Cosmic Madness 2019 First Round : Will Eisner Region
Welcome to the first round of Cosmic Madness!
Here we have the Will Eisner Region, one of our two regions devoted to comic book writers. And there’s no two ways about: this region is STACKED. From Brian K. Vaughan to Mark Millar to Robert kirkman to Ta-Nehisi Caotes to Brian Bendis… not to mention tourney favorite Ed Brubaker and the only female writer, Kelly Thompson!
All you have to do is pick which writers you want to win in each contest. The first round of voting will go from March 20-24, with the second round kicking off on March 25.
All the info you need, including the complete bracket and info about the contest, is available at Cosmic Madness HQ! Now GET TO VOTING!
Brian K. Vaughan
Brian Keller Vaughan is an American comic book and television writer, best known for the comic book series Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, Saga, and, most recently, Paper Girls. For his writing, Vaughan has won 14 Eisner Awards, 14 Harvey Awards, as well as a Hugo Award.
In terms of modern comics only Brian K. Vaughan and Saga can compare to the scope of readers that Kirkman’s Walking Dead has reached. Keep in mind this is without a television show to drive sales and just comparing it to a Star Wars/Romeo and Juliet mash-up doesn’t do it justice to how richly creative the title is. In fact Saga alone would be good enough to earn Vaughan a spot on our illustrious list of creators but it doesn’t hurt that Y the Last Man continues to stay relevant even though it has been TEN years since the last issue of was released. Even new books like Paper Girls show how valuable a meticulous, years-long story driven book can be in an age when most comics struggle making it past volume one.
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Mark Millar
Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, best known for his work on Chrononauts, Superman Red Son, Old Man Logan, Civil War, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter FIVE of which have been adapted into feature films. While in 2017, Netflix bought Millar's comic line, Millarworld, which Millar is already begun publishing comics for and SIX of those have already been approved for production already! Jupiter’s Legacy, American Jesus, Empress, and Huck are all on the way along with two of his newest series The Magic Order and Sharkey The Bounty Hunter.
Now movie deals may not be your benchmark for what makes a good writer but it does give a great list of books to try. Millar’s ability to take a story that you thought you knew and put it into a concise, satisfying format with a twist on the end is what makes his books so great. So try one or try 20 because he’s written it all!
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WHOM WILL YOU CHOOSE…
Scott Snyder
Snyder is an American comic book writer most known for his flagship Batman series that ran through the entirety of the New 52. Primarily writing for DC comics some of his work includes American Vampire, Detective Comics, Metal, Justice League and Swamp Thing.
His work on Batman: Black Mirror ultimately proved him to be the right man to take over the character at the beginning of the New 52 and now his Metal series has launched him onto the Justice League title. As the flagship character of ALL comics, Batman is the standard and its’ writers are held to that extremely high standard. Scott Snyder has a strong case for being the best Batman writer of the past decade and now has an army of Batmen to back him up.
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Brian Bendis
Bendis is an American comic book writer and has won five Eisner Awards for both his creator-owned work and his work on various Marvel Comics books. Starting with crime and noir comics, Bendis eventually moved to mainstream superhero work. With Bill Jemas and Mark Millar, Bendis was the primary architect of the Ultimate Marvel Universe, launching Ultimate Spider-Man in 2000. He relaunched the Avengers franchise with New Avengers in 2004, and has also written the Marvel "event" storylines "Secret War" (2004–2005), "House of M" (2005), "Secret Invasion" (2008), "Siege" (2010) and "Age of Ultron" (2013). Now Bendis has taken his talents to DC and is not only writing Superman, Action Comics, Naomi and Young Justice but also FOUR Jinxworld titles as well!
Credited with creating Miles Morales, Jessica Jones and a slew of other Marvel heroes, Bendis’ legacy on Marvel’s comic books is cemented and, after writing every Marvel hero possible, he has set his sights on the DC Universe. His ability to create new story lines is second to none and his shakeup of the DCU is just beginning.
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WHOM WILL YOU CHOOSE…
Kelly Thompson
Kelly Thompson is an American writer of novels and comic books. She is best known for the Jem and the Holograms comic with co-creator and artist Sophie Campbell, a modern reimagining of the 1980s cartoon of the same name. Her other works include A-Force, Captain Marvel, Mr. and Mrs X, Hawkeye, and Uncanny X-Men.
A name many may not be familiar with but if you start to look at some of the quirkier books that your reading, you may start to see Thompsons name on many of them. You can blame Thompson’s excellent writing on Rogue and Gambit as the reason why Kitty Pryde and Colossus didn’t get married. (Her Mr. and Mrs X book is much better than any honeymoon they would have had). While Kate Bishop is really coming into own though titles such as All New Hawkeye and West Coast Avengers. Now she’s on her biggest book to date, Captain Marvel, just in time for Carol Danvers new movie and hopefully she’s able to fix the travesty that Civil War II did to the character.
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Ed Brubaker
Brubaker is an American comic book writer and cartoonist. Brubaker's first early comics work was primarily in the crime fiction genre with works such as Lowlife, The Fall, Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives and Scene of the Crime. He later became known for writing superhero comics such as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Catwoman, Uncanny X-Men, and The Authority. He has won an Eisner Award on six separate occasions.
Today Brubaker is the go to writer if you’re looking for your next crime drama. Along with Sean Phillips (check the artist side) his longest running book, Criminal, has just begun another volume and his recent Kill or Be Killed comic should be in contention for the best book of all of 2018! Don’t let that stop you from going back and re-reading those Marvel books though. The Winter Soldier set up the foundation for the MCU’s version of Bucky Barnes and his impact on the Marvel Universe can be felt to this day.
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WHOM WILL YOU CHOOSE…
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates is an American author, journalist AND comic book writer. Coates gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he wrote about cultural, social and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy.
Coates debuted in the comic world with an all new Black Panther book and when issue #1 went on sale in April 6, 2016, he and Marvel comics sold an estimated 253,259 physical copies, the best-selling comic for that month.
He is still the current writer for Black Panther and his success has launched a ton of spin-off Black Panther series’ and expanded the World of Wakanda more than ever before in a very short amount of time. This has also allowed him to become the current writer for Captain America and only time will tell how much he’ll expand the Sentinel of Liberty’s world too.
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Robert Kirkman
Kirkman is an American comic book writer best known for creating The Walking Dead, Invincible, Outcast, and Oblivion Song for Image Comics, in addition to writing Ultimate X-Men, Irredeemable Ant-Man and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He is one of the five partners of Image Comics (the only one of the five who was not one of its co-founders) and currently serves as the chief operating officer for Image. While his Skybound imprint continues to publish not only his comics but also a slew of up and coming talent with great books each and every week.
Currently Kirkman is still writing The Walking Dead (issue #200 coming soon!) and while his long running Invincible comic has recently ended (#144 issues) he has begun to fill that void with TWO new series. Oblivion Song is the story of 300,000 people who mysterious disappeared into a hellish dimension full of monsters that could only be in comics. While Die Die Die is nothing but action action action and although we haven’t seen a trade yet, fans who have been reading since the beginning will vouch for its awesomeness.
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WHOM WILL YOU CHOOSE…
Check out the results for the Will Eisner Region so far!
And don't stop there! Be sure to vote in the STAN LEE, BOB KANE,
and JACK KIRBY regions, too!