Comics Dinner Party

ztoical

Evan Dorkin posted a question on his blog yesterday asking folks if they could invite any five comic related people [they have to be alive, no calling up the likes of windsor Mckay] to a dinner party who would they be? and the counter question who would the five people be that you'd least like to be stuck at a dinner party with? He's running a contest for the best answers but I thought we could do it here for fun.

To avoid having this just be a list thread you must give reasons for your choices:

Who are the five comics-related folks you'd like to have dinner with?

1: Moebius cus well its Moebius
2: Alejandro Jodorowsky cus if Moebius is there we should have Jodorowasky plus he can read my tarot after dinner.
3: Killoffer cus his work is crazy and I want to crack his head open and have a look inside.
4: Nicholas Gurewitch cus he is super nice but does some evil and insane comics.
5: Thomas Ott cus his work is just insane and scary

There were lots of choices but some like Alan Moore, Gail Simone, Warren Ellis, the Harnandez Brothers etc I'd want to have a one on one talk with so I thought about this more as a group thing and what people might interact well with each other plus I'd have a big white table cloth and crayons and let them go nuts doodling on it - I beat with those five I'd end up with something really surreal at the end.

who are the five who would make for the worst night you can imagine?

1: Joe Q
2: Mark Millar
3: Rob Liefeld
4: Stan Lee
5: can't think of a 5th

All of the above for ego, ego and more ego - I can't imagine the dinner conversation being fun or interesting as they are all so self centered and would try and control the conversation or worse yet would just start stroking each others.......egos - yawn, bored now.

Fysh

Hmm, nice idea. So long as people give reasons for their choices, this could be very interesting. I confess I can't comment on your first selection since I'm only really familiar with Gurewitch out of the lot (I've read bits of Moebius' work and one or two things by Jodorowsky, but don't really know anything about them as creators). I reckon Gurewitch would have to be interesting to talk to, if nothing else because there's no way someone can get as much mileage out of 3-4 panels and use so many different styles without having a few interesting stories and ideas.

Agreed on your worst 5 though. Candidates for number 5 would be:

• Jeph Loeb (do I really have to explain this one?)
• Grant Morrison (he comes up with some great ideas but is breathtakingly rubbish at having an ending worth a damn or even anything remotely like a coherent narrative, which leads me to believe that a conversation with him would have interesting nuggets in the middle of it, but would keep ending in such places as "and that's when I remembered I was off my f*cking tits on LSD and was actually just sitting in a cupboard giggling to myself")
• Garth Ennis (has done some great work in the past but appears to be happy to continually retread old ground rather than push himself and do something genuinely different)

My five choices would be:

1) Alan Moore - come on, he's Alan bloody Moore. He's supposed to be a genuinely nice guy so long as you're not being fanboyish and chasing him into the toilet while autograph hunting, and, well, a guy who's at least 30% beard, who worships a roman snake god, and has written comics about everything from superheroes to number theory pretty much has to be interesting.
2) Warren Ellis - if you're going to have one cranky beardy Englishman, why not two? I reckon the interplay between Ellis and Moore alone would be worth watching, especially if you could get them to enact the shouting match Ellis claimed to want to have with him after reading the Twilight Of The Superheroes proposal...
3) Jim Woodring - the mind behind Frank has to have some weird ideas to share, I reckon.
4) Gilbert Shelton - partly for a bit of variety in terms of the work, and partly because his 60s counterculturalism would make for an interesting dynamic when bounced off of Moore and Ellis...
5) Richard Corben - I know little or nothing about him, but I really like his artwork and it's very distinctive when compared to almost anyone else working today. Thus I'm going to assume his contribution to the conversation would be equally unique.

(It probably goes without saying that I'd spend such a dinner party with my jaw sitting on the table, listening in rapt attention, but never mind...)

Snakeblood

Probably:
1: Ed Brubaker
2: Brian Michael Bendis
3: Alan Moore
4: Brian K Vaughn
5: Joss Whedon

I almost want to get Mark Millar or Dan Slott in so we can take turns punching them.

magwea

I'm not genteel enough for dinner parties, a night of crazy drunken debauchery with some of the worlds finest pulpster cartoonists more my kinda thing.

Takao Saitō, seventies gegike icon, comics connoisseur and creator Golgo 13.
Kazuo Koike, perhaps manliest man in comics.
Simon Bisley, the most atavistic man in comcis.
Jodorowsky, probably the only truly insane creator working in comics.
Kazuo Umezu, karaoke legend, and old school horror master.

