Yeah, actually the whole libertarian on /. thing is probably just a myth too. But hey, as a whole Americans are amazingly ignorant bastards...a lot of them could be dumb-as-fuck libertarians that fail to realize the many ways they are standing on the shoulders of western culture instead of being the individual mavericks they imagine themselves to be in their fantasies. When "Atlas Shrugged" and John Galt quit working the world just moved along without those self-righteous know-nothings. No man is an island and no individual man matters that damn much - sorry to burst your bubble. And I, for one, am not willing to hang myself on the noose libertarianism when a hybrid socio-political-economic model will serve us much better, just as it serves every other western nation. It's amazing how this rugged individualism has basically just put us in the U.S. on the hook to China and Japan. That's some wonderful freedom we have there...owned by the worker nations. Labor is the only real value, and if your aren't performing it in your country you had better get ready for an abrupt end to your ride on the gravy train.

[N.B. Too bad I can't have paragaphs on Slashdot via Opera. What gives...?]

"...of titles such as The Dark Knight Returns, Maus: A Survivor's Tale, and Watchmen."

Those works are good entertainment, but not the "golden age" of the medium. Saying so just ignores the true giants of the field, people like: Jack Kirby, Winsor McCay, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Schuiten, Bilal, Moebius, Steranko, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, etc.

Jack Kirby looms over the whole industry like a colossus. His importance only grows the longer you look at his whole body of work, but esp. the work between 1960-1980.

Scripting word balloons is truly work for hire and not a true act of creation - and that's all I can say about Stan Lee.

If you really want to see what comics can achieve at their best, check out these:
* "Detectives Inc." by McGregor and Rogers, the B&W original.
* "Jenifer" by Jones and Wrightson, a short story from Vampirella
* "The Beguiling" by Barry Smith
* "Master Race" by Berni Kreigstein
* "Collector's Edition" by Goodwin and Ditko
* "At the Stroke of Midnight" by Steranko

The writing is tight and the art is amazing. Text is woven into the art and made a part of it.

That's how to do it.