Comic Creators: A League Table
by Martin Skidmore 19-Dec-10
Since this was hugely unpopular but caused exciting debate when I first did this in the print FA back in 1989, I’m repeating the exercise…
Since this was hugely unpopular but caused exciting debate when I first did this in the print FA back in 1989, I’m repeating the exercise. It arose from a flippant conversation in a cafe with the late Steve Whitaker, where we started categorising comic creators of all kinds in a sort of league table structure – who belongs in the premier league, who in the first division, and so on.
No, it’s clearly not serious criticism or a sensible way of assessing artists, but I had fun with it. Obviously comparing writers, artists and writer/artists is a pretty meaningless exercise (I thought of doing three separate lists, but that seemed to be compounding the silliness too far), as is comparing Hugo Pratt with Carl Barks and Robert Crumb.
I’ve not made any great efforts to be up to date – my expertise is out of date, and it is easier to make judgements like this about people who aren’t early in a career. Note that this is on how much I admire their work, not at all on how important they are – clearly Hal Foster would rate way above Ai Yazawa on that kind of scale.
Premier League
(Arbitrarily set at 12, in no particular order)
Jack Kirby
Osamu Tezuka
George Herrimann
E.C. Segar
Ai Yazawa
Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima*
Hugo Pratt
Harvey Kurtzmann
Carl Barks
Alex Toth
Robert Crumb
Cliff Sterrett
* Yes, I know they make it 13, but they are as a team rather than both individually.
Second Tier
(Arbitrarily set at 20 – these are more or less in my order of preference, so you can see who were in my head as candidates for the Premier)
Charles Schulz
Leo Baxendale
Alberto Breccia
Rene Goscinny
Bernie Krigstein
Jack Cole
Herge
Bill Watterson
Steve Ditko
Jaime Hernandez
Gilbert Hernandez
Milton Caniff
Joe Kubert
Roy Crane
Jose Munoz & Carlos Sampayo
Floyd Gottfredson
Noel Sickles
Eddie Campbell
Ken Reid
Don Martin
Third Tier
(Let’s make this 40, again in something like order)
Gilbert Shelton
Davy Law
Jules Feiffer
Grant Morrison
Peter Bagge
John Stanley
Junji Ito
Alan Moore
Tohru Fujisawa
Steve Gerber
Art Spiegelman
Scott McCloud
Sergio Aragones
Alison Bechdel
Will Eisner
Gary Panter
Eric Drooker
Ernie Bushmiller
Al Capp
Burne Hogarth
Mark Marek
Moebius
Mark Millar
Claire Bretecher
Tsugumi Ohba
Chris Ware
Daniel Clowes
Jacques Tardi
Larry Marder
Mike McMahon
Sanpei Shirato
Carmine Infantino
Sheldon Mayer
Ben Katchor
Russ Manning
Mark Beyer
Bryan Talbot
Robert Kanigher
Harvey Pekar
Guido Crepax
Fourth Tier
(By this point, I have tried less hard to think of everyone, but it’s still in something like order)
Winsor McCay
Gil Kane
David Mazzucchelli
Walt Kelly
George McManus
Crockett Johnson
Charles Burns
Aline Kominsky
Justin Green
Harold Gray
Jim Holdaway
Takeshi Obata
Graham Ingels
Didier Comes
Brian Michael Bendis
Dudley Watkins
Chester Gould
Bill Elder
David Wright
Gene Colan
Ron Embleton
VT Hamlin
Lynda Barry
Jerry Moriarty
Enki Bilal
Johnny Craig
Nick Cardy
I guess I’d be starting a fifth tier around here somewhere – by this point it’s just some sample names.
Brian Bolland
Garry Leach
Jerry Grandenetti
Mike Noble
John Buscema
Chester Brown
John Wagner
Joe Sacco
Mark Newgarden
Al Williamson
Kim Deitch
Alan Grant
Reed Crandall
Dave Gibbons
Mike Sekowsky
John Byrne
Wally Wood
Roy Thomas
Pat Mills
Russ Heath
Hal Foster
Irv Novick
Sal Buscema
So I know I have forgotten plenty from the fourth down, but who have I omitted from the higher tiers? I’m particularly aware of the scanty coverage of non-anglophone creators, for which I apologise. I’ve done this without looking back at the list from 20+ years ago, and without scanning my bookshelves, so I know there will be some “OMG of course!” names.
Also, who is way out of place here, who have I put loads of places higher or lower than they belong? Who would you have had in the Premier? Who shouldn’t be there? (I am guessing Yazawa would be most people’s pick for relegation, but I honestly think she is that great.)
Ha, I have just noticed that this means we have the Silver Surfer and the Potato Surfer on the front page at the same time!
Without touching any of the good things about the list, and skimming it at best:
Much as I love their work, Monoz and Sampayo are way too high on the list, while Moebius is WAY too low.
