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ADAMS AT DC IN THE BRONZE AGE FEATURING IN-DEPTH BATMAN and

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Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

Volume 1, Number 143 June 2023 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Neal Adams (Originally produced as the cover for Batman #227, Dec. 1970. Special Neal Adams Bat-logo designed by Michael Kronenberg.)

A Tribute to

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER David Baldy

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Batman created by Bob Kane, with Bill Finger.

Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

BACKSEAT DRIVER: Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76, Fifty Years Later . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Editorial by Michael Eury INTERVIEW: Breathing Life into Batman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 An in-depth discussion with Neal Adams about his influential Batman stories PRINCE STREET NEWS: Neal Adams Tribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Cartoonist Karl Heitmueller, Jr. recalls the many ways Adams impacted his life BACKSTAGE PASS: Neal Adams, Under the Radar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 From ghost gigs to “Crusty Bunkers” inker jams, Adams assisted numerous artists ROUGH STUFF: Adams Unplugged. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 A few of the master’s covers and illustrations in pencil form THE TOY BOX: The Power (Records) of Neal Adams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 The superstar artist’s hit parade of comic and TV tie-in illos for records INTERVIEW: You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Adams revisits his Superman artwork in this candid conversation BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 BACK ISSUE™ issue 143, June 2023 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

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Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $97 Economy US, $147 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover artwork by Neal Adams. Batman and Superman TM & © DC Comics.

All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2023 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury except Prince Street News, TM & © 2023 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

(above) An undated specialty illustration by Neal Adams recreating a scene from Green Lantern #87’s classic Green Arrow story “What Can One Man Do?” TM & © DC Comics.

SPECIAL THANKS The Neal Adams family Terry Austin Robert V. Conte DC Comics Steve Englehart Chris Franklin Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Rob Kelly Laurie Kronenberg Michael Kronenberg Bob McLeod Robert Menzies Brian K. Morris Luigi Novi Rose Rummel-Eury John Schwirian Mike Tiefenbacher Alan Weiss John Wells

#76,

by M i c h a e l

Eury

Fifty Years Later

That question was raised by an unassuming elderly African-American man who, I been readin’ about you... despite the cultural invisibility beaten into him by systemic prejudices, found the how you work for the blue skins... courage to face off against the possessor of the most formidable weapon in and how on a planet someplace the universe. Green Lantern, the power-ring-wielding Emerald Crusader who you helped out the orange skins... couldn’t even stammer a response to this piercing query, became “woke.” and you done considerable for the And so did I. purple skins! Only there’s skins you At age 14. never bothered with--!

For me, the year was 1972, two years after the story’s original publication in the landmark Green Lantern #76 (Apr. 1970). I first discovered “No Evil ...the black skins! I want to know... Shall Escape My Sight,” written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal how come?! Answer me that, Adams, when it was reprinted in black and white in the first of two Green Lantern/Green Arrow paperback editions published by Paperback Library.

Mr. Green Lantern!

“This is it! The most daring dialogue that ever appeared in any comic!” boasted a headline on the paperback’s back cover. In the epilogue of “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight,” Green Arrow—previously a durable but square “Batman with a bow” who had recently been reimagined into a hip, streetwise crusader—proved that proclamation when he had the audacity to proselytize not only to his Justice League ally Green Lantern but also to one of GL’s omnipotent bosses, a Guardian of the Universe: “[America is] a good country… beautiful… fertile… and terribly sick! There are children dying… honest people cowering in fear… disillusioned kids ripping up campuses…

“On the streets of Memphis a good black man died… and in Los Angeles, a good white man fell… Something is wrong! Something is killing us all…! Some hideous moral cancer is rotting our very souls!”

A half-century later, the creeping frailties of my aging body remind me that I’m no longer the impressionable boy who was, like GL, shaken to his core by these ethical challenges. But the 2022 passing of Neal Adams has given me pause, as did the 2020 death of Denny O’Neil. Denny’s dialogue may seem heavy-handed to a reader from a later generation, but to the kids and teens of the ’70s, like me, he was a Pied Piper of social relevance. Neal’s photorealistic illustrations initiated my personal comic-book puberty, awakening me from the simple joys of my childhood “funnybooks” into an appreciation of the potential of an art form. His art had a similar effect on countless other readers at the time.

TM & © DC Comics.

‘S.O.S. GREEN LANTERN!’

DC Comics’ 1970 publication of Green Lantern #76—along with Marvel Comics’ release of Conan the Barbarian #1 and the industry-shaking news of Jack Kirby’s defection from Marvel to DC—were the trigger points of what we now historically deem the Bronze Age of Comics.

“At the time the Green Lantern title was dying,” wrote DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz (with Brian M. Thomsen) in his autobiography, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics by Julius “Julie” Schwartz (2000, Harper Entertainment). “[A] decision was made to use it as our proving ground to expand the comics medium, examine its boundaries, and explore a new realm—namely, relevance and realism. Businesswise it wasn’t much of a gamble since the title was already on its last legs. And who knew?

Perhaps an injection of relevance might save it.”

“Relevance” was the flavor of the month at DC at the time. The publisher, once the Rock of Gibraltar of the superhero comic market, had been jackhammered by the jazzy juggernaut that was Marvel Comics. Mighty Marvel’s quirky, quarrelsome heroes and villains engendered themselves upon readers no longer satisfied by DC’s pantheon of conventional caped crusaders with largely interchangeable personalities.

2 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

And so, starting at the end of the 1960s, many of DC’s titles tried to get “with it” by borrowing plots from the nightly news. Flower children made the scene in Joe Simon’s hippie-hero flop, Brother Power, the Geek. Steve Ditko’s The Hawk and the Dove, about ideologically contrasting teenage brothers who moonlighted as superheroes, appropriated Vietnam War protest jargon for its title and character names. Diana Prince relinquished her Amazonian superpowers and became a liberated avenger in Wonder Woman. Dick Grayson graduated from Gotham High to Hudson U, and as Robin the Teen (formerly Boy) Wonder tackled campus unrest and counterculture criminals in the back pages of Batman. Superman ran afoul of Native Americans angry over the possession of their land in Action Comics, and in his Clark Kent guise took to the television airwaves as an anchorman. Pollution was a “villain” in Aquaman and Justice League of America stories. Superman’s girlfriend infamously became Black for one day in Lois Lane. Western and war books used their historical settings for parables about ethnic equality. In DC’s romance comics, the liberated Mary Richards type supplanted the lovesick Gidgets that had previously dominated their pages.

The architect behind some of those DC stories was the newspapermanturned-comic scribe Denny O’Neil, who was tapped by editor Schwartz to plug some new light into the flickering Green Lantern. “I suppose I considered myself as much journalist as I did fiction writer,” O’Neil revealed in 1983’s deluxe reprint Green Lantern/Green Arrow #1, which led him to ponder: “What would happen if we put a superhero in a real-life setting dealing with a real-life problem?”

O’Neil “realized that Green Lantern needed a foil, someone to argue with,” and selected Green Arrow for that role. You’d have to search far and wide to find two less compatible characters, aside from their sartorial jade hues and mutual chairs at the Justice League meeting table. GA’s makeover (in his classic Batman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #85) was still fresh and Denny was charting the bowman’s adventures in the hero’s only home at the time, Justice League of America. In his new interpretation of Green Lantern, Denny’s GL was a rightwing, by-the-book space cop, while GA was a leftwing, bleeding heart Robin Hood. They weren’t quite the rock ’em-sock ’em polar opposites that would emerge on television a year later in the forms of All in the Family’s house bigot Archie Bunker and house hippie Mike Stivic, but were different enough to afford O’Neil the opportunity to use Green Arrow as a mouthpiece to enlighten Green Lantern (and the comic’s audience) of societal woes (although GL very famously got to tell off know-it-all GA on the alarming cover to Green Lantern #85, the first of the series’ two “drug issues”).

This experimental take on Green Lantern might very well have been illustrated by Gil Kane, the first GL artist of the Silver Age who had recently returned to the title, had Neal Adams not caught wind of the series’ slumping sales. It was Neal whose peerless pencil had produced Green Arrow’s bearded “new look” (to borrow a phrase from the Silver Age’s Batman soft reboot) in the Bob Haney–scripted B&B #85. However, it was the star of the Green Lantern book that attracted Adams’ eye. As he related in a 1996 interview in Comic Book Marketplace #40, “All I wanted to do was draw Gil Kane’s character and live up to his image of it.” Adams asked to draw the book, but Julie Schwartz resisted, hesitant because of Neal’s commitments to Batman, DC covers, and other projects. The tenacious artist persisted, emboldened once he actually read O’Neil’s trailblazing script for Green Lantern #76. Schwartz reluctantly but wisely relented, assigning the book to Adams.

WHAT CAN TWO MEN DO?

And thus with issue #76, Green Lantern was rebranded “Green Lantern costarring Green Arrow”—or Green Lantern/Green Arrow, as it is most commonly called—although the series’ official publication title remained Green Lantern.

No one was expecting a stick of dynamite to explode on the comic racks on February 19, 1970. It was business as usual for the news dealers that snipped the distributors’ string around a bundle of funnybooks to unveil the latest covers and their familiar images: The Web-Slinger was tussling with the Kingpin once again on John Romita, Sr.’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man #84. The forest-firefighting bruin supervised a group of scouts on Gold Key’s Smokey the Bear #2. The little devil twirled his flaming trident like a majorette’s baton on the cover of Harvey’s Hot Stuff #97.

Marvel super-people weren’t getting along (as usual) as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes raced to catch the fleet-footed Quicksilver on John Buscema’s frantic cover to Avengers #75. And being the winter, Riverdale’s groovy teens were cloaked in parkas and scarves instead of bikinis and cut-offs on the latest offerings from Archie Comics.

No Evil Shall Escape His Sight An undated mixed media portrait of Green Lantern by the legendary Neal Adams.

From the archives of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha. com).

Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

The Master (top) Neal Adams, sketching at a mid-1970s comic-con. Courtesy of Sam Maronie, with special thanks to John Morrow. (bottom) Adams’ original art for the cover of Green Lantern #76 (Apr. 1970), courtesy of Heritage. This extraordinary piece sold for $442,150 in a November 20, 2015 auction.

TM & © DC Comics.

4 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

But then, there it was: Green Lantern #76. The anticipation started with the cover—that iconic Neal Adams masterpiece—with GA’s expertly aimed shaft shattering GL’s power battery. Bathed in Jack Adler’s illuminating shades of green, Adams’ simple, yet powerful, composition screamed for the reader’s attention. It didn’t really require the “Stop! This is the new…” subhead topping the revised logo, yet that declaration sparked an additional level of excitement for a title that needed a shot in the arm.

Sinestro, Doctor Polaris, and the rest of GL’s rogues’ gallery were AWOL, as was the alien-worldof-the-issue subject that filled many a Green Lantern plot’s pages. In issue #76, the villain was an odious slumlord who cared zilch about the downtrodden huddled within the dilapidated tenement he owned.

After bringing him to justice, the emerald duo— in their alter egos of Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen (with one of the Guardians of the Universe dubbed “Old-Timer” as a companion)—hopped into a pickup truck (a green one, natch!) and ventured out to explore the “real” America. “There’s a fine country out there someplace,” said Ollie. “Let’s go find it!”

While the well-read Denny O’Neil’s “Hard-Traveling Heroes” concept had Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation novel On the Road to thank for its inspiration, two recent Hollywood offerings had made such road trips part of the zeitgeist. Dennis Hopper directed and co-starred alongside Peter Fonda in the 1969 counterculture classic Easy Rider, with two “Born to Be Wild” motorcycling hippies getting a firsthand look at the beauty—and underbelly—of America. Meanwhile, NBC-TV’s Then Came Bronson, about a freewheeling journalist combing on the nation’s highways for truth, was winding down its single season on the air at the time Green Lantern #76 debuted.

And thus, the adventures continued. Worker oppression, cults, freedom of speech, corporate control, Native-American land rights, drug addiction, and racial and gender equality were among the torn-from-the-headlines subjects fueling O’Neil and Adams’ stories. Green Lantern’s traditional milieu of science fiction was occasionally shoehorned into a “with it” scenario, with varying results. But even the weaker GL/GAs were miles above the standard comics fare. Three of the later issues are extraordinary: the two-parter in #85 and 86, wherein Green Arrow’s erstwhile sidekick Roy (Speedy) Harper was revealed to be a heroin addict; and #87, which featured two classic stories—a GL tale that introduced Green Lantern John Stewart, one of DC’s rare AfricanAmerican heroes at the time, and a GA tale by writer Elliot S! Maggin where Ollie Queen reevaluated how he might best be a community servant.

After a reprint fill-in in #88, the experiment that was Green Lantern/Green Arrow abruptly came to an end with issue #89 (Apr.–May 1972), although GL/GA briefly limped along as a backup series in The Flash.

(For a full reckoning of the GL/GA series, see John Wells’ superb article in BACK ISSUE #45.) Remarked Julius Schwartz in his autobiography, “Older readers went wild over the storylines and praised the books.

Both Denny and Neal won numerous awards for their groundbreaking work. It was a critical success, it didn’t lose money, and it gained DC a lot of favorable publicity. But the younger readers (who still made up the majority of the readership) didn’t want relevance, they wanted entertainment—and for them the two did not match up, so eventually we had to let the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series die. It had served its purpose, and new ground had been broken.”

LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM NEAL ADAMS

From ye editor’s perspective, the issue that started it all, Green Lantern #76, set the bar so high for the series that it remains the feature’s unbeatable apex.

O’Neil’s revolutionary subject matter made Green Lantern #76, and the GL/GA issues that followed, historically significant, and the scribe is deserving of the accolades heaped upon him for the work, praise that continues to this day.

But the extraordinary artwork on Green Lantern sometimes takes a backseat to the comic’s subject matter. Had editor Julie Schwartz kept the talented but familiar Gil Kane on the book, or had a journeyman artist been assigned the tale, “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight” might have withered on the spin racks. The wizardry of Neal Adams in Green Lantern #76 cannot be overemphasized.

There’s nary a wasted streak of graphite or inked stroke of a brush in Adams’ work. Neal most certainly “lived up to the image” of Kane’s rendering of Green Lantern, with his GL gracefully fluttering through action scenes as varied as a street fight at a ramshackle urban tenement to GL’s diversion of a meteor shower in the deep bowels of space.

From the streetwise point of view of the slum residents to the otherworldly majesty of the Guardians’ planet Oa, Adams flawlessly walked the tightrope between GL’s sci-fi tropes and an urban landscape so realistically rendered it might have been mistaken for photographs. It’s no wonder that Green Lantern #76 has been reprinted in over a dozen American editions and in numerous international publications.

Who Said That? (right) Green Arrow’s classic speech from Green Lantern #76 (scanned from 2018’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow: HardTraveling Heroes Deluxe Edition). (left) On the back cover of 1972’s first GL/GA paperback, GA’s words were attributed instead to Green Lantern, while Dr. Martin Luther King’s illustration was altered.

TM & © DC Comics.

STOP! THIS IS AN OFT-IMITATED COVER! Green Lantern #76’s iconic cover has upon numerous occasions been replicated on various comic books—even by Neal Adams himself! Here’s a mini-gallery of some of those cover tributes…

LESSONS WE SHOULD HAVE LEARNED FROM ‘GL/GA’

TM & © DC Comics, except Colonel Sanders, © KFC.

When I first discovered “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight” in the paperback reprint edition, I believed that through it and the other Green Lantern/Green Arrow tales that followed, the world would become a better place once people read them.

Yet as I pen these words in September 2022, Americans are emotionally numbed by frequent mass shootings.

We’re struggling with inflation, product shortages, shipping delays, and a relentless pandemic. Home real estate and rental costs are skyrocketing beyond reach. Racism continues to foist restrictions upon people of color and spark protests across the nation. Cities and towns have been rocked by demonstrations over reproductive rights.

Drug use runs rampant, with addictions to prescription opioids crippling Americans from all walks of life.

Community spirit has been supplanted by bitter tribalism.

The détente that once melted our Cold War with Russia has iced over, and the specter of combat—perhaps nuclear war—looms over the United States’ strained relations with China and North Korea. It’s 1972 all over again, now worsened by the sensationalistic droning of 24/7 news channels and social media that encourage emotion and opinion, not fact and reasoning, to dominate the national conversation. Judging from the rancor that divides us, that “hideous moral cancer” Green Arrow cautioned us about hasn’t been eradicated—if anything, it’s spread.

That much-younger version of me was too… well, green to realize that a simple comic book could not change the Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

DC’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow may have hogged the headlines in 1970, but beginning in 1969 and predating GL/GA, rival Marvel Comics’ Captain America, then written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Gene Colan, began to explore similar themes.

Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969) made history by introducing the Falcon, Marvel’s second significant superhero of color (after the Black Panther) and one who would evolve into the series’ co-star.

Marvel’s Star-Spangled Avenger took on campus unrest (#120), became a prisoner of war in Viet Nam (#125), and fought the biker gang “Satan’s Angels” (#128). And before Oliver Queen’s question “What Can One Man Do?” in GL/GA #87 triggered Ollie’s run for mayor, the soul searching of Cap’s alter ego, Steve Rogers, led to his brief flirtation with a career as a beat cop beginning in Captain America #139’s (July 1971) “The Badge and the Betrayal.” Gary Friedrich, who followed Stan Lee as Captain America scribe, also continued to mine relevant themes; one example is issue #143’s (Nov. 1971) “Power to the People,” where Harlem is under attack by the People’s Militia.

TM & © Marvel.

MARVEL’S ‘WITH IT’ HERO

Beaned Lantern Green Arrow gives the Emerald Gladiator a firsthand look at poverty in the landmark Green Lantern #76. Original Adams art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

world. O’Neil himself wrote in his Introduction to 1983’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow #1, “I was smart enough to know enormously complex problems couldn’t be dissected within the limitations of a 25page comic book, and humble enough to know that I didn’t have the solutions anyway. Still, I cherished the notion that the stories might be socially useful: I could hope they might awaken youngsters, eightor nine-year-olds, to the world’s dilemmas, and these children, given such an early start, might be able to find solutions in their maturity.”

Although I was a little older than Denny O’Neil’s stated target reader, “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight”—which I regard the magnum opus of both his and Neal Adams’ extraordinary body of work— changed the way I viewed the world. Perhaps it did for you, too. Despite their differences and occasional disagreements, Green Lantern and Green Arrow worked together in Denny and Neal’s stories, for a common good. They learned from each other.

That’s a lesson we could all benefit from today.

Special thanks to John Wells and Rose Rummel-Eury.

In addition to the Eisner Award– winning BACK ISSUE magazine, MICHAEL EURY is editor-in-chief of RetroFan magazine, also from TwoMorrows; is an adviser to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide; and has written or cowritten numerous comics history books including The Team-Up Companion (2022) and Hero-AGo-Go: Campy Comics, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties (2017).

6 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

GL/GA Cover Gallery DC Comics made headlines with O’Neil and Adams’ groundbreaking series. Covers to Green Lantern #77–87 and 89.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

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M i c h a e l K r o n e n b e r g on May 7, 2003 Laurie Kronenberg

transcribed by

TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

conducted by

Neal Adams changed my life. I mean that literally and sincerely. I know there are many people who can say the exact same thing. That’s how important and enormous Neal Adams’ influence is. He forever changed comicbook art, storytelling, and creators’ rights.

In April 1971, I strolled into my local 7-Eleven convenience store and perused the comic-book spinner rack.

I was eight years old, an occasional comics reader, and I enjoyed watching the reruns of the 1966 Batman TV series. As I scanned the covers—and there were some great covers in 1971—one caught my eye, Batman #232.

