The countdown begins now!!!

Here are the first five writers that you voted as your favorites of all-time (out of roughly 1,008 ballots cast, with 10 points for first place votes, 9 points for second place votes, etc.).

50. Carl Barks – 197 points (1 first place vote)

What was so amazing about Carl Barks' work on Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge was not only the fact that he was a wonderfully skilled artist (he was a born storyteller and the amount of characterization he could get across while working with talking DUCKS is astonishing) but that his stories had such a great DEPTH to them. Kids would not only be entertained by his fun stories, but they would LEARN things about different parts of the world and about world history and myths. Barks has a voracious appetite for knowledge and he expressed this appetite in his stories.

Not only that, but Barks also had an impressive ability to tell complex stories about the human...er...duck condition, like with the amazing Back to the Klondike. Uncle Scrooge has been taking memory pills (he does not take them too often as they cost ten cents apiece so he doesn't want to be wasteful) and suddenly he remembered an old adventure he had gone on in the Klondike with an old sort of girlfriend, Glitterin' Goldie. He heads to the Klondike to recoup the money he knows she owes him and once there, they go on a series of adventures trying to find her and once they DO find her, Scrooge's nephews (Huey, Dewey and Louie, who Barks used to great effect in his stories, especially the Boy Scout-like group they belonged to, the Junior Woodchucks) regret the fact that Scrooge is going to take this nice old woman for all she has got. Or is he?

Classic.

49. Brian Azzarello – 202 points (5 first place votes)

One of the most distinct voices in the entire comic book industry belongs to Brian Azzarello. Azarello's approach has always been to build the dialogue of a story first and then go from there. That's his mission statement - build the character up through the character's dialogue and end up with a character so well-defined that he can practically give his artist the bare minimum, plot-wise, and the story will still work, because the character has been defined THAT well.

Azzarello did just that with his relaunched New 52 Wonder Woman series, where he completely redefined everything about Wonder Woman and ended up being a major influence on the recent blockbuster Wonder Woman movie. His most famous work, 100 Bullets, was all about these opening arcs where we meet new characters only to then work those characters into increasingly interconnected stories as the series went on.

We see it even in how well he defined Gotham City right off the bat in his acclaimed stint on Batman...

As you can also see, Azarello's distinct "voice" is also a trademark of his work. You always know when you're reading a Brian Azarello comic book, that's how strong his voice is. Azzarello is currently doing a Batman miniseries with his longtime collaborator, Lee Bermejo, called Batman: Damned, which launched DC's new Black Label line of comics.

48. Gilbert Hernandez – 205 points (1 first place vote)

In the early 1980s, Gilbert co-created the anthology series Love and Rockets with his two brothers, Jaime and Mario.

Each brother would contribute their own stories to the comic, with Gilbert spotlighting the fictional Central American country of Palomar, and specifically the life and times of one woman there, Luba, and her family and friends. Luba is clearly Hernandez's finest creation, as she is a remarkable detailed and complexly constructed fictional figure. Hernandez's talents handling strong, independent women has always been a particularly notable aspect of his career as a writer.

His most famous Palomar story is likely "Blood of Palomar," where Luba and the people of her town deal with a serial killer on the loose, but really the story is not really about the killer at large and more just about the every day travails of their lives, with Luba re-thinking her life as she grows older, and decides that she wants to change the way she relates to her children as they grow older and older.

Gilbert has also done a number of miniseries for other companies outside of his Love and Rockets work.

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47. Gail Simone – 208 points (1 first place vote)

Gail Simone's work for years has maintained a delightful balance between humorous and darkness. She basically has a way of finding the humanity in dark stories, while at the same time, having enough dark stuff happen in her work that that humanity has to work to show itself. Perhaps the best example of this approach was in her acclaimed run on Secret Six, where she had a group of supervillains working together as team, primarily Deadshot, Catman and Scandal Savage.

The key element to the series was the emotional connections that these rogues shared with each other (Bane became a major cast member in the ongoing series, as well. Other characters came and went, as well, with Simone/Scott creation Jeannette being the other longest-lasting new addition). So a scene could be filled with sweetness and sadism at the same time.

Simone is currently having great success with Domino at Marvel, where she continues that mix between light and dark with her own particular spin on Domino's luck powers. Yes, she has luck powers, but what was done to her to bring those powers about?

Little bitter and a little sweet, all mixed into a tremendous comic book tasting. It is a difficult balance to strike and it was one that Simone has struck well for years.

46. Jaime Hernandez – 214 points (3 first place votes)

Jaime Hernandez has been telling the story of his famed creation, Maggie, for over thirty years now, and what is particularly amazing to me is the way that he has been using that history to make the comics even stronger in recent years. Take the brilliant "The Love Bunglers," where Maggie gets a second chance at love with Ray, her former love interest (most famously from "The Death of Speedy Ortiz" in the early 1980s). Hernandez has done such wonderful work with Maggie over the years that we know her as well as we know any longtime friend or family member. We know how she works. We know her quirks. We know her best qualities. We know her worst qualities. And all of them are at play when she gets involved with Ray again, with both now middle-aged. Hernandez's skills are readily apparent in the control he maintains over their interactions, both with the dialogue and also his incredible skills with characterization. It's stunning, really, to see how good he was with these characters thirty years ago and yet he is even BETTER now!

That said, I can't help but also want to show off the tremendous ending of the most famous Love and Rockets story of all time, the aforementioned "The Death of Speedy Ortiz." Look at how well Hernandez wrings every possible emotion out of these pages...

Such beautifully haunting work.