Who are your favorite comic book authors and why?

[Wikoogle]

State your reasons why and try to keep your list to under 5 writers if possible.

I am fairly new to comics and there is a LOT I havent read so my picks are just based on the few books I have been exposed to...

1. Alan Moore
Why? Watchmen, V for Vendetta

2. Jonathan Hickman
Why? His run on Fantastic Four and New Avengers are the only ones I've been lucky enough to read so far but both were/are top notch.

[victorxd1999]

I'm trying to refrain from listing the obvious choices like Moore, Morrison and Gaiman so here's my list:
1 John Ostrander because his stories just reasonate with me. His Spectre, Suicide Squad and Hawkworld all rank among my favorite stories
2 Ed Brubaker. I wasn't planning on placing him so high but after carefully evaluating my favorite storues I realized dus how much I love his writing. His Sleeper, Criminal and Daredevil also rank very high in my favorites list.
3 Warren Ellis. I didn't know if Ellis would rank among the "obvious" choices but I went with him anyway. His stories are just way too good. Check stuff like his Thunderbolts and Planetary to see what I mean.
4 Jim Starlin. His cosmic work is just amazing, even his 70s work.
5 Garth Ennis. Also don't know if he counts but I still choose him

Honourable mentions:
Jonathan Hickman, Rick Remender, Keith Giffen, Greg Rucka, Marv Wolfman, Peter Milligan, Kurt Busiek, David Michelinie, Brian K. Vaughan, Brian Azzarello and so many more

[mars]

Roger Stern - Avengers, Captain America
Kelly Sue DeConnick - Captain Marvel, Pretty Deadly
Warren Ellis - Transmetropolitan, Planetary
Eric Powell - The Goon

[mars]

Shameful that I forgot Starlin, especially since I'm reading the Infinity Gauntlet omnibus right now.

As for Ellis, I will say that as much as I love Transmet and Planetary, I find his superhero stuff, while enjoyable, a step below (except the dreadful Moon Knight).

I didn't think of Ennis, because Preacher and a little bit of Punisher is all I've read. But, while I wouldn't list him among my favorites, Preacher is absolutely worth reading.

[Wollodrin]

1. Ron Marz - For his work on Crossgen titles, Scion in particular.
2. Ed Brubaker - Because I love Criminal... among other things.
3. David Chauvel - For Wollodrin, Arthur and a whole bunch more.
4. Jodorowsky - The Incal, Metabarons etc.
5. Steve Niles - Quality horror writer, especially love ''The Monstrous collection'' (though I wish he could always work with top talent like Bernie Wrightson).

[Balakin]

Grant Morrison- hated him a few years ago but his ideas started to intrigue me, his interviews were fascinating, so I started to read his stuf and now I'm addicted. He can write any kind of crazy crap, I'm in.
Alan Moore- Watchmen, LoEG. Obvious choice but can't help it.
Warren Ellis- Planetary, Authority, Nextwave. Nuff said
Ed Brubaker-that man has a really engaging style and really good stories. Cap, Criminal, Sleeper, etc.
Pre New 52 Geoff Johns- I love his Flash, GL and JSA runs. Those runs made me fell in love with the DCU properly (I was a fan through the DCAU but I was mostly a MArvel fan).

[MRP]

-Will Eisner-great characters & great stories. He touches on the joy and pathos of being human in almost every story, capturing high adventure and slice of life with equal aplomb, and on top of it all has a mastery of the visual language of comics that is second to none.

-Mike Mignola-again fantastic characters and stories, but also executing such with a visual language that is masterful and instantly recognizable.

Since comics are such a visual medium, I think there are a vast number of excellent writers, but since they collaborate with a variety of artists, the quality of the execution can vary...Alan Moore is a great writer, when working with the likes of Dave Gibbons, Stephen Bissette & John Totleben, JH Williams III or David Lloyd, it is a treat to read, when working with Rob Liefled it is still a chore to read despite Moore's obvious talents. Authorship in comics is a multi-level thing-words and pictures are each part of the authorship since the stories are told visually the actual storytelling is usually in the hands of the visual author i.e. the artist. A good story poorly told is not good authorship.

There are however, a number of writers who either are very lucky/discerning in their collaborations, or who bring out the best in whichever artist they are working with...

-Ed Brubaker-whether working on mainstream stuff like Iron fist with David Aja, Captain America with Steve Epting and others, Gotham Central with Michael Lark (and Greg Rucka) or indy stuff like The Fall with Jason Lutes, the myriad projects with Sean Phillips or Velvet with Steve Epting again, Brubaker delivers good stories with a strong visual component for the artist to work with in this medium. Great characters, interesting stories well told from a craft point of view.

-Greg Rucka-like Brubaker, delivers solid stories every time and brings out the best in his collaborators no matter the project-mainstream or indy.

-Stan Sakai-another writer artist, his saga of Usagi Yojimbo is one excellent story after another, and his ability to use the visual language of comics starts strong and gets better as the years go by.

