quote:

---

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
His lyrics for the Magnetic Fields were funny, poetic and slightly maudlin. Very enjoyable.

---

do you mean the Flash Girls?

Oops, Flash Girls, sorry. He journaled his lyrics in an entry where he also mentioned the Magnetic Fields and now they get all confuzzled in my brain.

~ no snowflake ever falls in the wrong place ~
__________
AJGraeme
First Heretic of the Cheese Llama Cult

Alright, let me try this again.
First, I have a personal bias. I feel like one of those old folk fans who blasted Dylan for going electric: i mean, i love comic books as a medium, and I feel like Neil "abandonded" them when they really need him. Alan Moore is still pretty much the top man in the comics field-- a really big fish in a really small pond, basically. In other words, there's lots of fine fantasy and horror writers. There still aren't enough comic geniuses.

That said, i was a bit unfair yesterday. I haven't read Coraline, and after reading TOP TEN: BOOK 2 last night, i'm starting to think Moore is also coasting. Top 10 is a superhero homage filled with tons of in-jokes and great bits about comic history... just like Supereme... and Tom Strong... and League of Extrodinary Gentlemen (if you replace comics with "Victorian fiction")... and Pictopia...
I mean, this stuff is awesome if you're a huge comic fan, or love errata, or whatever, but i'll be the first to admit that most people won't think jokes about "crises" and "rewriting continuity" are hilarious. Plus, Moore's started to repeat himself.

So i guess its just taste. Moore's doing incredible stuff that's incredible to a select few... Neil's doing good to medicore stuff that a large group of people can get. None of them is on anything approaching a new SANDMAN or WATCHMEN. The torch has been passed. Ennis, Ellis, Morrison, Bendis-- they're the revolutionaries now. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Ah well. At least they're not doing bad adult cartoons on basic cable.

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~

Join the Church of the Risen Morrison!

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com-- Its a slightly less eloquent me

Don't tell me that two of very few surviving greats are "coasting-" it'll drive me off the edge. They're probably working on secret projects. That's it! Dirtman! Clockmen! Uhm, Marsh Thing! All sorts of things that will be their best yet.

Relax, you fiends! I'm only joking.

Hey, at least they're coasting... Stan Lee, one of the true greats, is doing... um... what do you call it when you make crappy cartoons and webcomics about boy bands? "Sucking", I think.

And besides, there's still a huge amount of talent around-- Benis, JMS, Kevin Smith, Ellis, Ennis, Morrison, that dude who writes Batman now, all those guys at Crossgen (Ron Marz, baby!).... there's lots and lots and lots of talent. Its like the 60's for music-- even if dylan and the Beatles died, it would still be good.

and yes, my metaphors are getting really stupid.

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~

Join the Church of the Risen Morrison!

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com-- Its a slightly less eloquent me

One word for anyone who thinks Moore is coasting:

Promethea.

End of that discussion.

Is he covering some old ground? Yes, he is. He's working on quite a few things at once though, and all of those are different. Top Ten and Tom Strong arn't changing the world as we know it, they are simply good, fun comics. Every work cannot be a masterpiece or the artist will pop. Sometimes even the most masterful have to ease off a touch and just focus on something that's fun for them. The luckier ones like Moore and Gaiman are both good enough and popular enough for even those relaxed bits to be worth publishing.

---
jello.
aka aron.
"That's it buddy! You just lost your brain privileges!" - Plankton

GMzoe.

What i mean, Neil Gaiman is farmous. Most his work has been with Dave Mckean. He hadn't made so good work, alone without Dave. Alan Moore is alone, evrytime he makes something good, it's with a new artist.

Beware, when you go to bed. Don't expected the Sandman is't there.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twoman:
What i mean, Neil Gaiman is farmous. Most his work has been with Dave Mckean. He hadn't made so good work, alone without Dave. Alan Moore is alone, evrytime he makes something good, it's with a new artist.

---

I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. Some of Gaiman's best work was on Sandman, and he worked with various artists on that one. McKean just did the dust covers.

--
"With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane." -- John Irving, The World According to Garp

I mean Dave Mckean has always been there, but to support Neil.

Beware, when you go to bed. Don't expected the Sandman is't there.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twoman:
I mean Dave Mckean has always been there, but to support Neil.

---

I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you explain how McKean 'supported' Gaiman in Sandman (or Miracleman) where he did only covers?
Do you mean that people are used to seeing them together, and the covers give a tenuous link to continue that?

McKean is associated with Gaiman, but i'd argue Gaiman boosts McKean, not the other way around. And its still a tenous partnership-- they do good work togther, but they're not dependent on each other. If you know something about comics, think of Lee-Kirby or Ennis-Dillion. You seem to suggest Neil and Dave are like that, and I don't think thats the case.

You could say Neil benefited from Moore's patronage, though.

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~

Join the Church of the Risen Morrison!

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com-- Its a slightly less eloquent me

Ennis/Dillon create great stuff partly (some would say mostly) because of their cooperation. Moore and Gaiman create great stuff because they are the best writers this side of Hemingway. Dave McKean had nothing to do with American Gods or Good Omens, both of which are really damn good. Or very little to do with them, anyway. Moore and Gaiman are both geniuses in their own right.

Relax, you fiends! I'm only joking.

Thanks for further explaing my point. I dunno how to get it across if Twoman isn't an ordinary comic fan, but if you want to get extreme... think of something like Lee/Kirby as Elton John/Bernie Taupin. They're okay solo, but together they shine.
Now, think of McKean/Neil as McCartney/Lennon. Its good together, but its also good solo (if you think Paul dosen't suck, that is).

