Writers who bring the 'meh'

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They're not particularly good, they're not particularly bad, they're just sort of there, and every once in a while you remember that they exist.

1. Steven T. Seagle (inspired by the Constantine movie adaptation turning up in my file this week)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 9 January 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

2. Joe Kelly

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 9 January 2005 17:50 (twenty years ago)

3. Kek-W

― Vic Fluro, Sunday, 9 January 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

Joe Kelly manages to have some really interesting ideas sometimes, but HE JUST DOESN'T GET GREEN ARROW and I don't know why keeps insisting on using him other than for cheap potty humour. Therefore, Joe Kelly stinks.

― Huk-L, Sunday, 9 January 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

4. Rascally Roy Thomas

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 9 January 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

Rascally Roy is pretty well below meh.

5. Gerry Conway

I may have been thinking of Joe Casey.

If not 6. Joe Casey

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 9 January 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

Kelly = X-Men, Deadpool, JLA & JLA: Elite, Action Comics, the new Space Ghost mini

Casey = Cable, Uncanny X-Men, Adventures of Superman, Wildcats Version 3.0, The Intimates, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

I'm partial to thinking the latter doesn't belong here (based on the last 3 things I listed), but prior to last year, I always confused these two as well. The fact that they work in the same "studio" (with #1!) doesn't help matters.

― David R. (popshots75`), Sunday, 9 January 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

Mark Waid (I'm guessing some will disagree...I'm not intimately familiar with his work, but it usually seems like Morrison-lite).

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 10 January 2005 00:29 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, objectively you're right, he's not too bad, but he does keep ending up in comparison with Morrison, where he comes across as someone who understands what Morrison's doing, but is just no fucking good at it.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 10 January 2005 01:37 (twenty years ago)

Waid aspires to meh! (Also, Joe Kelly's Deadpool and X-Men automatically lift him above meh although I did read something else by him that was dripping with meh, kind of like the target of a protracted bout of mehkakke.)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 January 2005 03:51 (twenty years ago)

Alan Moore!!

(i know i will find no support whatever, don't worry)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 10 January 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

Also the thing about Alan Moore and Mark Waid, is that whatever you might think of their work, they're not really middle-of-the-table stalwarts. Mark Waid was going to save the world with Kingdom Come about ten years ago, and Alan Moore is now in his third decade of "Biff! Pow!" headlines.

Isn't Halo Jones just Hopey for the UK, and thus by science your favourite comic ever, Mark?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 10 January 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

not by science, no

(halo too knowing abt self: jaime once said that hopey cd never write up her own story - he wz referring to letters she wrote to maggie which he started by trying to make the frame of stories, same as he had done w.mag letters in the opposite direction... except he realised if hopey wrote a letter it wd be totally incomprehensible, even to maggie, so he had to use another device instead)

(probably actually L&R is what soured me somewhat to halo, come to think of it) (except gibson's art) (so v.good call territory-wise)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 10 January 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

Judd Winick

― Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

YOU DIE NOW!

(oh all right, his superhero stuff is rub, but Barry Ween is just classic!)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 10 January 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

That's why he's meh.

― Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

The episode of the Real World where he was moping was one of the greatest moments of corny indie fuckdom ever.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Monday, 10 January 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

I know Dave Eggers wrote about this episode in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but did the Real World ever show Judd Winick peddling his wares in the offices of Might Magazine?

― ng, Monday, 10 January 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

I know they showed several panels of Barry Ween on The Real World but I don't know if they showed Judd pounding the pavement (which is too bad seeing as he's one of the few alumni to come on the show with a defined entertainment-based goal and to have reached and surpassed it).

I love that Sarah left Wildstorm for Real World Miami.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 January 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

I was under the impression JW was worth checking out. Am I wrong?

― Chrchuckis Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Monday, 10 January 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

I haven't read Barry Ween...actually, all I've read is his Green Arrow stuff, and the Outsiders, geez, I always forget about the Outsiders...and maybe a few Green Lantern issues here and there. But, um, I don't know, I think his Outsiders is pretty good. Okay, he's a little better than MEH, but he has MEHish tendencies sometimes.

― Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

Abnett and Lanning

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

Tom, you lie! (Granted, before Legion, I would've agreed w/ you, based solely on the fact that they were behind Force Works.)

Alan Moore's ABC work (outside of LXG) (& even there) (go ahead & vouch for Promethea) can totally veer into enjoyable high-end MEHville. (Winick's often found on the outskirts, just a couple of stops away from the center of the MEHverse.) The end of his Swamp Thing run does that, too. (Mark, you're gonna have to MEH about Watchmen on your own.)

And here's where Huk-L goes stabby - Geoff Johns. Continuity minutae as plot justification (not fancy seasoning for solid spandex meal) & build-ups to deflating, perfunctory climaxes are so MEH.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 05:48 (twenty years ago)

Judd Winick is a bland superhero writer with the mutant power to force a token I AM GAY, DO NOT HATE ME CHILDREN character into everything he writes, Barry Ween is poorly cartooned (and appallingly lettered) undermining what scant humour can be wrought from its derivative and cliched set-ups, and PEDRO AND ME is one of the ghastliest comics I have ever set eyes on. Astoundingly, the cover is not the worst thing about it.

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/images/covers/000830/other/pedroandme.jpg

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 09:27 (twenty years ago)

David, are you using MEH as an acronym for something I'm not familar with? None of these things sound like middle-of-the-league-table stuff.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 10:16 (twenty years ago)

Neil Gaiman, at least nowadays.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

Though it's not like I picked the most precise of words. I was trying to describe writers who aren't just "not very good and not very bad", but who have made a decade-plus career out of it.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

But Johns's build-ups are so great, you almost don't mind the meh revelations and resolutions (I mean, was there ever any doubt that when Hourman I was rescued from the Time Stream by Hourman II, that Hourman III would wind up sacrificing his artificial life so that Pere et Fils could have a second chance? But the ride their was kinda nifty. Ditto with Hal Jordan.)

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 14:51 (twenty years ago)

Seconding Steven T. Seagle, based reading It's A Bird last night.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

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