Nowadays, I'd wonder about the motives of a non-fan writer who wanted to write comics. What would the draw be--the money? The prestige? Trying to create a property they could develop for the movies? (Not counting writers who've been lured into helping with adaptations of their own work, as with the Dabel Brothers--that's an extension of the existing work.)

For that reason alone, I'd go for the fan. Also, Neil Gaiman once noted that whenever an established writer tries their hand at SF and made a big point of not being SF fans, they tend to produce work with problems that could have been avoided through a basic knowledge of the genre (such as thinking that a time travel predestination paradox was an original idea, rather than one that was played out 60 years ago). Same principle here.

Creating 52 new versions of Earth each with a "new" history doesn't fit into this catergory.

That's a really good point. Because we're not really talking about all 'fans', are we? This is about a specific subset of fans of superhero comics that are obsessed, and not just casual users. People who read comics to the exclusion of other forms of entertainment. I would imagine that those people are more likely to repeat the cliches of the genre. On the other hand, it may be about those who were childhood fans, and want to bring comics back to that era. I think that these terms need to be clarified.

Oh well.

I could not swear that Johnny Depp isn't a lifelong fan. I mean, I don't know that he is, but I don't know that he isn't.

Has anyone even asked a non-fan to write comics? If they did, who would they ask? Woody Allen?

And if they write a comic for ten years, should we still consider them "non-fans" at the end of that time?

But if they only write two issues...

As to the Golden and Silver Ages, let's define this up: at a guess, was Bill Finger a non-fan? A modern example (although artist instead of writer) that springs to mind is John Buscema: he thought superheroes were dumb. Non-fan?

Just trying to get things straight.

Harlan Ellison was a longtime fan.

Roy Thomas was a longtime fan.

Gerry Conway was a longtime fan.

Joss Whedon is a longtime fan.

JMS is a longtime fan.

Even Stephen King is in all likelihood a longtime fan.

Matt Fraction is a longtime fan.

Bill Watterston is a longtime fan (I'm just saying).

Brian K. Vaughan is a longtime fan.

Jeff Smith is a longtime fan.

Grant Morrison is a longtime fan.

Darwyn Cooke is a longtime fan.

Jonathan Lethem is a longtime fan.

Seth is a longtime fan.

Quentin Tarantino is a longtime fan.

Robert Rodriguez is a longtime fan.

Umberto Eco is a longtime fan...!

I am probably being stupid, and forgetting many names of non-fan comics writers. I admit that. But, please...refresh my memory.

Who are the non-fans working in comics? If you tell me who they are, I'll go out and buy their books and then report back.

But then I think of all the stories that sprang from the minds of SF writers with time on their hands in the Golden and Silver Ages, and the question doesn't seem so cut and dry. There's definitely an advantage to coming in fresh, or to possessing skills from other fields.

I'd still go with 'fan', because I think the ideal scenario would be that the writer is knowledgeable and passionate about comics and cartooning, and then brings in enough knowledge from other fields (like animation or journalism or screenwriting) on top of that to add something to the medium.

Then I would go with the longtime fan any day of the week.

In other words, if I had to chose between Jodi Picoult and Gail Simone; I guess I would chose Scrungie Simone.

My casual interest as opposed to hardcore fandom might come into play here; if all a comics author has to offer me is inside references I'm not liable to get, then why am I wasting time on their work? Whereas someone new to the material will be much more likely to provide a fresh, interesting take.

But ultimately, I go with "non-fan" here, because fan stories tend to be written to service fan agendas. Geoff Johns is a prime offender, here; he writes stories solely to bring back characters he thinks shouldn't have been killed, retcon old stories, bump off characters he thinks are "stupid", et cetera et cetera. Fan writers tend to get a little drunk on the power to actually control the fictional universe they've always had strong feelings about. Whether it's John Byrne and Jeph Loeb's dueling Krypton retcons, or Grant Morrison and his twenty-year long quest to bring back the multiverse, fan politics and professional writers make for a fairly explosive mix.

I think a good writer of comics at all needs a certain amount of familiarity with comics in order to write well in that medium. That is to say. If you saw a bunch of movies when you were a kid, but stopped watching films more or less completely at around twelve, you probably won't make for the best screenwriter at thirty-five. And not because you've missed out on the evolution of the form over the last quarter of a century -- though that may hurt, too -- but because you're just not that familiar with how movies work. It's been too long since you really paid attention to one. And the same applies to comics. If your sole (grownup) interaction with the medium is reading "Opus" every Sunday, you are not equipped to write a comic book. If the only thing you've watched in years is "Scrubs," you are not equipped to write a feature film. Same difference. It's not a question of content -- you may be an excellent writer overall, but if you don't understand the mechanics of the form that you're working in, the results will suffer for it.

You at least know that a comics fan has read enough comics that writing in the medium should not in itself present an overwhelming challenge. As to whether what they write will be any good...well...

For instance, let’s take a look at two guys who are BOTH unabashed long-time superhero geeks, Mark Waid and Kevin Smith. Mark Waid writes well, uses sharp dialogue that captures personality and never overdoes it, understands story structure and how to pace a comic, and usually only uses his freaky-vast knowledge of the DC universe if it makes the story better.

Very charitable view. To me Waid is just someone who writes like an awful DC Silver Age writer, just with more updated dialogue.

And the ideal editor should be a comics expert, and have a great working relationship with the writer.

Editing is underrated.

But the comic fan has one advantage, and that's at least an implicit understanding of how the medium of sequential art works, and how it's different from prose. There have been plenty of good prose authors who have written lousy comic books, simply because they don't know how to write for the illustrated page. There's a learning curve for them that the comic fan doesn't need to go through.

But that's just me. I know who I am as a reader.

A long-time reader and someone who has never read comics MAY be able to do that well, but someone who has been studying the form for years and has been honing their craft WILL be able to do that well (hopefully).