There's lots of other writers I could list, many have been mentioned here already, but all of them I feel vary to some degree based on who they are collaborating with and what the subject matter is...(Jim Starlin, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, John Ostrander, Steve Englehart, Jodo, etc.) but you asked us to limit it to 5, so there you go....

-M

[FanboyStranger]

Eddie Campbell is my favorite comic creator ever. I don't think any comic has had as profound an emotional effect on me as Eddie's Alec stories.

[quinnzel]

I'm also still fairly new to comics, so there's still so many authors I haven't been exposed to, so my list is really still in its preliminary stages.

My current top writers (in no specific order):

Brian Azzarello for his work on Wonder Woman and his work in Batman stories like Joker and Broken City... and I still haven't even read 100 Bullets yet.
Gail Simone for her work on Batgirl and especially Wonder Woman. I really, really loved her characterization of Diana and I've found that a lot of my favorite WW stories so far have been the ones she was involved in.
Ed Brubaker because the only thing I've read of his so far has been the first two issues of The Fade-Out and they've already blown my mind. I'm going to get started on Fatale and Incognito pretty soon.
Scott Snyder for his Batman run. Just blew me away.

[CrazyOldHermit]

Frank Miller for Daredevil, Batman, Sin City and Holy Terror.

Garth Ennis for Preacher, Punisher and Fury.

[SJNeal]

Eddie Campbell is my favorite comic creator ever. I don't think any comic has had as profound an emotional effect on me as Eddie's Alec stories.

I know his resume is larger than From Hell and Hellblazer, but I couldn't name anything else I've read from him off the top of my head.

I'll have to remedy that...

[SJNeal]

I don't have the time to list the "why" right now, so maybe I'll come back and edit later. In the meantime, this extensive list will have to do:

Kurt Busiek
Roger Stern
Peter David
Peter Milligan
John Ostrander
William Messner-Loebs
Keith Giffen
Jamie Delano
Neil Gaiman
Gail Simone
Greg Rucka
Brian Azzarello
Warren Ellis
Fabian Nicieza
Roy Thomas
Steve Englehart
Gerard Jones
Karl Kesel
George Perez
et al...

[FanboyStranger]

I know his resume is larger than From Hell and Hellblazer, but I couldn't name anything else I've read from him off the top of my head.

I'll have to remedy that...

I highly recommend picking up Alec: The Years Have Pants omnibus. It's fantastic. I don't think Top Shelf is still having their yearly clearance sale, but it was severely discounted the last time I looked at their website.

Bacchus is great. A kinda more idiosyncratic, humorous Sandman. I know Top Shelf will be releasing a omnibus within the next year, but the individual volumes aren't too hard to find. I'd recommend Doing the Islands with Bacchus and 1001 Nights of Bacchus above all as Eddie really excels at the kind of shaggy dog short stories that people tell each other after they've had a few too many. (Banged Up is in this vein, too.) King Bacchus is probably the most popular volume as it has cameos by Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Dave Sim, who gets smacked in the nose for talking crap.

Any of his FirstSecond books are worth checking out. Fate of the Artist is the best of that work, and truly an Alec story except Eddie decided to stop using the Alec MacGarry device and just used his own name. Black Diamond Detective Agency is a solid thriller with some amazing art. The Amazing Monsieur Leotard is a very idiosyncratic, 'fun' book, but I don't like it quite as much as the rest of Eddie's stuff.

Back to Top Shelf, I'd also recommend The Playwright and The Lovely, Horrible Stuff. The Playwright is an amusing story of a self-important blowhard writer that finds loves, or thinks he does. I really like the classic "strip" format Eddie uses for it. The Lovely, Horrible Stuff is another autobiographical story centered on money and how both the lack of it and suddenly coming into it changed his life. It's also a phiolsophical meditation on money with some interesting sections on how certain Polynesian tribes developed an alternate means of currency.

Last (but not least), I'd recommend Batman: Order of the Beasts. It's an Elseworld set in '30s Britain and features some gorgeous art.

[Bad Wolf]

John Byrne. I always enjoy his work. To me, he just totally gets what makes comics fun, while also injecting enough seriousness to give them substance. Perfect balance for me. In his FF and Superman runs particularly, I loved that he put a lot of science into his stories. Sure there was plenty of comic book science, but I always felt there was a solid basis at the heart. It made the stories a lot more plausible and interesting than others who would just (at least at the time) just give a hand-wavey "something cosmic happens" solution.

[Orb]

Mark Waid: Flash, Captain America, Daredevil, Kingdom come
Mark Gruenwald: Captain America, Squadron Supreme
Kurt Busiek: Avengers, Astro city, Thunderbolts
Grant Morrison: JLA, New X-men, Animal man, Batman, pretty much anything he's ever written honestly.
Geoff Johns: Flash, Green lantern, Avengers
Rick Remender: X-force, Fear agent, Uncanny Avengers,
Chris Claremont: X-men, Excalibur
Brian Bendis: Alias, Daredevil, Avengers, X-men
Garth Ennis: Preacher, Hitman
Bill Willingham: Fables