That comic became my demarcation point. It was the first time I noticed the art in a comic book, and it was phenomenal. I’d never seen Batman portrayed so realistically; he was a dynamic force. His cape seemed to take on a life of its own, but it remained grounded in the reality. He was dark and intimidating, this wasn’t just Batman, this was The Batman. In addition to the issue introducing a new villain, Ra’s al Ghul, it also featured Batman and Robin’s origins (something Adams asked writer Denny O’Neil to include). This was my introduction to Batman’s vengeful beginnings, and Adams’ gritty portrayal had a big impact on me. I would go on to seek out anything Neal Adams touched: covers, stories, magazines, fanzines, book covers, everything. I already had an interest in art and according to my teachers I had some talent, but after seeing Neal’s art, I wanted to be an artist like him.

I copied his panels, covers, and even whole issues with his art. Neal’s art is what launched my love of comic-book collecting and an appreciation of all comic-book art.

Flash forward to 2003: I’m the art director/graphic designer for Comic Book Marketplace magazine. Russ Cochran was the editor, and his expertise was limited to EC Comics and comic strips, so Russ often relied on me to suggest an issue’s content. It was Batman’s 45th year of being published, and I told him that we should do a special issue about the Caped Crusader. Of course, I wanted to interview Neal for the issue, and Russ agreed. I had never met Neal, so I wanted to travel to New York and do this interview in person. I was going to ask Neal everything that I wanted to know about the Batman stories he drew for The Brave and the Bold, Detective Comics, and Batman. I think the interview was more for me than the readers of the magazine. Neal had been interviewed many times, but I don’t believe he’d ever done a Batman interview that was as comprehensive as mine. I met Neal and his wonderful family at Continuity Studios on May 7, 2003 (coincidentally my birthday). I spent two days with Neal discussing his Batman stories and his time at DC. It was a dream come true. They say, don’t meet your heroes or you’ll be disappointed. Nothing could be further from the truth, Neal was an amazing host, honest, and incredibly charitable with his time, even though he was under pressure to finish several advertising deadlines. He worked as we talked in Continuity’s conference room. We took a break at midday and Neal insisted that I join him for lunch. I still distinctly remember having lunch with Neal as we casually conversed about comics, movies, science, and a variety of subjects. I wondered what that eight-year-old kid who saw that Batman comic in 7-Eleven would’ve thought of this scenario? When I told Neal that I became an artist because of him, he just smiled coyly. I knew he’d been told that often.

Neal was a seismic force, and his impact is still being felt in the industry and the movies based on comics.

The interview you’re about to read was eventually repurposed for the book The Batcave Companion, which I co-wrote with Michael Eury. My part of the book was about the Bronze Age Batman, Neal’s Batman.

– Michael Kronenberg

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

Influences (left) This iconic cover of Detective Comics #31 (Sept.

1939), attributed to Bob Kane, inspired (bottom) Adams’ unforgettable cover of Batman #227 (Dec. 1970)—which we’ve repurposed for this edition of BACK ISSUE! TM & © DC Comics.

[Editor’s notes: This interview has been edited for BACK ISSUE from its longer Batcave Companion form. Several of the creators mentioned in the present tense by Neal Adams, including Joe Kubert, Denny O’Neil, and Julius Schwartz, have since passed.]

over the Batman character, and DC Comics followed suit. I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody what Batman is about. It’s just sometimes you lose track of things. The movies lost it, and maybe never had it. I think that’s the way it is with people. There are influences that come along that take your mind and switch it around and then make you think things that you never would have thought if you didn’t have all these influences.

MICHAEL KRONENBERG: It seems that Detective Comics #27–37 (1939–1940), when Batman first appeared, was an influence on you, as if you were going back to the character’s roots. Is that true?

NEAL ADAMS: The truth is that, when I presented Batman to DC KRONENBERG: It seems the people at National [Periodical Publications, DC Comics’ former name] had become incredibly stodgy.

Comics, and I didn’t get to present it to the Batman editor ADAMS: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that. I think [Julius Schwartz], I got to present it to the Brave and the world had become kind of stodgy. I think we had the Bold editor [Murray Boltinoff]. I think my attitude fought our communists and fought our parents. I mean, as to how the character should be portrayed was you must understand, I come from the time when, exemplified in my conversation with Julie Schwartz.

I believe it was the governor of New Jersey went on I had asked to work on Batman many times and the air and destroyed rock-and-roll records; when he turned me down. So I drew Batman for several people openly talked about the African influence on issues in Boltinoff’s Brave and the Bold. Letters whites’ music; where quiet bigotry was going on all poured into DC Comics saying and asking, “Why the time, everywhere, even in New York; where the is the only ‘good’ Batman the one in Brave and the world was clutching its game ball for fear that someBold?” Under this barrage of fan mail Julie finally thing would come and penetrate it or steal it away. offered to let me draw for the regular Batman titles.

Perhaps that’s not the way to put it, but it was a In our hallway chat as he offered me the Batman very protective and insular time. work Julie finally said, and with some annoyance, For me, it was not my time. If there was a time “Why is it, Neal, that you think you know how to neal adams that I should have been born, perhaps, it was not do Batman and all the rest of us don’t?” What I © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. then. In all other things, I’m a pretty conservative said to Julie at the time, and I would repeat it now, is that, “It’s not that I knew what Batman should be, it’s that I and person. As you look at me now, as we’re across the interview table, every kid in America knew what Batman should be.” It just didn’t I look as much like a fireman or a policeman as I look like anything. seem like the people at DC Comics knew what Batman ought to be. I’m not a revolutionary. I was never cool. I was never reactionary, even though people insist that [I am]. I just look at things as So I didn’t think of what I did as being anything really spectacular.

When I was a little kid, when I was like ten and 11 years old, needing change if they’re wrong, and lots was wrong.

I started to make a Batman encyclopedia for myself, where I traced drawings and copied drawings. I wrote on the bottoms the various KRONENBERG: Who accused you of being a reactionary? characteristics of the various characters and I wrote about the ADAMS: I think it’s common in my description. If you read enough Batmobile and all the other things. And I guess I did about ten interviews, I go from “a revolutionary” to “kinda crazy,” somewhere pages before I dropped from kid exhaustion. For a ten- or 11-year- in that mix. Common parlance for me. It’s just people, but among old kid that was already a big deal, and I don’t think anything in my fans, I’m not that way at all. I’m just somebody who refuses to those pages doesn’t exemplify what I think Batman is all about. live in the past, and for no reason except that I don’t like it there, not I don’t blame the people at DC. I think the TV show ran roughshod because I want to make any change, but just because it’s just bad for 10 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

you. The truth is, there really isn’t anything special about me. I just don’t like old crap, and maybe I’m a little hard to push around. That’s about the most you say: a little hard to push around. I can be pushed around, but it’s hard.

KRONENBERG: That’s a pretty big thing, though. You came into a business that was hiding.

ADAMS: Exactly. Listen, I met artists who would say to me that they’re line illustrators. They’d had the nerve taken out of them. And remember, an awful lot of them went away. Alex Toth argued with me once that I said he went out to Hollywood and went into cartoons. If Alex Toth wants to argue with me, then anything he says is fine as far as I’m concerned. Al Williamson, one of the greatest comic-book artists ever—there’s just no question, there’s not even a conversation—did ghosting work for other comic-strip artists who, in my opinion, were not as worthy as he was to do the strips that they did. You would see six-page stories in Dell, the most vanilla of comic-book companies, by people like Wally Wood and, my goodness, the best guys, and it was a terrible, terrible time.

It’s not to say that the artists of DC were bad, but certainly they were especially blessed to get work. DC didn’t make the effort to find the very best at that time. They let them go. And, if there’s one thing that I won’t forgive on a personal basis, it’s DC’s doing it. Not so much that they hurt the characters, they hurt the business by hiding and being babies, but it was a conscious decision and you have to respect it. I don’t have to respect it. [laughs] KRONENBERG: I’m going to give you a couple of names, and if you could just give me some quick opinions…

ADAMS: I generally don’t have opinions, even though people think that I do have opinions. You will find, as you ask.

KRONENBERG: Dick Sprang.

ADAMS: Loved his work when I was a kid. Love it. Absolutely. If I were doing a Batman series, I would love to do a Dick Sprang story. That would just knock me out.

KRONENBERG: Julius Schwartz.

ADAMS: You know, really truly, in my heart of hearts, I loved Julius Schwartz.

He’s a cantankerous and a difficult man to deal with, but my association with Julius, when I worked with him, was nothing but salutary. He made it hard for me, and that was fine. He was sort of a like the drill sergeant. So, in my heart, I really love the man.

KRONENBERG: Have you seen the Batman: The Animated Series adaptations of your stories, and what do you think of them?

ADAMS: I see them on and off. You must understand that an awful lot of my career has been spent with companies not paying me royalties for what I do while I fight for other people’s rights. I see an awful lot of my stuff. It’s almost as though people went into a room and said, “If we change it just this much then it won’t be Neal’s anymore.” I think that’s a little odd. What is gained?

I saw it happen with the X-Men. The first X-Men movie, pretty much, if you look at it carefully, was culled from my series of X-Men, except for the focus on Wolverine. Of course, it’s hard to argue that the key element of Magneto building a machine that turns everyone into mutants isn’t my creation. A bunch of the Batman stuff was my style. I can’t argue with their source. If we replace royalties with the word “homage,” then I guess they treated me pretty nice.

The Dark Knight Returns (top) After drawing a handful of Batman covers for Detective and The Brave and the Bold (B&B), Adams’ first interior Batman story—the oft-reprinted Deadman team-up in B&B #79 (Aug.–Sept. 1968)—returned the Caped Crusader to his original gothic interpretation. (bottom) Neal’s first Batman/Deadman became so quickly iconic that it squeezed out the brand-new Creeper/Wildcat team-up to score the top spot on the cover of Super-Team Family #2 (Dec. 1975–Jan. 1976).

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

Brave and Bold, Indeed!

From the photorealistic renderings to his imaginative layouts to the billowing scalloped cape of Batman, Adams’ B&B #79 was a sight to behold! Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

12 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

KRONENBERG: I think so. It would have been nice to see your name credited on those cartoons.

ADAMS: It’s funny about that. I see my name enough. [laughs] They’re selling $50 books with my name on it.

KRONENBERG: You were a maverick and a trailblazer…

ADAMS: Me? Not anymore.

KRONENBERG: In your day, you were. Do you think anybody fits that mold today? Can someone be like that within a large company?

ADAMS: I think it’s sort of like, to use your wording, if the trail has been blazed, there are other jobs to move on to. Once you get the wagon train to California, that trail is done. So now you have to build the cities and you have to do other things. So it’s no longer trailblazing, it’s something else. It’s changing, evolving, whatever the descriptive word is. And the trailblazing that I did was simply to take the comic books, or try to take the comic books out of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century where we actually lived. To me, it was more a matter of prying the tops off bottles. The bottles already existed with the tops on; you just had to have someone open the bottles.

The problem was that the comic-book industry was not opening the bottles.

So, it’s important to have done that, but, as an artist and as a thinker, it’s insignificant, because all it is the other part of your personality not sitting still for stupidity. That not sitting still for stupidity, on its own, is not worthy; it’s simply what you have to do.

But people say nice things about me for doing easy, obvious things. Like, they say I changed comics by bringing new technologies. But all those technologies existed out there in the world already. The blinders were on. So, what I did was I found ways to introduce them by fooling the people who were there into thinking that they discovered it, or that I wasn’t doing anything that would endanger their jobs. I had to find these different ways.

KRONENBERG: Other than inking yourself, Dick Giordano, for the most part, inked your Batman books.

Would you have preferred somebody else to ink?

ADAMS: I would have preferred to ink them all.

I was convinced by DC and told by DC that that’s the way they work and that’s much more efficient and I’ll make more money doing that. I didn’t find it to be true, but since I had a relationship with Dick and I liked the relationship and since they had put a lot more burdens on me doing so many covers and doing stuff that it seems to me that although I wouldn’t necessarily make more money, I could make a better contribution and so I let it happen. I think Dick learned some things along the way, and I think I learned some things about being a little bit more flexible with my artwork.

An Influential Run Teamed with writer Bob Haney on B&B #79– 86, followed by a return in #93 for a Batman/ House of Mystery team-up written by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams’ Brave and Bolds are beloved by fans and prized among collectors.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

KRONENBERG: The two of you started Continuity Associates [art and advertising studio] together, correct?

ADAMS: No, I opened the studio. Dick came in. We decided to become partners after he came in. As it was a small studio, Dick thought he might come in.

When he came in, we decided to have a name. So, in fact, we did start the company Continuity together.

So my answer was wrong, we did start it together.

Rock Steady Original art (courtesy of Heritage) to the splash page of B&B #84 (June–July 1969). Note Adams’ use of Batman’s flowing cape as a story panel.

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: Why did he leave Continuity?

ADAMS: Why did he leave Continuity? Nobody leaves Continuity.

KRONENBERG: [laughs] Then, how did it come about that Giordano was not involved anymore?

ADAMS: I think he just thought I was a pain in the ass. Not that he didn’t think I was a pain in the ass, but it really wasn’t his thing to begin with. It wasn’t the be-all and end-all of things. Dick’s habits didn’t really change. He got up at, like, 5:00 in the morning and started inking, then he came into the studio and inked. I more or less brought in the work, and he’d work on some interesting projects, but it really just wasn’t his thing. Dick is a much more laidback guy. Much of the work I’ve done was at night and he couldn’t be part of that. To me, it seemed to be a transitional thing for him. Almost immediately, or very soon after, he left, DC offered him [a] job.

I think with the new administration up there, that they realized his value and certainly it was a better step for him, and certainly better for comics. I didn’t think of it as him leaving. I thought it was an evolutionary process. Continuity wasn’t exactly Dick.

KRONENBERG: You always went into National. You worked in their studio a lot.

ADAMS: Before Continuity, yes, I was at National before they kicked me out. They didn’t exactly kick me out. They just invited me to leave.

I think you’d have to say that somebody like me is not a good person to have unleashed. You either make them the president of the company or you get rid of them. I had way too much influence on artists— everybody listened to me, you know. It was fine when they were floundering, and when nobody could find new artists to bring in, and their editorial policy was a mess. But once that had all settled down, and once they felt they were on equal footing with Marvel— which DC has never been, really—they felt fine.

I think letting Dick go the first time was part of the same process. “Oh, we can do it on our own now.

Everything’s fine. Let’s get rid of this ***hole. Or make him publisher.” And I, of course, never had an interest in being publisher.

So, we went through the process, we got to the end of the process. I was doing stuff for Marvel and DC at that time. That wasn’t a good ride. It might have been for everyone else, but it wasn’t for them.

They were saying, “Maybe you want to open your own studio somewhere.” I took that as a hint. Also, part of it was, why wasn’t I smart enough to figure that out before they did? You know? I really should have figured it out. I really should have said, “Hey, enough of me being here and being a pain in the ass, you know. I really should open my own studio.”

KRONENBERG: You were doing a lot of good where you were.

ADAMS: That’s true, but there’s a time and a tide of things. You miss it till you’re neck-deep. I missed it by a day.

KRONENBERG: I want to talk about some of the individual issues you did, starting with your first Brave and the Bold…

ADAMS: Which was it?

KRONENBERG: Issue #79 (Aug.–Sept. 1968), with Deadman, “Track of the Hook.”

ADAMS: Ah, see, that’s how you hook me.

KRONENBERG: From the outset, you established a tone that this was going to be a different Batman. He was going to be darker, grittier, and more realistic.

However, this is not established in the script. You decided to just do this on your own. What was the reaction of editor Murray Boltinoff and writer Bob Haney?

ADAMS: Well, Murray was kind of a political fellow.

He was never really given a tremendous amount of respect. I know other people will say at DC that he was. I, personally, have a lot of respect for him, and I enjoyed working for him. He allowed a greater amount of freedom, but I think respectfully. I first worked with him, I think, on Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis.

We had a good time, you know. It was no pressure— great guy. Julie Schwartz wouldn’t let me do Batman.

I mean, I did other stuff for Julie. I wrote and drew The Spectre, some short stories. But I felt that they were missing the boat on Batman, and since I wanted to do

14 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

it, and Murray had seen that I was basically getting a lot of attention at that point at DC— KRONENBERG: Because of your covers?

ADAMS: —and Deadman [in Strange Adventures]. Well, you know, if you do stuff that gets attention…

Murray recognized that and I told him I’d love to work on Brave and the Bold. He was only too happy to have me. I think it’s to his credit that he was nice enough to let me take the bull by the horns when I said, “I think, if you just let me do it the way I want to do it, I’ll make up some changes, they really won’t be exhibited in the script, but I’d let all these scenes take place at night. That’s really all I want to do. Because I find it hard to think of Batman walking around in the daytime in his underwear.” And so he said, “Fine, no problem.” That was basically our discussion. So that’s essentially what happened with Batman. He became slightly more mysterious.

He hung around at night and didn’t hang around in the daytime.

It didn’t really affect the story.

You don’t necessarily short the other area, but you don’t have to put as much attention to it.

So, somebody will look at a face that I’ll do, and it will seem as though you’re looking right into that person’s eyes. Because the eyes are done in such a way that you can look at them and see an eye, look into that person’s face. The rest of the face might have stubble on it or whatever, but you’re looking at the eyes. One good example is this drug addict. You don’t actually look into his eyes, and the Green Lantern/Green Arrow face, but when he opens his eyes and looks out, his eyes almost look watery. We almost see water in the eyes. How can there be water in his eyes? It’s line drawing.

Scenes like that are not tricks, they’re skills. What is the border between tricks and skills? I don’t know.

KRONENBERG: In the next Brave and the Bold, with the Creeper (#80, Oct.–Nov. 1968), your layouts became even bolder and more imaginative.

ADAMS: Chaotic. I did some of my worst layouts in there.

KRONENBERG: No, it didn’t, but the way Batman looked was like KRONENBERG: Comic fans had never seen anything like that before.

ADAMS: And in a way, everyone soon tried to do it. [laughs] nothing else anybody had seen before.

ADAMS: Well, but it’s in your mind’s eye. It’s the way you want to see it. One of the reasons that you’re saying that is because, in your mind’s eye, that’s the way you want to see it. All I did was, in a way, I copied what’s in your mind. And also, remember I had learned. I’m a skilled artist. You know, I’m not the greatest artist in the world, but I’m a skilled artist. I know how cloth moves, and there’s a lot of stuff that if you pick it up along the way and you are a person who is sufficiently interested, you can exhibit many, many skills and they don’t have to be there all at the same time. You can play with them.

Comic books are like shorthand—the art is also in the stuff you leave out. And you leave stuff out for many reasons. You leave stuff out to make a living. You leave stuff out because the story can be told simpler. You leave stuff out because people think you’re doing one thing when you’re doing another. For example, I’ll do a complicated background as an establishing shot, and then for two or three pages I’ll do nearly no background at all. People think that it’s loaded with backgrounds.

But they’re not there. The reason that they think they’re there is they retain the image of that first background. They’ve got it in their mind, and I don’t let them see that the rest of the backgrounds aren’t there. I’ll put a fence, a little piece of a fence or a little piece of a step or something else, crack of the street, so they’ll know. They’ve registered that background, they know what it looks like, and any part that I show them relates to it specifically so they think they’re seeing that background through the following pages. I am not fooling them; I’m simply working with their mind to allow them/us to travel the same path. So there are people that say, “Oh, Neal does these great backgrounds.

They’re very complicated and have all this stuff in them. There are other people who work much harder on backgrounds than I do. It’s a trick of the mind. It’s the things you leave out as much as the things you put in that make a picture what it is. I’m not just talking about negative space; I’m talking about the things you leave out.

For example, when you’re looking at a drawing, Rooftop Vigil your eye tends to focus on certain parts of the The Darknight drawing. It will not go to other parts of the drawing.

