another story in his run, One More Day, which is similarly crapped on but usually blamed more on Quesada. But I do remember liking his early run, wasn't Romita Jr. the artist?

Since I feel bad for just crapping all over the thread, I'll contribute. I think Erik Larsen deserves some credit for the way he's handled Savage Dragon. He and Valentino I felt were the weakest of the Image founders artistically (though I liked Spider-man and loved Guardians of the Galaxy) when they first started, but whatever fault you find with his art, the guy is dedicated to it. He experiments with new styles and techniques all the time, and has been putting out Savage Dragon regularly since the ongoing series started, the only Image founder to even come close to drawing regularly over all those years. The comic can literally go anywhere and does. I've been bulk reading it after catching up with the latest digital sale, and it's actually a little insane how much happens.

Not the best writer, not the best artist, and definitely has some controversial opinions, but a comic creator who just loves his creation and has been putting it out semi regularly for as long as his fans support him.

stingermck

Me and a friend were talking about larson the other day after he posted this:

Thats a helluva feat. At the same time tho, Dragon sells about 4,000 copies a month, so since Larson is a founding member and CFO of Image he gets his book out there.

fujishig

Geez. I'm like on Savage Dragon 170s or so and he just talked about moving to San Francisco with his kid still in middle school. And I just looked at the publish date and this was like five years ago!

One of the greatest things about his run are the letter pages. He stated in one of them that he's not as big a fan of message boards replacing them because letter pages take a snapshot in time. They really do!

Timber

While we're on Straczynski I'll add Midnight Nation to the discussion. It features Gary Frank at his best I think. It's never spoken of, I guess because it's a story with a beginning a middle and a definitive end.

Navinabob

It did; it was just called 4400. Basically the 4400 came out and put the concept on the screen first and that killed all momentum it had to make it to TV or the movies.

But... MGM just purchased the rights to make it a film series, so you never know it could still happen.

majorjoe23

For sure. I've been reading since the first issue, it's been an amazing run.

PhantomStranger

They've mashed Gwen with Deadpool?!

kodave

Gwenpool originated as an amalgam of Gwen Stacy and Deadpool from a variant cover of "Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2"

It was so popular they decided to make a series. But it's not Gwen Stacy:
"Through means yet to be revealed, Gwen Poole arrived to the Marvel Universe from what she claims to be "the real world." Unwilling to be an "extra," she went to a tailor for super-heroes and requested her own costume to stand out. The tailor (named Ronnie) complied, but misread Gwen's application form, and thought Gwen went by the alias of "Gwenpool"."

PhantomStranger

Okay, that makes a little more sense.

mrm1138

Norm Breyfogle. He was the artist on Detective Comics when I first started reading it, so he kind of defined what Batman should look like for me. I'm glad I had the chance to tell him this in person, and he was very flattered. (Nice guy, too!)

mrhan

Just in case you don't know. He had a stroke a couple of years ago.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book-...ad-stroke.html