Mark Millar = ________

Steve: I have to go with Tarantino for this one. As much fun as I find his movies to be, he’s an overly cocky guy who ultimately gets by (for the most part) on shock and flash. Millar’s very much made in the same mold, both in the over-confident public persona department as well as the over the top storytelling tendencies with an intense love for shocking twists, scenes, character behaviors, etc., often at the expense of the actual plot itself.. If it was physically possible for Millar to insert himself into his comics, I guarantee he’d write himself a cameo in every one.

One thing they aren’t altogether similar in is their ability - or in Millar’s case, inability - to write a decent ending. Leaving the mess that was “Death Proof” aside, Tarantino generally wraps things up nicely in his stories, as opposed to Millar’s tendency to seem to remember at the last minute that he’s on the last chapter of whatever arc he’s working on and “Oh shit, I need to wrap this up STAT!” Still, for the most part, I see more similarities than differences.

Andrew: With Millar I don’t see that comparison at all. As far as Tarantino goes, I think Garth Ennis is the (almost too) obvious analogy there since he seems highly inspired by The Q’s style and aesthetic. Not to mention Tarantino dabbles in skillful, dialog-heavy cult film genre mash-ups of noir, blaxploitation, and kung-fu, and Millar’s work is usually an action-oriented, poor man’s version of the epic and confrontational “widescreen” (sorry…) fantasy/sci-fi superheroisms of Morrison and Ellis. True, Millar and Tarantino are both deeply concerned with The Cool, but that’s where the similarity ends.

No, I think Millar more closely resembles another cultishly adored and highly successful director: Michael Bay. Unabashedly big and corny and unafraid to please the crowd with well-worn cliches and elaborate, ridiculous set pieces, both Millar and Bay are brash, and they both think and create huge. Tiny little distractions like plot and character and plausibility and realistic conclusions become secondary to the overall excitement and style of the ride. Not sure if Michael Bay will ever come up with something as nifty as “Red Son,” though…

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Rob Liefeld = ________

Steve: Uwe Boll is basically famous for turning out movies that sound like they’d be pretty cool on paper, yet end up lifeless at best, tediously dull and incompetent at worst. Transfer that magic from film to paper, and you’ve got Rob Liefeld in a nutshell. Much like Boll, Liefeld is arguably utterly talentless, yet manages to constantly land projects and make money from them. Both are able to convince quality people from their respective fields to work with/for them on projects, despite a history of churning out virtually nothing of any discernible quality. Ergo, Rob Liefeld is comics’ Uwe Boll.

Andrew: It is deeply difficult to argue with Steve’s well-reasoned assessment, especially considering both Liefeld and Boll — two people who are successful in two fields notoriously difficult to even make a moderate living at — somehow lack three important things: talent, self-awareness, and dignity. Indeed, it’s been suggested that the combined egos of Liefeld and Boll wouldn’t even fit in the Mariana Trench.

I was actually going to suggest that, since long, long ago he seemed to have some iota of talent and a natural instinct for the over-the-top theatrics of superhero comics, Liefeld was more akin to Joel Schumacher, who jumped into prominence with the once-stylish and trashy-but-still-watchable Lost Boys. But Schumacher, as remarkably awful as he can be, seems to have at least some small sense of humor. At the end of the day, Liefeld and Boll are really more snake-oil salesmen. Wild West grifters, well-dressed and charismatic with a suitcase full of cure-all tonic that’s actually distilled donkey piss. They’re kind of William Castles for our time — except without the acknowledgment that what they’re doing is, for all intents and purposes, crap.

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