When it goes there, it just sweeps by. They’ve perDetective prowls formed experiments where they’ve attached lasers to Gotham in this 1971 the eye somehow, and you see the laser track around the painting or a drawing. And you’ll see it will concentrate sketch by Adams. on certain areas and it will swiftly go by another area.

Courtesy of Heritage.

Well, if you know that, then you can focus your attention on that area that you know your eye is going to go to.

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

KRONENBERG: You were, of course, copied, but the angles that you chose, the way you drew, the way you laid out the page, I felt it was kind of like watching an Orson Welles film. To many of us, it was shocking, beautiful, and inspiring. Like you said, people started copying it. It was the realization of what the medium could be, it could be almost film-like. How much were you influenced at that point in your career by film?

ADAMS: You have to remember, in some weird kind of way, almost all directors read comic books and comic strips. One person can draw a comic book in a month. The question really is, “How much are films affected by comic books or comic strips?”

I would say greatly, because I can do in 30 pages, in a month, what it would now take $40,000,000 to make the same story as a movie. Take $40,000,000—now it’s $100,000,000. It would take $100,000,000 to do the same thing on film. I can do it in a month in my apartment. That’s a big thing. People don’t realize the potential for comic books is greater than the potential of almost any medium ever.

There’s nothing better. So, other people had already done the Orson Wellesian quality: Alex Toth and other people like that. This was something beyond that.

This was something to inspire new directors to go, “Whoa, there’s something going on here.” If you study the stuff, you actually will find that some directors pick up ideas from these comic books. Certainly Stuart Gordon, when he did Warp, the stage play, admitted that he was reading The Avengers—the few issues of Avengers that I did that inspired the Warp show—and Jack Kirby. There’s a tendency for some of these people not to necessarily give credit. Every once in a while, you get credit.

Vittorio De Sica, I am told, apocryphal story, came to America after he had done whatever great film he had done.

KRONENBERG: It was The Bicycle Thief.

ADAMS: Could be. And took the comic-strip artists that worked for King Features Syndicate out to lunch and thanked them for being his inspiration. Federico Fellini, who was a cartoonist himself, was inspirited much by cartoonists and comics.

KRONENBERG: I think Orson Welles also had admitted that.

ADAMS: George Lucas and, I think— KRONENBERG: Steven Spielberg also.

ADAMS: I don’t see that influence not being there. And I think that, to one extent or another, the legacy of comic books is great only when the creators remember that their position is to be the leader and not the follower. When they think they’re the follower, to be influenced by film, that’s the mistake. The right thing to do is to take the chance, to experiment, to mess with people’s minds. To let people get mad at you, upset by you, or inspired by you or whatever it is, to do those things that nobody else will do, because you have the tools to do it. You can make the whole $80,000,000 movie in one month on paper. What are your marching orders?

Mess with them. That’s our marching orders. Make them crazy. Make a man into a bat, not a bat into man.

KRONENBERG: There’s no writing credit in the second Batman/Deadman story in Brave and the Bold (#86, Oct.–Nov. 1969). Did you write that one?

ADAMS: No. I’m amazed that there’s no writing credit in there. I’m quite sure it’s Bob Haney. Bob Haney, by the way, if you read those stories, you’ll find massive storytelling in there. They almost seem twice as long as a regular Batman story.

And he gets no damned credit. [Editor’s note: In my 2022 Team-Up Companion book, it is revealed that Adams took considerable liberties with Haney’s B&B #86 script, to the writer’s chagrin.]

The New Batmania Adams’ stark, stunning covers for Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970) and 397 (Mar. 1970) defibrillated Batman’s post-TV show popularity.

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: I am a fan of his. The Batman/Sgt. Rock story that the two of you did (#84, June–July 1969) is my favorite. Batman fighting the Nazis… that was wonderful.

ADAMS: And the stories are so rich and so full. They just go from here to there to there to here. Sometimes he went off the track. One particular time, I think he had a statue smuggled to America and crimes were committed because it was really gold underneath it. I forget which story [#84], but, as far as I know, it’s not illegal to bring gold into America.

But I’ve done other Batman stories, and your readers can make the comparison.

Read the Denny O’Neil stories. The Denny O’Neil stories are single ideas dramatically done and very good. You read a Bob Haney story; it’s like you’ve read three Denny O’Neil stories. They intertwine with themselves. And I applaud Denny, but I’d really like to remind people that Bob Haney did a tremendous job.

Tremendous job. I loved working on those things.

KRONENBERG: In the last Brave and the Bold story that you did, issue #93 (Dec. 1970–Jan. 1971), “Red Water, Crimson Death,” written by Denny O’Neil, did you draw yourself as the villain?

16 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Trouble by Torchlight You can’t help but be bowled over by Neal’s cover composition for Detective Comics #399 (May 1970).

Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

ADAMS: No. In fact, that was my buddy from school, Ken Stitzer.

We went to school together and we became fast friends for a number of years until we both got married and had kids. Only then did we drift apart. During that time, I took photographs of him for a couple of my stories. One of them appears in Creepy or Eerie, about a voodoo doll. I did the whole story in pencil and the villain is Ken, and he is also the character in that story. We look nothing alike. But that story is passed on.

KRONENBERG: I think it’s the goatee that you had at one time.

On to Detective Comics: What was your opinion of DC’s decision to have Batman go solo and move him away from Wayne Manor and into a penthouse?

ADAMS: Oh, did they do that? [laughs] I don’t think they did.

You’re lying, right? No, don’t kid me like that. I’m a serious guy, and I take these things seriously. I don’t think they did that. All right, c’mon. You know they didn’t do that. C’mon.

KRONENBERG: “The Secret of the Waiting Graves” (Detective #395, Jan. 1970)…

ADAMS: It’s not even a Batman story.

KRONENBERG: It’s a horror story.

ADAMS: It’s a horror story, a surreal story.

KRONENBERG: It’s great. The blending of Batman and horror just seemed to make sense.

ADAMS: Well, personally, I think Denny blew that one off. I think there are the times that you accidentally do something important, when you’re just knocking out a story. Now, maybe Denny will say differently, maybe he didn’t blow that one out of his ear. I have the impression that he did. And, as I said, you do something significant and important very often when you least expect it.

People will say to me, “Did you know when you were doing those covers that this cover would be this practically legendary cover?” And the truth of the matter is that I never meant it. I would put my ass into a cover, work as hard as I possibly could to make a great cover, and people totally forget it. I do another cover, like I did “Kryptonite Nevermore” [see the Superman interview later in this issue—ed.]—I knocked that cover out in a couple of hours and it’s a piece of crap. Everybody remembers it. They’re making posters of it.

It’s beyond me. Now, I recognize, yes, it’s a cool cover in an iconic way, but when I did it, nothing. I just did my job. You just never know. I don’t think you can predict. No matter how skilled you are… Steven Spielberg did [the box-office flop] 1941. Personally, I think it was great.

KRONENBERG: You’re the only other person that I know beside myself who thinks that. It’s one of my favorite Spielberg films.

Most people argue with me about that.

ADAMS: I love that movie. The one with Bruce Willis, the sciencefiction film, he’s a cab driver [The Fifth Element]. One of greatest films I’ve ever seen in my life.

KRONENBERG: That movie has a great look to it.

ADAMS: But the guy’s a cab driver and he’s going to save the universe without ever wanting to, with concepts that are just so hard to accept, a universe-sucking creature out there. And this stuff is drawn directly from comic books. I recognized those characters. I drew them as the bad guys in Ms. Mystic. I’m convinced those are my characters. The bad guys, you know, they were all kind of globby.

I think that’s a great movie, and people piss on it. The actress

they used [Milla Jovovich], she’d take your heart away, you know?

Bruce Willis did a great job. The special effects were great. The movie just chugged along, all kinds of good action and stuff. Nobody liked it.

So, I’m certainly not the decider, and I don’t know. I’m the guy who cuts a slab of meat and puts it out and says, “What do you think?” And everybody goes, “I like it,” or “I don’t like it.” But, honestly, I can’t tell you why “The Secret of the Waiting Graves,” in some weird way, stands out. It’s the first Batman story that I officially did. I didn’t think it was much of anything.

KRONENBERG: So you guys didn’t sit and talk about this.

ADAMS: Even when I read the thing, I thought, “What the hell, Denny’s going to totally screw this thing up.” I mean, I wanted to do Batman, I’d done these great stories with Bob Haney, and now I get this ghost story that Denny writes and it’s nothing. I did it and everybody’s like, “Wow, cool!” Okay. Nobody’s as smart as you’d like to be.

KRONENBERG: Your next story, “Paint a Picture of Peril” (Detective #397, Mar. 1970), is loosely based on Citizen Kane. I think O’Neil based it on Kane’s relationship with the amateur singer who he was grooming to be an opera star. Did you base the look of that character on Welles? He looks like Orson Welles.

ADAMS: I was told by Denny that he just wanted an “Orson Welles fat guy.” And I thought, if I drew Orson Welles, that would be bad.

I know Denny told me that it was based on Orson Welles, it was Orson Welles related to that movie. And I thought, “Okay, it’s a fat guy. I don’t want to do Orson Welles. That’s not right.” It doesn’t seem right to me. But people equate “fat guy” with “Orson Welles,” so there you go.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

The Macabre Man-Bat Neal’s suggestion of a character named “Man-Bat” to editor Julius Schwartz and writer Frank Robbins led to the Batman frenemy’s premiere in (top) Detective #400 (June 1970) and prompt return two issues later.

Covers by Adams.

TM & © DC Comics.

That was a story that I believe Dick inked. It was after that story that I got together with Dick, and I said, “Dick, we’re going to have to talk. If you’re going to ink my stuff any more, we’re going to have to do a better job than this.” I wasn’t really happy with that story.

And I thought, “Shoot, I’m doing ‘Deadman,’ you know. Let’s get a relationship going,” because I had a feeling that I was going to be written by Denny and inked by Dick, and let’s sit and talk.

Let’s get serious about this stuff. If we’re going to work together, let’s do some nice stuff. And I think that was the time when Dick and I seriously started to work together.

KRONENBERG: I didn’t know that was the significance of that story.

ADAMS: No, I don’t know if it is. It’s just that, at that point, that’s when we started talking.

KRONENBERG: Can you tell me how the idea of Man-Bat (Detective #400, June 1970) came about?

ADAMS: Yes, I can. I had actually thought about it, and I had written a synopsis I wanted to approach Julie with after I’d finished the job I was working on. He and Frank Robbins were sitting at his desk; Frank Robbins was fairly new with Julie. Julie attaches himself to certain writers. He’s very writer-oriented, and he was working well with Frank Robbins. Generally, the way it happened with Julie was: A writer would come in with a story and then Julie would tell him he didn’t like it. And then it would evolve into another story. So you get used to Julie that way. The first idea that you’re going to present him with, he’s not going to like, then you’re going to work together and change it and make a story out of it. It’s kind of a game. I worked with Julie on Spectre scripts and I understand Julie and the way he works.

I had been thinking about how I was going to approach Julie, because I didn’t want this Man-Bat story changed and ruined. I was trying to think of any way I could to present it right.

Anyway, I was at Dick’s desk, for some reason, probably handing work in, and I had noticed that [Schwartz and Robbins] were in there for quite a while talking back and forth. It was a hot day and the sun was coming in Julie’s window, and they basically had come to a dead end. So Julie turned to me and said, “So, Smiley… so, Adams. You got a Batman story?” And I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, fine.”

“Okay, you don’t have to hear it.” And then he realized that they didn’t have any story.

“All right, what is it?” “‘Man-Bat,’” I said.

“It’s a guy who likes Batman so much that he wants to help him. And he thinks that if he develops a serum and he gives it to Batman it will make Batman more like a bat. It will give him the powers and abilities of a bat. And he’s a scientist, and he wants to do this.”

Julie was still kind of poo-pooing the idea, though Frank loved it. I said, “You know, Julie, I’ll tell you what. I won’t do this, but what’s going to happen is that somebody at Marvel is going to be sitting back in their chair sometime soon, and they’re going to be going, ‘You know, we could create a Man-Bat character,’” because they had screwed DC Comics with Captain Marvel by stealing the name Captain Marvel. “Somebody’s going to be sitting there saying, ‘You know we can do a Man-Bat. DC Comics can’t do anything about it. They have Batman. We can create Man-Bat. We don’t have to make him a real bat, but we’ll own it.’ I don’t think you want to do that. If I can think of it, they can think of it.

I’m not going to tell anybody, because I wouldn’t do that to you, but what I’m saying is it’s too good of an idea for somebody not to stumble across it. They’re not going to call somebody Mansuper or Woman Wonder, but they’re going to call somebody Man-Bat. And if they do that, they’ve got it. Now, this is a good idea. If you want to talk seriously about it, I’ll give you the story.”

“Well, this story is for Frank.”

I said, “Fine, I’ll just give him my outline, and he can do it.”

He said, “Will you draw it?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll draw it and I’ll do it right.”

KRONENBERG: So, once again, you used this psychology of working on the paranoia of DC with Marvel?

ADAMS: Well, I don’t think the paranoia of DC was all that was needed. I think a little bit of paranoia on the part of Julie and the fact that Frank had no story that day, and he didn’t want Frank to walk out without a story. And Man-Bat is not a good story—it’s a great

18 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

story. And so we did it. Good story, good character. I walked in to my friends at DC Comics and planted my seeds. Man-Bat—good character, maybe he’ll be in one of the movies.

KRONENBERG: They could do it now, special effects-wise.

ADAMS: Yeah. In fact, I think they did, didn’t they? I think it was called Dracula.

KRONENBERG: Oh, you’re talking about Coppola’s Dracula.

Yeah, he did remind me quite a bit of Man-Bat. Didn’t Mike Mignola work on the concepts for that?

ADAMS: Why don’t they call me?

KRONENBERG: They should have.

ADAMS: Funny about that.

KRONENBERG: Do you remember the Batmobile that appeared in that issue?

ADAMS: Kind of a sports car. It looked like a car (see inset).

You could actually drive around the city in that and be cool.

KRONENBERG: It was stealth.

ADAMS: It was a Corvette, remodeled.

KRONENBERG: “Ghost of the Killer Skies” (Detective #404, Oct. 1970) was kind of an odd team-up between Batman and Enemy Ace. Was that something that you came up with? You were close with Joe Kubert.

ADAMS: Joe is my friend. We’re not close with each other, but he’s my friend.

The Unfriendly Skies Adams blended his own distinctive style and homages to artist Joe Kubert in the Batman/Enemy Ace “team-up” in Detective #404 (Oct. 1970).

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: So the idea of teaming them…?

ADAMS: It comes from my being a fan of Joe. My being a fan of Joe goes much deeper than just saying that. I did an Enemy Ace book that Joe Kubert inked. It looks like Joe Kubert drew it. It has the feel, not quite as much as the one that I did with Joe. To me, the density of respect for Joe Kubert can never be as great he deserves to be. Joe is a primitive. He’s an American classic. It’s like he created himself out of parts that are very hard to recognize.

I know some of the influences, but I don’t know how it became Joe Kubert. The things he offers as an artist to other artists are not his style; they’re his brevity, his lax, the composition of a page, and the intensity of the artwork. People are intensely yelling, like this sh*t’s blowing up in your face. There’s a visceral quality to Joe Kubert’s stuff. And I find myself to be slightly conservative compared to him. I like to jump into that Joe Kubert work and grit my teeth and feel little chips breaking off. To me, that’s really great.

Personally, I see Joe Kubert’s influence in my work. He’s a master. I try to not modernize it, to make it more real. Some of the things that people like a lot in my stuff, in my opinion, are my making aspects of Joe Kubert more real. So they go, “How does he get all that grit and emotion in it?” Well, underneath it are things I learned from Joe Kubert, and other people, of course. You don’t usually see guys that draw realistically get grit. You don’t see the muscles bunched and the tendons stand out in the middle.

KRONENBERG: That’s what I was talking about in that first question about The Brave and the Bold—that you presented a gritty image of Batman. That is the way I look at your Batman, besides being realistic—he could walk into this studio—he was gritty. That’s part of the realism, that’s part of life.

ADAMS: Right. It’s true with people. For example, Sean Connery.

When Sean Connery walks into a space, the space changes. He may be an actor, but he just makes a space change. I just saw a preview of the new movie that he’s in— KRONENBERG: That would be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

ADAMS: —and his presence on the screen, everybody in the audience is like, “Oh!… Oh!… Sean Connery’s in this! Oh!...

What’s he playing? Sh*t, Sean Connery!”

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

He was in a movie about the Knights of the Round Table [First Knight], with Richard Gere.

The shot that got me was: You see Sean Connery and Richard Gere, from the back, and they walk into this room and there’s the round table. Sean Connery kind of goes in and then he turns slightly to the right, and there’s Richard Gere. Now, Richard Gere is a reasonably sizable man, not gigantic, but he’s certainly not small. And he’s next to Sean Connery, but Sean Connery looms toward Gere, mildly arching his neck, but like an animal, yet he’s a civilized man. It’s a presence. Some people have that.

KRONENBERG: It’s funny that you bring up Connery, because his Bond is the one that everyone else is measured by. I have an affinity for your Batman and Connery’s Bond—gritty, dangerous, and intelligent. He’s not a psychopath, the way he’s sometimes portrayed. That’s why I’ve always felt that if the Batman films had modeled themselves after the Bond films they would have been better, because your Batman has that feel. He has that presence.

He’s dangerous, but intelligent.

ADAMS: I did this scene, Denny wrote it, where this guy’s bitching on Commissioner Gordon and Batman is in the corner and steps out and goes, “Boo!” And, I thought, “I can do this.” If you put yourself in the position of that guy and had this guy who takes up a sufficient volume of space and just leans forward and goes, “Boo!” ’cause it’s funny. But you know it’s funny.

KRONENBERG: That’s an amazing moment. That’s one of the things that would be the epitome of your Batman.

ADAMS: Isn’t it funny how people remember things? The weird thing is the impact, the sense of what it should be fits you, and you do it. That’s one of the things that I find myself doing without really knowing it. Then, later on, when somebody asks me why I did it, I can’t tell them.

But it comes back to the need to make decisions as you go along.

Sometimes part of you can make enough decisions that you’ve made five decisions, and now you’re doing something else. You didn’t rationalize that decision—it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, so you do it. Intelligent people often second-guess themselves over and over.

Sometimes, you’re better off not second-guessing.

Like first-hitters, they hit you and they don’t think, when usually they win the fight. It’s good when you’re fighting somebody, but I remember one of the things that Bob Haney did was, he did this Bork character in the Flash/Batman story [The Brave and the Bold #81, Dec. 1968–Jan. 1969]. He had some title, and it was one of these standard titles. Then the dialogue that he wrote was, “You can’t hurt Bork, but Bork can hurt you.” And I thought, “I’ve got to use that as a title. That’s a great title.” Why did I think that was a great title? I don’t know. Viscerally it felt like a good title. So I said to myself, “They’re going to argue for the other title and have a letterer do the other title. So why don’t I do this? Why don’t I just take the title I like and spread it across the illustration in such a way that you can’t get rid of it?” So this illustration of Flash running up this big shot of Bork and the lettering mostly covered it like a pyramid of lettering. You can’t separate the lettering from the art.

When I handed it in, [they said,] “It’s not the title.”

“I know, but it just seemed like a great title, so I made it part of the illustration. I can do it over if you want.”

“No, no, it’s fine.”

I have people walking up to me 25 years later at conventions and saying, “But Bork can hurt you.” They repeat it to me. That’s not even a title, but people remember it. “But Bork can hurt you.”

