Round 1: 11 - Guy Adams or Garth Ennis - Ultimate Not Wagner Tourney

[Colin YNWA]

In both of todays competition I think it will be helpful to remind folks of a couple of the 'rules' of this tourney. First we are discussing the work of writers for Tharg - so one writers here has done some wonderful, wonderful work in US comics, but how does his work in House of Tharg stack up to a new(ish) comer who is having a significent impact. Vote 11 is

Guy Adams - http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=GUYA

or

Garth Ennis - http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=GARTHE

What is all this nonsense you ask well we're finding out whose 2000ad (Meg and associated items) writing do you prefer? Voting - just add a comment here with whose work you prefer (and anything else you might wish to say to discuss their work). This vote closes some time early Saturday 6th June?

Want to know more https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=46461.0

Two more Round 1 votes off start tomorrow.

[broodblik]

Based on his AD work I will have to go for Adams.

[rogue69]

For given us Judge Joyce I'll go for Garth Ennis

[abelardsnazz]

Garth Ennis. Looking at his list of Dredd work, there are more misses than hits, but those that hit weren't bad and Judgement Day was OK.

[AlexF]

I'm voting Adams; consistently fun versus inconsistently fun. But I confess True Faith and Strontium Dogs: Monsters are tapping on my shoulder and coughing pointedly.

[TordelBack]

Outside of Tharg's fiefdom, I think Ennis is a brilliant (if uneven) writer, one of the very best of the Command Module Alumni. For the purposes of this contest however his contribution is dominated by one thing: Ennis' tenure on Dredd wasn't bad, it just wasn't good.

At this distance, I can see that his was an impossible task, effectively replacing one of the greatest comics writers of all on his greatest creation, week in and week out, 52 weeks a year, at the ripe old age of 20. Under those conditions that he produced so much Dredd work that is still readable, some of it genuinely memorable, is remarkable in itself. That he's so self-depreciatingly humble about it makes it even more impressive.  And that's before you compare him to the rolling clusterdrokk that followed...

Elsewhere, I really enjoyed his Feral-in-Derry story Monsters, and Time Flies and The Corps were pretty inoffensive. True Faith I go both ways on.

However: achingly gauche and painfully worthy though it is, it's Troubled Souls that really left an impression.  I know it must be a pain for people to laud your earliest story as your best, but with McCrea's incredible painted work, it was a proper landmark. After watching Banshee, Spider-man and Captain Planet stumble around Ireland through embarrassed fingers, here was something real.  Even if it was a bit cringey too.

So it's really for this that I'm giving Garth Ennis my vote, even as I happily acknowledge that with Ulysses Sweet, Hope and especially Max Normal Guy Adams actually has a higher hit-ratio. 

[Buttonman]

Ennis for me - 'One - nil!'

[Bolt-01]

Garth Ennis.

[sintec]

Ennis has done some amazing work outside of 2000AD but weighing his 2000AD output against Adams' Hope and Max Normal strips.... it has to be Adams

[IndigoPrime]

it's Troubled Souls that really left an impression

Although that wasn't in 2000 AD. It does seem a few writers are now being given credit for wider sister-title input (such as Action and so on), which seems a bit unfair.

Looking through the output of both writers, this feels like another round between contenders who are going to get smacked when going up against a proper heavyweight. Ennis's 2000 AD work, when in stark black and white (and, er, red on Barney) is just not that good. I have issues with Ennis in general. I have a love/hate relationship with Preacher. I found The Boys hideous, juvenile and relentlessly misogynistic. But his 2000 AD fare is mostly just mediocre.

I get that he was young, and so the editors are really to blame. But if we are just considering the material, we have a handful of solid Dredd's (and many poor ones), a couple of nice Strontium Dogs (Monsters/the surprisingly good Heartses) and one dreadful piece of dreck (Return of the Gronk); over in the Meg, his Chopper was perhaps best described as necessary, and he did... OK with a pointless task.

Adams hasn't done that much: a good 3riller, the divisive (and for me, risible) Ulysses Sweet, the reasonable Max Normal, and Hope. The last of those for me is the trump card. Out of everything on both lists, it's the sole strip that really rises above and is something properly special.

So: Guy Adams.

[TordelBack]

it's Troubled Souls that really left an impression

Although that wasn't in 2000 AD. It does seem a few writers are now being given credit for wider sister-title input (such as Action and so on), which seems a bit unfair.

Ah, I may have cocked up again, so. I thought it was all Tharg-adjacent work under consideration.  I've always viewed Crisis as the third leg of the Betelgeusian tripod, every bit as integral as The Megazine.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Ennis. If for nothing else, MUzak Killer.

[Richard]

Hope is brilliant, but I don't think Adams's body of work is really large enough to compete with Ennis. Yes he was a bit hit and miss, but more hits in my opinion. So I vote for Ennis.

[Funt Solo]

I guess the question you gotta ask yourself (punk), is whether I fired five or six is whether "2000 AD Presents..." counts as work for Tharg?


Edit: and while we're on the subject:




2nd (annoyingly pedantic) Edit: Does work for Joko-Jargo count?

[Richard]

Does work for Joko-Jargo count?

Of course it does, it's literally in 2000AD.