#Artists: Enny and Leo

[teacup-crafter]

Commission for @floxu !!! Thanks for the purchase + ily + get tagged biatchhh

Psst! Wanna commission me? Here's my carrd!

I also have a tumblr post about it!

[personal-reporter]

Lucca Comics and Games 2023

Il Lucca Comics & Games torna, dall'1 al 5 novembre, come tema dominante dalla nuova edizione Together, l'importanza dello stare insieme nella capitale mondiale della cultura pop, con oltre 45.000 mq di area espositiva per migliorare sempre di più l’esperienza della community. Quest’anno tutti i linguaggi della Nona Arte saranno declinati da oltre 300 artisti e artiste, tra cui 45 ospiti internazionali provenienti da Stati Uniti, Giappone, Spagna, Francia, Corea del Sud, Cina, Canada, Inghilterra, Argentina, Israele, Turchia, Croazia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Belgio in cui i lettori e le lettrici di fumetti di ogni età potranno godere dal vivo di incontri, firmacopie, anteprime, variant cover ed eventi esclusivi. Oltre a nomi come Naoki Urasawa, Hiro Mashima, Mingwa, Masaaki Ninomiya, Usamaru Furuya sarà ospite di Lucca Comics & Games con incontri e firmacopie e sarà anche uno dei protagonisti delle esposizioni allestite a Palazzo Ducale con la sua mostra, dal titolo This Time is Different; Kan Takahama sarà protagonista della mostra off Kan Takahama: le storie nascoste e incontrerà il pubblico in sessioni di firme ed eventi, Keigo Shinzo sarò presente grazie alla collaborazione con Dynit Manga; Shintaro Kago presenta la sua prima serie a fumetti,  Eldo Yoshimizu, artista a tutto tondo, scultore e mangaka indipendente, incontrerà lettori e lettrici italiani grazie a Bao Publishing e  Satsuki Yoshino, autrice di Barakamon, è pronta a conquistare il pubblico italiano grazie alla collaborazione con GOEN - RW Edizioni. Dal panorama internazionale, anglosassone ed europeo, arriveranno Garth Ennis, Jim Lee, Don Rosa, Amélie Fléchais, Craig Thompson, Howard Chaykin, Tony Valente, oltre a Bryan Talbot, Declan Shalvey, Jesse Jacobs e il duo Joe Kelly e Ken Niimura, che presentano Sergente Immortale per Bao. Il panorama franco/belga ed europeo sarà esplorato da autori come Jordi Lafebre, David Rubin, Goran Sudzuka,Martin Panchaud, Elizabeth Pich e il duo Bastien Vivès e Martin Quenehen con la nuova avventura di Corto Maltese, La regina di Babilonia. Non mancheranno naturalmente gli ospiti italiani,con le figure della produzione contemporanea tra cui Gipi, Milo Manara, Leo Ortolani, Zerocalcare, Sio (e tutto il gruppo di Gigaciao), Pera Toons, Silvia Ziche, Paolo Bacilieri, Igort, Fumettibrutti, Werther Dell’Edera, Barbara Baraldi, Simone Bianchi e tantissimi altri. Ma il fumetto italiano è protagonista anche con due antologiche, dedicate a due maestri nostrani e diversissimi tra loro infatti, oltre alla mostra di Dino Battaglia nel quarantennale della morte, a Palazzo Ducale sarà possibile fare un viaggio nella multisfaccettata opera di AkaB, al secolo Gabriele Di Benedetto, scomparso nel 2019 ed eletto Maestro del Fumetto postumo nel 2020 a Lucca Comics & Games. Nel 2023 anche Magic: The Gathering, il gioco community-based per eccellenza, che rappresentò ai tempi del suo esordio un vera e propria rivoluzione per il settore ludico, compie trent’anni r Lucca Comics & Games fa un omaggio al primo trading card game della storia e alla sua community dedicandole una mostra in Palazzo Arnolfini e una Magic Alley a Lucca Games, che ospiterà ben 18 artisti di fama internazionale fra i quali Adam Paquette, Andrea Piparo, Jeff Laubenstein, Jesper Ejsing, Johan Grenier, Justine Jones, Marta Nael,Michele Giorgi, Mark Zug, Mila Pesic, Randy Vargas, Richard Kane-Ferguson, RK Post, Seb McKinnon, Svetlin Velinov,e Tony DiTerlizzi. È prevista l'anteprima italiana del documentario su Magic: The Gathering “Igniting the Spark”, che verrà proiettato per la prima volta proprio a Lucca alla presenza di regista, showrunner e produttori. I percorsi espositivi dedicati al gioco e al fantastico quest’anno vedranno ben 6 mostre, fra le quali un'esposizione all’interno del padiglione Carducci di stampe di altissima qualità e miniature del maestro indiscusso dell’illustrazione fantasy, Frank Frazetta, realizzato in collaborazione con Corner4Art e Mindworks, oltre alla presenza in fiera di un’ospite d’eccezione: Sara Frazetta, la nipote di Frank, che ha dato vita 10 anni fa al portale Frazetta Girls raccogliendo l'eredità del nonno per condividerla con i fan. Read the full article