KRONENBERG: Detective Comics #408 (Feb. 1971), “The House That Haunted Batman,” contains one of your great choreographed fight scenes. Most comic-book readers were used to those over-thetop fights. No one had seen realistic fights like yours. What was your influence in depicting violence?

Gotham’s Guardian An undated Adams illustration of Batman, courtesy of Heritage. A color version of this pose appeared as the cover of the TwoMorrows book The Batcave Companion, co-written by Michaels Eury and Kronenberg.

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

20 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

ADAMS: There’s a back-and-forth that you can do with comic books. I think it’s a valid back-and-forth. I don’t think there are any winners in the back-and-forth. That is, you know, superheroes are constantly going into deserted warehouses and smashing them down—there’s just so many deserted warehouses in the world.

They all must be gone now.

There’s that discomfort level where it’s starting be to explored a little bit in comics, where real action leads to real results. If you punch somebody in the side of the head, they go down, and if you punch them hard enough, they won’t come back up. There are places you can hit people that are much more vulnerable than other places. If you hit somebody on the jaw and their jaw is not tightened, they’ll go out. It shakes their brain.

So to me, the boat that was missed, and has always been missed in comic books, is to make it real. It’s much more effective. You start to feel it, and then you get it. It’s not that big Gil Kane punch— a body flips over and then immediately gets up and can fight back— or like watching kung-fu movies. Nobody gets hurt.

It’s perhaps not a contribution, but something I preferred to do, and that was, let’s really make these things count. Make it count.

Punch a guy in the side of the head. Show a picture of a guy getting punched in the stomach but show his back so you see the folds of his clothing, and you feel the impact. Then when he goes down, he doesn’t get up. To me, that’s impressive. It would be impressive if I saw somebody else do it. Same standards do that same thing.

I realize this is an interview about Batman, but I did a thing in Green Lantern/Green Arrow [issue #85, Aug.–Sept. 1971] where I had this kid with a crossbow, aiming a crossbow at Green Arrow.

He shoots him with an arrow, which is called a quarrel, and he just hits him in the shoulder. So, you go, “It’s in the shoulder, happens all the time in comic books.” Well, no. If you get hit in the shoulder with a quarrel or even an arrow or even a bullet, you ain’t gonna get up real easy. This is a hard thing. So I made the experience personal. He actually aimed the thing, he actually shot it, it actually seemed to go into Green Arrow’s body, [Green Arrow] seemed to be shocked, and then he went down. So we went through this sequence of events where he’s trying to get help from people who think he’s either drunk or whatever the hell’s wrong with him, then he enters a hospital and they’re looking for his insurance, and he collapses across the nurse’s desk. All of these are results of what, in a regular comic, would seem to be an innocuous piece of action, but if you break it down into its parts, suddenly it becomes very real. People aren’t used to seeing that.

KRONENBERG: In my opinion, your run on the Batman title was the best I’ve ever seen on the character.

ADAMS: Some fools seem to like it.

KRONENBERG: Do you see any difference in your work on that title as opposed to Detective or Brave and the Bold?

ADAMS: No, not at all. The truth is, when I got the script, I didn’t know where they were going, and I just knew that I was going to be doing Brave and the Bold. I saw the difference between Bob Haney and Denny O’Neil. When you work with a different writer you structure yourself, you decide ahead of time how you’re going to structure it. You can’t take the same attitude toward, say, Green Lantern/Green Arrow as you take toward Batman. Denny wrote fairly simple stories. He kept them clean. When I was doing those stories, I did the same thing only more so. I really slicked them up so that you could read a 24-page story and think you’d read a 16-page story. You slide right through the story. That’s a storytelling skill.

There are ways to lead the eye and cause the eye to read it a certain way. I’ve always felt that it was the responsibility of the artist to grab the viewer’s eye and make them read it the way you want them to read it. If you do that, it’s like a pact. You know, you make a deal.

If you want to read one of my things, go with me. You’re going to read it this way. Let’s do it this way. I won’t let you down. The second time you read it may be slightly different, but work with me and I think you’ll have a good time at the end. Just go with me.

If you design the story in such a way that you cause readers to read it that way, you go past things, slow down, speed up, stop, go, and jump. You can do those things quickly. But a lot of it has to do with design. Sometimes it’s the content, style—there are lots of things, but you can do that. What I did with the stories that I did

KRONENBERG: And there’s no dialogue in that scene either.

ADAMS: Right. The same thing is true of Batman. This idea of punishing somebody with a bald fist and hitting them just right, going through actions that people think are maybe not that impressive. Also, in those days a lot of those older-generation guys, they never took any kung-fu classes or any judo classes. I’ve taken them. I’m not a fanatic about it. I just took them to find out what they are about. There’s a lot of power going on. And to express that power is more significant than the big action. You can have all the fights in the warehouse you want, but one down-and-dirty fight in an alley is more impressive, in my opinion.

Batman Gets His Kicks Adams’ sophisticated fight scene in Detective #408 (Feb. 1971) made readers sit up and take notice.

Inks by Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 21

Batman’s ‘Bond Villain’ (left) Batman #232 (June 1971) introduced readers to megalomaniac Ra’s al Ghul. Signed cover courtesy of Heritage. (right) Inside the issue…

Batman’s origin retold! By O’Neil, Adams, and Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

with Denny as opposed to Bob Haney is I found that he liked to stick to a simple idea. So I could slide you through that story. Anytime you read any of those Batman stories that Denny did, you never had the sense you were giving yourself a job. You didn’t have to contribute. This is the top of the slide, let’s go.

KRONENBERG: The “Daughter of the Demon” story (Batman #232, June 1971)—can you tell me about the process of creating Ra’s al Ghul’s look?

ADAMS: Well, my initial response to that story was that Denny had given me too little to work with.

He didn’t give me a character. This Ra’s al Ghul was simply a bad guy. And the guy would not stand out in a crowd. You know, he was not big, not small, just a slightly exotic businessman. You know, you’ve got to find an actor [as a model]. Who’s it going to be?

So I clearly couldn’t make Ra’s al Ghul anything more than a guy, a strong guy. The muscle was Ubu, his bodyguard. It’s one thing to do Orson Welles, it’s another thing just to do a guy who is seemingly very strong. What to do? What makes a guy, a regular guy, look distinct? In other words, how many elements can you put together that a person could have and still look like a regular guy and still have him stand out?

Well, you can make him bald. You can trim his hair a certain way, not like a clown, or what do you do?

Okay, so let’s say he has no eyebrows. People actually draw Ra’s al Ghul with eyebrows. Ra’s al Ghul has no eyebrows. I like that because that meant that something happened in his life that removed his eyebrows.

It doesn’t bother him at all. It’s part of him. If that were the case, wouldn’t it be interesting for him to have kind of a thick brow, almost primitive? But if he had

22 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

a thick brow he might look primitive, so now I have to focus on him not being primitive. So give him a thick brow but make the rest of the features of his face not primitive. Have his hair recede, because he’s been around and experienced life. I don’t want him to look like all those other guys with Green Lantern hair.

So give it a design, because he’s got it, he’s fine with it.

It’s his style. He’s got a style. His name is Ra’s al Ghul.

He should be sort of Middle Eastern, not “Oriental,” because “Oriental” means no facial hair. Middle Eastern, but not with a beard. Everybody’s got a beard, so give him something interesting as facial hair.

And see what happens when all those pieces are put together? Does it become somebody original?

Wow, it did. That was my surprise. I was like, “Whoa, it kind of looks cool.” Very interesting, and nothing from anything else. In other words, nothing borrowed.

He was just a guy who obtained a style in his life valid for him, maybe, and for only him. Cool. Not a superhero. He doesn’t wear a costume. He wears a suit and maybe has a cape on, but, you know, just for the hell of it. Because he’s cool.

Sometimes you start down a path and you don’t know if the end will be successful. One thing that I like to do is to go, do it without saying ahead of time, “Will this work?”

KRONENBERG: Ra’s al Ghul is a great character.

He’s an icon now.

ADAMS: And I don’t know why. You can’t put your finger on it. But there it is. It works.

KRONENBERG: That issue also contains your Batman and Robin origin segment. How did you come to the

decision to put that in? Did you have any influence over that?

ADAMS: In that case, I did ask for it, only because I wanted to do it. I’d seen it done, and I didn’t necessarily not like it. I convinced Denny O’Neil and I guess I convinced Julie, [whispering]: “I’ve never done the origin of Batman. I’d like to do it. We’ve all seen that first one, and we’ve seen other people screw with it, and it’s never very good. I just want to do the first one. Not change it, just do it. Just let me do it.” So he said, “Okay, have Denny throw it in.”

KRONENBERG: The Two-Face story, “Half an Evil” (Batman #234, July 1971)—whose decision was it to bring him back? He had been out of commission since the ’50s.

ADAMS: Denny and Julie’s. Every once and a while they’d ask me, “What do you think?” Denny and I agreed we liked the old character and wanted to bring it back. We brought the Joker back, brought Two-Face back. We didn’t bring the Penguin back. But other people were there to bring him back.

You can’t not like the double-sided aspect of Two-Face. You can pretend, and you can say you don’t get it, he’s too insane to live. But at the same time, you like to watch it. And the flipping of the coin…?

KRONENBERG: It’s great. It has the origin sequence with Two-Face. It’s the best version of Two-Face’s origin. That splash page produced your pencils as the background.

ADAMS: What is that? Is that with the ship?

KRONENBERG: Yeah.

ADAMS: Oh, yes. [quoting, shaking his finger] “You can’t do that, you know.”

KRONENBERG: You were bringing in commercial-art techniques into comics.

ADAMS: Like prying open the jaws of death…

“New drawings here… What are we going to do with them, Neal?”

“Well, I’m going to turn one into a halftone.”

“We don’t do halftones in comics.”

“Okay. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to use a stat machine.

Those plastic sheets on top of the Photostat machine that nobody uses, those are halftone separations. Take a pencil drawing and make it into a halftone, then we’re going to shoot the other drawing on to acetate. We’re going to paint out the back of it and put one on top of the halftone.”

“That won’t work. It’s just too confusing. It’ll be a mess.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, all right. It’s just Neal being crazy again.”

“We’ll do a drop-out.”

“A drop-out? What’s a drop-out?”

KRONENBERG: So you were the first person to actually do that at DC? ADAMS: No, you’ve got to understand that everybody did that stuff before when there was the real world and before they fell into this hole.

There was a character called Fate who was printed in drop-out, in purple.

He was the narrator of the book that was done by Bob Powell and he’d be in the top of every panel having conversations with you and he’d be a dropout. Every page all the way through the book. [Editor’s note: The Hand of Fate was a horror title published by Ace Magazines in the early to mid-1950s.]

Joe Kubert did 3-D. I mean, everybody did this stuff. It’s just when everything closed down, the top went on the bottle. And then, everybody thought it was new. “Neal invented new colors!” [laughs] “Imagine… he invented new colors!” They have a thing that some of the guys referred to at DC Comics as “Neal Adams blue”? “Neal Adams blue” is B Y2 R2. That is, you take blue and you add 25% yellow and 25% red and it makes a night sky, but it’s a really nice night sky. It’s not blue, or blue with red in it so it’s magenta. Blue with yellow and red, which makes it dense. It’s “Neal Adams blue.” [whispering] “Nobody does that.”

They told me you couldn’t have more than 250% of a color on a panel, on a page, or in an area. I’d say, “Why?” “Well, because the ink would get too thick and slide around.”

I said, “Nothing is going to slide, believe me. Maybe on a New Yorker magazine. But we print on toilet paper, don’t you get it? You can put a 1000% of color on it. Add color. It won’t slide.”

KRONENBERG: “Night of the Reaper” (Batman #237, Dec. 1971) involved a Jewish Holocaust victim who seeks revenge on his captors. You portrayed Dr. Schloss, the villain, with an incredible amount of pathos, and the story was very powerful. What were your feelings about that story?

Double Take O’Neil and Adams revived the dormant Two-Face in Batman #234 (Aug. 1971), which also included this classic “Boo!” panel.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

‘Night of the Reaper’ (left top) Adams’ frightening Batman #237 cover (Dec. 1971) makes your heart skip a beat, doesn’t it? (left bottom) The issue’s ending, as told via Adams’ cinematic staging. (right) An undated Adams pencil illo of the Batrope-hustling Masked Manhunter, recreating the hero’s post from the Batman #237 cover.

Courtesy of Heritage.

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

ADAMS: Tell the story, that part was all I cared about.

The rest of the story was a crock. It was a story that sort of started out with stories of Rutland, Vermont.

KRONENBERG: Right. The costume party.

ADAMS: I reckon it was a good job. You know, an awful lot of my work, really, I hope it’s thought of this way, that it’s a really good, professional job.

I want people to know the extent that I try. I always try to do a good job. If I do a storyboard for an advertising agency or whatever it is that I do, I always think, “I want this to be worthwhile. I want to learn something during the process of doing this.” And if I do, then the people who look at it will feel that.

KRONENBERG: Well, Neal, I don’t think there is anyone out there who is going to consider you someone who is unprofessional or somebody who didn’t put everything they had into it. I don’t think that’s the perception anyone has of you.

ADAMS: Good. There you go. I didn’t even have to say that.

KRONENBERG: The Ra’s al Ghul saga that runs for three issues (Batman #232–234, Aug.–Oct.

24 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

1972)—that resembles a sweeping, worldwide James Bond epic with Ra’s al Ghul as the megalomaniacal Bond villain.

ADAMS: Sort of in the animated series, too.

KRONENBERG: Did you like that portrayal of Batman, out of his Gotham City element?

ADAMS: I didn’t think of it that way. I felt a little uncomfortable when he was on the snowy mountain and when he confronted those guys in the caves.

Because I think that I probably should have made it darker. When I was doing it, I was thinking, “You know, Batman can do this sh*t anywhere. He can hide himself in the snow, you know. Wherever he is, he uses whatever the elements are.” It sort of worked like this with me. If you interviewed Denny, you would hear the same thing.

The relationship that Denny and I had at that time was, he would not have to take the extra effort to describe what he was driving at. And he could take that time and put it into the story and into the dialogue. Because he pretty much trusted me that I would give him what was in his mind, or close to it, so that he didn’t have to think about it. That’s the part of the relationship that I think is most important.

In effect, I became a director. When I do this stuff, I think of myself as a director. I’m making that script into something real, and I hope that the writer likes what I do. If he doesn’t, of course it would bother me.

Sometimes, people get very emotional about it. My writers generally have been pretty happy.

KRONENBERG: When I was nine, I picked up this cover [showing Adams Batman #244, Sept.

1972]. It was very jarring.

ADAMS: Batman has hair on his chest (see inset)!

KRONENBERG: Because it’s Ra’s al Ghul and Batman in this stark desert.

ADAMS: It’s like some photographer went there.

KRONENBERG: Right.

Batman’s out of costume, he looks dead. Is this the effect that you wanted?

It was startling to see this cover. I had never seen anything like it before.

ADAMS: Julie actually said, “Do you really think you ought to put nipples on him? They really don’t put nipples on people in comic books.” And I thought, “What a weird question.”

“Yes, Julie, I think he should have nipples and hair on his chest.” So when I did it, it was like passed around the hall. Think about this. It never occurred to people that Batman had hair on his chest and had nipples.

It’s one of those things like, how do you say it…?

When you walk into a place where all these restrictions have happened, and, out of whether it was respect or enlightened self-interest, or whatever the hell it was, they left you alone just to do what you might do. And you weren’t afraid. Some of the things that you do you think are nothing. While other things that you think are shocking are not shocking at all.

But you get to do it, you get to play.

I was the “Wild Man from Borneo” they called “Smiley.” What happened was, there were all these people out there, and I began to feel it after a while.

People in college, people in school… Comic books, I never thought of them as art. I never thought of them as a pursuit. I never thought of them as more than, you know, you open the bubble gum and you get a little comic strip. Is it worthwhile? I mean, you know, you start to go, “Wait a second.” If you go by the standards of history, then comic books are a pure form.

Judged by way of history, they’re not. They’re not drawn for the Pope or for a client who wants a portrait.

They’re drawn to tell a story. They’re written to tell a story, that’s all, and they’re not written for children.

The Killing Joker Forget Cesar Romero—the Joker was back to his old homicidal ways in the classic Batman #251 (Sept. 1973).

Original Adams cover art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: Because Batman wasn’t thought of as a real person. You were the first person to make him real.

The conclusion of that story reads like a classic Errol Flynn adventure. The two combatants duel with swords, the hero overcomes the clutches of death, he decisively defeats the villain, and embraces and kisses the villain’s daughter. Your Batman was very passionate. What was the reaction at the DC office to seeing those final few pages?

ADAMS: They loved them. They certainly didn’t bother anyone. I didn’t quite like the ending, because the girl had to save him.

KRONENBERG: You made that kind of obtuse. You had to really, really look at that panel to realize what had happened.

ADAMS: Yeah, that’s something you don’t usually see in comics either. But you see, I come from the real world. There are things that you almost are shocked that haven’t been done. You see them and you go, “I saw that in a movie, so what’s the problem? Hello, am I in a room all by myself? It’s in a movie. Let’s do it.”

Remember, I had done a syndicated strip [Ben Casey] before this, [which was] very limiting. All this space, pages, and covers, and I could just do anything I want. They didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

I’d go away and I would come back with a cover, and they’d say, “Good,” or they’d be shocked or whatever it would be. And they’d know that they’d get good sales. So they really almost didn’t question me. [whispering] “Did you see the cover? Batman hasn’t got a shirt on.” “Really?” “Don’t let the girls see it.”

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

Run, Batman, Run! Adams’ art for the runningBatman full-pager from Batman #251 was reused in the ’70s for (left top) the cover of Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-26 and (left bottom) this jigsaw puzzle, among other items. (As mentioned in this issue’s Superman interview, Neal’s flying-Superman pose on this puzzle is another familiar image; it was drawn for the cover of Superman #252.) (right) Courtesy of Heritage, a 2000 Adams recreation of the shot.

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: Like Egyptian hieroglyphics. The fact that the pictures tell a story. It goes that far back that we want to see a story.

ADAMS: More important than that. Look at caves.

It’s a form of entertainment. You draw pictures on the cave, and then you stand in front of the pictures and you tell the story of what happened that created these pictures—who was killed, how it happened, why that man is dead over there.

So you’re combining words and pictures to tell a story. At a certain point, those elements have been separated and then you have painters and you have writers. Then you have plays that you need many people for—radio plays, movies, television.

Suddenly, a form comes along where one or two people can tell the whole story, and it doesn’t have to be for the king, or for the church, or for the French dilettantes, it can be for kids, semi-adults.

Freedom, caves, comic books. What form is purer?

I’m not saying it’s art, I’m simply saying what form is purer, whether it’s art or not. If you take the best artist and the best writer in the world, won’t they produce the best comic book? Won’t that be the greatest piece of art? I don’t know.

What I’m saying is, there’s something about the form. And I know that in my head I can mess you up. I can take Batman’s shirt off and show his nipples. [laughs] People, smart people, noticed, had to notice.

26 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

KRONENBERG: “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” (Batman #251, Sept. 1973)—that might well be my favorite Batman comic. Can you tell me how the decision to return the Joker to his homicidal roots came about?

ADAMS: I found myself being very uncomfortable with that story, because he was homicidal. I didn’t think of the Joker as being homicidal, but Denny did. And I thought, “I’m a professional, and if that’s where he’s going with this, by golly, I’ll go with it, just to be able to do the Joker.” I, in fact, talked to Denny, “You’ve got him blowing up a guy, he’s dead.”

And Denny was like, “Well, Joker’s insane.

He’s a murderer.”

“Okay, I’m with you. Whatever you like.”

