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Dan Abnett, and it wasn't even a hard decision.
Perhaps treasonous to admit it but I prefer Ewing's work for Marvel compared to his 2000AD stuff, whereas with Abnett it's the opposite. I guess a sign that both writers are getting better with age!

Gosh this is a close one so far.
Two authors who are willing to try anything and seemingly not mind if it washes over our heads, and two authors who love mashing words together to sound weird for the sake of it.

As others have said, Mr Smith simply has too many all-time hits to ignore. For me that's Cradlegrave, Killing Time and 'the Herod' series from Devlin Waugh.

So yeah, John Smith

Cat Sullivan for bringing us the AC/DC VC BC warriors

Oh wow I'm torn here.
Edginton has some top tiers hits - Leviathan, Helium, Brass Sun
...but he's written a number of strips that really bum me out, most notably Detonator X and Kingmaker.
Scarlet Traces fluctuates from amazing to weirdly bland. Red Seas flew out of the gates and then just kept on flying rather aimlessly.
Edginton's Dredd's also veer from 'fine I guess' to 'actually quite good'.

In McConville's corner, his Dredd work has been pretty much 'Wow that's really very good', and his dabbles in other sandboxes tick my 2000AD boxes hard. I'm desperately waiting for him to deliver an epic-length all-new series.

Screw it, I'm voting for McConville.

Pete Milligan

It'd be nice to buck the trend but I have a big love for Milligan's style. Even the strips of his that don't work so well have an engaging pretentiousness.
Those seedings may yet prove to be an accurate barometer, Colin!

Michael you are an excellent sport!

My vote (as befits my forum avatar...) goes to Pat Mills.

Keeping the draw secret is for sure embiggening the anticipation. What's gonna happened?? (as my 2-year old is very fond of saying lately)

You're right this is a tough one. I really do like MACH Zero quite a bit, probably more than any single Hogan story. But then I love the whimsy of Timehouse, and the recent Zaucer of Zilk was superbly well written, so much zesty dialogue.

I'm giving it to Hogan not Rogan*, on the grounds that I'd be more excited to see his name in the credits box in the next Prog.

*That was one of Mac-1's pseudonyms, right?

I've downloaded Chunky but have no clue what to actually do to make comics appear within it - I assume there's some way to link this app to my 2000AD app? It might also be useful for reading stuff I've bought off Panel Syndicate, which I'm otherwise reading through the ipad's book reader app.

Like I said, I am an unimaginative guy when it comes to digital stuff. If it's not super obvious what to do, I'm unlikely to try very hard!
(Although I have tried making sense of Kek-W comics more than is advised)

I am a deeply unimaginative digital comics reader. I have an ipad, and use the default Apps for 2000AD, Comixology, and on occasion Marvel Unlimited. They all work pretty well, and certainly the screen (11in I think) is big enough to read OK, even the double-page spreads. It's also small enough that I appreciate getting physical copies of comics that much more, especially Rebellion's trade collections.

I've already bought and downloaded slightly more comics than I can easily read each month, so my digital bookshelf is much like my real bookshelves...

"Find out whatever The Phoenix did to build a new audience since 2012 and easy - see simple as that successful comic."

I hate to say it but I am not sure the Phoenix is a 'successful' comic, in the sense of 'does each issue make more money than it costs to put together'. My understanding is that the publisher, David Fickling, basically spent A LOT of his fairly vast fortune (a mix of his own family money + success from publishing books) but had enough money to keep it going for a few years. I believe the Phoenix as a publishing concept now DOES indeed make money by printing and selling collections of its strips, and because it has been going for long enough there's a seemingly endless supply of material it can package and reprint.

Of course, in another measure it's a massive success - it's an antohology comic that comes out every week without fail (even now) and is full of quality strips that appeal to its target age group. (My 10-year old daughter loves it; my 10-year old son not so much, but he's an avid Beano reader so both are well catered for!)

But to get that far, it needed serious cash + a publisher who really, really wanted the comic to exist. Not a million miles away from the Rebellion publishing model...

Argh so torn! But I'm in a Bishop mood tonight, so Bishop it is.

McConville for having a better imagination than A Digz

Last minute vote for K Goz please! Let us not forget his fateful memo that started off this whole crazy thrill train

That's a heartwarming tale of comics greatness right there.