[i-am-just-a-kiddo]

thanks for tagging me @vishcount, as always 💕

rules: answer 30 questions and tag however many blogs you want!

name: just kiddo on here 

gender: blob

star sign: leo

height: 164 cm

time: 15:26 o’clock as i am answering this question

birthday: 28th july 

favorite bands: okay here we go, it’s gonna be a huge list:

Epik High, BTS, The Smiths, My Chemical Romance, Son Lux, MUSE, The Cure, SHINee, QUEEN, HYUKOH, Placebo, Nell, Karpe Diem, Daughter, Low Roar, Arcade Fire, Japanese Breakfast, The Smashing Pumpkins, Brockhampton, Lucidvox

favorite solo artists: Code Kunst, Heize, Phum Viphurit, Vaundy, Meryem Aboulouafa, joji, keshi, Frank Ocean, Tamino, Gazelle, Nas, Enny Owl, Yseult, Suran and any other solo projects from above mentioned groups 

last movie: Over The Moon (2020), which was very sweet and unique, i had fun

last show: Alice In Borderland which i binged last weekend; though i have been watching the weekly updates for Druck, Manner Of Death, Follow My Sunshine and Color Rush. Also i rewatched the last episode of Strangers From Hell on tuesday.

when did i create this blog: summer of 2013

what i post: my fandoms, art, history stuff, aesthetics, occasional memes and just anything that comes up and i like? politics sometimes too

last thing i googled: worm on a string (my sister did not know what that was so i had to show her fghjkl) 

other blogs: a kpop blog, a writing blog that i don’t use anymore, another inspiration blog that is dead and recently i started a history blog but i have done nothing with it

do i get asks: not really no

why i chose my url: i was i 14-15, obsessed with the song I’m Just A Kid by Simple Plan and was going through rough times, so here i am. 

following: 492

followers: 466

instruments: phew, nothing tbh. i once tried the violin when i was little for 1,5 years but i gave it up. i also went to a course for the djembé, which was actually a lot of fun? but i never owned one so i just stopped at some point. other than that we had to learn the harmonica in school and i went to the music-branch in middleschool which was very silly because i am not talented in music and i still don’t know the musical scale fghjk. so i was just singing in the choir and now i know that i can’t live without music, but i don’t want to make it myself.

what i am wearing: black turtle neck under a woolen black pullover, high waisted blue-green plait skirt that reaches my shins, black stockings

dream job(s): author, researcher at some uni, working in uni in general? might even be professor for this

dream trip: phew. the whole world? definitely the whole of asia from west to east from north to south; specific mentions is Gyeongju in S. Korea, Kyoto in Japan,  Kathmandu in Nepal, Istanbul in Turkey  and I really really want to travel the Transsibirian Railway? I also really want to travel through Mongolia and Siberia. New Zealand and Australia for sure, that has been my dream for ages. Cairo in Egypt, Addis Abeba in Ethiopia. Canada and Alaska. the list goes on and on and on

favorite foods: and kind of salad, pasta, sushi, pizza, ratatouille, korean and chinese food (probably not authentic but it’s all i know), pad thai, my grandma’s cooking

nationality: irrelevant but ig european 

favorite song: the tree songs i currently listen to a lot is chlorine by twenty one pilots, the entierty of the strangers from hell soundtrack but especially room no. 303 by the vane, and everything by enny owl, but especially ribcaged.

