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Originally posted by Animalman:
quote:
Originally posted by KMT:
They made Rucka write an endless series of crossovers and saddled him with one second-rate artist after another on Tec until he finally had enough and quit.
Shawn Martinbrough wasn't a "second-rate" artist....and the coloring scheme they had was great, in my opinion.
I wasn't referring to Martinbrough. His stuff was great, as was the color scheme.

But Martinbrough was in and out, and Rucka was less than satisfied with the people they had filling in.

In an interview right before he left the Bat books, Rucka said, and I'm paraphrasing, that sometimes he would get the finished pages and had no idea what he was looking at. He'd ask for stuff to be redrawn and he'd be told "tough shit, the books need to go out on time."

At the end of his run Rucka seemed way burnt out.

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Originally posted by Animalman:
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They did the exact same thing to poor Ed Brubaker, probably the best Batman writer of the last 20 years, if not all time.
Scott McDaniel was Brubaker's regular artist for nealy the entire time(on Batman, dunno about 'Tec). Is he a second rate artist?!?

I thought his run was good....I don't know if I'd say the best Batman writer of the last 20 years....certainly not of all time. I'd say he's top 5 for the last decade(and a half). [/QB]
I can't think of anyone who's had a better extended run on Batman (I'm talking his run the main book here, not Tec) ever. I have everything post-Crisis and nothing else even comes close.

I loved McDaniel too.

The art on Brubaker's Tec run was decidedly second rate, specifically Tommy Castillo's stuff. Castillo just wasn't ready but Schreck gave him the job, and the book suffered as a result.

I personally liked his stuff the first three issues, but the people on the Bat boards just ripped him to shreds.

The last three issues of Dead Reckoning were a disaster too. The writing went into the tank, possibly because Brubaker was stretching a 3-issue story to six so it would be TPB friendly. And the art was horrible, particularly on the last issue.

Brubaker was all excited at the prospect of working with Ryan Sook. He was talking up his plans for Tec 800. Then all of a sudden Sook can't find the time to work on a monthly and Brubaker is gone.

Who knows who Schreck was planning on as regular artist. Maybe it was Pete Woods. Maybe it wasn't. With the way Schreck works it could've been just some schmuck who'd never drawn anything but had seen an episode of the animated series and once owned a Batman comic.

Sad thing is, I would put Brubaker and Rucka one-two on the all-time best Batman writer list. From the end of No Man's Land til last July they were cranking out the best-written Batman comics I've ever seen. Batman and Tec were never better than during that 1999-2002 period.

Now both writers are gone and the Bat books suck donkey balls.

I was able to get through Jeph Loeb's awful Hush run by telling myself that Azzarello was coming and I've never heard anyone say anything bad about 100 Bullets. Then Azzarello lays a great big steaming turd on his first issue and I'm thinking, "OK, only five more months and Lapham will be writing Batman."

Now it's five more months til Winick, and then five more months til who knows. Loeb still has to come back for another poorly conceived, poorly plotted, poorly written story that will take six months to tell and go absolutely nowhere.

Do the math. Hush (12 months) + Broken City (6 months) + whatever garbage Winick writes (5 months) + Hush 2 (6 months) = me being absolutely sick to my stomach because I have a choice of dropping the books or reading 29 months of very bad Batman stories.

Fuck you Schreck.