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Also, I think that Winnick isn't that great in general, and lately has been serving up work that is of even lesser quality than his previous work.
As for Rucka, I think I stated somewhere else in this thread or elsewhere on Barbelith, I feel like Rucka has been the most innovative and reliable of the 3 writers being discussed (his amazing Queen & County far outweighs his Wolverine or Wonder Woman work, although those latter superhero books have both been solid & entertaining - his Wonder Woman in particular I enjoy because that's such a hard character to make interesting and he is succeeding in making a monthly about WW work, IMO - and how many times in comic history can we have said the monthly WW book was really worth checking out at all?).
However, Rucka's Superman has been only ok for me (I feel he's sort of mismatched in being given a monthly Superman book to write; it's not quite the right fit for Rucka) and I wasn't a big fan of COUNTDOWN. I think the OMAC project mini was decent but not great. Mostly I enjoy his WW and am looking forward to him getting back to the Queen & Country comic book. (Rucka is writing another Queen & Country novel, not sure if I'll get to that though I'd like to eventually)
It seems like Rucka built his rep on Q&C and what I thought was a very excellent run on Detective Comics, and in the past year has been turning in work that's good but not quite as good as his earlier work. (although I still enjoy WW as I said -- oh, and wait a minute, forgot about his work on Gotham Central with Brubaker, I very much enjoy Gotham Central)
As for Winnick, he rates lowest of the 3 in my book. At most, he's a mediocre superhero writer who occasionally has a fun idea, a nice character moment, etc. His early Green Arrow arcs (right after Smith & Meltzer left) were the best stuff he's turned in during the past few years and it's not like those were brilliant, they were just fun Green Arrow books that showed an understanding of the sensibility of Ollie and his supporting cast.
Oh, and I guess I would be remiss not to point out that Winnick's graphic novel Pedro and Me is actually pretty decent (autobiographical work that Winnick wrote and drew about his friendship with gay AIDS activist Pedro (don't remember last name) during his stint on The Real World. It actually won a Pulitzer. I also think part of the success of that book was that it documents a time when most of America was not as tuned in to the gay community and not as gay-friendly as it is now (despite Republican attempts at present to be not-very-gay-friendly). The book is basically "wow, guy who never knew any gay people anymore gets to know a gay person and wow, they're wonderful human beings just like the rest of us" plus Winnick's experience of anti-gay sentiment and some AIDS activism stuff, also at a time when most were not nearly as aware of AIDS issues as we are now. Those are my recollections of it, having read it a few years ago.
So I guess I'd say in terms of quailty:
1) Rucka (the most versatile and Real Writer-y of the 3,
having written several best-selling novels in addition
to his comics output)
2) Johns (mostly reliable superhero writer, that's all he
does)
3) Winnick (sometimes just passable and sometimes really
sucky superhero writer, maybe Pulitzer Prize win isn't
quite as significant as it normally is, although he
is the only comic artist/writer to win a Pulitzer
besides Spiegleman for MAUS, although I think we'd
all agree the two are HARDLY in the same ballpark)
I should also say I've never read Winnick's Barry Ween, which helped put him on the map in comics/cartoons/whatever. It seemed silly and entertaining in a ranting sort of way from the brief excerpts I've seen in passing...kind of like a much, much lesser-quality Calvin & Hobbes with curse words. |
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