Julian Lytle hit me with fifty… and then fifty more.

1) X-books from 1991-1999
2) Generation X drawn by Chris Bachalo
3) That ill cover to the old Who Killed Jean DeWolfe Spider-Man trade
4) Erik Larsen on Amazing Spider-man
5) The First pages of X-Men #1 drawn by Jim Lee with the X-men in a training session
6) X-men #4 where they are playing Basketball
7) Jubilee in all her Mutant awesomeness
8) Backlash by brett booth
9) Back in the day when Savage Dragon and Pitt would guest star in almost every Image comic
10) Michael Turner on Witchblade
11) Joe Madueira on Uncanny X-Men
12) Storm in punk rock gear and no powers with a Mohawk
13) X-Men Series 1 trading cards all drawn by Jim Lee
14) Marvel Universe Trading Cards Series 3
15) Spaceman Spiff
16) Kandea
17) Kaneda’s jacket and bike (it’s an ensemble)
18) Mad Love
19) Dark Knight Returns
20) A Dame to Kill For
21) Kingdom Come
22) New Frontier
23) Darwyn Cooke
24) Bruce Timm
25) Gen 13
26) Humberto Ramos
27) Crimson and Out There
28) Geoff Johns’s Teen Titans Run
29) New X-Men By Grant Morrison
30) The Fourth World by Jack Kirby
31) Spider-Man
32) Galactus
33) Batman
34) Superman
35) Crisis on Infinite Earths
36) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
37) Luke Cage beating Dr. Doom for his cash
38) Dr.Doom
39) Inhumans by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee
40) Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X (with Heralds)
41) The Legion of Super Heroes
42) SUPERBOY-PRIME
43) Love and Rockets
44) Mike Mignola
45) 7 Soliders by Grant Morrison and various artists
46) 52
47) Akira
48) Naruto
49) Calvin and Hobbes
50) Peanuts
51) The Crew
52) Priest’s Black Panther
53) Bendis writing Luke Cage
54) The New Avengers arc with the Hood drawn by Lenil Francis Yu with no inker
55) The Crew’s White Tiger aka Kasper Cole
56) The Master of Kung Fu
57) The Phantom
58) The Authority By Ellis and Hitch
59) Planetary
60) Alan Moore
61) Alan Moore and Travis Cherest on WildC.A.T.S.
62) Cyber Force
63) The Justice Society of America
64) Captain Marvel (Fawcett)
65) The Ultimates 1 and 2
66) Ultimate X-men By Millar and BKV
67) Dazzler
68) Boom Boom
69) NextWave
70) Dragonball
71) TMNT
72) Concrete
73) Elfquest
74) Jason Todd
75) Robin
76) Runaways
77) Young Avengers
78) The Metal Men
79) Rusty and Skids
80) New Mutants
81) Adam Pollina on X-Force
82) War Machine
83) Ed Brubaker’s Captain America
84) Casanova
85) Umbrella Academy
86) Marc Silvestri on Uncanny X-Men
87) Watchmen
88) Podcasts
89) San Diego Comic-Con
90) New York Comic-Con
91) Alex Ross
92) Moebius
93) Gambit charging a bike to blow up the Phalanx creature the X-men fought
94) Secret Wars
95) Maus
96) Sinestro Corps War
97) The Punisher
98) Preacher
99) Cliffhanger
100) Capcom’s Marvel fighting games

Me and Julian are from the same era of comics, man. Jim Lee X-Men, Jubilee, Moebius (who remembers that Silver Surfer story he did?), Gambit… it’s all dope.

Here’s his #5, for example:

I learned the word “cripes” from this comic. No joke.

I am a complete sucker for good dialogue. The Brians Three (Azzarello, Vaughan, and Bendis) are some of the best guys out at making realistic and natural-sounding dialogue. In fact, I’d say that the big three are Garth Ennis, Azz, and Bendis, in that order.

Ennis has a few themes that he comes back to over and over. “Superheroes suck!” is one. He likes to write about superheroes being awful people, war, and camaraderie. He’s got an incredible ear for dialogue. His people sound like real people. They’re distinct. I wasn’t a huge fan of the overarching story of Preacher, in part because Jesse Custer was kind of a jerk, but the dialogue was so solid that I had to keep reading. Chronicles of Wormwood is one of the most horrible, awful, and offensive comics I’ve ever read. It’s about the Antichrist, Wormwood, only he’s decided to buck his dad’s will and just live out his life without bringing on Armageddon. He’s good friends with JC, another character who has decided to try something different from what his Father wants. He ended up getting brained by a member of the LAPD for his trouble and suffers from brain damage. Wormwood is cheating on his girlfriend with a reborn Joan of Arc, too. It’s pretty despicable, but at the same time… it’s really kind of enjoyable. Ennis’s skill with dialogue turns an interview between a journalist and Wormwood into an insight into the minds and thoughts of both characters. Wormwood isn’t really a bad guy, I mean after all the Antichrist stuff. He genuinely has no interest in furthering his father’s goals and has made it a point to kill anyone who tries to make him do so. He does a bad thing when the journalist gets on his nerves and actually feels bad about it. He goes to break off his relationship with Joan (which ends up backfiring) because of this guilt. Ennis gets characters, is what I’m trying to say. Beyond all the (deformity+face) = Name and potty humor, Ennis writes real people, thanks almost wholly to his dialogue.

Azzarello is the same way. Where Ennis is a more on-the-surface kind of writer, where characters are pretty close to what they say they are, Azz’s characters exist between the lines. What they say is important, yes, but how they say it and what they don’t say is just as important. Look at that up above. Loop, the black guy. What do you get from just those three panels? He’s cocky, rocking a devil-may-care attitude, and he’s clever. Risso’s art helps here quite a bit, too. His body language says almost as much as the dialogue does. Azz’s dialogue has rhythm. People dance around each other’s words and tend to finish each other’s sentences. You have to pay attention to Azz’s dialogue, because it isn’t necessarily plain-spoken. Calling it “layered” would be a start. Words are laced with double and triple meanings. Seemingly offhand bits of dialogue end up being vital. Azz makes you think, and then think again. That’s part of why I love his work so much.

Bendis, for all the played out jokes and catchphrases, is really good at dialogue. He didn’t become one of the top writers at Marvel for nothing. Bendis’s dialogue is stuttery and fairly stacatto. But, who doesn’t talk like that? We start and stop, deliver half-finished thoughts, and talk over each other. Bendis is crazy wordy, but he’s also true to life. His people may sound similar overall, but the stutter-step talky-talk is a great device. One that has possibly been overused, but when used properly, is always excellent.

Let me round this out with one last guy. Personally, I think that Stan Lee brought a lot to comics dialogue. The pre-Marvel books that I’ve read tended toward the bombastic and overwrought. Stan the Man gave characters flaws, and at the same time, gave them voices that stick with you. He’s the man for a reason. To this day, I love the dialogue in those old Marvel books.

I picked this up out of a funny panels thread over at Batman’s Shameful Secret.

We love you, Stan. Don’t ever change.

Excelsior!