Allen Varney saved you all from forcing me to write a post about Trump before I get around to the daily Trump Dump. He wrote…
Many years ago in The Comics Journal, editor Gary Groth listed as the greatest American comic book creators Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and Carl Barks. In a later issue he mentioned he'd only just barely omitted Jack Kirby. I imagine Kirby rates higher on your own list. Who would you propose as the great American comic book creators?
I have a bit of a problem with lists like that because I'm never quite sure of the criteria. For example, I often come across a lot of lists representing someone's views of the All-Time-Great Comic Book Artists and I'm never sure of the rules. Is the list a list of folks who drew adventure-type comics? Do folks who drew Archie or Casper even qualify for consideration? And how could they when the folks making up the lists don't know the names of most of the folks who drew Archie and Casper and can't tell those artists apart?
They often include Carl Barks but don't seem to know the names of anyone else who drew funny animal comics. Does MAD qualify once it moved from a comic book to a magazine? And so on. Most of these lists are more like the All-Time Great Comic Book Artists Who Came To Mind.
If you added in Mr. Kirby, Gary's list is fine by me. I'm assuming he's thinking of "comic book creators" as people who not only drew but had a lot, possibly everything, to do with the stories. What strikes me though is I'd have a hard time if you asked me to list the Top 5. Those four guys are easy picks. If I had to select one more, I'd come up with about fifty names and have trouble figuring out why this one should be in that fifth and not any of the other forty-nine.
I'd probably also cheat, ignore the "All-Time" aspect of it and confine my picks to folks who were in comics before I was, which means 1970. But that's if I did it and I won't. I'd piss off too many folks who are still around and have made it clear in subtle (and some not-so-subtle) ways that they think it's obvious — and maybe even widely-recognized, which it definitely isn't — that they're right up there with Kirby, Eisner, Kurtzman and Barks. I don't need that in my life.