Gah... i keep getting muddled up in metaphors. I think the most clear is this: When I think of Garth Ennis, I also think of Steve Dillion. When I think of Neil, i don't automatically think of Dave McKean.

I mean, i'm a fan, so i know about their connection... but they're good on their own.

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~

Join the Church of the Risen Morrison!

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com-- Its a slightly less eloquent me

Neil Gaiman is my favorite writer.
Alan Moore is my favorite COMICS writer.

That's how I see it.

(oh... and I hate Paul McCartney )
(solo, that is...)

***"Well, seeing that today certainly is my day - why don't you call me Wednesday? Mister Wednesday. Although given the weather, it might as well be Jcizenman, eh?"***

All hail the mighty Citron!
http://www.chenjiyue.com

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Lord of Nothings:
The torch has been passed. Ennis, Ellis, Morrison, Bendis-- they're the revolutionaries now. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

---

Ellis and Morrison have been coasting for a while too, actually. since the end of Invisibles (or at best JLA) and Transmet, both of them have been churning out some pretty mediocre stuff.

_______________________________________

Inactivist of the Radical Status Quo

Good point. And their stuff is more clearly generic-- they've written some pretty good superhero stories. Woohoo.
(i'm not kidding. they wrote some good, solid JLA stories. all they were were good solid

And I hate solo Paul, too... but i didn't feel like qualifiying that in my analogy.

As for the "writer/comic book writer" thing: Alan Moore is my favorite writer, period. Neil Gaiman is my second favorite comic book writer and somewhere in low 80's on my list of top horror/fantasy writers.
As for whether he's my favorite writer named "Neil" (however you spell it)... that depends on how good Cryptonomicaon turns out to be.

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~

Join the Church of the Risen Morrison!

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com-- Its a slightly less eloquent me

There is a tremendous difference between Gaiman's and Moore's ways of writing. Which might explain the divergence in opinions (even considering that this is Neil's board, right?)

Alan Moore is without any doubt a genius. One glance at the sheer amount of his work, all high quality, is enough to leave you baffled. His work is very intelligent and unusually precise, especially for a comic writer. Nothing is left to chance, not one single word. There is a feeling of high density emanating from his stories, as if every picture, every sentence is another brick in a throughly planned construction.

Alan Moore is an architect.

His skill for telling stories can only be labelled mastery. Take a good look (or better yet more than one) at Watchmen and V For Vendetta. There is an infinite number of pieces and layers, and everything has its place, adding up to well designed whole. And nothing more. Every piece is a piece of the story, it will never be anything else. You cannot remove or add anything, it would look like a pimple in the face of perfection.

That is his goal: perfection. Flawlessness. Symmetry.

Neil Gaiman was never like that. His stories are in fact a lot like dreams (which is why I believe that Sandman worked so incredibly well for him). He does not try to command the story or master it. Instead he lets it take the lead and follows it down the hill, over stepping stones and sometimes through muddy waters. The journey might not always make sense. But should it? There is charm in these little imperfections, in peculiar and seemingly improper details. It's not all smooth and well-proportioned but often playfully asymmetric and thus organic. He keeps adding new spices and ingredients to the sotry, enjoying the occasional tastings as much as the end result.

Neil Gaiman is a cook.

And yes, there is a mystery in his creations because you never know where it began or how exactly it came to pass. I doubt he really knows it himself. His stories are filled with so many little things, some seem to be unimportant, some seem like they don't even belong there. Which makes it all the more wonderful. And in itself very wise. We don't feel like the stories could have happen, we feel like they did happen. They do happen. Maybe not here, maybe in a very weird place, very far away. But they do happen. Somewhere, his stories are true.

We love them for entirely things. We are impressed by Alan Moore's amazing blueprints and his impressive constructions that contain more details than we could fathom with one look and yet are all connected. And we are charmed by Neil Gaiman's wonderful nouvelle cuisine, the delicious orchestration of scents, the heart-warming taste. It feels like home, doesn't it?

Oh dear. I've been babbling I guess. Just wanted to give you my opinion.

The abyss has become our horizon.

Hey satachrist and all the others (you guys have a heck of an imagination in chosing this names, how do you do it??? )

Anyway it was very well said!! The whole Moore-architect Gaiman-cooker thing really liked it!! As for me I'd have to choose Gaiman, because he's the guy who got me hooked-up in comics, because no matter what Sandman will be always my favorite comic and finally because between architcts and cookers I'll always choose the cookers!!
That said in the last months I started to read Moore's comics and although his stories are completely different then Gaiman's I still enjoyed them a lot (I read 'V for vendetta' and 'Swamp thing', more because I wanted to know how constantine got created then then anythingelse I have to confess). But today I started to read 'Promethea', it was mentioned by someone I think in this thread and I liked the pix in Van gogh style. I just read few pages but it's REALLY REALLY good, I can't really tell right now, but I think it's gona be one of my favorite. Thank you all!!

Ciao

SE

Stan Lee and whoever the other guy is that created Spider-Man (there's a big debate over it) got me hooked, but Neil got me rehooked.

Hrm... this is really hard. Moore's stuff is more fun if you're in on the joke, but Neil's stuff can be more profound and applicable to the real world. But then Neil never had a joke about a mice infestation becoming a "crisis" and then getting retconned from the timeline... hrm...

Excelsior!

~~~~~~~~~



Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey thats me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

"To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible God"-- Jorge Luis Borges

http://lon.blogspot.com Its a slightly less eloquent me

I read and enjoy both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman each immensely. To choose between the two, as one being more talented or prefered to my reading taste, I cannot do.

Contrasting them, I would compare their writings to separate pools of water that upon diving into are of the same depths, but Moore's pool of writing has for the reader a greater number of rippling waves sent out from the emersion.