So, I thought, “Well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to ink this one myself.” I want it to be real. I want to add that reality to the Joker. Periodically, I was inking one or the other book myself. I think I started with this boxer. You can see it very, very clear, but it’s very clear in the sense that you see all the elements and change the camera angle so you get something very real. Suddenly, I’m introducing you to a story. So, I set it up to be very real.

So, now Packy White’s very real, and we’re going to do a Joker story. So, people were sucked in.

KRONENBERG: It seems to me that you took this story up a notch. The storytelling and the art are breathtaking. Did you really put an extra effort into this one?

ADAMS: You’ll find that I’m a very shallow person.

You can pretty much see when I put extra effort into it. I felt that it was very important at the beginning of the story, because we’re dealing with the Joker.

Remember, Batman is a real character, and he’s a real thing. So now we’re doing the Joker on the edge of reality. It’s got to be more real. Most inkers, you know, they don’t see everything that you want to put in—so you can add things. The fact that I inked it myself really made it turn the edge, because no matter how good an inker is—and Dick is a terrific inker—they’re not going to get all the nuances. If I’m going to communicate, I’m going to say, “Okay, I’m going to go with this Joker character. He’s not a cartoon. He’s insane. So let’s go. Let’s get nuts.” So yes, I did.

My other excuse is that, if I find a half a day extra, I’ll spend it on the work. If somebody will just let me have it and not give me too many covers or just give me some way to stay up a few hours longer, I will put it in. Because I really like this sh*t.

KRONENBERG: “Moon of the Wolf” (Batman #255, Mar.–Apr. 1974)—did you know at the time that this was going to be your last story for DC Comics?

ADAMS: No. It wasn’t, was it? I did Superman vs.

Muhammad Ali. KRONENBERG: I’m thinking more along the standard comic titles. Did you know that you were going to move on to Continuity?

ADAMS: There was no moving on. I’m not one of those people who say, “This is the very last time.”

I never do that. That just takes so much selfimportance. [Editor’s note: In the 2000s, Neal Adams returned to DC Comics to write and illustrate several miniseries and special stories.]

KRONENBERG: That battle on the top of the skyscraper between the werewolf and Batman—the story’s climax reminded me of a Universal horror

Bad Moon Rising Detail from the cover of Batman #255 (Mar.–Apr. 1974), Neal Adams’ return to the Caped Crusader on the Len Wein– written tale “Moon of the Wolf.” (inset) The story was adapted as an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

TM & © DC Comics.

KRONENBERG: I remember seeing the announcement for that story. I distinctly remember seeing, in the letters column, a small sample of it. The anticipation for that issue was amazing. People were going crazy for that book.

ADAMS: The other thing, too, is that a lot of people haven’t done it, even since then. You’ll notice, in every frame where the Joker appears, he’s always smiling. Because the smile is frozen on his face.

People forget that. They change his expression.

He can’t change his expression. There’s a movie that the Joker is sort of based on— KRONENBERG: The Man Who Laughs. Yeah, it’s a Victor Hugo book. They carve the smile into his face.

ADAMS: Yeah, he can’t not do that. That’s cool.

Horrible, but cool.

KRONENBERG: There’s the scene where you show the Joker comparing himself to the shark (see right bottom).

ADAMS: But that was done in all innocence. There’s another panel like that…

KRONENBERG: The shark’s jaw! I love it.

ADAMS: I tell you a thing that’s cool—if you do it, anybody else that does it is copying. If you get there first and you do it, everybody says, “That’s cool.”

Nobody can be the first but you.

KRONENBERG: The shot on page 21, with Batman running, has become a Batman icon.

ADAMS: That’s on the cover of the first Batman Illustrated [by Neal Adams] book.

KRONENBERG: Was that your decision to put that image on the cover?

ADAMS: I told them, “Look, if they’re old stories we ought to do a sort of old icons redone, made new.”

“Oh, really? You’re just going to use old drawings?”

“No. I’m going to respect the iconography of the old poses that everybody remembers, and I’m going to do them new again. I’m not going to change them, I’m going to re-render them and add something to them.”

“Oh.” Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

Midnight Manhunter An undated specialty illustration of Gotham City’s most famous citizen by one of comics’ most legendary artists. Courtesy of Heritage.

film. I remember reading somewhere that you were captivated by the way Christopher Lee looked and his cape moved in a Hammer Dracula film. How much of an influence have horror films been on your work?

ADAMS: I don’t think you can put your finger on it.

Yeah, I like the old good stuff. I like all the new good stuff. There are a lot of images lifted. It’s hard to find really good stuff, and I’ve got an eagle eye out for it, because I always do research. So anytime I see anything that’s good, I lock it into my head to pull out later for whatever reason I need it. Because you don’t get to take photographs for a lot of this superhero stuff.

You kind of have to draw it. Normally, I would rather use photographs, but with superheroes you have to get that stuff. You can add photographic reference to it, but you’ve got to keep a log of stuff in your head.

I would say there’s an inspiration from the Christopher Lee movies because of the way he moved and the way he made his cape work. But you could put that together with Errol Flynn, who did a lot of that stuff, and Basil Rathbone. Here’s Basil Rathbone fighting Errol Flynn on a beach, whipping his cape around, and throwing it off and then continuing battle with the flowery shirts and sh*t. It’s great.

KRONENBERG: What is your favorite Batman story that you did?

ADAMS: I don’t think I have one. I hate to be anti-climactic. I find something good in everything that I do or else I probably wouldn’t have done it. I always find something interesting in what I work on.

TM & © DC Comics.

Always. If it’s not there, I put it in. So there’s nothing that stands out as a favorite.

The favorite stories are stories that take the longest to do, and then I get to enjoy them that much longer. “Batman/House of Mystery” [B&B #93]—nice, long story. We got to do a lot of stuff in there. But then, somebody would immediately say, “Well, what about Batman/Joker?” “Well, what about the werewolf story?”

So, I’m sort of like everybody else. If I come upon Neal Adams stuff by surprise, I look at it and I like it.

I don’t think of it as being mine. I think of it as being a comic book. I would hope the same thing would happen with most people who do comic books. I look at my stuff like I didn’t do it.

KRONENBERG: I have one last thing to tell you: The thing that separated your Batman from all the others was that you breathed life into him. No one had seen the character that way before. You made the readers believe that he could exist, that he could walk the earth.

So I truly believe that you saved the character and that you helped elevate him to the icon that he is today.

ADAMS: Well, I don’t know that I saved him. I certainly agree that I probably helped to elevate him to where he is today. You know, when you do artwork, if you just do artwork, and you don’t think of it as people and directing and all those things that are associated with the storytelling, then if you do artwork as storytelling and you can add art to it, the artist can get a great deal of joy as a storyteller.

I don’t know how to draw as an artist. I think that probably I draw pretty well, but I draw as a storyteller. If you asked me to do a sketch of Batman or some character, I have to have a drop of blood coming down his face, so something has to be happening in the drawing that commits to a story. I have to have a story. I know, when I’m drawing this guy for some commercial thing, I have to know the guy to understand what he’s doing and why he’s there.

KRONENBERG: It’s very much what you were talking about before—being a director, or even thinking of an actor—you have to have a point of reference. You have to have an understanding of who and what you’re doing.

ADAMS: I have always felt that people were drawing Batman the comic-book character and they were doing comicbook figures. When I started to do Batman and anybody else that I do, I don’t think that way.

I think I’m telling a Batman story about a real character. I’m telling that story. Not that I’m drawing it, I’m telling it. I think that’s why I enjoy the work.

One of the reasons I have so much fun with what I do is that I’m telling stories. I enjoy telling the story.

MICHAEL KRONENBERG is an artist/ graphic designer for the Film Noir Foundation, Kino-Lorber, TwoMorrows, and is the founder and graphic designer of the boxing magazine Ringside Seat. He also co-hosts the Kronenberg Chronicles podcast.

28 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

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30 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

Batman. Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Deadman.

Avengers. X-Men. These are the marquee names that top Neal Adams’ prodigious résumé, and this is not their story. What follows instead are a few of the credits and actions that went virtually unheralded at the time but deserve recognition, nonetheless.

When an 18-year-old Neal Adams was trying to break into comics in 1959, most work in the medium was done in anonymity, but there were degrees even then. Virtually every newspaper comic strip had a credit on them, but those might be incomplete— perhaps listing only the artist—or refer to a creator who was using unidentified “ghosts” to complete some or all of the published material.

ADAMS UP AT ‘BAT’

Such was the case with Bat Masterson. Based on the real-life historical figure and the fictional TV series (1958–1961), the comic strip tie-in premiered on September 13, 1959, with writer Ed Herron and artist Howard Nostrand. “It was done in a sort of Noel Sickles-Jack Davis style,” Adams detailed to Jud Hurd in Cartoonist Profiles #12 (1971). “A beautiful one for Westerns especially.”

Nostrand needed an assistant on the backgrounds of the strip, and someone suggested that he contact a kid who was then drawing humor fillers for Archie Comics. “He researched these backgrounds very thoroughly,” Adams told Hurd, “[a]nd I helped him with them, as well as with his other illustration work.

We experimented with all kinds of techniques— did charcoal drawings on wrapping paper—another job on sandpaper, and so on.”

Nostrand “was a jazz fan, and he burned his candle at both ends,” Adams recalled to Howard Chaykin in a 2020 interview at neotextcorp.com, “which taught me not to burn my candle at both ends and I never have. He worked originally at a place called Alexander E. Chaite Studios [in New York City] alongside such luminaries as Bob Peak.

It was discovered that the reps were ripping off the artists, so they all left. That’s where I learned not to rip off artists. In an apartment on 50th Street, Howard worked with ‘Red’ Sudek, ‘Red’ Wexler, and a Spanish fellow whose name I forget who laughed every time Howard sang, ‘bésame el culo.’ Elmer

Bunker Mentality “Crusty Bunker” (at times billed as “The Crusty Bunkers”)—a pseudonym for Neal Adams and Continuity Associates artists working under Neal’s direction—inks over Alan Weiss’ pencils for the “Pellucidar” feature in DC’s Weird Worlds #3 (Dec. 1972–Jan. 1973).

Unless otherwise noted, scans accompanying this article are courtesy of John Wells. © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

32 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

by J o

hn Wells

Wexler, a line illustrator and ex-Marine, taught me his mother’s signature when the contract arrived a work ethic that Howard would never learn. From after his 21st birthday. It would have been doubly Howard, I got broad experience and learned tons. awkward since he’d told the newspaper syndicate From Wexler, I learned a work ethic. I paid attention that he was 25.

By the time Adams did turn 25 on June 15, 1966, to both, but never confused the two.”

Perhaps as a consequence of his lack of work ethic, Ben Casey was coming to an end. The cartoonist cited Nostrand—and by extension, Adams—was replaced various reasons for its cancellation, ranging from on Bat Masterson after three months. Bob Powell disagreements with writers Jerry Caplin and Jerry succeeded him in December 1959, remaining until Brondfield to a division of profits that drastically slashed the pay Adams should have been taking the strip’s end in June 1960.

“I stupidly took a ten-percent part of the strip home. Ben Casey concluded on July 31.

The editors at NEA, the syndicate that distributed rather than be paid $50.00 a week, which ended up earning me a whopping $11.50 a week,” the feature, replaced it with a humor strip called The Adams ruefully told Chaykin. “So much for clev- Willets and had no plans for any new launches in er horse-trading. I did a sample for a commercial 1966. “They said they’d like to take out an option on strip and begged Elmer Wexler to review it for me. me for the next year,” Adams detailed in Cartoonist Profiles #12, “and would pay me so much a month When I did, he told me there was so much if I’d promise not to go to another syndicate wrong with it that it would take him all with a strip. I would be able to do anyday to tell me what it was, and he didn’t thing else in the art line I wanted—I just have the time. Once I recovered, I had to refrain from submitting another made another attempt. I showed it strip elsewhere! I was very flattered to Elmer. He called Johnstone and but refused the offer.”

Cushing and told them that they By this time, Adams had already should hire me on a freelance produced three weeks of dailies for basis. And they did.” a drama strip called Tangent that Johnstone and Cushing was an ultimately went nowhere. Meanwhile, advertising agency distinguished the cartoonist had also stepped in to by its comics-style marketing of secretly draw the hardboiled deteca wide variety of products and tive strip Peter Scratch when its artist services. Thanks to the encroachLou Fine was unavailable. Revered ment of television, demand for such neal adams for his Golden Age superhero strips ads was fading fast by the time Dave Sim. like the Black Condor and the Ray, Adams came aboard and the company itself would be bought out in 1962. None- Fine had successfully moved into comics-style theless, the young artist thrived in the environment, advertising in the 1940s and 1950s, and was a Johnlearning everything that the older illustrators could stone and Cushing alumnus.

Overlapping with his last weeks on Casey, Adams teach him and cultivating a network of contacts in drew the Scratch dailies for June 13–25 and July 11– the competitive art field.

“When I was 20, they had a birthday party,” 23, 1966. “It was hard to get close to Lou at the Adams told Will Eisner in Will Eisner’s Quarterly #1 time I knew him,” Adams remarked in Will Eisner’s (1983). “The older guys did this. I said, ‘This is great. Quarterly #1. “He seemed to have a lot of personal I can’t understand why you guys are making such a family problems and they made him sad. He had a big fuss about me being 20.’ They said, ‘Well, we very sad outlook on things and his work had gone don’t have to tell our wives and our friends that we’re from being very alive to very deadly and well drawn. […] He seemed as though somebody had pulled the being beaten out by a teenager anymore.”

Before his next birthday rolled around in 1962, plug and pulled a lot out of him.

“He had the ability to sit down and draw a picture.

Adams was presented with another opportunity.

Jerry Caplin, the sibling of Li’l Abner cartoonist Al He didn’t take references out. He’d just start drawing Capp, had landed the rights to a comic strip based and a picture would appear. The only other person on the medical TV series Ben Casey, but the deal I’ve seen do that is Russ Heath, who would start at the hinged on signing a first-rate artist. Johnstone back hoof of a horse and just draw a silhouette and and Cushing passed along Neal’s name and his then come back to the same place and have a horse. samples clinched the deal. Not quite of legal age, Lou Fine didn’t quite do that, but to a young artist, Adams avoided the embarrassment of requesting he was incredibly fast.”

Paging Young Doctor Adams Neal’s flair for photorealism made the young artist a natural for the actor likenesses of the TV tie-in comic strip, Ben Casey. Shown is a daily from May 2, 1966.

Ben Casey © NEA, Inc.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

The Heart of Neal Adams… …was captivated by the extraordinary Stan Drake, artist of The Heart of Juliet Jones. Neal briefly assisted Drake on the strip. (top) Original art to the August 24, 1967 daily, courtesy of Heritage. (middle) You can spot Adams’ personal style in this Secret Agent Corrigan daily he ghosted for Al Williamson in 1967, but (bottom) he largely becomes invisible “as” John Prentice when filling in for the Rip Kirby artist in 1968. © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

‘HE GAVE BIRTH TO ME’

No artist had as great an influence on the young Neal Adams as Stan Drake. His artwork on the Heart of Juliet Jones strip stunned fans with its natural, photorealistic rendering of its characters and backgrounds. Drake achieved the look through techniques like the aggressive use of Polaroid photos for reference and the employment of ink lines that varied in thickness to evoke different visual qualities.

“He was more than an innovator; he was an inspirer,” Adams declared in The Comics Journal #194 (1997). “In a sense, he gave birth to me. […] [And] it’s not just people like me in the USA; most people in Europe saw him as a world-class illustrator.” When enlisted to briefly assist Drake on Juliet Jones, Adams described it in TCJ #194 as a “privilege beyond privileges.” Allan Holtz’s authoritative American Newspaper Strips: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide cites Adams’ work as appearing in Juliet Jones on October 17–November stan drake 5, 1966 (assistance) and August 21–25 and September 10, 1967 (ghosting). Despite his brief contribution, Adams’ Dave Sim. name is routinely attached to Drake original art from throughout the 1960s, even though he had nothing to do with most of the art boards.

34 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Adams’ Drake-influenced style and familiarity with the comic-strip form made him an ideal candidate to assist on other realistically rendered strips when their artists were in a pinch. He ghosted Secret Agent Corrigan for Al Williamson from August 12–19, 1967 and did the same for John Prentice on Rip Kirby.

His contributions to the latter were more extensive and comprised a week in 1967 (November 6–11) and four in 1968 (June 9–14; August 5–10, 19–24; and September 9–14).

Adams also shaped the look of a newspaper strip for which he never drew a line. In 1965, a year before Ben Casey ended, the artist was contacted by Jerry Caplin’s brother, Elliot, about drawing a new strip based on Robin Moore’s bestseller The Green Berets.

“Now of course he was undercutting his brother there,” Adams told Rik Offenberger in a 2005 interview (www.firstcomicsnews.com/neal-adams-renaissanceman), “but he thought maybe it was possible to do two strips. And it was possible because I had worked out certain techniques. I could do it. I had a threehour lunch with the fellow who wrote the book. By the end of the lunch, I was so disgusted with what was going on with Vietnam, I realized I was definitely not the guy. I talked to Elliot and told him in all honesty I am really not for this war, so I don’t think I am the right guy for this spot. He said, ‘I am so out of the comic-book thing, who would you recommend?’

“In my brain I was laughing to myself, and I said, ‘Joe Kubert.’ Kubert was the ultimate war artist. [I told Elliot] ahead of time, ‘You’re used to guys like Stan [Drake] and myself. You are not going to like Joe’s stuff right off the bat. He is going to have to do a couple of weeks of dailies and in three weeks you are suddenly going to get it and understand why Joe Kubert is Joe Kubert. You are going to want Joe Kubert more than anybody else in the world, I promise you this. ‘” “At that time, we had never met,” Kubert remarked in Comic Book Profiles #3 (1998). “Not only was I surprised but I was also very much complimented by the fact that Neal had recommended me. I knew of his work, and I always admired the work that he had done.

I was very gratified that he had recommended me.”

Kubert ultimately drew Tales of the Green Beret (sometimes Berets) from September 1965 to January 1968, quitting several months before its end. He was now fully engaged at DC again, not only as an artist but also an editor of the publisher’s war comic books.

Neal Adams had also found his way to DC and was quickly making an impression in a big way, bringing his realistic style to covers featuring icons Batman and Superman and interiors starring the supernatural Spectre and Deadman.

Joe Kubert At War The legendary battle artist, shown in this 1965 photo with his son (and future comic artist) Andy, was recommended

by Adams to be the artist of the syndicated Tales of the Green Beret (also Berets) comic strip. © NEA, Inc.

DC DROP-INS

Consequently, Adams was on site when Kubert found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The World War I–based “Enemy Ace” feature in Star-Spangled War Stories had become a critical favorite, with scripts by Robert Kanigher and art by Kubert himself.

Among its fans was idiosyncratic legend Alex Toth, who begged to draw an episode of the feature.

Kubert agreed to give him a script, but with a caveat. Toth had achieved some notoriety for drastically changing a given writer’s plot before handing in the finished art. Emphasizing his great admiration for his old friend, Joe insisted that could not happen here. “If you’re going to change anything,” the editor recalled telling Toth (2012’s Genius Illustrated), “let me know beforehand and we can talk about it. But don’t make any changes on this thing just because you feel like it.

“Well, I got the story back from him, completed.

It’s a totally different story, and I just blew my stack.

I packed up the whole damned thing and I sent it back to him. I said, ‘Thank you for this story, but it’s not the one I sent you, and I’m not gonna print this.’ And he never got paid for it.” Legend has it that Toth carried the pages in his car for years and finally tore them up.

al williamson Dave Sim, from a photo by Mike Catron.

john prentice From Rip Kirby vol. 9 (IDW, 2016).

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

Deadlines Take No Holiday When artist Alex Toth took too many liberties with an “Enemy Ace” story assigned to him and editor Joe Kubert rejected his artwork for DC’s StarSpangled War Stories #144 (Apr.–May 1969), Neal Adams swooped in to pencil the issue’s tale, inked by Kubert.