For me, the inevitable fisticuffs is reason enough for bringing these guys together.

shenanigans1982

Fysh wrote: »

Agreed on your worst 5 though. Candidates for number 5 would be:
[ul]
[*]Jeph Loeb (do I really have to explain this one?)

On the plus side if he was there you could stab him repeatedly with a fork until he came up with a proper ending for the long Halloween.

TickingOrange

Nice idea
1) Neal Adams (Intelligent and opinionated)
2) Matt Wagner (Sharp, well read and has a sense of humour)
3) Ethan Van Sciver (Very funny guy)
4) Neil Gaiman (Funny, intelligent and articulate)
5) Mark Evanier (Worth his seat just for the Kirby stories and his vast knowledge of everything)

I have met the first 3 and have attended talks by the other two, so those are my impressions of them...

Worst:
1) Mark Millar (The ego has landed)
2) Alan Moore (Morrissey with a beard)
3) John Byrne (Need I say more?)
4) Chuck Dixon (No class)
5) Brian Michael Bendis (Just because the others should suffer)

Saruwatari

1. Jean Giraud (wonder what his English is like)
2. Katsuhiro Otono (compliments Moebius. Also more language problems)
3. Dave McKean (I wonder if he'd bring some wierd crap with him...)
4. Doug Tennapel (discuss newts, try to convert him into Atheism...)
5. Warren Ellis (fellow Atheist, could help to try converting Doug into one.

I'd love to invite Frank Miller, but there wouldn't be enough space for his whore...

thebaddy

Dave Sim
Chester Brown
Jeff Smith
Gary Groth
Steve Bissett

just sit back and watch them tear into each other and/or sit back savour the delightfully awkward/sinister atmosphere.

Ha.

markw999

Dave Sim
Ariel Schrag
Dave McKean
Warren Ellis
Alison Bechdel

BlaasForRafa

Cool idea but with this type of thread your normally allowed bring back one person from the dead and I'd love to talk with Jack Kirby, it would be fascinating just to listen to him tell war stories and hear his tales from all the different companies he worked for.

As to the list of invitees proper:
1: Moebius - One of the most intelligent men in comics, very philosophical. would hope he's not too dull though.
2: Howard Chaykin - Great writer/artist, nice funny guy but with a snarky side too.
3: Pat Mills - Give him a few drinks and say "so what about those editors then pat" and watch him go!
4: Ed Brubaker - Best writer in mainstream comics these days by a long way.
5: Steranko - Fiercly intelligent plus he can do magic tricks.

Would love to find space for Neal Adams, Druillet and Milo Manara as well...

Those who wouldn't get invited

Gary Groth: Arrogant tosser....although I'd nearly invite him to punch him repeatedly in the face...
Ron Perelman - Chief Exec of Marvel who pushed the speculator boom of the early 90's and nearly bankrupted marvel when the market crashed
Rob Liefield - Terrible artist responsibile for some of the worst comics ever
Fabien Nicieza, Howard Mackie and Scott Lobdell - Horrible hack writers from the 90's, the worst era in american comics, hard to seperate them.
Chuck Austen - Do I need to Explain?

alnolan

Hmmm.

Nobody has mentioned Robert Crumb. Afraid he'd nick the tablecloth?

1. Robert Crumb -- because I don't like my tablecloth.
2. Garth Ennis -- for the party pack of Guinness and the NI wit.
3. Brian Bolland -- so I could ply him with figs and get him to do a Joker sketch on a napkin.
4. Peter Bagge -- for his great sense of humour/bitterness.
5. Alan Moore -- If it was around Christmas time, he could be the Anti-Santa at the head of the table.

On the not-for-all-my-preacher-back-issues list...
1. Bill Sienkiewicz -- would arrive without a bottle.
2. Simon Bisley -- would arrive with too many bottles.
3. Frank Miller -- I wouldn't be able to see him through tears of disappointment over Dark Knight Strikes Again. I can forgive, but can't forget. Or forgive. And Varley can stay away and all.
4. Chris Donald -- nurse! Pass the split-side mending equipment!
5. Stan Lee -- Jaysus, that superhero reality show was the pits.

livingtargets

well it`s not so much Crumb stealing the tablecloth as him having some kind of freaky sex with it!

seriously though,I`d pick:
1.Mark Evanier,mainly because he knows his stuff.
2.R.Crumb,do I have to explain that one?!
3.Moebius,same as above
4.Alan Moore
5.Dennis Kitchen,for Eisner and underground comix stories.

and wishlist of dead folk.
1.Will Eisner
2.Jack Kirby
3.Alberto Breccia
4.Windsor mckay
5.Basil Wolverton