5 Best Comic Book Creators Of All Time

Hey good day to you too. Hope you having a great day. This week (if not month)  has been all about Stan Lee and his accomplishments. The more I read about him, the more I respected him. But he wasn't the only awesome creator that existed, they are many.  So today am going to give you the 5 best comic creators of all time. Let the countdown begin.

5 Frank Miller 

 I didn't even know I was a Frank Miller fan until I found out he was responsible for some of the best stuff I have ever watched or read such as Daredevil, The Dark Knight , Sin city , Ronin, 300(my favorite), Batman: year one and so on.  Born January 27, 1957 , Frank Miller is a comic book writer, novelist, inker, screenwriter, film director, and producer best known for his comic book stories. He grew up a  comics book fan; a letter he wrote to Marvel Comics was published in THE CAT #3 April 1973.That being said, what set Frank apart from the rest (aside from being alive)  is the way he infused the use of film noir and manga influence in his comic art Creation especially in Sin City, the way everything is in black and white leaving just few characters with a sharp colour to make them distinctive.  It is brilliant, I don't think I have seen any comic book writer use film noir the way Frank Miller uses it. He has brought huge success to both Marvel comics and DC comics, he single-handedly made Daredevil what it is today as well brought about the darker theme( using the Dark Knight) we all know today in comics.This guy is a living legend.

4 Bob Kane 

This is the co-creator of one of the most popular character on planet Earth; Batman. Robert Kane born October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998 was an American comic book writer and artist who co-created, with Bill Finger,the DC Comics character Batman.  It all began on a cold day in early 1939, DC's success with the seminal superhero Superman in Action Comics prompted editors to scramble for more of such heroes. In response, Bob Kane conceived "the Bat-Man" idea. His influence was the movie zorro(i knew I had seen that face somewhere before)  Leonardo Da Vinci ornithopter, a flying machine with huge bat-like wings and a movie The bat whisper. Even though he had the idea, he didn't know how to implement it correctly,  his first draft was more of a well dressed Tarzan that got bit by a bat and turned into a Bat-zarn;which might not be as awesome as you think. Luckily that was when Bill Finger walked in and decided to do a total makeover, giving the character a gray and black color instead of the original bright red, a cape instead of wings, adding gloves and leaving the mask's eyeholes blank to connote mystery. And that was how Batman was born.  They both created other characters too in the Gotham universe such as The penguin, Two face, Cat woman, Scarecrow and the one and only Joker( which was based on an actual joker playing card and a movie)  Bob Kane didn't have much character like other comic book artist but the one he has still remains The best in whole of comic book universe.

3 Jerry Siegel

He created the most popular character on the universe. A character more popular than the Beatles and Hitler combined. Born October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996, Jerry was a comic book writer noted for his famous creation of Superman, which he created in collaboration with his friend Joe Shuster. The two met in high school and since then, been friends. Siegel and Shuster had been developing Superman since 1933, hoping to sell it as a newspaper comic-strip. But after years of fruitless soliciting to the syndicates, Siegel and Shuster agreed to publish Superman in a comic book. In March 1938, they sold all rights to Superman to the comic-book publisher Detective Comics, Inc. Another forerunner of DC, for $130. Siegel and Shuster later regretted their decision to sell Superman after it became an astonishing success. DC Comics now owned the character and reaped the royalties. Nevertheless, DC Comics retained Siegel and Shuster as the principal writer and artist for the Superman comics, and they were well-paid because they were popular with the readers. Just like Bob and Bill,  Siegel and Shuster only had one character that was a huge success which was Superman and a boy version of him which was Superboy. He didn't only work with DC Comics, he worked for other comic company like Marvel Comics, Archie Comics and one time for Disney.

2 Stan Lee 

Come on you should know he would be on this list , he changed comic book way of thinking from being the conventional  superhero cliche type to being an actual superhero, showing what it means to be one and what you give up when being one.  Born December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018, he was a comic book  writer, editor, and publisher who was active from the 1940s to the 2010s. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business to become Marvel Comic's primary creative leader for two decades, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics industry. His characters are much and equally successful, having collaboration with others at Marvel—particularly co-writer/artists Jack Kirby and  Steve Ditko. He co-created numerous popular fictional characters, including superheroes Spiderman, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Black Phanter, Daredevil, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man(the list does go on) . In doing so, he pioneered a more naturalistic approach to writing superhero comics in the 1960s, and in the 70's he challenged the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority leading to changes in its policies allowing for more freedom for writers and artist. In the 1980s he pursued development of Marvel properties in other media. And even after his retirement from Marvel in the 90s, he remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently made Cameo appearance in movies based on Marvel characters(everyone favorite) . Stan was a legend and will forever be missed. Excelsior Stan.( P. S to know more about him check my last post )

1 Jack Kirby 

I have ton of respect for Jack kirby,  he was the Stan Lee of his period(if I may say so) His works are amazing, it's like he has the Midas touch, everything he does or is involved with becomes a colossal success. He created Captain America with writer-editor Joe Simon, Fantastic Four with Stan Lee, the Hulk, the Fourth World, X-Men, the Avengers with Stan Lee and so on.  He was and still is a legend. Born August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994, he was a comic book artist, writer, and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators of all time. He grew up in New York City, and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. And following his passion for comics, he entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. It was at Marvel, in collaborating with writer and editor-in-chief Stan Lee that Kirby hit his stride to the fullest in superhero comics, beginning with The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961).The landmark series became a hit that revolutionized the industry with its comparative naturalism and eventually, a cosmic preview generated by Kirby's boundless imagination. His artistic style was unique Jack Kirby has been referred to as the "superhero of style", his artwork described by John Carlin in Masters of American Comics as "deliberately primitive and bombastic". His contributions to the comic book form, including the many characters he created or co-created and the many genres he worked on have led to him being referred to as the definitive comic book artist. Given the number of places Kirby's artwork can now be found, the toys based on his designs and the success of the movies based upon his work, he was declared "one of the chief architects of the American imagination."

 He was regarded as a hard working artist, and it has been calculated that he drew at least 20,318 pages of published art and a further 1,385 covers in his career. He published 1,158 pages in 1962 alone.Kirby has also created stories in almost every genre of comics, from the autobiographical Street code  to the apocalyptic science fiction fantasy of Kamandi. He is indeed the KING of comics.

And that is all for now,  this guys made a huge impact, pushing the boundaries and making dreams come alive with their work and talents. Even though they are not with us physically, they can rest wherever they are knowing how much life they had a positive impact on. So

Till next time don't stop the artist in you.