TM & © DC Comics.

Meanwhile, Kubert still needed an Enemy Ace story for Star-Spangled War Stories #144 (slated to go on sale in February 1969). “Joe planned to take the original story and draw it himself,” Adams related in Comic Book Profiles #1 (1998). “So, I asked, ‘Well, how long have you got to do it?’

‘I’ve got under two weeks to do it,’ he said. I said, ‘Joe, it would be a great honor for me if you would allow me to pencil this book. You have a very, very tight deadline, you have other stuff to do; my schedule is not bad.”

Kubert accepted the offer, inked Adams’ pencils, and made his deadline. Afterwards, Neal continued, “I had to stop Joe in the hallway because he never said anything to me. So, I said, ‘Joe, look, you’ve got to tell me, what do you think?’ He said, ‘It was like somebody just crawled into my mind.’ That was great, it was all I needed to hear. I loved it.”

Overlapping with the Enemy Ace story, another crisis erupted in the office of editor Dick Giordano.

Young writers Marv Wolfman and Len Wein had penned a story for Teen Titans #20 (set for a January 1969 on-sale date) wherein its young cast met a black superhero named Jericho amidst a race riot. After Nick Cardy turned in the complete artwork for the issue, editorial director Carmine Infantino read the pages and immediately informed Giordano that the story could not be printed.

Wein and Wolfman approached Adams, insisting that he read the script for himself and see if management was overreacting. “There was a lot

36 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

of reverse prejudice in the story,” Adams conceded in The Comics Journal #72. “I don’t remember each specific thing. All I remember is the experience of reading it and going, ‘[expletive] Why did they write this?’ […] It wasn’t heavy material, but it was like people calling other people names, bad names, ‘Honky,’ things like that. It was rough, it was very rough.

“I spent the whole weekend rewriting it and brought it in. I thought I did a good job. It was a good job. It wasn’t necessarily a good job of writing, but it was cleaned of heavy nuttiness. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how adamant Carmine was about it.

Anyway, I handed it in and asked that it be given a little bit of consideration. At first Carmine refused to read it. That got me a little upset, because I worked a whole weekend on it. So… I caused it to be read and somehow the thing had come down to, ‘No, it would not be used under any circumstances.’ It was just killed, that was it. There was no way to do anything about it.

“It was like we had run into a stone wall at this point… and we shouldn’t have. It would have been valid to have rejected it and to have asked for changes because it was pretty mean. But when it was changed, the objection wasn’t valid. An arbitrary decision had now been made; therefore, it would not go through, period, that’s the end of it. No matter what you do, it’s not going to happen. Carmine rejected the story and wasn’t going to use it at all.

Wherefore Art Thou, Jericho?

Corporate cold feet over potentially sensitive content in Teen Titans #20 (Mar.–Apr. 1969) led Adams to quickly rewrite and pencil the issue for its harried editor, Dick Giordano.

With Nick Cardy inks and cover (inset).

TM & © DC Comics.

“Nick Cardy got dragged into it because he had done the work, and now there wasn’t any way he could be paid for it. It got to be very negative. The deadline was all shot to hell.” It was so close to the wire, in fact, that the issue’s cover had already been printed. Any story published had to relate to the image and title, “Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho.”

In a last-ditch effort, Adams hurriedly wrote and penciled a new story, salvaging several Cardy pages but replacing Jericho with a white hero named Joshua. “We got the book out, the book got done. Nick got paid for his pages and got paid for inking my stuff, so it worked out all right in the end. It was a tough experience.” Ensuring that Teen Titans remained on schedule, Adams also wrote and penciled stories for issues #21 and 22.

BATMAN AND BLACKMARK

Remarkably, Adams was called on again to help with a Titans story in early 1972, but the reason was more mundane. Fifteen pages into a 22-page Batman/Titans adventure for The Brave and the Bold #102, artist Jim Aparo fell ill, and a tight deadline left no time to wait for his recovery.

“Of the number of artists who were available to replace Jim in this emergency,” [B&B editor] Murray Boltinoff wrote in that issue’s letters column, “one loomed above all others. Neal Adams was a natural. No newcomer to B&B, Neal had formerly handled the chore himself. We doubt whether you’ll find any discrepancy in the story’s continuity; Neal made every effort to preserve Jim’s concepts and line.”

Another recent ghosting assignment could be found in Gil Kane’s graphic novel Blackmark in early 1971. The legendary artist had previously employed Adams in 1968 to draw the second issue of His Name Is… Savage, but the project was cancelled before the story could see print. This time, Adams stepped in to pencil 14 pages of Blackmark.

“A couple times, Gil pulled me in to help out because he was jammed,” Adams recalled in Comic Book Creator #11 (2016). “The money wasn’t that good, but he did seem to be in a jam.

It’s a little hard for me to imagine why he would have someone like me, who draws so realistically and so tediously, to help a guy who can dash these things out so dramatically and so beautifully.

How I could have been of help, I don’t know,

because if he inked it, he would end up changing it to look much more like Gil Kane.”

Would-be artist Steve Englehart had his own misgivings about his value as an assistant to Neal Adams in 1970, but the elder artist saw potential in the young man. “I somehow had it in me one Friday afternoon,” Englehart tells BACK ISSUE, “to travel from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, where I was stationed at the time, the time being mid-Vietnam war—to New York, to DC Comics, where I entered just before 5 o’clock. I asked if I could speak with Neal Adams, who liked to work there late on Fridays, which I somehow knew. In 1970, a fan in the office was a rarity, so they passed the word in, and Neal said yes. He, to me, was the epitome of comic art. Many people had that same idea, of course, but I was there to ask my idol, the greatest comic artist alive, if I might someday work with him, since I was an aspiring artist. I liked my art, so I can’t say I expected a brushoff from this Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

No Black Mark on Neal’s Record (left) Adams’ preliminaries (courtesy of Heritage) for one of the pages (right) he assisted with in Gil Kane’s 1971 Blackmark graphic novel. © Gil Kane estate.

guy I’d just met, but I knew what a crazy ask it was. show me my mistakes. He insisted to Warren Publications that the art be credited to both of Still, nothing ventured… us, so that I’d have a published credit going “Neal asked, ‘Why not now?’ “‘Because I’m the Army, in Maryland, and I’ll be forward. People did not credit their assistants then, but Neal did. there a while.’

“Meanwhile, back in the Army, five days a week, “‘Well, can you come up every Friday and work with me here, then spend Saturday at my house, then I was a journalism specialist, assigned to the post newspaper. I had not been to Vietnam, but everyone I go back Sunday?’ worked with had—and they had nothing good to “‘Uh, yes.’ say about it. The best summation of people’s “And so, for the next six months, attitude at that time was my sergeant, that’s what I did. Work with Neal at who got himself a glass ashtray and put DC till maybe 1 AM, then off to a an American flag decal on the bottom deli for food. I slept on a couch at so you could see the flag through Columbia, then went to Neal’s all the glass. Most people saw that as a day Saturday. He, by way of his wife patriotic gesture, but he told me it Cory, fed me lunch and dinner. was so he could stub out his cigarettes I played with his kids. Otherwise, on the flag. I began to get a good I worked beside the greatest picture of why they turned against the comic artist alive—who turned out war—not the general societal antipathy to be, if it wasn’t already evident, toward it, but the cluster**** it was, a great guy besides. He put from people who’d seen it firsthand. me to work on a Denny O’Neil steve englehart It was literally a waste of people’s script, a standalone horror story lives, on both sides of the war. But for Vampirella [#10, on sale in Alan Light. hey, what could I do, since I was late 1970]. I would lay out a page; he would pencil it. He would lay out already in the Army?

“Well, I applied for a conscientious objector the next page; I would pencil it—then he’d discharge. To start with, Army protocol was, you applied for C.O. status before you went in—but what I was doing was allowed, barely. The process that then applied was, you had to be examined by a psychiatrist, a chaplain, and ‘an officer knowledgeable in matters pertaining to conscientious objection.’

The psychiatrist said I was sane, the chaplain said I was sincere—and then came the interview with what turned out to be a WAC major. To be a WAC, she would have had to have enlisted. To be a major, she would have had to reenlist. So, on paper, she was not going to be sympathetic to my cause.

38 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

“Meanwhile, back in New York, two days a week, I was finishing up ‘The Sweet Soft Lips of Hell,’ and of course talking to Neal about the above. I’m sure his general liberal attitude had bolstered mine over this time period, but he never advised me one way or the other as to applying for C.O. However, when it came time for the interview, he insisted on going down to Maryland, on his own time and his own dime, to testify for me.

“What else can I say? We did convince the major I was an upright citizen, so a few months later I left the Army and moved to New York to start my art career on my own, and eventually took a complete left turn into writing. But Neal was such a good storyteller that I learned from the best there, too, without knowing it.

“Neal Adams was an amazing human being.

I was unbelievably lucky to have sat at his side.”

Adams and Englehart intersected again on a later Batman story, but young DC production man and budding artist Sal Amendola was at the heart of it. “Around 1970,” Amendola recalled in Comic Book Artist #3 (1999), “Neal Adams described an incident that he thought would be exciting to incorporate within a Batman story.

He told the ‘incident’ (story pages 11 and 12) over and over again to anybody who’d come into ‘the Artists’ Room’ at DC Comics. He told it each time as if it were the first. He was appropriately

and effectively histrionic. I fought off goose pimples each time I heard him tell it. […] Nobody took up Neal’s incident.”

With encouragement and input from his brother Vinny, Amendola worked up a story called “Déjà Vu,” wherein an enraged Batman pursued the perpetrators of a crime that echoed the murders of his own parents. The vivid underwater fight scene described by Adams appeared on pages 11 and 12. Amendola endured criticism from all quarters on a variety of details in his plot and pencils before Batman editor Julius Schwartz finally rejected the story as a whole because, “There’s no plot!”

When Schwartz was briefly replaced as editor on Detective Comics, his successor Archie Goodwin asked Amendola for a look at the pencils and approved the tale for publication in Detective #439 (on sale in November 1973). Dialogued by Steve Englehart and inked by Dick Giordano, the story was retitled “Night of the Stalker” in its final form. Amendola objected to that “Marvel-style” title as well as the omission of any credit for Adams. “Since I also did the background inking,” he added in CBA #3, “when the story passed back to me from Dick, I lettered in Neal’s credit myself.” Ultimately, all involved were gratified by the hugely positive response to the story that included a Shazam Award nomination for Best Individual Dramatic Story.

Steve Englehart…

Artist (left) Before he became one of comics’ go-to writers, Steve Englehart partnered (and learned from) Neal Adams on the art to this story from Vampirella #10 (Mar. 1971). (right) “Déjà Vu” …that’s what plotter/ penciler Sal Amendola wanted to title Detective Comics #439’s (Feb.– Mar. 1974) “Night of the Stalker,” which featured an underwater “incident” envisioned

by Neal Adams.

Vampirella © Dynamite Entertainment.

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

CONTINUITY ASSOCIATES

Killing Killraven (left) While Adams illustrated the first part of Marvel’s inaugural “War of the Worlds” (Killraven) feature in Amazing Adventures #18 (May 1973), (right) Howard Chaykin stepped in to finish the story. Inks by Frank Chiaramonte.

TM & © Marvel.

Meanwhile, Dick Giordano had severed his editorial employment with DC as of November 4, 1970.

His use of “blacklisted” young talent like Wein and Wolfman was one of several sources of friction in the office. After a dispute with Carmine Infantino over artist Gray Morrow, Giordano gave DC’s editorial director his notice. Listening to his friend pour out his frustrations at an early lunch, Neal Adams proposed they form a partnership and pursue ventures outside of traditional comics.

The still-reeling Giordano wasn’t quite ready for that step, but he was interested. Instead, he threw himself into art assignments, continuing to ink or pencil a copious number of pages for DC. Elsewhere, Adams had been renting a desk at 9 East 48th Street in Manhattan during 1971 and gradually found himself with an enormous amount of office space as current occupants I.F. Studios moved out.

“The space was really too big for me,” Adams conceded in Comic Book Profiles #3. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I asked Dick Giordano to become my partner, and he did.” Collectively, they would offer comics-style imagery to advertisers. Adams proposed their agency be called Continuity Graphics Associates, Inc. In response to his partner’s remark that no one would know what Continuity meant, Adams replied, “Yeah, but it’ll mean a lot in the future.”

The studios became a magnet for would-be comics artists, so much so that Adams and Giordano were rescuing discarded desks from the street so that

40 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

the young men would have a surface to draw on.

“I guess to work at Neal Adams’ studio was a big deal, so we made it possible. Either people worked for us directly or they rented space so they could be around.

It was a recruiting station.”

Adams didn’t merely give young artists a place to draw. “He would go in and talk to editors,” Alan Weiss informs BACK ISSUE. “‘Hey, give the kid a break.

And you know, if it doesn’t work, I’ll help him fix it.’

“I was flat busted and nothing on the horizon,” Weiss continues. “I maybe had a filler page or there was a script coming, but if you don’t have it yet and you can’t work on it, you can’t get paid for it. We were nobodies, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t get advances yet. They didn’t like to give advances.

And we’re getting like a big $25 a page for pencils— something like that—anyway, but Neal just paid me in cash as I was doing this job. Like when he had me pencil a job he was supposed to do for Web of Horror and paid me out of pocket while I did it, and then he would fix it in the inks. That kept me solvent and you could eat for weeks on a hundred dollars, it seemed like.”

Howard Chaykin recalled Adams walking him through the DC offices and soliciting work for the newcomer. “Neal showed me to Murray Boltinoff and Julie Schwartz,” Chaykin recalled in Comic Book Artist #8 (2000). “Murray gave me a one-page filler. I also got some work from Dorothy Woolfolk, who edited the love comics. It was all just dreadful stuff, but you stumble along, and you learn.”

THE CRUSTY BUNKERS

In 1972, Chaykin was tapped to draw the “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser” feature in DC’s new Sword of Sorcery comic book. Having successfully beaten out another artist for the gig, the 22-year-old quickly realized that his inking skills were not up to the level of his penciling. Learning of the dilemma, Adams created a strike force composed of the various young artists at Continuity and assigned them to ink Chaykin’s stories in Sword of Sorcery #1–3 under his supervision. The credits in the published first issue listed “the Crusty Bunkers” as the inker.

The group immediately leapt into the fray to perform the same service for Alan Weiss on his pencils for Weird Worlds #2 and 3, published prior to Sword of Sorcery #1.

Chaykin, incidentally, wound up completing an Adams project months later. After Neal walked away from Marvel’s “War of the Worlds” pilot after plotting and penciling the first half, Chaykin was asked to draw the final nine pages for Amazing Adventures #18 (on sale in February 1973). “I had to finish the rest of the book in a weekend,” he declared in Comic Book Artist vol. 2 #5 (2014), “and it looked it.”

“The Crusty Bunkers name was something that Neal’s kids used to say,” Alan Weiss details to BI. “It didn’t really mean anything. And I don’t know how or where they got it from, but it was a name that just tickled him. ‘Oh, you’re a real crusty bunker.’

I guess it’s sort of like W. C. Fields’ ‘Godfrey Daniel,’ so Crusty Bunkers must be far worse in its original form.

But that’s the name that he adapted as the overall name of the group of stand-ins of assistance.”

“If a job was incredibly late,” Larry Hama detailed for Jim Salicrup in Comics Interview #38 (1986), “then the Crusty Bunkers would gather together half-adozen to a dozen inkers and, you know, turn out a whole book in a day or two, all under the supervision of Neal. It was a whirl. Guys would be passing pages back and forth. Guys would be standing over boards filling in blacks upside down while somebody was, like, rendering a face at the bottom of the page.

It was hectic but it was great!”

Although the Crusty Bunkers (sometimes “Crusty Bunker”) were formed to rescue DC projects, most of their inking jobs were for Marvel between 1973 and 1981. Among the issues featuring inks by Adams and company were Conan the Barbarian #44-45; Crazy Magazine #2 and 73; Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #5; Doctor Strange #4; Dracula Lives #3 and #10; Haunt of Horror #4; Iron Man #72; Kung Fu Special #1; Marvel Premiere #10, and #12–13; Marvel Preview #1; Monsters Unleashed #3; Power Man #31; Savage Sword of Conan #2; Savage Tales #4, 7, and 10; and Tarzan #11, as well as Atlas-Seaboard’s Wulf the Barbarian #2.

NEAL TO THE RESCUE

Alan Kupperberg, who had been writing and assisting Wallace Wood on his weekly comic strips for Overseas Weekly in 1972, also reached out to Neal for help.

“Woody got sick or drunk [one] week,” he told Steven Thompson in 2009 (booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/

The Helping Hands of Neal Adams Neal pitched in for assists on (left) George Pérez/Bob McLeod’s “Sons of the Tiger” feature in Marvel’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #7 (Dec. 1974) as well as (right) John Buscema/McLeod’s Ka-Zar #7 (Jan. 1975). Adams’ contributions are emphasized in red courtesy of Bob McLeod, who kindly submitted the scans.

TM & © Marvel.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

2015/07/rip-alan-kupperberg.html), “I guess sick ’cause he was usually sober during that period I was there.

I took that week’s Sally Forth and Cannon pages into Neal’s studio and asked for help. Ralph Reese and Larry Hama did most of the heavy lifting that week.”

There were other instances where Adams himself jumped in solo to help a struggling inker. “Neal helped me meet a deadline on one of my very first jobs in 1974,” Bob McLeod tells BACK ISSUE. “I was inking one of George Pérez’s very first jobs in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #7 (1974) featuring the Sons of the Tiger. I was running late and asked Neal to ink whatever he wanted, and he inked some bits on different pages. He also inked a couple things in Ka-Zar #7 (1974) for me.”

Adams also pitched in to assist his partner Dick Giordano on a few pages of 1975’s Wonder Woman #220, a detail that was not overlooked by fan Carol Strickland in issue #222’s letters column. “As for Neal Adams’ unheralded artwork,” Bob Rozakis replied, “he just helped out his pal Dick in a couple of spots

and both agreed to let Mr. Giordano get full credit for the work.”

Also unheralded on that issue was Giordano’s assistant, Terry Austin. The shy young Detroit native had arrived at Continuity a few years earlier at the recommendation of Al Milgrom. A week into his residency, Austin was present when Dick Giordano arrived with news that his assistant Klaus Janson had left and that he needed a replacement.

“I happened to be sitting at the closest desk,” Austin told David Anthony Kraft in Comics Interview #1 (1983), “and Neal said, ‘How about that guy there?’ I was actually in the next room, but I could hear them. Dick said, ‘Where?’ And Neal said, ‘That guy right there.’ And Dick said, ‘Where?’ And Neal said, ‘That guy sitting right there.’ I’m sitting there trying to pretend I can’t hear this.

“Dick came out and asked me if I wanted to do some backgrounds. I worked for him for about two and a half years. Every job he did, I did backgrounds and some secondary figures.”

Austin also contributed to other Continuity projects and relived a traumatic memory in Comic Book Profiles #3 (1998). “I’ve always worked on flat surfaces as opposed to most cartoonists whose drawing tables are tilted at an angle. Back then, I clung to one other unusual trait: I worked with the ink bottle actually sitting on the page I was inking. Everyone would always ask, ‘Haven’t you ever had an accident doing that?’ ‘Never,’ I’d sniff in reply, insulted at this obvious affront to my clearly superior manual dexterity. So naturally, one Saturday the Gods decided to teach me a thing or three about hubris.

