The best of the comic creative teams are the ones who stick together. I don’t just mean that as a tagline, there are few creatives who work together after one project. Whether it’s in the writing or art side, some people regularly work alongside others. But not all of them bring out the best in one another, some people are just going to drift apart. For the ones that do, it looks like a stable relationship reflects the content.
Some Good Comic Creative Teams
The regular teams you might see today include writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips. These two first met on the Vertigo miniseries Scene of the Crime and after Sleeper they were all but inseparable.
A few others that regularly work together include writing duos Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly as well as Michael W. Conrad & Becky Cloonan. While Conrad calls Cloonan his muse, Lanzing and Kelly were already friends. They’ve been working together since 2014 with hits and misses like The Harbinger. Not that Conrad and Cloonan are slacking, X-O Manowar Unleashed is the best thing to come out of them.
And these are just the recent examples. There are many others who make history.
Bad Teams
But not every creative team is so good. I don’t just mean the ones that can’t last, but the kinds that can bring out the worst in each other.
Here are two very similar cases. In my Hawk & Dove post, I talk about how Steve Ditko was hard to work with for Steve Skeates, especially in how Ditko apparently took control of the miniseries’ direction. A similar thing happened more recently when former DC Publisher Dan DiDio put Gail Simone and Ethan van Sciver together for Firestorm. What connects these series are themes of ideologically opposed people trying to work together. But nobody really puts the effort to get together in either of these cases, especially the editors in charge of them in the first place. It gets so bad that one half of the pairs just quit.
What Makes A Good Comic Creative Team?
That’s a pretty headline, Comic Life Partners is more like it… but you know SEO. Based on what indie comic team Bad Ink told me at a convention, it’s like getting a band together or looking for a roommate. Not everybody has the stamina to do all comic duties at once. But even the ones lucky enough to do so like Mike Mignola have to get help sometimes. Especially when getting older comes with health problems.
But finding the talent to complement one creator’s specialty comes with risks. Creative differences are easily the most obvious to deal with. In fact that’s also what caused a couple of teams to drift apart. While Stan Lee and Jack Kirby have made peace despite their differences, the same can’t be said for Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Claremont refuses to address Byrne by name at this point.
Most people are lucky to find friends to work with, that way they can work out their differences easier. But not completely, especially if one creative duty is lacking to make a bigger impression. Getting that talented friend is definitely worth it, but like all relationships, give and take makes it work.
Not Exclusive To One
Take for example Frank Quitely. This artist worked with two writers who for the longest time couldn’t stand each other. I’m of course talking about Grant Morrison and Mark Millar. Any lesser creators would’ve kept Quitely for themselves but these two didn’t let their feud get in Quitely’s way. Neither did they make much of a fuss when Quitely moved onto more profitable ventures like murals.
That brings up another point, sometimes creatives aren’t limited to just one partner or team. Geoff Johns for example works with at least two regular artists: Ivan Reis and Gary Frank. Johns and Frank even go beyond their DC runs for creator-owned franchise Geiger. I can consider that similar to Brubaker and Phillips with Reckless.
A Comic Creative Team Lasts For Reasons
So for everybody who stayed on for this long please take note. Good comic creative teams aren’t just about what their talents bring to the table. It’s how well they can communicate with one another to bring out the best stories possible. There are plenty of risks to consider like creative differences and reliability. But like any healthy relationships, finding a compromise is always necessary. No one person can be the leader in such a group or let their ideals get in the way for something to work. It’s why people have to get to know and level with one another.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.