last book i read: boy. i read only uni stuff. but i read The Clouds Float North - The Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji, translated by David Young and Jiann I. Lin. I can recommend it dearly, it’s a bilingual edition and her poems are so beautiful. 

Am gonna count  Recasting Antiquity: Ancient Bronzes and Ritual Hermeneutics in the Song Dynasty by Jeffrey Moser, eventhough it’s a dissertation. 

top 3 fictional universes i’d like to live in: 1.) Harry Potter, because that’s what I grew up with and I would still choose from all the worlds. It always feels like home. 2.) Avatar: The Last Airbender - another thing I grew up with and I would adore. I wouldn’t need to have any adventures, i wish i could just bend elements and chill my life. 3.) Eragon (Inheritance Cycle). This one is just goals. Dragons?! Dragons. Please gimme.

tagging: everyone i am tagging is of course not obligated but am just putting here who i love getting to know better: @the-cloud-whisperer, @sassyassassy, @cortue, @intyalote, @isabellaofparma

[local-femme-gentleman]

lgbtq+ movies for pride🌈

🎬🎬🎬

1. They Way He Looks Directed by Daniel Ribeiro, with Fábio Audi and Ghilherme Lobo

The Way He Looks, or Hojo Eu Quero Voltar Sozino, is a brazillian coming of age movie about Leo, a blind teenager looking for some semblance of freedoom, his best friend Giovana and Gabriel, a handsome classmate who attracts Giovana’s attention and also happens to be insatiably curious about how Leo lives. The movie is lighthearted for the most part, and gracefully relaxed in a way that you wouldn’t expect a movie with this sort of premise to be. 

The way He Looks is endearing and truly nuanced in it’s portrayal of lgbtq+ teenagers - a lot more so than many of the lgbtq+ movies we get nowadays. The plot is both likeable and something very new and the movie definitely explore uncharted territory when it comes to the portrayal of sexuality, disabilities and particularly a rarely looked at mixture of the two. 

🎬🎬🎬

2. The Danish Girl Directed by Tom Hooper, with Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander

The Danish Girl is a truly heartbreaking movie, and yet it is full of hopeful undertones. It follows Gerda and Einar Wegner, two artists and husband an wife. The movie starts with Gerda, who asks her husband to pose as a female model for a new painting she’s making, and in a twist of events this triggers Einar’s long suppressed issues about self and identity to resurface. I know a lot of people who didn’t enjoy The Danish Girl, as you may or may not have guessed I am not one of them. 

The movie tells the real-life story of Einar Wegener, - an artist who also happens to be the first known person to undergo a sexual reassignment surgery in the early 20th century, renaming herself Lili Elbe. The movie isn’t perfect, albeit beautifully short and perfectly cast the movie sometimes seams to be playing it too safe particularly for a film that could be so much more daring, but it does what it’s looking to do - presenting a beautiful, sad, and yet inspiring and realistic story about a women the public has lost as time has passed.  

🎬🎬🎬

3. Love, Simon Directed by Greg Berlanti, with Nick Robinson and Katherine Langford

I had to put Love, Simon on  this list, not only because i enjoyed it immensely but also because I think this is one of the first truly mainstream lgbt movies out there. It isn’t made for the oscars or the awards or to be enjoyed by just those that indulge in the indie film genre, it is simply a rom com just like any other - just with two boys. It follows Simon Spier, his friends, and an anonymous boy Simon has fallen in love with over email.