“I was inking backgrounds on a Frankenstein/ Dracula/Werewolf job Neal had penciled for Peter Pan Records, and no sooner had Neal departed for the weekend when I dumped the whole bottle of ink over the panel of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory exploding at the climax of the story. As I recall, I ran up and down the hallway several times at top speed looking for someone to tell, only to discover I was alone in the office. Next, I believe I poured a pot of scalding hot coffee over my head, and when that seemed not to have improved the situation somewhat, proceeded to bash myself in the head with the empty pot until I was unconscious.

Unfortunately, I discovered upon awakening that the offending blot was still there.

“If that bit of creative license gives you the impression that I suffered the tortures of the damned for the next two days, then it’s done its job. Monday morning, I tearfully confessed my transgression to Neal, eagerly awaiting the welcome relief that death would bring, only to have Neal nonchalantly say, ‘Give me two minutes—I’ll pop my layout back on the Art-o-graph and do it over.’ And yes, he did that, with about 13 seconds to spare, I believe.”

The Giordano/Adams Team Normally, those credits would be reversed, with Dick Giordano inking Neal Adams. But on Wonder Woman #220 (Oct.–Nov. 1975), Giordano’s “full” art job included uncredited assists (noticeable here on Diana’s face) by Adams… as well as Terry Austin.

TM & © DC Comics.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Drac Pulls a Man-Bat Transformation From The Art of Neal Adams vol. 1, an Adams-illo’ed page (with Austin background inks) from a monster-ific Peter Pan Records comic. (See Rob Kelly’s Power Records article elsewhere in this issue for more Adams art produced for records.) © Peter Pan Records.

HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE

Austin soon rose from anonymity to become a hugely popular Less traumatic was a story for the humor magazine International artist and embellisher in his own right. When a newcomer Insanity #1 (July 1976). “Neal assigned to me one of Continuity’s named Marshall Rogers began working at Continuity, Adams suggested he meet Terry because he thought they’d make a jobs,” Austin tells BACK ISSUE, “a four-pager entitled ‘A Poke in Your good team. Rogers agreed and purportedly approached Private Eye,’ which featured Kojak, Jim Rockford, Harry O, Julius Schwartz about penciling the Calculator serial Columbo, McCloud, Baretta, Cannon, and a host of the that was running in Detective Comics during 1976 cops and PIs that were saturating the airwaves at the so that he could be paired with Austin, its inker. time. The deadline was tight, and I had to raid the [Editor’s note: The Calculator was a new supernearest newsstand for reference to get the likenesses villain who challenged several different characters right—I still have a small piece of paper where in the Detective serial. See BACK ISSUE #12 for Neal showed me how to get decent likenesses details.] Would the celebrated 1977 Detective of Buddy Ebsen [TV’s Barnaby Jones] and Charlie Comics Batman run by Rogers, Austin, and Steve Chan. The deadline was so tight that all four pages Englehart have happened without that Adams that I penciled had to be inked overnight: the intro? It’s impossible to say. splash was inked at Continuity by Russ Heath, with a Continuity’s co-founder did wind up belittle Neal assisting and background inking by Carl coming a small part of the Calculator saga in Potts, I inked the second page, Jack Abel (who was Detective #467’s penultimate episode. “Neal in the next room to mine) inked page three and Al terry austin Adams took the pages to the story out of my Milgrom happened to be in the city and grabbed offices overnight,” Austin reported in Comic the last page and returned it the next morning.

I believe I then slapped some zip-a-tone on the whole thing and Book Artist Collection #2, “and I returned the next morning to delivered it to the client that afternoon with minutes to spare. Wish find all the fun stuff had been inked… and better than I could have, darn it!” (Adams was also secretly involved with 1976’s that I had gotten that artwork back!

“I see very little of Neal’s inking on the splash page (although Giordano/Austin–inked Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, there is a job in the issue that is credited to Dick Giordano, and it a revelation detailed in 2005’s BACK ISSUE #11 and editor mostly looks like it’s inked by Neal, and I see that Neal modeled for Michael Eury’s newly released TwoMorrows book, The TeamUp Companion.) the photos that Carl Potts used to pencil his job).”

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

Continuity Goes Crazy From the black-andwhite humor mag International Insanity #1: (left) Terry Austin pencils on the splash page to “A Poke in Your Private Eye!” Inks by Russ Heath, with Neal Adams and Carl Potts. (right) Neal and Cary Bates were models for the two detectives on this “Golly G. Goodvibes” page illustrated by Potts. © 1976 Phi Publications.

44 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

A 1977 tale in Mister Miracle #19 had a much more unusual collaboration. Running close to deadline, Marshall Rogers recruited Jack Abel, Terry Austin, Joe Brozowski, Dick Giordano, Al Milgrom, Mike Nasser (now Netzer), and Alan Weiss to ink a specific character. Neal Adams was assigned—wait for it—the eyes of Scott Free on the splash page (see left)!

“I wanted really deep, brooding eyes,” Rogers asserted in issue #20’s letters column.

Surprisingly, Adams’ days of drawing newspaper comic strips were not quite behind him. In 1978, he was hired to illustrate the last month of Big Ben Bolt (March 13 to April 15) following the departure of Gray Morrow.

In the spring of 1981, he covered for Morrow again, ghosting a revival of the Buck Rogers strip on the dailies for March 30–May 2 and Sundays for April 26–May 31.

During the 1970s, Adams’ original strip was systematically reprinted in the Menomonee Falls Gazette (MFG). “When we were publishing Ben Casey (without paying anybody for the rights) from a collection of clipped strips,” MFG editor Mike Tiefenbacher reveals to BI, “Neal lent us the original art (!) for 14 we were missing. [Publisher Jerry Sinkovec] and I each got to keep one of our choice!! Times were different, but I never heard anything later to make me change my positive opinion of him.”

There was far more to Neal Adams’ career than the preceding stories, not the least of which was his advocacy for the rights of creators, both young and old. His role in the fight to win compensation for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster is detailed in Neal’s own words in Michael Eury’s interview with Adams elsewhere in this issue.

“To me,” Alan Weiss tells BI, “Neal was the champion of the next new generation of comic-book artists gray morrow and writers after, as I Michael Netzer. see it, the generation that preceded us Baby Boomers into the biz, which consisted of only Neal and Jim Steranko. Nobody else had entered comics since the ‘50s, with Buscema, Ditko, Romita, Sinnott, Heck, and a few more. Before them it was the EC generation. But only after Neal and Jim [Steranko] came that first handful of Boomers with Ralph Reese, Jeff Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Rich Buckler, Brunner, Kaluta, Chaykin, and me. Shortly thereafter came Starlin, Milgrom, and the rest of the Detroit guys.

“So, Neal, having had both advertising and syndication experience, helped us younger guys navigate the political and business aspects of Marvel, DC, Warren, and lessers. Neal was the mentor I most wished to work with, and that wish came true. He was also the big brother I never had, for my first few years as a professional cartoonist/ illustrator. There were those Thanksgiving dinners at his place in the Bronx, where all of us early-20s, displaced-from-all-over-the-country kids could gather with a not-that-much-older mentor figure and sit down to a great meal home-cooked by his wife Cory. A homey touch for a bunch of crazy exiles at the holidays.”

“When I think of him, I like to remember that if someone really needed work, he’d find something for them to do,” Terry Austin wrote in Comic Book Profiles #3. “Not just green kids like me, still wet behind the ears. I clearly remember the famous DC Implosion when DC cancelled much of their line overnight. […] One by one, shell-shocked industry veterans, now jobless and pale as ghosts, stepped off the elevator at Continuity and Neal put them to work. By far, this is my favorite memory of the man.”

Thank you, Neal, for everything.

Special thanks to Terry Austin, Steve Englehart, Bob McLeod, Mike Tiefenbacher, and Alan Weiss for their commentary, and to John Trumbull for his indispensable help in interviewing Alan. The headshots by Dave Sim hail from the March and July 2009 editions of Glamourpuss.

JOHN WELLS is a comics historian specializing in DC Comics. He is the author of the TwoMorrows books American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960–1964 and 1965– 1969, and co-author (with Keith Dallas) of the book Comic Book Implosion.

Morrow Never Comes (top) Adams mopped up the Big Ben Bolt strip for artist Gray Morrow.

Dailies from April 10-12, 1976, courtesy of Terry Austin. (bottom) Adams ghosting for Morrow on the syndicated Buck Rogers newspaper strip. From May 17, 1981.

Big Ben Bolt © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Buck Rogers © Robert C. Dille Trust.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

BATMAN #226

(1970)

captions by M i c h a e l

Eury

The Man with Ten Eyes may not have risen to the A-list of Bat-rogues, but you can’t blame Adams’ striking Batman #226 (Nov. 1970) cover for the villain’s lack of impact. In this penciled alternate version, Neal considered a different pose for the Caped Crusader, but the published version (inset) better portrays Batman’s poise and courage.

TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

46 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

(1975)

TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Courtesy of Heritage.

TARZAN AND THE LION MAN

In the early to mid-1970s, Tarzan was licensed by DC Comics, with art by Joe Kubert and other Kubertselected luminaries. In the mid-1970s, Ballantine Books published Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels in paperback form with all-new cover art by Adams. Shown here is Neal’s layout for the cover of Tarzan and the Lion Man, plus the finished painting, inset.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

SUPERMAN vs. THE POLLUTOID

(1976)

Page one of the uninked, unlettered five-page Superman “pollution parable” written by Len Wein and penciled by Neal Adams in the early 1970s. Neither the writer nor artist recalled the specifics of this story’s genesis (I asked ’em!), but the tale finally saw print for a limited audience in Amazing World of DC Comics Special Edition #1 (Feb. 1976), celebrating the Super DC Con ’76.

TM & © DC Comics.

48 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

(1977)

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #254

When DC’s spooky anthology The House of Mystery became an all-new, double-sized “Dollar Comic” with issue #251 in 1977, Adams—whose DC covers had been rare for a few years—returned for a brief stint as the title’s cover artist. Presented here is Neal’s rough for the cover of House of Mystery #254 (Sept.–Oct. 1977).

TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

THE JOKER #2

(2021)

Here’s one of the last DC variant covers Adams produced: The Joker #2 (June 2021). The rough shows that Neal had in mind to portray the Joker in a puppeteer pose, but in the published version (inset) he opted for more of a direct nod to his own Batman #227 cover. (opposite) A “Rough Stuff” color bonus: In 1974, Sal Q Productions released this gorgeous signed print by Neal of four of his most famous DC heroes.

TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

50 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

(1974)

DC HEROES SIGNED PRINT

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

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The

(Records)

TM & © DC Comics.

of

by R

Neal Adams’ artistic genius wasn’t limited to the world of monthly comics, of course: his work appeared in virtually every medium that might have been even tangentially connected related— newspaper strips, treasuries, digests, merchandising. But there was probably no single side street to the world of comic books that Adams’ dazzling draftsmanship dominated more than the Power Records.

Power Records was an imprint of Peter Pan Records, which across several decades dominated the children’s record market.

Similar to the legendary Mego Toys, their most remembered decade was the 1970s, when they acquired the licenses to nearly every major comic-book and pop-culture property out there: DC and Marvel, The Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and more. Since the audio adventures featuring these properties were aimed at a slightly older audience, Peter Pan sought to distinguish them via their own imprint, the dramatically named Power Records.

Power Records featured these world famous characters and concepts in a multitude of audio formats, often accompanied by a custom-made comic book that you read while you listened (like I did, on many a weekend afternoon as a kid). While the Peter Pan staff produced the recorded content on the records

ob Kelly

themselves (featuring, for the most part, their own stable of writers, producers, and actors), they turned to ringers when it came to designing their record sleeves: Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s Continuity Associates.

While not every “Power” sleeve was produced by Adams, Giordano, and co., the bulk of them were, creating an instantly identifiable visual identity for Power. Adams’ peerless, dramatic staging and dynamic figural work made these sleeves pop, becoming collectors’ items all their own.

Unfortunately, no official list of what Adams did for Peter Pan/ Power exists (Adams’ famous signature doesn’t even appear anywhere on them). Sourcing these sleeves becomes even harder when you realize some of the other people who worked on them had styles that were similar to Adams’ own (like the aforementioned Giordano, as well as Rich Buckler and Mike Nasser), so it’s easy to just assume Adams did them all. But after staring at these beauties for 40 years (and consulting my fellow Fire and Water Podcast Network All-Star and BI contributor, Chris Franklin, whose eagle eye when it comes to this stuff is sharper than mine), I think we can come close to presenting as complete as possible a full list of all the sleeves Neal Adams did for Peter Pan/Power. I guarantee some of them will surprise you!

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

This Is No Joke (left) Original Adams art to the Batman “Stacked Cards” cover, #PR-27, from 1975.

Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). (inset) Neal’s pose of the Dynamic Duo was an updating of Jack Burnley’s cover for Batman #9 (Feb.–Mar. 1942). (right) From the Heritage archives, an extraordinary Adams original art page to the Power Records “Robin Meets Man-Bat” Batman comic book.

TM & © DC Comics.

DC COMICS

The bulk of the work Neal Adams did for Power Records was for DC properties. With one exception, Adams drew every character they chose to dramatize: Aquaman, Batman, the Flash, Metamorpho (!), Plastic Man, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

Batman, of course, appeared in every audio format Peter Pan produced: 45 RPM, Book and Record 45, LP, and Book and Record LP. Batman starred in two audio-only LPs, both featuring Adams art.

One (bearing the in-house code of 8167, otherwise simply titled Batman) has Batman and Robin running on a beach with Gotham City in the background (funny, I don’t think of the crime-ridden Gotham as much of a beach town!) and a closer shot of the Dynamic Duo on the back. It features four stories: “Mystery of the Scarecrow Corpse,” “Catwoman’s Revenge,” “Robin Meets Man-Bat,” and “Gorilla City.” As was usual with Adams, especially when drawing Batman, the characters are so recognizable and iconic you could have lifted this piece and put it on any number of pieces of merchandise.

The other audio-only LP (again simply called Batman, numbered 8155) shows Batman dropping down into a spotlight full of trouble, as he is surrounded by some of his most legendary foes, the Joker, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and the Riddler.

No way is the Darknight Detective getting out of this one! Batman’s only Book and Record LP, again frustratingly just called Batman (BR 512), features

54 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Bats in two stories, both written by longtime comics pros Elliott S! Maggin and Cary Bates. The first story features Batman tackling (literally) Gorilla Grodd, and the second, “Mystery of the Scarecrow Corpse,” actually has nothing to do with the classic fear-inducing bad guy; rather it focuses on Batman teaming up with fellow legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Adams does the cover here, with interior art by the equally talented José Luis García López.

Adams drew (in this author’s opinion) one of the single finest Batman images ever put to paper, the cover to the 45 RPM Book and Record adventure “Stacked Cards.” This shot of Batman and Robin, an updated take on the iconic cover to Batman #9, tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the character and his adventures. Even with Power Records’ copy-heavy format, Neal Adams’ work pops off the paper. The other Batman-centric Book and Record set was “Robin Meets Man-Bat,” one of the few times an original DC Comic story (in this case, three) was adapted as a Power Record—Power borrowed elements from Detective Comics # 400, 402, and 407, with additional new material. Adams provides the interior art for both. For whatever reason, neither “Stacked” nor “Man-Bat” was reissued as 45 RPM-only releases. “The Catwoman’s Revenge,” “If Music Be the Food of Death,” and “The Scarecrow’s Mirage” were, however, and all of them feature beautiful original covers by Adams.

I always wondered why the Penguin never appeared on a Power Record, considering he was much more famous a foe than the Scarecrow (who, unlike the Penguin, never appeared in the 1960s TV show or the Filmation cartoon a few years later).

Luckily, pop-culture journalist and fellow BI contributor Robert V. Conte spoke to Neal Adams while visiting the Continuity offices in 2005 and they discussed this very topic: “A lot of kids became comics fans of those records,” Adams recalled.

“They were good audio-visual gateways for them to learn how to read. The Penguin was supposed to be on that cover but the client [Peter Pan] either didn’t have the rights to the character or didn’t have a story recorded in time. I don’t recall completely.

Also, the first issues of some of those records had rather bland, type-only labels. That would not do, so we [Continuity] supplied art to correct that.”

Unsurprisingly, Superman got just as much vinyl real estate as his World’s Finest partner. The Man of Steel headlined five LPs, all simply titled Superman.

Adams does a gloss on his own classic “busting chains” cover from Superman #233 for one of the LPs (numbered 8156), an image that itself was reused (with a different background color) for a Spanishlanguage version (though Adams’ back cover for the former has been replaced by what looks like a Curt Swan Superman to me). Members of Superman’s Rogues’ Gallery make an appearance on the other LP (8169), with Superman extending a fist surrounded by insets of Lex Luthor, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and the Bottle City of Kandor. For one of the Book and Record LPs (BR 520), the cover features a collage of two Superman images, one of them by Adams, a shot of our hero running that appeared on a lot of other merchandise from around that time.

An Adams photo collage cover was used for the Book and Record 45 “Alien Creatures,” and he provided the art for the 45 RPM-only sleeves for “Weatherspoon’s Catalyst,” “The Mxyzptlk Menace,” and a curiously low-key “P.O. Box,” which features what looks like Superman catching up on his fan mail.

As undisputedly perfect a combo Adams and Batman were, his Superman was just as iconic.

Of course, no Power Record collection would be complete without Wonder Woman! The Amazing Amazon headlined two LPs (one of them being a Book and Record: “Wonder Woman vs. the War God” and “Amazons from Space”), both of them gracing covers by Adams, with interiors by Mike Nasser with Adams inking. I find the solo LP cover (almost assuredly inked by Dick Giordano) completely charming, as Wonder Woman seems to be fending off a dozen armed goons with a smile on her face. How this classic piece of WW art didn’t make it onto more merchandise, I’ll never know. Adams also inked Wonder Woman’s sole 45 RPM Book and Record adventure, “The Secret of the Magic Tiara,” with pencils by Rich Buckler.

He also drew a single 45 sleeve, “The Return of Brunhilde,” which was repurposed for another release (more on that in a moment).

Adams got the chance to draw Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman together in a Christmas LP, which doesn’t seem to have an official title other than Hear Three Exciting Christmas Stories with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman (on the record itself it simply says Christmas Superheroes). As we will see later on in this article, Christmas was huge for Peter Pan, so huge they would commission Adams to produce album art you probably would not suspect.

Flip Sides (top) For this Superman LP, Adams recreated his iconic Superman #233 cover, while the record sleeve’s back cover featured a lucky kid getting the ride of his life. (middle) Smiling Supie punches foreshortened fist on this cover, featuring bulleted headshots of two Super-foes and Kandor; while its back cover re-presented the front’s art, sans add-ons. (bottom left) It wasn’t often that Adams drew Plastic Man or Metamorpho, but he did so (as well as three JLA mainstays) for this Justice League Power Records cover. Courtesy of Rob Kelly. (bottom right) From the collection of John Schwirian, Neal’s recreation of the Power Records Aquaman shot, with embellishments.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

Magic Word Silenced (top) From The Art of Neal Adams vol. 2, original art for an unproduced Shazam! Power Record.

Courtesy of Rob Kelly. (bottom inset) The Neal Adams/Tom Palmer cover for Marvel Spotlight #2 (Feb. 1972), introducing Werewolf by Night, was repurposed for (bottom) the 1974 Power Records Curse of the Werewolf edition.

Shazam! TM & © DC Comics. Werewolf by Night TM & © Marvel.

Both Superman and Wonder Woman got their holidaythemed adventures (“Light Up the Tree, Mr. President” and “The Prisoner of Christmas Island,” respectively) released as solo 45s, with Adams handling the cover for Superman. Strangely, the Batman story (“The Christmas Carol Caper”) was not given such an honor. Or, at the very least, I have never been able to find evidence it was.

(That’s one of the frustrating things about being a Power Records completist—you still find “new” stuff even after collecting these things for years).

