You are here
Home > Best Of Lists > Best Writers of 2018

Best Writers of 2018

The amount of writing talent in comic books today is kind of insane. While comics have always been and will remain a visual medium, a good script can make or break a book. Gone are the days when the job of the writer was just to fill in text bubbles, now they are responsible for planning out entire story arcs, building worlds, and doing all of this on a deadline. Narrowing down the best writers of 2018 was difficult, you can listen to us argue about it on Rad Raptor Radio or watch the video, but ultimately, we came up with the following five writers who we believe best exemplified their craft this year.

Lone Ranger5. Mark Russell

As a writer Mark Russell’s motto should be, “hey, give me your garbage properties, your cliched characters, your overdone storylines… and I will turn them into solid gold.” Last year he did this with The Flintstones, turning a kid’s cartoon into a sophisticated and entertaining meditation on modern consumer capitalism. This year he did it with The Snagglepuss Chronicles, taking Hanna-Barbera’s iconic pink cougar and turning him into a gay southern playwright in the era of Joseph McCarthy. It was brilliant, entertaining, incisive, and relevant to our contemporary culture in a way that it had no right to be. Add to that his runs on Judge Dredd and The Lone Ranger (which is better than it has any business being), and his exceptional Porky Pig/Lex Luthor and Green Lantern/Huckleberry Hound crossover issues for DC, and you could make the argument that Russell didn’t write a single bad comic book this year. Next year is shaping up to be even better with Russell resurrecting the Wonder Twins for Brian Michael Bendis’s new Wonder Comics imprint at DC, taking on Red Sonja for Dynamite and (most excitingly) re-writing the story of Jesus (yes, Jesus) in The Second Coming for Vertigo. Mark Russell is a talent to watch and people (cough, cough, Tim, cough, cough) need to stop sleeping on him.

Daredevil4. Charles Soule

Charles Soule is an absolute workhorse of a comic book writer who, as we looked back on the year, quietly kept creeping up and up our list of the best writers. In addition to overseeing the whole Hunt for and Return of Wolverine spectacle (in my opinion, the less said about that the better, but you could argue that was more Marvel’s fault than Soule’s), he continues to write the excellent creator owned Curse Words for Image and wrapped excellent runs on  Darth VaderDaredevil, and Astonishing X-Men. Daredevil in particular, which he has been writing for the past five years, ended on a real high note that illustrated Soule’s uncanny ability to write a comic book that is relevant and emotionally significant while remaining entertaining throughout. This is a difficult balance to master and few writers handle it better than Soule. The complete collection of his 2014-15 run on She-Hulk was just released for this first time this past month and is worth a read if you didn’t catch it the first time around. This next year sees him teaming up with Scott Snyder for an as yet unnamed creator owned project and will likely see him continue to write Wolverine in some way, shape, or form. You’ll never be disappointed with a Soule book, and Curse Words in particular should be on everyone’s pull list.

HiC23. Tom King

Love him or hate him, there is no denying that what Tom King is doing in comics is unique and completely new. It is transforming the medium and every other writer has to contend with his formal and stylistic innovations. Sixty issues into his run on Batman and it is clear that this is a Batman book like we’ve never read before. Simply put, King has deconstructed the Dark Knight, diving deep into his psyche and giving us a Batman who is fallible and human, who is quite possibly insane. He is also writing Bruce Wayne in a way that few writers have done before – fleshing out Wayne the man outside of Wayne the Batman. Add in his highly acclaimed Mister Miracle book that wrapped up this year and the beginning of Heroes in Crisis, which dives into the accumulated effects of constant trauma on superheroes, and Tom King is at the absolute pinnacle of the comic book universe. We’re all on the edge of our seats to find out what he will do next.

Royal City2. Jeff Lemire

Black Hammer, Quantum Age, Doctor Star, Descender, Royal City, The Sentry, The Terrifics, Gideon Falls – somehow Jeff Lemire wrote all of these titles in 2018, while also handling all the art on Royal City. The thing is, each of these titles is in its own way excellent. Lemire continues to develop a brand-new Black Hammer superhero universe for Dark Horse Comics (which is set to crossover with the DC Universe this year), all the while continuing his work for the big two and writing his numerous creator-owned properties. Royal City, perhaps the best comic book that no one was reading, wrapped up in a satisfying fashion this year, closing out an intimate and engaging family drama. Descender, his beautiful sci-fi epic with Dustin Nguyen, also wrapped up while teasing the second half of the epic, titled Ascender, that will release in April. Perhaps no book, though, was more engaging than Gideon Falls, his horror/thriller comic with Andrea Sorrentino. The Rad Raptor Book of the Year, Gideon Falls is a gripping and innovative comic that explores the nature of madness through the eyes of its two main characters – Norton Sinclair and Father Fred. More than any other writer on this list, Jeff Lemire is impressive for his range – he can write superheroes with the best of them and then shift to small stories like Royal City and make that work as well. One this is for sure, though, if you pick of a Lemire book, you won’t be disappointed.

Venom 21. Donny Cates

You could argue that no comic book writer had a better year than Donny Cates. Fresh off the critical success of God Country, Cates started the year by writing Thanos which, with the introduction of the Cosmic Ghost Rider, became one of the hottest and most re-printed books of the year. He followed that up by re-booting Venom, re-writing the symbiote’s history and mythology and developing the intricacies of Eddie Brock’s character. Then, he simultaneously wrote two hugely entertaining and commercially successful mini-series – Cosmic Ghost Rider and Death of the Inhumans – all while continuing to put out his excellent creator owned books, Babyteeth for Aftershock Comics and Redneck for Image. The thing is, not a single one of these books was bad, and several of them were phenomenal. Cates’s real gift is taking characters and stories that no one cares about (the Inhumans… really?) and making them interesting, of spinning a tale about them that keeps you engaged from page one and leaves you coming back for more. There is depth there as well, though, Venom deals with mental illness and loneliness in the midst of classic Venom action, while Redneck (for my money, the best of his books) presents an intimate family drama set among vampires. With Brian Michael Bendis decamped to DC, Cates is his clear heir apparent at Marvel and it appears they’re going to follow him wherever he goes with a new Guardians of the Galaxy book headlining his 2019 projects.

Top