Do Not Buy List

Frank Miller's been making some headlines this past week - after coming out as a rabid and ignorant anti-Muslim bigot, this week's he's turned his focus on Occupy Wall Street, digging his hole a little deeper. Aside from inspiring some fun jabs at himself, his rant really didn't have any merit - though it does reinforce my firm belief that the man is insane.

And that brought to mind a topic I've been wanting to do on this blog for a while - my 'Do Not Buy' list. Those creators whose modern works I will not purchase for any reason. (Older works are sometimes exempted - most of them used to be good before they turned crazy, or became hacks.)

First up, Frank Miller. Now, I read all of All-Star Batman and Robin (at least, all that has been released) and I enjoyed it - though probably not quite as Miller intended, as its sheer awfulness kept me howling with laughter. Miller was once a good writer, but he's now an aging one-trick pony who's used up his last trick. The only thing the man was ever good at was writing Noir-influenced work, and he's pretty much humped that horse's corpse dry.

Next, John Byrne. Like Miller, Byrne used to be fantastic. Loved his art, loved several of his iconic runs (Fantastic Four, She-Hulk, Superman... at first..) and really wouldn't have said a bad word about the guy. Then his ego came creeping into the picture, and along with it, some of his unsavory tastes. If he came on as the writer on a book, he'd disregard what any writer had done before him. (See : The Demon) Inappropriately sexual situations became more commonplace. (See : Superman mind-controlled into making a pornographic film with Big Barda. Or, on second thought, don't.) I'm honestly beginning to wonder if the resemblance of Ego, the Living Planet, to Byrne is just a coincidence.

Third on the list is Byrne's former X-Men cohort, Chris Claremont. These days, he basically just writes Psylocke fan-fiction that Marvel sometimes publishes. The last time I enjoyed his work was the Claremont/Lee era of X-Men. Though, if I look at it critically, he was never a good writer - but he used to be interesting, at least.

Number four is Mark Millar - who is almost as good at characterization as Michael Bay. (See : Civil War) There's very little of his work that I've ever liked - The Authority, basically. But after Civil War, and Wanted - the man will not see another dime from me.

Fifth on the hit parade is Garth Ennis - Garth Ennis is the kid who takes a dump in the sandbox and thinks it's the funniest thing that has ever happened. And every time you see him after that, he brings it up. I don't find his work offensive, so much as I find it dull. Hitman was okay, and he wrote some interesting war stories for Enemy Ace, but I think that The Boys isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and Preacher's worth less than half of that.

Those are the big five. All writers - artists don't tend to piss me off as readily as writers can. There are a couple of guys who sometimes skirt the edges of the list - Brian Bendis, Warren Ellis - and a couple of folks that most people would have on their version of the list that I cut some slack (Chuck Austen, Rob Liefeld).

Oddly enough, I think my opposite of this list - the Always Buy list - would be mostly artist-determined.