Monday, February 22, 2010

Dream Street

I had a conversation with an artist friend of mine once and we got onto the subject of artists being better than the material they were given.

Recently, Marvel announced that former X-Factor writer Louise Simonson was returning to "finish" what she'd started with a new series, X-Factor Forever.

The "Forever" concept is a simple one; Marvel calls in a former writer known for working on a character at a specific time and brings them back to finish the story they never got a chance to finish.

I'm going to read it. For one reason or another, I always loved her X-Factor work, along with another bit of her work.

Along with her work on X-Factor, she also created another of the favorite comics of my youth, Power Pack, a book that I always felt read more like a children's book than a comic book and mean that as a compliment to both genres.

Simonson had the great fortune of being teamed with artist June Bringman, an artist who could draw children as something more humans with large heads.

So that brings me to this posts, I could have one comics wish it would be this:

when it came to a sense of wonder in comics, the printed page could barely contain him. He was pulling influences from all over the place while forging a style uniquely his own. He was always one of my favorite artists and always seemed to be greater than the material at any given time.

If I ran the funny farm and could have gotten anything greenlit, at a certain time, it would have been this:
POWER PACK BY LOUISE SIMONSON AND MIKE WIERINGO

Preferably, in a star-spanning, time-spanning graphic novel format. Wouldn't that have been the epitome of what we know as awesome?

What's your comics dream project?

11 comments:

PJ said...

Mark Waid.

John Romita, Jr.

Batman.

Devon Sanders said...

@ PJ

Just yesterday, I was looking at Punisher/Batman and thinking, "C'mon, John! You were born to do Batman."

Anthony Strand said...

Jeff Parker and Amanda Connor on a Justice League of some sort. Preferably Antarctica.

Peter said...

Mark waid & JH Williams on Superman.

And Mike Mignola on Hawkman.

Ken Cox said...

Not to keep naming the same creators, but I would have loved to have read the Captain Marvel (Shazam!, not Mar-Vell) series Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo were to have made back in the mid-90's as part of the post-Zero Hour, Issue #0 lineup. I remember DC made a preview booklet of all the #0 issues (including Starman) and that was in there.

KENT! said...

I'm not going to stretch..

Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones: finishing the Marvel Boy Trilogy.

Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham finishing MiracleMan.

Please.

PJ said...

I could also go for a Walt Simonson Superman book.

And, really, the writer on the Batman book almost doesn't matter, as long as Romita does the pencils.

Devon Sanders said...

Here's another:

Grant Morrison and Walt Simonson on Orion.

ChrisM said...

There's a few 'unfinished' Marvel runs that I would love to see..

John Byrne on what he had to say on Fantastic Four and maybe West Coast Avengers. There were some covers and tantalizing hints of what was to come-but shitcanned by Shooter before they came to fruition.

Frank Miller was poised once to do Dr. Strange with Roger Stern, before he took over Daredevil. Miller drew Dr. Strange once or twice-and I always wondered what would have happened if he had gone the route...

and my ALL-TIME unfinished series?
SEVEN HELLS by Devon Sanders.

Devon Sanders said...

@ Chris

I keep think about it. I really do.

slam21 said...

Alan Moore & Neal Adams (dream big!) on Superman vs. Spider-Man, 2.0.