The movie is cliche at parts, like most rom coms are, full of voiceover and public declarations of love and catchy pop songs synonymous with the genre, but perhaps that’s what the creators were going for and the movie is done in a way that all these already overused tropes still feel new and fresh and only make the movie more enjoyable. It deviates slihgtly from it’s source material - Becky Albertalli's YA novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - but the movie has already established itself as a modern classic of lgbt movies, the coming of age genre and the rom-com genre.

🎬🎬🎬

4. Brokeback Mountain Directed by Ang Lee, with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal  

The other day I asked a friend of mine what he thought of this movie and he replied with the words “The gay cowboy movie right? Yeah, it’s pretty good.” In truth, Brokeback Mountain is so much more than just a ‘gay cowboy movie’ - the move is about forbidden love and the themes and concepts the movie follows can be applied to any type of forbidden love story, be it girl and girl or two people from warring families or opposing religions. The true beauty of Brokeback Mountain is that it’s story can applied to each of these premises, and still make for a heart warming, beautiful film. 

The movie follows Ennis and Jack - two shepherds who develop a relationship both sexual and emotional, despite both eventually getting married to their respective girlfriends. It’s a friendship turned secret romance, and it makes you happy and sad all at once, everyone is a victim, everyone is hurting, and yet the movie is tragic in a heartwarming way. The performances are great and in true Ang Lee fashion the scenery is incredibly beautiful, but the real beauty lies in the movie’s tragic yet oh so plausible story. 

🎬🎬🎬

5. Blue Is The Warmest Colour  Directed byy Abdellatif Kechiche, with Adèle Exrchopoulos and Léa Seydoux

In his review of the movie, renowned film critic, Roger Ebert writes, “While there have been plenty of movie romances not unlike this, there's never been one told in such an ambitiously immersive way” and I believe that these lines perfectly sum up what makes Blue Is The Warmest Colour, or La Vie D’Adèle if you use the french name, so great. The movie follows Adéle, a french teenager, who forms a deep connection with Emma, an older art student, who she met at a lesbian bar.

Much like The Danish Girl, I know quite a few people who haven’t liked this movie, I disagree. It’s a 3 hour long movie that captures the coming of age and sexual awakening of  it’s protagonist fairly well. The plot isn’t completely straight forward and expected, instead it takes you surprising places, and in true french film fashion the movie is absolutely beautifully shot. I would caution this movie though, because even along side movies like Brokeback Mountain and The Danish Girl, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is depressing at many points, but the movie is captivating and heart breaking in, at most times, a good way. 

🎬🎬🎬

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH🌈!!!!

[oshoro]

Tagged by: @sumi98 thank u

Rules: Answer 30 questions. Tag 10 blogs you want to get to know better.

Nickname(s): Final, Nedy, Enny

Gender: Vaguely gestures at a sign that says “ g orl”

Sign: Leo

Height: 5′5 and a wee bit more

Current time: 12:29am

Favorite band(s): Not really listening to them all that much atm but Mindless Self Indulgence, Wildways, Mother Mother, Korn, Poshlaya Molly, In This Moment, Missio

Favorite solo artist(s): Blue Stahli, Sullivan King, Igorrr, Utsu-P, Zardonic, 

Song stuck in my head: “Intro 2″ by NF

Last movie I saw: Uhhhh ᵈᵒ ʲᵒʰⁿ ᵐᵘˡᵃⁿᵉʸ ⁿᵉᵗᶠˡᶦˣ ˢᵖᵉᶜᶦᵃˡˢ ᶜᵒᵘⁿᵗ

Last show I watched: Lucifer

When did I create my blog: according to post limit checker, around “Wed, 01 Jul 2015“

What do I post: I dont post jack shit but I reblog anime, anime ships, animals, art I really like, sometimes memes

Last thing I googled: "paraphernalia definition”

Do I have other blogs: My animal crossing blog is @mayor-nedy and I have a blog literally dedicated to Hatsune Miku figures I want @mikollection

Do I get asks: nope

Why did I choose my url: I wanted something that sounded Japanese and semi-og. I looked up prefectures in Japan and after many, many attempts for an available name, oshoro worked. I’m kinda attached to it now

