Keith Giffen: S/D

S: All his Legion. Every bit of it (three major runs). Whenever Levitz flew solo as writer, the quality immediately dropped from *really great 2nd-tier superheroes* to *quite enjoyably competent soap-opera*. Early on Giffen's joy in collaborating would throw up perhaps inadvisable ideas like "I know! I'll draw Invisible Kid inexplicably returning from the dead after 15 years on the last page just to see how Paul handles it!", but they coasted through on esrsatz thrill-power at the time [leaving Levitz to clean up the mess via tedious cliche later], and when he came back with actual worked-out ideas (the costume/line-up revamp late in the Baxter run, the Five Years Later series), he was unpwnable.

D: Reign Of The Zodiac. And judging by the Howling Commando preview thing, any editor needs to make sure he never, ever opens a series with pages of colour-coded but unattributed dialogue exchanges again. It's an especially baffling trope given how long he resisted actually writing dialogue (and with good reason - he has achieved some occasional competence since dire beginnings on Trencher, but is never actually good).

[actually, was there a dialogue guy on Punx? I don't remember it being especially weak, though have never re-read it. Maybe he was better than competent on that.]

S: Video Jack. The only thing I can think of that he's not credited as co-writing (uh, unless he is! I should probably check this) that really comes off as having his spirit in it (especially since it was written by someone who I just think of as a generic pre-Crisis hack. but I'm not even sure who [PROB'ly Cary Bates], that preconception is all I remember. The series is so '80s it's untrue, being about a dude or some dudes who accidentally get sucked into TV through a malfunctioning remote control or some such, and spend six issues bouncing through loads of thinly disguised version of American telly shows that I don't recognise.

D: Everything on Image he's ever done ever, I think. Trencher is interesting to see him working out that particular drawing style, but not for anything else. Dominion needed an editor badly, aside from running out of money for colour between #1 and #2. And there was something like ten years of work-for-hire on Erik Larsen team books in between, which I'm going to continue to condemn sight-unseen.

S: the Lobo Convention Special - the gratuitous violence-for-showing-off's-sake actually turned onto targets that Grant and Giffen could direct bile or satire towards. and was it Kevin O'Neill art?

D: most other post-JLI Lobo, but ESPECIALLY the Death & Taxes miniseries. From the title through every page, a blatant and boring way for Giffen to make some big cash quickly to pay off a tax bill.

S: Ambush Bug, all of it (okay I'm missing an Action or DC Presents issue or two but I assume they're good. anyone got spares?). Especially #3 of the first miniseries and the Secret Origins issue, if only because you get the great Kevin Maguire TV Batman cover on the latter.

D: Almost everything he's ever done for Marvel apart from the new Defenders miniseries (which actually isn't doing much for me, as a non-Marvel Zombie who doesn't get any of the references).

S: The March Hare, especially in the colour reprint coming out soon: Giffen's rarely good in B&W (though the Munoz-ripoff stuff works better than others), so this should be a welcome improvement.

more later, probably only in S form though, it's getting too hard to think of thinks I didn't like or never bought!

D: later issues of Vext which failed to develop themes, retreaded material and generally petered out

[oops on forgetting the bold tags halfway through above]

Unlike Kit, I'm really enjoying the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Defenders mini, even though a lot of the humor actually depends on characters being way out of character.

And I think the early "Five Years Later" issues of LSH are some of the best mainstream comics anyone's ever done. (I sort of think of the end of that story being in 1992, with the wonderful, bittersweet story in Annual #3 where we find out what's up with Garth--Giffen drew the cover but was otherwise uninvolved--although really just the first dozen are the ones that click most.)

SUPER-DESTROY: the new Trencher collection that I saw last week: apart from being Trencher, it's printed from shithouse scans of the comics, and costs 230% of the combined price of the original issues! And - if you actually wanted it and didn't care that it's printed so badly as to be nigh-unreadable - it's not even complete, suggesting that you'll have to shell out big for another slim volume in six months time. FUCK THAT.

his Penthouse Comix stuff, not so much

Definitey search. I also recommend Ambush Bug, Heckler, and Justice League.

The more recent I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League books are just okay. I really liked the first issue of Hero Squared, but the second one was only so-so.

I remember wanting to buy Heckler when it first came out, what w/the Giffen & Fleming reunion. No idea why I didn't.

Thanks for reminding me about Hero Squared, Matthew. I'd forgotten the name since you first told me about it.

UPDATE: Giffen is totally credited as plotter on Video Jack, I was a fool to think otherwise.

Anyone read his Defenders? or Omega Men?.

Omega Men: he pencils the first 7 and writes/draws a Lobo back-up story in the second last one (37) which IIRC isn't very good. Although that's in comparison to the general awesomeness of every other Omega Men story.

also possibly the first example of him using a rigid grid for all panel layouts on a series? every page is 4x3, even the ones with guest artists in the latter few issues. even Dark Knight (out before this) and Watchmen (coming out at the same time?) broke the gutters for splashes &c, Giffen just lets larger pictures get cut into chunks and lets the dialogue guy handle it.

cos I just bought it. someone said it was good on the interweb (He!di MacD0na1d?) and twelve bucks for 200ish pages, I figured might as well (horrible computer lettering though, I might not be able to make it through!)

was watchmen really as late as 86?

S: I also remember a issue of Jonah Hex with great Giffen artwork (oh, here we go: http://davekarlenoriginalartblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/hexed-by-keith-giffen.html ), as well as a few issues from Marvel's New Universe title JUSTICE which had really awesome Giffen Artwork. That might have been the only thing of merit from the entire New Universe (And I had a subscription to DP7!)

