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Five For Friday #44—Dream Bullpen
posted August 26, 2005
 

Name Five Cartoonists, Any Era, Around Whom You Would Build a Comics Company

1. Jack Kirby
2. Jack Cole
3. Wally Wood
4. Osamu Tezuka
5. Joe Maneely

I would line up the art comics all-stars, but I think I'd have more fun with this crew plus it would be fun to treat some of these cartoonists really well.

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Rob Schamberger

Jack Kirby
Bill Watterson
Joe Kubert
Katsuhiro Otomo
Moebius

I mean, yeah, Otomo and Moebius aren't exactly known anymore for their productivity, but Otomo circa Akira and Moebius circa late Blueberry/early Incal would be great. Between these five, I could put out superheroes, newspaper strips, albums, and manga, and Kubert would be there to fill in all the gaps, and could really help with any of those areas.

Sure, I'd be out of business in a year, but that'd be a BEAUTIFUL year, wouldn't it?

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Jeffrey Meyer

1. Harvey Kurtzman
2. Herge
3. Art Spiegelman
4. Alan Moore
5. John Stanley

I'm not sure how Herge worked (I do seem to recall he used plenty of assistants) but I'm sure the other four would not only be able to create several varied books on their own, but also be able to assemble or attract crews of talent to flesh out any other ideas they'd have... at least that's the ideal situation.

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Gary Esposito

Charles Schulz
Alex Raymond
Wally Wood
Harvey Kurtzman
Moebius

The greatest cartoonist, the greatest adventure artist, the greatest comic book artist, the creator of Mad Magazine, and the greatest fantasy artist (IMO) are my starting line-up. The 2nd and 3rd stringers would be pretty incredible as well.

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Dan Boyd

Jack Kirby
Alan Moore
Frank Miller
Alex Toth
Moebius

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Christopher Duffy

My comic company is going to be the best one ever!

Bob Montana
Jack Cole
Milt Gross
Basil Wolverton
Jack Kent

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Fred Hembeck

1. Jack Kirby
2. John Stanley
3. Will Eisner
4. Carmine Infantino
5. Johnny Craig

Besides all of the gents above being exemplary cartoonists, each one is a noted idea man in his own right, easily able to create top-notch material for others to carry on under their seasoned direction. And except for Craig--whose scripting I'd want to anchor a line of what would likely be the best written horror and crime comics ever--they're all prolific artists as well. Yup, there you have it folks--the ultimate comics company, 1959 version!

The only possible problem I could foresee would be in preventing Carmine from cancelling Jack's books purely out of sheer habit...

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Dave Carter

1. Jack Kirby
2. Matt Howarth
3. George Perez
4. Rumiko Takahashi
5. Dick Giordano

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Johnny Bacardi

1. Alex Toth
2. Jack Kirby
3. Wallace Wood
4. Mike Kaluta (happy belated birthday!)
5. Jerry Grandenetti

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Benjamin Bayliss

Jeff Smith (Bone, Thorn)
Matt Wagner (Grendel, Mage)
Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol, Animal Man)
Darwyn Cooke (New Frontier)
Bill Willingham (Fables, Elementals, Pantheon)

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Warren Craghead

Name Five Cartoonists, Any Era, Around Whom You Would Build a Comics Company

1. Jack Kirby, and I'd let him do any crazy stuff he wanted to do, as long as he also did Kamandi.
2. Osamu Tezuka, as the other company powerhouse.
3. Gary Panter, for the weirdos (like me). He would have to hang out and draw with me though.
4. George Herriman and Charles Schulz as a strip-making tag team.
5. Ted May, because he draws funny stuff and it would be cool to hang out with Panter and Kirby with him.

I'd also hire Rob Liefeld so we could tease him.

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Tom Peyer

I like your Friday Fives. If it's not too late, here's mine:

Chester Gould
Brian Bolland
Harvey Kurtzman
Steve Ditko
Johnny Ryan

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Peter MacDonald

Jack Kirby
Will Eisner
Frank Miller
Alan Moore
Hank Ketcham

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Chris Arrant

1. Bill Waterson
2. Katsuhiro Otomo
3. Herge
4. Massamiliano Frezzato
5. Darwyn Cooke

It was difficult to complile this list, primarily because some of my favorite artists haven't really shown equally amazing writing skills, and with writers vice versa. For each to be the all-in-one talents, I had to go with some classics, some foriegn and some more modern.

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Christopher Cilla

1. Jack Davis
2. Hideshi Hino
3. Marc Bell
4. Ogden Whitney
5. Kamagurka & Herr Seele (they count as one)

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