Following: 782 but my dash is still dead

Followed by: 110, which for never posting anything original and blocking all spam bots is aLrIgHT i think

Average hours of sleep: 10-12

Lucky number: 7 or 4 or 2 uhhh theyre all nice numbers very soft looking

Instruments: I kinda want to learn the ukulele but considering how unmotivated I am I probably wont. 4th grade I was MAD on a xylophone tho watch out

What I’m wearing: Green tinted sweatpants that have never ending clumps of my own hair and my cats hair attached to it. A black short sleeved shirt with lil white and red galaxy type stars all around. (also has clumps of my cats hair on it)

Dream job: Crime scene cleanup was a recent dream of mine but honestly no idea I push that question far into the back of my mind

Favorite food: Tagalogs, Mac and Cheese, and maruchan Ramen

Nationality: US

Favorite song: Uhm a couple I think. I listened to “Deviate” by Circle of Dust/Blue Stahli non stop all of last year. “Privately Owned Spiral Galaxy” by Crywank is special to me. Recently as in the last 3 days “Break Stuff” by We’re Wolves has been a fav. Anything loud I like tbh

Last book I read: Last full book I read was one flew over the cuckoo's nest and I hated it with a passion. 

Top 3 fictional universes I want to join: Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing, and uhmmmm Animal Crossing: Happy home designer.

OHhhh Geez UhHhH honestly the only person I’d know to tag is the person who tagged me and im NERVOus and Tired uhm

[davidmann95]

If you were forced to pick 12 single issues/stories of a greatest of all time superman collection, what would you pick?

I already picked 10 desert island issues, which I’d say fulfills the basic spirit of the premise. If I actually could put together my own 80 Years of Superman collection though, I already have a list I came up with awhile ago I can just conveniently copy and paste here:

Clark Kent Gets A Job/The Coming ofSuperman/Revolution in San Monte by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; How Superman Would End The War byJerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; The Origin of Superman by BillFinger and Wayne Boring; The Legion of Super-Heroes! By OttoBinder and Al Plastino; The Super-Key to Fort Superman byJerry Coleman and Wayne Boring; Superman’s Return to Krypton! byJerry Siegel and Wayne Boring; Superman Owes A Billion Dollars! byRobert Bernstein and Curt Swan; The Last Days of Superman! byEdmond Hamilton and Curt Swan; The Amazing Story of Superman-Redand Superman-Blue! by Leo Dorfman and Curt Swan; Superman’s Day of Doom! by JerrySiegel and Curt Swan; MIGHTY ONE! by Jack Kirby; I Flew With Superman! by Curt Swan,Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin; The Living Legends of Superman byElliot S! Maggin and numerous artists; The Jungle Line by Alan Moore andRick Veitch; Of Thee I Sing by Garth Ennis andJohn McCrea; From Krypton With Love by MarkMillar and Sean Phillips; 22 Stories In A SingleBound by Mark Millar and numerous artists; Funeral in Smallville by GrantMorrison and Frank Quitely; Superman Beyond by Grant Morrisonand Doug Mahnke; The Boy Who Stole Superman’s Capeby Grant Morrison and Ben Oliver; Savior by Rob Williams and Chris Weston; Dear Superman by Josh Elder and Victor Ibanez; Strange Visitor by Joe Keatinge and numerous artists; 24 Hours by Geoff Johns and JohnRomita Jr.; and OurTown by Peter Tomasi, Patrick Gleason and Jorge Jimenez. Probably throw the upcoming Peter Tomasi and Barry Kitson Thanksgiving/Make-A-Wish oneshot on top to round out the ‘modern era’ section, and you’ve got an excellent if perhaps overly weighty tome (though keep in mind a lot of those stories are slim 7-8 pagers).

