"When you consider Eisner, Kurtzman, Kirby, Ditko, Miller, Simonson, Byrne, Schultz, Watterson, Trudeau, on and on and on at the tippy top of what's out there, the writer/artist list just seems longer, better and faster to rattle-off than the works by writers and artists who separate the jobs."

Claremont/Bryne.  Miller/Mazzuchelli - Batman: Year One.  Peter David/Todd McFarlane - Incredible Hulk.  David/Dale McKeown - Incredible Hulk.  Roger Stern/John Romita Jr. - Amazing Spider-Man.  Bob Layton/David Michelinie - Iron Man.  Roy Thomas/John Buscema - Conan The Barbarian.  Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan - Tomb of Dracula.  Brian K. Vaugh/Pia Guerra - Y: The Last Man.  Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon - Preacher.  Robert Kirkman/Tony Moore/Charlie Adlard - The Walking Dead.  Pat Mills/Kevin O'Neil - Marshall Law.  Doug Moench/Paul Gulacy - Master of Kung Fu.  Steve Gerber and company - Howard The Duck.  Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell - From Hell.  Grant Morrison/Richard Case - Doom Patrol. 

I could go on and on and on.

Mike

But an artist that can't create a coherent story?  Certainly you've seen that.  I know I have.  No matter how pretty the art, if I can't tell what's going on, am confused by the panel layout or characters in general, then they as an artist are no more important to comic books as a medium than the greatest writer who can't draw.

You appear to positing that even the worst artist is more important to comics than a writer.  Can't agree with that.

Exactly.  I don't think a single person in this thread thinks that there can be comic books without an artist.  None.  I think the semantics of the argument are tripping people up.  Not all artists are good story tellers.  They may be able to draw a pretty picture, but their stories are little more than an effort to showcase their art.  Those who are good storytellers, and this is where semantics creeps in, are creators.  I think of JB as a creator.  I think of Walt Simonson as a creator.  I think of Ditko and Kirby as creators.  They both write and draw.  But that is not the exclusive purview of artists, as if they are the only ones who can create comic books.  Some are writers who have trained themselves to draw in order to have more control over the stories they tell.  Some writers, like Matt Groening, used his crude drawings to great effect in creating LIFE IN HELL and THE SIMPSONS.

If the question of this thread is simply can comic books exist without an artist, the answer is obviously no.  But to go further and say that every artist, no matter the talent level or ability to create a story, can create a comic book while no writer, no mater their artistic ability or lack thereof, can create one is wrong.  Hate to mention it, but Bendis! gained much of his early indie fame from his self published comic books featuring his own art...and no one would call him an artist by any stretch.

I think what JT is reacting to (and I could be wrong and if I am feel free to correct me, JT) is the writers and some fan's assumption that of paramount importance in modern day comics is the writer. That the writer is the 'creator' of the piece and the artist is merely the tool the writer uses to achieve his vision.

As if the artist is not only subservient but automatically lesser than the writer. But I've seen way too many instances where writers I assumed were good when paired with good artists turned out mediocre when paired with an average artist to believe that's true.

In movies the director gets the bulk of the credit when the movie turns out to be good, the writer of the movie gets less credit because a great script with a bad director will make a bad movie. A good script with a great director can still make for a great movie. For me that's where I fall on the issue; the comic book writer is equivalent to the movie writer but the success of the work depends on the artist who is (or should be) the director. That means if a writer fills ten pages with talking heads the artist can cut that down to size, put in some action, add some interesting angles to create some visual excitement.

I think the discussion turned into one on semantics and semantically all the dissenters were correct but I don't think that was the core point JT was trying to make.

Also, the amount of work put in is not equal, generally speaking an artist of a comic book will put in more hours than will the writer (it's a very rare artist like JB who can pencil three or four books a month but there are a lot of writers who can do that) and yet in modern days the writer gets the bulk of the credit. Equal split of credit would be a nice ideal to strive for.

I liked Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's JLA, but I felt and still feel that Morrison made many basic writing errors that were covered by great art and the shrinking fanbase (not giving the character's names to the readers, not explaining the powers to the readers, basic but important stuff. But stuff that in-the-know readers felt they didn't need to know and didn't care about anyone who might actually need to know that information) but for some reason when people (especially online) talk about it now it isn't referred to as Morrison and Porter but just Morrison. Porter is less than an afterthought.

Randy, some comic book creators work better in collaboration and some don't. Producing monthly, high quality work is incredibly difficult and to do it for enough years to get good at it is difficult as well. Which is why the split often works for comic books. But there's a lot of great stuff by writer/artists which I often feel is much better than the collaborative stuff. Examples exist of great work created by both method but then you get comic strips and the work done by collaborators are usually so much lesser than the work done by writer/artists that I tend to skew towards a singular vision.

This happens in novels as well, I can count on the fingers of one hand the books where I feel a collaboration has produced a better novel than the best of the two writers can achieve on their own. In fact I can name those novels (March Upcountry and the rest of the Empire of Man series by David Weber and John Ringo). Weber provides the plots and is a better plotter than Ringo, Ringo has a different, more direct, sensibility that lends itself well to the story and the lead character.