D: Everything he did for Image. Correct me if I'm wrong? Images of Shadowhawk QED.

D: Recent toothless/joyless Ambush Bug Didio stroke-off.

S: Doctor Fate 4-part miniseries on baxter paper in 1987

What exactly went wrong with the last Ambush Bug series, anyway? Not that I got past issue 1...

I don't know, but god was it bad. Damn near unreadable. I kinda wish Giffen and Fleming had gotten together before signing up for a new mini, just to confirm that they no longer had the mojo of the old days.

Ambush Bug : Year None was pretty wild and disconnected, but I kept hoping that it might make sense once I got the last issue and read it all in one go. And then I waited and waited, and though #7 is out, I haven't gotten a hold of it yet. However, Giff's art is better when it's lo-tech: hand-colored and hand-lettered instead of with DC computers, and after the last 15 years of style evolution in his pencils, I've been hoping he would get back to his style from the mid- to late 80s, like the HEX look in my above link. If he did that then he would be well on his way back to, if not greatness, at least being a really cool mainstream creator. That said, I did buy multiple copies of Year None, because I have about 8 copies of each ish of the other AB miniseries, and I'm a freak like that.

giffen stopped drawing that way cos he got caught stealin not just the style but entire panels from the work of a much greater comic artist, jose munoz

Yeah, yeah, I know, but I in no way consider jose munoz greater, he's way too cartooney and grotesque. Giffen went from influence to plagiarism, but what great plagiarism. Sure, what he did was crummy. but... he needs to go back to the heavy closeups, everything in shadows, all that in the 9 panel grid way. gorgeous.

Also, is Ambush Bug considered to be the comic which originated making fun of 'fanboys', and even the term 'fanboy' itself?

I remember this thing being visually incromprehensible:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61sabXK7ACL._SS400_.jpg

Yeah, his style is totally on acid when he was at image. Images of Shadowhawk is also pretty bonkers, I think there may have been some lobo stuff by his that looked this wacky too.

lol munoz too 'cartoony' and 'grotesque' and giffen a great 'plagiarist', v gd trolling had me going there for a minute

S: The March Hare, especially in the colour reprint coming out soon:

Did this ever actually happen?

ESS OR DEE: I LUV HALLOWEEN?
cos I just bought it. someone said it was good on the interweb (He!di MacD0na1d?) and twelve bucks for 200ish pages, I figured might as well (horrible computer lettering though, I might not be able to make it through!)

This turned out to be HORRIBLY bad btw, possibly the very worst Giffen comic I have ever touched with my own hands (and let's face it, that's saying a lot)

Well what's you take on it, Ward?

Keith Giffen's writing work on the first Annihilation series was pretty fun, especially the lead-in Drax the Destroyer mini-series.

aww chelvis i always end up sounding like a miserable crank when i slag off giffen (or the equally beloved dave sim) on ILC... i mean, of course comics is full of plagarism, swipes, unoriginal or stolen ideas, hacks even more cynical than giffen... but giffen's whole career is characterised by stealing from other, more talented (imho) ppl - his early marvel stuff is pure kirby (tho' obv virtually every marvel artist was told to imitate kirby when they started out), and there was a phase when he was trying to imitate alex toth, until it became obvious to everyone that giffen simply didn't have the chops for that task... (for a much more imaginative use of toth as a springboard, check out trevor von eeden's work on the near-forgotten 1980s DC comic THRILLER... written, of course by robert loren fleming, who, based mainly on this title, i really thought was gonna one of the all-time great comic bk writers... shame that never happened)

and different strokes/tastes and all that, but afaic, munoz and sampayo are one of the very greatest writer/artist teams - they created their own unique universe, a world of grotesque noir that had never been seen in comics before, black black ink dripping off the page, penlines that cut the page, cut to the heart of the character's pain and confusion... 'mister wilcox, mister conrad' by munoz and sampayo, reprinted in RAW #3, is a masterpiece on a par with moebius' 'white nightmare' strip

I agree, Munoz is an incredible artist - to criticize him for being "cartoony" and "grotesque" is totally missing the point, since the grotesqueness is part of what makes his art so unique.

Has Munoz's and Sampayo's "Alack Sinner" series been translated to English? I haven't seen in mentioned too many times around here.

Dang Ward, thanks for the articulate response. I will have to actually find some of Munoz/Sampayo then - like, in print and in my hands to inspect. I'd never seen it either in stores or at conventions in the US, so I thought it was incredibly obscure.

It seemed that the later Munoz which totally influenced Miller's Sin City was much more of an egregious swipe by Miller (and I'm not really that appreciative of Miller's Sin City style), so I considered the Giffen plagiarism a bit more harmless. Also, looking at all the styles KG's been through, I really think he has gone through the most number of style changes throughout his career, which is something in and of itself.

THRILLER!! for some reason I've been thinking about that one a lot lately.... such a weird book.

I know at least part of Sinner was published back in the 80s maybe by Fantagraphics or Kitchen Sink, as I read some of them.

Looking them up on My Comic Shop, Sinner was published in the same format as Love & Rockets by Fantagraphics back in 87/88.

http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=152301

There were also editions of Munoz/Sampayo's work from Catalan Communications in the 80s. If you know a place that stocks old Euro-albums, you've got a pretty good chance of finding some. Unsure of current print status of much of that work, though.