[EvilMeanie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

Great storytellers only really have one great story in them, that they find ways to retell with a few modifications.

Certainly can be true, but definitely not always true.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilMeanie

Certainly can be true, but definitely not always true.

It's subjective, ultimately, but I'd like to hear some examples. :-)

[EvilMeanie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

It's subjective, ultimately, but I'd like to hear some examples. :-)

Stephen King immediately springs to mind. The non-horror stuff like Green Mile, Apt Pupil, or even The Body are pretty far removed from the iconic horror novels like The Shining or The Stand or It (tho I can certainly see elements of It in The Body, but he takes a wildly different approach to the concept in those two).

In the world of comics, I'll throw out Frank Miller. He's got a very distinctive style, *but* when you look at something like Batman: Year One and compare it to The Dark Knight Returns, you've got two very radically different stories and arguably two radically different interpretations of Batman beyond the whole "oh well this is the young version and here's the older version." Year One vs Dark Knight Returns is actually a compare/contrast project that I'm a big fan of and have explored a bit in the my classroom from time to time....so that's pretty fresh on my brain. Even tho there's easily an argument that Miller kinda/sorta proves your point when we look at his body of work as a whole.

Alan Moore is another comic name I think I could throw out. He did explore a lot of the same concepts, but Watchmen is a different beast from Killing Joke which is a different beast from From Hell....

Poe repeated hismelf and retread old ground an awful lot, but Poe's detective stories are a pretty far cry from something like Tell-Tale or House of Usher.

I *want* to say Cormac McCarthy, but he's one of those who wears his style so distinctively on his sleeve and loves exploring the darkness and depravity of mankind in some pretty gruesome ways, but then I look at something like Blood Meridian and compare it to Outer Dark and it feels pretty night and day. And certainly No Country For Old Men stands apart from alot of his standard fare, as well.

Michael Crichton is an easy go-to. From ER to Jurassic Park to Pirate Latitudes...he left behid an amazingly diverse body of work. Honestly probably the best example of the ones I've named.

Fun topic, really. I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the day.

Ooooh. Sreenwriter, too. Carpenter.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilMeanie

Fun topic, really. I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the day.

That's what these discussions are all about. ;-)

[TheOverlordCorp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

That's what these discussions are all about. ;-)

Elmore Leonard, Tom Clancy, Mark Twain, Frank Darabont, Max Allan Collins, Tarantino, Paul Haggis, The Coen Brothers, Christopher Nolan (though often working with others/source material), Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, David Mamet, Carl Foreman, (Mrs.) Leigh Brackett, Mankiewicz, Orson Welles ... the aforementioned Mr. Carpenter. Arguably Dean Koontz. Those are some I would consider having "more than one" in them. For comics, I would add Gail Simone. They might have traits and tendencies, but that's different than copying their own hit with each effort.

[Clockwise]

As much as it pains me, I'd have to vote for Devil's Due.

Hama, at his best, was a far better storyteller than Blaylock & Co. ever were. But his best was from Marvel's #1-#50 plus the entire run of Special Missions.

Hama's IDW stuff felt like a treadmill, as others have already pointed out.

Devil's Due always lacked Hama's sense of military authenticity, which came from Hama/Trimpe having been in the service so they could create something outlandish, but still properly frame it.

But Devil's Due, unsmooth as it may have been, featured growth. Good growth and bad growth. Characters aged (initially at first), and some important characters (Lady Jaye and Flash) even died. The forward momentum was something that Hama mostly lost after Marvel's #50.