Every day this month I'm going to feature a current comic book writing "star," someone who I think is a very good writer.

I'm mostly going to try to keep from the biggest names as much as possible, because, really, do I need to talk more about the awesomeness of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis?

Here is the archive of previously featured writers.

Today we look at one of the most prolific Dark Horse writers in the company's history.

Enjoy!

In the late 80s and early 90s, you couldn't turn around without bumping into a Dark Horse comic book written by John Arcudi (who broke into the comic industry in the mid-80s at Malibu and Marvel).

His biggest success at this time was the Mask, which he helped create (with a bunch of other folks).

It was mostly Arcudi's stories that made it into the blockbuster film starring Jim Carrey (that was the film debut of some model/wannabe actress who didn't do much after the film).

Arcudi wrote for basically all of Dark Horse's licensed projects, as well as introducing his own works like Barb Wire and The Machine...

This was all solid work, but I dunno, I don't think it really got the full spectrum of Arcudi's skills as much as he showed on the projects where he was given free reign (with Barb Wire, of course, being a notable exception - except it was, well, Barb Wire).

Arcudi's past writing for Cracked magazine and The Mask helped him with his slacker superhero, Major Bummer, for DC.

He had similarly offbeat (and, like Major Bummer, sadly short-lived) runs on Doom Patrol and Thunderbolts (where he turned the book into a bizarre wrestling series that was quite cool).

He had a notable run on Gen13 (one of the best Gen13 runs period, I would say)

And a good run on Aquaman (although I still don't get why Will Pfeifer was taken off of Aquaman)...

Hey, I totally don't remember this JLA mini-series...anyone remember this one he wrote in 2002?

Anyhow, Arcudi's best work I think is definitely his work on B.P.R.D. with the amazing Guy Davis as his art partner and the equally amazing Mike Mignola as his writing partner.

B.P.R.D. is madcap, it's bizarre, it's compelling, it's serious, it's wacky, it's tinged with familiar pulp tones while possessing a unique feel of its very own - it's a great, great series with an amazing artist helping to bring Arcudi and Mignola's vision to bear.