And I suppose Frank Miller should be on it, too.
I’d stand behind both of those placements, personally. I’d probably rate Moebius higher if he’d never written anything. Yes, Miller should be in there – but I’d probably put him high in the fourth tier, maybe in the lower third tier on a generous day.
You indicate you don’t like the work Moebius has written? I’m not sure how ‘good’ the writing is for, say, The Airtight Garage, in the traditional sense but I’m personally very fond of it. I haven’t read any of the Blueberry books he wrote for Vance to illustrate and can’t remember what else he did solo.
I’ll second Franquin.
I really dislike the SF stuff – I didn’t even know he’d written any of Blueberry, which is possibly my favourite artwork of his. I will confess to an inconsistency here, because I am not allowing Ditko’s writing to drop him from where I’d put him just for art. I guess I’d seen a ton of Ditko the artist before reading anything he wrote, whereas that isn’t true for Moebius, so it’s easier for me to just think of Ditko the artist.
Well it IS a personal list, so I can’t really complain. In my case — and I realize this is sacrilege — I’ve never cared that much for Ditko. I understand his importance, and I appreciate it, but the artwork never grabs me the way I think it should.
P.S. Can I still write for the site, or did I just get fired?
Ha, if I fired everyone who didn’t like the same things I do, I’d simply have to write everything myself.
The two Chesters – Gould and Brown – are way, way too low – I’d put them up to at least third level, and possibly second.
Notable ommissions: André Franquin must be due a place in the top three tiers at the very least. And Dave McKean, although he’s massively overrated, must be due a mention in the lower reaches, just for the impact he’s had on other artists over the last couple of decades.
Yeah, you’re probably right that the Chesters are somewhat low. Franquin certainly should be up there in the third. I can’t say I’d put Dave McKean above the fifth there.
That’s where I’d put him as well – he’s a much better cover artist than comics artist. He’s still ten zillion times better than his cohort Neil Gaiman though (the most over rated comic book writer ever)
I think Neil was consistently among the half dozen or so best writers at DC through his big years. Why he was getting rated so far beyond that always mystified me. He was very good at writing stories as if they were things of literary value, and I think he delivered material perfectly designed to suit a certain section of his audience – those who thought they were cleverer than the rest, and wanted to be flattered in that position. I do think it’s too easy to blame Neil for that, BTW – he was a pretty good writer, and it’s not his fault some people overrated him to a ludicrous degree.
But didn’t people overrate him precisely because of his ability to flatter the self-perceived cleverness of his audience?
An old flatmate had the Sandman books in the lounge. Bored one day, I started to read them. “The thing about clever-clever”, I thought to myself, is that you need to be clever to get there.”
I read some of the storylines, and realised that wasn’t the case at all! They were simply leapfrogging clever in their rush to get to clever-clever.
Anyway, no Glenn Dakin?
Yeah, I really like Glenn Dakin – I’d put him in the fourth tier, I guess.
The… the fourth tier??? I might rate him below Campbell, but only marginally.
This is where any kind of objectivity breaks down, of course. I read Campbell, Dakin and Elliott at an impressionable age and was… well, impressed!
I’d stand by that, I think – there are some serious talents in that fourth tier, it’s not an insult!
Goscinny but no Uderzo?
(great to see FA back by the way)
I am hesitant about placing Uderzo because I have read I think just one story he wrote. He’s a fine artist, but I think Goscinny was the major talent – his work with Morris is just as good, for instance.
I wasn’t thinking same level, but his asterix artwork should put him on the fourth or fifth teir, in my humble opinion
Having had a quick look through the various lists – and I wont mention how many names I did not even recognise – whilst I appreciate that this is a list based on personal choice, I would certainly question Carmine Infantino being included in any of the levels, let alone the third one (and above Gil Kane, John Buscema and Gene Colan; but then we really are entering the realms of personal prefernce) !
I admire his old Flash work, in particular, significantly more than anything by Kane, Buscema or Colan. I’m actually a little surprised at how low in the third I have placed him, but we’re only talking a handful of places here.
I think we need a comics creator pools panel.
So, this is a highly personal and arbitrary list?
Well it’s by me only, so personal, and I can’t see how such a list could not be arbitrary.
Putting Alan Moore in the third tier is insane and invalidates ther whole list.
He is manifestly the most important and influential creator in comics history.
I’m not sure what the purpose of this exercise is, except to insult Moore and a lot of other fantastic creators. I’m basically sorry I even looked at it.
As I state clearly, this isn’t about importance and influence. Having said that, he is nothing like the most important and influential creator in comics history – in that regard he doesn’t even compare with a lot of other people. I’d also note that only one writer makes it into a higher bracket, Goscinny. I would never wish to insult Alan – we were very good friends once, and although we have drifted apart since I left comics ages ago, I have nothing but good feelings for him.