I also came up with one for Lex, so:

Europe at War by Jerry Siegel, JoeShuster and Paul Cassidy; Powerstone by Jerry Siegel and JohnSikela; The Titanic Thefts! by Bill Fingerand Wayne Boring; How Luthor Met Superboy! By JerrySiegel and Al Plastino; The Death of Superman! by JerrySiegel and Curt Swan; The Conquest of Superman! by BillFinger and Curt Swan; The Showdown Between Luthor andSuperman! by Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan; The Man Who Murdered The Earth! byLen Wein and Curt Swan; The Luthor Nobody Knows! by ElliotS! Maggin and Curt Swan; Luthor Unleashed! by Cary Bates andCurt Swan; The Einstein Connection! by ElliotS! Maggin and Curt Swan; The Secret Revealed! by John Byrne; Metropolis 900 Mi by John Byrne; How Much Can One Man Hate? by MarkMillar and Aluir Amancio; Frustration Eternal by Dan Jurgensand Gordon Purcell; The Gospel According to Lex Luthorby Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely; The Black Ring: Part 5 by PaulCornell and Pete Woods; The Black Ring: Finale by PaulCornell and numerous artists; Up, Up and Away! by Charles Souleand Raymond Bermudez; and The Way These Things Begin by KyleKillen and Pia Guerra.

[davidmann95]

You did your top ten Superman Artists before, who are your top ten Superman Writers? (I know you've already given your number one, but I'd still like to see your thoughts on the other 9)

Honorable mentions up front: There are the great creators who worked on him in the Silver and Bronze ages such as Leo Dorfman, Edmond Hamilton, Cary Bates (who would be VERY close to the top in a ranking of the best Luthor writers), and of course Jack Kirby. Mark Millar’s work with the character is consistently among the best of his career, and his nebulously upcoming miniseries has every chance of shooting him into the top ten. Max Landis’s American Alien is easily the best Superman story of the last few years, but given his atrocious previous shot at the character in Adventures of Superman and his frequently inconsistent quality across the board, I’m not certain yet that wasn’t a lightning-in-a-bottle moment. Making better showings in Adventures were Joe Keatinge and Matt Kindt, who blew me away with their respective pieces and I think could make real impacts if properly utilized. And while his work with the character was fundamentally compromised and cut short, Chris Roberson’s vision of him was one that tremendously appealed. Finally, while he’s never ‘officially’ worked on the character, Samuel Hawkins’ all but unknown Tales of Smallville for the site Superman Thru The Ages are absolute top-tier, all-time-great stories.

10. Greg Pak

What an utter goddamn shame; Pak was by all rights destined to be The Definitive 2010s Superman Writer, and DC shit all over him until he finally gave up and vanished back to Marvel. But in between the endless crossover nonsense and making him and poor Aaron Kuder put up with the New 52 suit, his Clark had a visceral sense of humanity and physicality that made him feel true and lived-in in a way few if any other writers have matched over the years, driven by a sense of righteous anger and pained compassion. If, god willing, he ever gets the subsequent shot he deserves (preferably with Kuder) and isn’t constantly compromised and undermined, expect to see him ultimately wind up significantly higher.

9. Joe Casey

Maybe the most frustratingly underrated guy in my top ten. In spite of a few gestures in a more radical direction - he explicitly wrote Superman as a pacifist, which obviously didn’t take - he didn’t particularly reinvent the wheel during his time with the character, especially given it was only for about his last year that he actually got to work solo rather than as a quarter of a complete unit. But that last year’s adventures are some of Superman’s best, with a vivid quirkiness and grand scope grounded in a particularly humble and introspective take on big blue that deserves its due as a cult classic run with the character.

8. Alan Moore

While I hold dearly to my contrarian take of For The Man Who Has Everything being significantly overrated, Moore’s other Superman comics more than make up for it, with both Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and Jungle Line scratching down to the bloody raw floorboards of his mind and demonstrating his vulnerability in a way that remains unmatched. He is to date the one and only truly great writer of Dark, Grim Superman Comics.

7. Otto Binder

Binder contributed more to the raw depth of Superman’s world in terms of mythology than anyone other than Siegel himself, ranging from Brainiac and Bizarro to Supergirl and Kandor and the Legion of Superheroes, with stories such as The Old Man Of Metropolis! and The Return Of Superman’s Lost Parents! proving he could also hang in there with the best of them in delivering the emotional gut-punches that Superman’s best tales so often rely upon.

