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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

18 Comments

  1. Jane
    March 19, 2016 @ 1:15 pm

    While I really like Voice of the Fire, methinks it’s seeded too high. On the other hand, it’s got a very unfavorable matchup against Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is my Cinderella pick.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      March 19, 2016 @ 4:59 pm

      Yeah, that’s an inflated seed born out of a desire not to have the category just offer three Neil Gaiman novels as the 1-3 seeds (as Ocean at the End of the Lane was the obvious choice for a three seed). It’s part of why I gave it one of the two same-author match-ups in the first round.

      Reply

  2. Tim B.
    March 19, 2016 @ 5:43 pm

    All-Star Superman Vs. Doom Patrol (Which should really be credited as Morrison, Case & various IMO) was a toughie. Eventually voted for Doom Patrol and went with a few post hoc rationalizations:

    Cliff Steele, there’s more pages good stuff, the development of Richard Case’s art over the run. I love the trade paperbacks with the line of dialogue serving as breaks between the issues and putting Doom Force Special after ‘the empire of chairs’ is one of the few decisions by DC/Vertigo’s collection editorial that doesn’t have me pulling at my (admittedly short) hair in frustration. I’m looking at you JLA omnibuses spine design & The Planetary Omnibus story order… & I don’t need to try and remember if there’s a hyphen in the title or not when mentioning it online.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      March 19, 2016 @ 5:53 pm

      Fair enough on Case; I didn’t look at the actual issue breakdowns when I typed up the credits, and looking now, yeah, he should be the main. Will correct when I post that matchup this afternoon.

      Reply

    • Eric Gimlin
      March 19, 2016 @ 6:05 pm

      I really think All-Star Superman vs. Doom Patrol is the toughest first round fight by a huge margin. Both of those have strong cases for being Morrison’s best work, to the point where I would probably pick one or the other but which I would choose flip/flops every few minutes.

      I had decided to vote for Doom Patrol, if I was actually voting, partly because I think All-Star is just better known and will get better support from those who have read fewer books. And, as you say, more pages of good stuff. But good grief a hard one to call; I will be very surprised if the winner doesn’t make it to the quarter-finals at least.

      Reply

  3. Eric Gimlin
    March 19, 2016 @ 5:56 pm

    I still refuse to join Twitter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my thoughts on the matter.

    Animal Man/ Nextwave: I’m glad Animal Man won, but I still think that was just a brutal first round matchup with both seeds a bit low..

    Very glad to see Killing Joke go down hard. Not that I expect Delano’s Hellblazer to go that deep, but that particular battle was a very overrated book against an underrated one and I’m glad it went the way I wanted.

    Rooting for Laser Eraser over Violent Cases; but it’s a bit of a sentimental choice for S. Moore. I actually think this is a great matchup; the features are totally different but actually pretty even.

    Halo Jones vs. St. Swithin’s Day: I don’t think I’ve read St. Swithin’s Day in over 20 years; so leaning towards Halo Jones. But part of me thinks I’m probably in the wrong there.

    LoEG vs. Ministry in Space: Really no strong feelings there, so leaning towards LoEG mostly because I find it more memorable than Ministry, which I only vaguely recall.

    Phonogram/ Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham. Another hard one, but I’m going with Miracleman. Mostly because I am less of a fan of Phonogram than Young Avengers or WicDiv by a fair margin. It’s still very good comics, but it’s one I respect more than enjoy. (Although I do enjoy it, don’t get me wrong.)

    I think that’s it for now, will be back to blather more when the next rounds start.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      March 19, 2016 @ 6:09 pm

      At least two Hellblazer voters noted that they hadn’t read it and just wanted Killing Joke to go down, which I thought kind of charming.

      I think about all I could have moved Animal Man ahead of was Killing Joke, and I suspected Nextwave was more firepower than necessary to unseat Killing Joke in the first round. And I wanted some hard first rounders.

      Ministry was an odd choice; I both wanted more representation from Ellis’s “pop comics” phase, and to find something distinctively British of Ellis’s that could go into the British Classics division (since there was no way he was getting more into Literary Comics). My heart would have preferred Crecy, but I suspected that of being too self-indulgent.

      The one I’m still a bit annoyed at myself for is not finding any Ellis to put into Superheroes. But his short-run Marvel stuff is all so mediocre; I’d have just been throwing Extremis or something in to die, and I liked 1602 better as a sacrificial lamb.

      Reply

      • Eric Gimlin
        March 19, 2016 @ 6:33 pm

        For short-run Marvel by Ellis, Moon Knight was amazing in my opinion. But that’s the only one that comes quickly to mind. I think part of the problem is it went downhill so badly when Ellis left.

        Reply

        • Elizabeth Sandifer
          March 19, 2016 @ 7:22 pm

          I thought about it, but suspected it would lose to all but 1602. Which I actually replaced Black Orchid with purely so that the doomed fifteen seed would deserve it.

