Cosmic Madness 2019 : Elite 8
Welcome to the Elite 8 round of Cosmic Madness!
This is where the best of each region face off against each other for bragging rights as Regional Champion! Will Robert Kirkman come out on top of the Will Eisner Region? Does Greg Capullo have a chance against Jim Lee? All will be decided! And we have combined all four regions into this one post for convenient voting!
All you have to do is pick which creators you want to win in each contest. The Elite 8 round of voting will go from March 29-April 1, with the Final Four round kicking off on April 2.
All the info you need, including the complete bracket and info about the contest, is available at Cosmic Madness HQ! Now GET TO VOTING!
JACK KIRBY REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Greg Capullo
Capullo is an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on Spawn Batman, Metal and Reborn. Many of his designs laid the foundation of the New 52 and his newest creation, The Batman Who Laughs, is already a fan favorite. Capullo has been popping up here and there but word is a new Batman: Last Knight on Earth book with Scott Snyder will be releasing sometime in 2019.
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Jim Lee
Lee is a Korean American comic-book artist, writer, editor, and publisher. He is currently the Co-Publisher and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics. He entered the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and The Punisher War Journal, before gaining popularity on The Uncanny X-Men. X-Men No. 1, the 1991 spin-off series premiere that Lee penciled and co-wrote with Chris Claremont. In 1992, Lee and several other artists formed their own publishing company, Image Comics, to publish their creator-owned titles, with Lee publishing titles such as WildC.A.T.s and Gen¹³ through his studio Wildstorm Productions. Lee has also illustrated successful titles set in DC's main fictional universe, such as the year-long "Batman: Hush" and "Superman: For Tomorrow" storylines.
BOB KANE REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Andrea Sorrentino
Sorrentino is an Italian comic book artist known for his work for DC, Marvel and Image Comics. His work includes I,Vampire and Green Arrow for DC Comics, and Uncanny X-Men, Secret Empire and Old Man Logan for Marvel. He is currently working on Gideon Falls with Jeff Lemire over at Image. He is known for his unique style made of heavy inks and creative layouts.
COSMIC COMIX RECOMMENDS
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Fiona Staples
Staples is a Canadian comic book artist known for her work on books such as North 40, DV8: Gods and Monsters, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Archie, and Saga. She has been cited as one of the best artists working in the industry today after winning multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards. Although on a break from Saga now, we should see more of Fiona Staples incredible art by the end of the year.
WILL EISNER REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
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.
COSMIC COMIX RECOMMENDS
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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.
COSMIC COMIX RECOMMENDS
WHOM WILL YOU CHOOSE…
STAN LEE REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Grant Morrison
Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer and playwright and has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, with acclaimed runs on Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Since then he has written such best-selling series as JLA, Batman and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as The Invisibles, Klaus, Happy, WE3 and Joe The Barbarian. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning Seven Soldiers and All-Star Superman to the reality-shattering epic of Final Crisis, he has also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in Batman and Robin, Batman Incorporated, and Arkham Asylum.
In a tournament full of new school writers, Grant Morrison stakes his claim as an old school heavyweight. Of course he’s written all-time great books like Doom Patrol and All Star Superman but even now he seems to be putting together an instant classic with Liam Sharp in Green Lantern. While there seem to be many writers on our list that have contributed highly to the Marvel Universe, none have had as great an impact on what Morrison has done for the DC Universe. His Crisis events have shaped the foundation of everything you read from DC today and even Scott Snyder seems to be drawing quite a bit from Morrision’s style.
COSMIC COMIX RECOMMENDS
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Jason Aaron
Aaron is an American comic book writer, known for his work on titles such as Thor, Scalped, Southern Bastards, Ghost Rider, Wolverine and PunisherMAX. While his War of Realms event could already be the most anticipated book of 2019.
It’s a new era over at Marvel Comics. The likes of Bendis and Hickman had created the modern MU as we know it and then had the audacity to crash them all together and blow it up. Now Jason Aaron, due in part to his long standing and visionary Thor run, is attempting to bring the fun back to Marvel and stop all this needless Hero on Hero violence. His current Avengers run gets better with every arc and the intertwined Avengers One Million BC has readers excited for the even longer endgame. His Thor comics have transformed the character from a brute with a hammer to god worthy of that hammer. While the War of Realms promises to be the most fun you can have this summer. Even the fans of Aaron’s famous blood and grit stories like Thor: The God Butcher and Southern Bastards can rejoice because who else would Marvel let handle the return of Conan the Barbarian. Jason Aaron of course.