6. Jerry Siegel 

I don’t think any reasonable person could seriously contest that Siegel belongs on any list such as this by default. But his position on it comes down not just to creating the dang guy, but the caliber of his material, particularly in his 1960s return where his stories ranged from mournful (Superman’s Return To Krypton!) to blackly comic and gleefully celebratory (Superman’s Day Of Doom!) to relentlessly heartbreaking (The Death Of Superman!) - just as he provided the rolicking adventure and bombast that birthed Superman alongside Joe Shuster, he and the contemporaries that walked in his footsteps found the wistful, melancholy heart that still defines his creation to this day.

5. Garth Ennis

He’s only written him the twice (thrice counting All-Star Section Eight, though he doesn’t pull focus in there in the same way, and it goes in a…different direction), but twice is enough for a lifetime in this case. The one superhero Ennis seems to hold sincere affection for as opposed to liking well enough at the absolute best, his Superman is whip-smart, ethical, self-aware, entirely understanding of how the world really works and the limits of what he can accomplish in it even as he grieves his inability to do more, and in Ennis’s own words “constantly let down by humanity, and never giving up on them”.

4. Mark Waid

The ne plus ultra of Superman fans, that he’s never secured a long-term tenure with his hero surely frustrates him even more than the legion of fans who’ve waited in vain for decades for him to get his deserved shot. What he *has* gotten to do has shown it would be more than worth the wait: while his vision with Alex Ross of an elder Superman in Kingdom Come weighed down by regret and lost in a strange new era resonated with a generation, his take is clearest in the criminally disregarded Birthright, whose alienated and passionate version of a young Clark Kent represented a scale of potential in his early days that has yet to be truly captured.

3. Kurt Busiek

Another underrated writer, Busiek’s time on Superman proper - while never getting to reach its proper culmination as he left to work on Trinity - is easily the best run that main title has ever had, with a warm, clever, classic Superman up against wild new threats that tested both his abilities and his ethics; in other words, the platonic example of Good Superman Comics. What pushes him into this kind of rarified air though is Secret Identity, with the most purely down-to-Earth, vulnerable, and thoughtful ‘Superman’ of all at its heart letting readers attach themselves to the fantasy he represents more acutely than maybe any other story.

2. Elliot S! Maggin

The first Superman writer to not only recognize that he was working with a modern legend but consistently and overtly write his stories with that in mind, it was under his pen that Superman gained a sort of self-awareness, questioning his methods and mindset as he tangled with some of his most astonishing threats. As Siegel provided Superman with his muscle and heart, Maggin was the first to actively map the contours of his mind and place in a larger universe, with a portrait of a truly alien intellect anchored by the most human of concerns and an unshakable ethical base that still resonates, bolstered by an equally well thought-out Luthor and a firehose spray of heady ideas - especially in his essential novels Last Son Of Krypton and Miracle Monday - that set a standard that has rarely if ever been recaptured.

1. Grant Morrison

Whether with a spitfire 20-something charging through the streets of Metropolis in a t-shirt and jeans, an unstoppable champion uniting with his counterparts from throughout the multiverse to rescue the very concept of story, or a relaxed god-man floating through his bittersweet last days among us, Morrison reaches deeper than anyone else into the vague, intangible essence of what Superman is to us - the goodest of guys, the one you can rely on, the one who’ll never fall and never stop believing in you - and grabs hard. With seemingly his every talent and every thematic preoccupation throughout his incredible career tailor-made to suit telling Superman stories, whether in his crushingly foredoomed attempts at redefining him for a new generation in Action Comics or All-Star with its mythic self-image and subtle character work, the very fact of Grant Morrison Doing Something With Superman constitutes an event unto itself. He fits the fundamentals together in the framework of his own unique cosmic approach and love for the material, with a model for Superman that while more flexible than any other always maintains his compassion and cleverness and unyielding spirit, and as it happens, that’s the tack that’s worked the best across all these 79 years and counting.