The Best Creator Driven Comic Book Runs

I have mentioned to students over the years how I was a comic book reader in my youth.  I've always stressed reading anything to my students - I am quick to mention that I read comic books and Sports Illustrated maniacally as a young person.  What I noticed starting around the age of 13 was that I became more interested in who was writing and drawing the comics than the characters themselves.  If John Byrne left Alpha Flight and went to write and draw the Hulk - I went with him, even though I didn't collect the Hulk regularly.

These runs are what I feel are the best long term tenures on various books.  They are by the creators / artists I feel created the best work and stayed on to come up with a timeless body of work that will be a standard bearer for future artists and writers.  I limit the list to post 1980, simply because that is the era where I am an expert.  I realize there are others that should be on the list, but I was a Marvel / DC person for most of those years, so something like Dave Sim's Cerebus is not on the list, as I read one issue of it as a young person and didn't like it too much.  Maybe I missed out on something but I can't comment on it with any authority.

The list:

• John Byrne on Fantastic Four
• Frank Miller on Daredevil
• Alan Moore on Swamp Thing
• Marv Wolfman and George Perez on The New Teen Titans
• Walt Simonson on Thor
• Chris Claremont on The Uncanny X-Men
• Peter David on Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man