          Reply

          • Tim B.
            March 20, 2016 @ 12:42 am

            His Super Hero work is a bit sparse, and having put The Authority</> & Planetary in the literary comics section I can see why Stormwatch in the American Superhero Division would be incongruous.

            Of his X-men work his Excalibur run would have been a possibility, his ‘Counter X’ work is spread a bit too diffusely (as well as been Ellis-y to the point of parody) although there’s Star Jammers as an entertaining mini.

            Once again Druid maintains it’s ‘Never speak of this again’ status despite featuring the death of a leader (for a hot minute) of the Avengers back when we all thought two teams was a bit excessive…

  4. Eric Gimlin
    March 19, 2016 @ 8:43 pm

    I’ve already said I would vote Doom Patrol, so there’s only one new match. I think I’ve got to go with Journey into Mystery, but that’s another very tough one. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow is an absolute classic, but I think it loses on page count. Journey into Mystery just has more room to be brilliant, and with a fight that close that makes a difference.

    Reply

  5. Eric Gimlin
    March 19, 2016 @ 11:50 pm

    Just realized you had asked us to predict our ultimate winner. I think it’s going to be Sandman over Watchmen in the final, due to a slight “Watchmen is overrated” backlash in the actual voting. There are a lot ways to describe the importance of Watchmen, but “fun” isn’t one of them… and for a good part of the time, Sandman is.

    WicDiv would be my Cinderella choice, but I don’t know that I could bring myself to vote for it in the final round against Sandman. It’s also complicated by being the only currently ongoing series in the tourney, unless I’m missing something. (I’m not counting Miracleman until I have issue #26 in my hand. (#25 has been complete for decades, just unpublished.))

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      March 20, 2016 @ 12:25 am

      Uber is essentially still ongoing as well.

      Reply

      • Eric Gimlin
        March 20, 2016 @ 1:21 am

        I would say I disagree, and think I could almost make it stick, but I don’t… I missed it.

        I really do need to sit down and re-read Uber; I was not nearly as impressed by it as you seem to be on my first go. I’m not sure binge reading it when they put the whole bundle up on Comixology cheap was the best way to approach it.

        I guess that does raise the question as to why Providence isn’t in the tourney; it certainly feels like Moore’s most important work in comics in years to me.

        And while I’m asking, why is Stardust in Literary Comics rather than Non-Comics? It was never presented as anything other than a serialized illustrated novel, even on original release, as far as I can recall.

        Reply

        • Elizabeth Sandifer
          March 20, 2016 @ 1:32 am

          Because I could, however tenuously, get it out of a category that was already overstuffed with Gaiman (while every other category is kind of tough to get Gaiman into), mainly. And it was first published by Vertigo with art from someone mostly known for comics.

          Providence isn’t in because it’s a mini, and I feel more OK with ongoings that aren’t finished than an intensely structural twelve-issue mini. I almost put Neonomicon in though.

          Reply

  6. Eric Gimlin
    March 20, 2016 @ 7:34 am

    And now, my comments on the two new fights since I’m not on twitter:

    JLA/ Young Avengers: Amazingly, I’m actually going to go Young Avengers here. JLA just, to my mind, undercuts itself by the number of fill-in issues in the later half of the run. It’s an odd case where reading it when it came out has actually probably hurt my impression of the book; it was frequently amazing but just as frequently frustrating on the overall ideas.

    Swamp Thing/ 1602: If I was voting, I would be the one voting for 1602 just to keep Swamp Thing from getting the shutout. I think you have Swamp Thing seeded a bit too high, here. It’s a frequently brilliant run, of course, but it’s also one of those runs where most of what it did has been done better by Moore and others in the years since.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      March 20, 2016 @ 8:25 am

      You know, I came to Swamp Thing relatively late, and it genuinely blew me away, doubly so when I reread it for Last War. Many individual bits have been done elsewhere, but to see them all done in one story remains remarkable. Only the zombies two-parter and the Adam Strange arc really disappoint.

      Reply

  7. Eric Gimlin
    March 21, 2016 @ 1:40 am

    I love that All-Star Superman and Doom Patrol came down to the coin toss, given that I felt it was the hardest fight in round one by a fair margin.

    For today’s fights: I’m going with Zenith over Uber. It’s one where I won’t argue with anybody choosing Uber on the merits, but that doesn’t stop it from being my clear favorite. I’m also picking Lazarus Churchyard over Miracleman; partly to be contrarian and partly because I feel Miracleman was undercut by production difficulties and the rotating door art teams. I think if you had specified book 3, rather than the whole run, I would have gone for MM.

    Thank you for taking the time to respond to me over here, since I’m being totally unreasonable in my avoidance of social media for other reasons, by the way.

    Reply

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