Power Records didn’t just dabble with the Big Three, however—they also released an LP called Songs and Stories About the Justice League of America, boasting a cover by Adams starring Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Plastic Man, and Metamorpho! This record (a reissue of material from a 1967 LP made by a company called Tifton, meant to tie in with the Filmation DC cartoon shows on the air at the time) contains five adventures, all of them unique except Wonder Woman, which reuses “The Return of Brunhilde” and its cover art (on both the front and back of the sleeve). It also features a you’ve-got-tohear-it-to-believe-it musical number, which various JLAers breaking into song about how they’re going to save the world from “criminals operating in our cities” and “monsters from the depths of the Earth.”

The “one-off” heroes were each paired up and given their own 45s, again reusing Adams’ work from the LP cover: the Flash and Aquaman, and Plastic Man and Metamorpho. Adams also drew a brand new back cover, which ran on several Book and Record 45 RPM sets, of all six DC heroes running towards the camera. I don’t know the legal wrangling it might have taken for DC to use some of the Power Records material, but this shot by Adams seemed perfect for an all-reprint DC Special that never was.

Before we move off DC, I previously mentioned that there was one exception to the list of DC characters Neal drew for the Power Records—and that was Shazam!/ Captain Marvel. Power produced a single—in every sense of that word—audio adventure starring the World’s Mightiest Mortal, released only as a 45 RPM but sporting a Dick Giordano cover (doing his best C. C. Beck). For whatever reason, Captain Marvel was never included in any of the group hero shots alongside his fellow DC stars, the audio was never repurposed on another record, and it’s not even listed as part of the collection on the inside or back covers. In fact, I didn’t even know Power ever did a Shazam! record until I stumbled upon it on eBay many years ago. Even more oddly, in The Art of Neal Adams vol. 2, published in 1977, it features an Adams original of Captain Marvel, which is stated as being for a Power Record! I’ve never seen this piece anywhere other than this book; perhaps it was the original cover to the sleeve, replaced by Giordano’s piece? We may never know.

56 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Record Player Swordplay (top left) Adams’ Conan the Barbarian LP cover. Courtesy of Rob Kelly. (top right) This “Conquistador” Amazing Spider-Man Power Record cover offers fans a rare glimpse of Neal’s rendition of the Wall-Crawler.

Courtesy of Heritage.

Conan TM & © Conan Properties International. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel.

MARVEL COMICS

While Neal Adams did a lot of sensational work at Marvel, his output for their Power Records was comparatively small. Since most of the Marvels were adaptations of pre-existing comics, Peter Pan generally repurposed the covers to those books, for both their superheroes (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Captain America) and their “Monster” line (Dracula, Frankenstein, Man-Thing, and Curse of the Werewolf [Werewolf by Night]). For Curse of the Werewolf, Power Records simply put a new logo onto the cover of Marvel Spotlight #2 by Adams and Tom Palmer, and sent it out to terrify a generation of kids not prepared to hear such scary stuff coming from their record player.

Adams’ greatest contribution to the Marvel Power Records was undoubtedly his work on Conan the Barbarian. Adams inked “Big” John Buscema for “Crawler in the Mists,” a truly atmospheric Conan tale for the sole 45 RPM Book and Record featuring the character, featuring a cover that is often credited to both men but to my eyes looks like all Adams. In an unusual move, this comic was later edited and expanded and then run in an actual issue of Conan the Barbarian (#116), reversing the standard trajectory of the Marvel Power Records.

Adams also did the cover to a Conan the Barbarian LP, featuring “Mists” and three other similar atmospheric adventures. The credited producer is Cornell Tanassy, who clearly had a handle on this character. Between the audio content and Adams’ gorgeous sleeve art, I rank their Conans as some of the best work Power Records ever did.

Adams’ sole effort at a Marvel superhero was the 45 RPM sleeve for the Spider-Man adventure “The Return of the Conquistador” (here simply titled “Conquistador”), one of the rare times Adams ever drew Marvel’s biggest star. It’s one of Spidey’s sillier Power Records excursions, given some extra oomph by Adams’ peerless art.

But Power Records didn’t just rely on DC and Marvel to move some vinyl. Like the aforementioned Mego Toys, they gobbled up every license that kids liked (and some they didn’t). Adams’ work on what we now refer to as “IP” was just as dynamic, if not as consistent or pervasive as what he did for the DC records.

TV AND MOVIE FAVORITES

Adams’ photorealistic style came in handy when he producing a number of Star Trek record jackets. For the 45 RPM Book and Record sets “The Crier in Emptiness” and “Passage to Moauv,” we are straight-up looking at the Kirk and Spock we saw on the original series, in all-new adventures! He did the same for single 45 sleeves like “The Time Stealer” (which is essentially a Trek/Conan crossover in all but name) and “In Vino Veritas.” Trek also headlined three LPs,

Boldly Going Where No Artist Had Gone Before… …at least not with such realism! Adams nails the stars’ likenesses on the Star Trek “Passage to Moauv” Power Record cover. Original art courtesy of Heritage.

Star Trek © CBS Studios, Inc.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

two of which bore Adams covers, front and back. Star Trek was a perennial seller for Peter Pan, who dusted off all this audio content in 1980 and reissued all of them with new sleeves, featuring stills from the movie. Yawn!

Planet of the Apes was also a big hit for Peter Pan, though for whatever reason Adams was only ever commissioned to do some art for the single 45 adventures “Battle of Two Worlds,” “Dawn of the Tree People,” and “Mountain of the Delphi.” Given Adams’ skill at likenesses, it seems strange he wasn’t called on to the art for Book and Record 45s that adapted four of the five POTA films. I guess he had to sleep sometime.

Adams also did a cover for the Space: 1999 Book and Record 45 “Return to the Beginning,” the self-titled Six Million Dollar Man LP, and what to had to be one of Power Records’ biggest flops, an LP for The Gemini Man, a TV series that ran for all 12 episodes (half of which never aired) in 1976. Adams’ cover makes everything look ten times more exciting than the show ever was, which was of course why you hired him in the first place!

Speaking of Adams making things look exciting that were not—fins down, the, uh, record for that was the Jaws of the Shark LP. Produced in 1975, JOTS featured three dull-asdishwater “adventures” all centered on sharks. Since they don’t use any of the voice cast (or even sound effects) usually heard on Power Records, my bet is this was pre-existing material that Peter Pan bought on the cheap, hoping they could cash in on Jawsmania. At least they sprang for a new cover, one of Adams’ finest. The massive shark is truly terrifying, the only element of this record that comes close to capturing the flavor of the movie.

On the opposite end of the quality spectrum, however, was the ungainly titled A Story of Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein, an all-original Book and Record LP with cover and interior art by Adams. A beautifully pulpy story filled with all the classic monster trappings, Story is a complete blast, perfect for putting on the turntable during the Halloween season. I wish Power Records had commissioned more original material like this; they might have been able to carve out an identity for themselves and not be so dependent on outside licensing. Fun Fact: this album was re-released as House of Terror!, reusing the Adams material but with a second LP filled with goofy “spooky” songs.

CHRISTMAS

As I mentioned earlier, Christmas records were a big seller for Peter Pan. Since a lot of the material was in the public domain, the label didn’t have to pay licensing fees, undoubtedly a factor when deciding what to release. Peter Pan generally kept the Power Records imprint wholly separate, except for Christmas time, when they ran back covers featuring Santa Claus letting you kids out there know there were all sorts of fun holiday records out there, like Superman, Wonder Woman, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph.

Even as a wee kid, I never bothered with any of the “kiddie” records, but one look at the labels for some of these 45s makes it clear that Peter Pan tapped Adams and his Continuity crew to handle the art for these, too.

Using the humor-tinged style he perfected on DC books like Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, Adams drew covers for Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Bugs Bunny in ’Twas a Sight Before Christmas, Snoopy’s Christmas, and even the Chipmunk Song, a knockoff of the more famous version by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Having Adams do all the sleeves gives them sheen of class and visual consistency that makes them a cut above normal kiddie fare. Adams’ signature is nowhere to be found, but the sure handed ink line is a giveaway these were the work of the master himself.

As a label, Power Records shut down in the early 1980s, and soon after Peter Pan Records would essentially close up shop. They tried rereleasing some of their ’70s superhero output on cassette, using sloppily drawn “rack” cards that are light years away from the excitement Adams brought to the originals.

I still have a record player, and once in a while I give one of my Power Records The Most Wonderful Time of the Year a spin. But, just as impor(top) You’re forgiven if you don’t recall TV’s short-lived Gemini Man, tantly, I sit and stare at the covers when I do. but you won’t forget this powerful Neal Adams cover for its Power

Records spinoff! Courtesy of Rob Kelly. (bottom) Christmas records were popular for Peter Pan Records, with Neal Adams producing cover art for everything from Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman adventures to new spins on children’s favorites.

Frosty and Snoopy scans courtesy of Rob Kelly.

Gemini Man © Universal. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics.

58 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

ROB KELLY is a podcaster, writer, artist, and pop-culture historian.

He is the host/co-host of several shows on The Fire and Water Podcast Network, including TreasuryCast, Pod Dylan, Fade Out, For All Mankind, The Power Records Podcast, and many others.

While he rarely drew Superman comics, Neal Adams’ photorealistic interpretation of the Metropolis Marvel was widely seen throughout the 1970s on covers and merchandising. His influence upon the character was deeply felt throughout the decade, perhaps most significantly with his role in advocating for the rights of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

In this interview, conducted by telephone for my 2006 TwoMorrows book, The Krypton Companion, Adams speaks candidly about his Superman experiences. It has been edited for presentation in BACK ISSUE magazine.

– Michael Eury MICHAEL EURY: When did you first meet [Silver Age Superman editor] Mort Weisinger?

NEAL ADAMS: Oh, I guess, when I went up to DC Comics to try to get work with Bob Kanigher, the war comics editor, which would have been—I guess I was in my late 20s, middle 20s, something like that.

And Mort was one of those people that was shuffling around, grumpy, looking mad, that didn’t seem to like anybody.

conducted by M i c h a e l

EURY: I’m guessing he didn’t exactly open his arms to you on your first visit.

ADAMS: I don’t think Mort opened his arms to anybody. [laughter] Mort was not an “open-yourarms” type of guy. His best relationships seemed to be with science-fiction writers and letter writers. After they worked their way into his good graces. If they came up to see him, then it was a very different thing because he had already corresponded with them for great lengths of time. But for an actual human being to meet him for the first time, I think he just wanted to crush them.

E u r y on March 3, 2006 K. Morris

transcribed by B r i a n

TM & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Heritage.

EURY: You didn’t even make it past the door the first time you tried to show your samples.

ADAMS: No. When I came out of school, my samples were very good—and I’m only saying that as Neal Adams, the adult, grown-up artist. (I still have those samples and I would give that guy work.) I couldn’t get past the door at DC Comics. A guy named Bill Perry came out and sat with me in the lobby and said, “I can’t bring you inside.” I said, “Well, can I just see an editor?” And he said, “They don’t use anybody.

You really ought to do something else.” I had a hundred pages of comic-book art.

EURY: This obviously didn’t discourage you, but how long did it take you before you went back again?

ADAMS: Well, I didn’t really go back. I more orbited them. I did everything but work for DC Comics. I did Archie comics, I was an assistant on a comic strip, I did a comic strip, I did advertising comic books, I did everything. I did a syndicated strip [Ben Casey, based upon the TV medical drama] for three-and-a-half years.

It was quite successful. It was in 165 papers around the world. I became, in effect, a world-famous syndicated strip cartoonist, and then I voluntarily ended the strip and I was going to become an illustrator. That plan kind of backfired when the portfolio that I had spent six months on, I left it at an advertising agency and when I went back to get it, it had disappeared.

EURY: And it’s never turned up?

ADAMS: It’s never turned up.

EURY: Who’s sitting on that, I wonder?

ADAMS: I don’t know. I’d like to get a hold of them in a dark room.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

Early Adams Super-Covers The first two Adams-drawn Superman covers to see print were (left) Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #79 and (right) Action Comics #358 (both Nov. 1967). While both covers employed standard Silver Age Super-tropes, Neal’s photorealistic art, from Superman’s relaxed posture on the Lois Lane cover to the raw energy of the Son of the Annihilator’s super-punch on the Action cover, added pizzazz often missing from similar covers from the Weisinger era.

TM & © DC Comics.

Anyway, I then had to face reality. I had no strip to do—I had some advertising clients, which was fine—and so I went to look for work doing comic books, which I felt was odd because I had a whole career. I had gone on above it and I really had no interest in doing comic books. They were now below me. It was comic strips and then illustration, that’s where my head was at.

I realized [chuckles] that I was stuck for work. So instead of going to DC Comics, I went to Warren Publications and I did work for them. They were nice enough to give me work. I did work, but I discovered that it was very self-indulgent work in that I was looking to impress, by doing different styles and different concepts and different techniques and different things, and it was taking too long to do the work. I realized I could get a 12-pager, or a 24-page comic-book story over at DC Comics and take it home and crank it out. Here at Warren, I was getting six-page stories. I would put my heart and soul into them and be paid just as poorly as I would be paid at DC Comics.

So I thought, “Well, I’ll try, one more time, to break into DC Comics,” and I made an appointment with the war comics editor who had lost Joe Kubert to the comic strip [Tales of] The Green Beret.

And he saw me, and I knew that Joe was missing from that position because I had helped Joe get that work [chuckles] to do Green Beret—it was offered to me first. So I went to speak to Bob Kanigher and I started doing war stories. And then I guess they just discovered there was a new creature in the zoo.

EURY: You spent a lot of time actually there at the DC offices, didn’t you?

ADAMS: Well, a lot of it was because they wanted me to do covers.

And yeah, I kind of liked the idea of being out of the house. I had worked in my house for three-and-a-half, four years, and I was used to going out, doing commercial work, and I kind of liked the idea of finding out about the company, and what’s going on, and hanging out there during the day. So yeah, I did spend quite a bit of time at DC Comics. I took a desk in their staff room, in their production room. They seemed to be happy to have me there until I really started to make trouble. [laughter] EURY: And we’ll get into some of the trouble in a minute. As far as Superman’s concerned, most people regard you as a Batman artist at DC, but you actually drew Superman covers before you did Batman covers.

ADAMS: In fact, nobody in “them thar” days thought of me as anything. What really happened was that Carmine Infantino realized that here he had some new blood, maybe he could become an art director and art direct covers. And I would be the artist that would do the covers, as well as other people.

But essentially, I got along pretty easy with Carmine, so in many ways that kind of pushed Carmine, who had been doing a lot of covers, into becoming an art director at DC Comics, which was a very fortuitous circumstance for him. He pushed a lot of covers my way because he could easily recognize that the tendency, the sense, was, “This guy’s probably going to do a lot of good covers.” And that got to be something that happened a lot.

EURY: Was Carmine heavily involved in the design of your covers, or were you flying solo?

ADAMS: He was, on and off. Sometimes he was too busy, sometimes he had an idea for a cover and we would sit and either argue it out, or I would propose something different, or I would accept his concept.

I really didn’t have too much trouble with Carmine’s ideas because he is a good designer. My covers are all design. I would rather do situations and storytelling situations, and sometimes, good design actually works against that. And design does tend to get repetitive after a while. You can only do just so many covers with the guy standing in the middle with his legs akimbo and holding a body in his arms, or standing on the side of the page and having panels go down the other side of it. There’s a limit to that. You really do get bored with that. I got to change styles from mystery covers to superhero covers and like that, so I got to play quite a bit.

EURY: What was your first Superman cover?

ADAMS: Well, I don’t know. You probably know.

EURY: Well, I did some research. I’ve got it in front of me. I just want to make sure, because you can’t always trust cover dates. But the two earliest ones that I found both had a Nov. 1967 cover date.

One was Lois Lane #79, which was, if this rings a bell, “The Bride of Titan Man”; and another one was Action #356, “The Son of the Annihilator,” which has this James Dean–type delinquent on the cover. I don’t know if you recall if those were the first two you drew.

ADAMS: I really don’t know. But I can tell you the circumstance behind the first cover I did for Mort Weisinger.

60 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

EURY: Please do.

ADAMS: Carmine had decided that, for whatever reason, I was worth something to the company and worth something to him.

It seemed as though people were beginning to recognize my work and it made a difference in the sales. Not in the books that I drew, but in the covers that I did. The books that I drew, pretty much, the sales stayed the same. But any time I did a cover, the sales seemed to go up ten percent. So Carmine was very, very interested in having me do covers for Superman to see what would happen.

Mort was not. [laughter] In fact, it’s possible that you know there are people in the world whose emotions and feelings you can read on their faces, better than Mort Weisinger, but I don’t know anyone like that. You pretty much know what’s going on in Mort’s head because he’s got the look on his face… or he had the look on his face.

So it was very clear that Mort did not want me to do covers. After all, he had Curt Swan, to which I would agree. Hey, hey, he’s got Curt Swan, that’s cool. I mean, I was a fan of Curt Swan’s since I was a young teenager. Anyway, Carmine seemed to be adamant that Mort would let me into his vault and allow me to do a cover. Mort, at the same time, was grumbling and bumping into doors and snarling.

Anyway, knowing that this tension was there and that it was not good, [chuckles] I thought, “Well, we’ll deal with this problem.” mort weisinger So I went in to see Mort and introduced © DC Comics. myself, and apparently, I had said hello to him briefly before that, and he more or less ignored me. I introduced myself and I said, “I’d just like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

And he said, “All right.” So we sat down and I said, “Look, Carmine wants me to do covers for you. I don’t care. I have a lot of covers to do and to be perfectly honest, they get in the way of the books I’m working on. But you and he seem to be having a problem. I have a solution, if you want to try it: I’ll do one cover for you. If you like it, maybe you’ll have me do more covers. If you don’t like it, tell Carmine you don’t like it and that’s the last cover I do for you.”

He said, “Good, that’s a deal.” And you could tell the way he said it, it was one cover and that’s it.

Well, I don’t know which cover [it was]… I have no idea. I handed it in and a couple of weeks later, Carmine came over to me and said, “Mort wants you to do all his covers.”

The Swan-Adams Team EURY: So Carmine actually broke the information to you, not Mort.

ADAMS: Mort did not. But the next time I saw Mort, he had a big grin on his face and he was very happy. Now, that was a very weird beginning to actually what I considered to be a good relationship, because my relationship with Mort after that was very comfortable.

I’ve never really had too much problem with the editors up at DC Comics. We all got along. Each one, within their own personality, pretty much, was okay with me.

EURY: Tell me something good about Mort Weisinger. People relate all these horror stories, but that can’t be the whole picture.

ADAMS: I’ll tell you a story that will make you understand every horror story you’ve ever heard about Mort Weisinger and make you realize what was going on.

I went into Mort’s office one day because I was perturbed by sh*t that people said about [him]. I could see that he was a grumpy fellow in general, but he treated me evenly and I was fine. But it bothered me so we were talking about it. We went over a cover and whatever. We finished that conversation and I said, “Mort, I’d just like to ask you why you are so grumpy at people? You know, everybody thinks you hate them and you just seem grumpy.” And I could see his face change in front of me, and he said, “I’ll tell you… I don’t tell people this. Try to imagine that you get up in the morning and you go into the bathroom to shave, and you look into the mirror, and you see this face.”

Now, for everybody out there who thinks he was grumpy, I say to you, the man had a soft side, dealing with his reality as best he could. Underneath he was a good, sensitive man.

Upon occasion, Adams inked DC’s main Superman artist, Curt Swan, on covers. Here’s an example: Superman #314 (Aug. 1977), guest-starring the Flash and Green Lantern.

This original art, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), is signed by both artists.

TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: Was he chummy or friendly with anybody at all, to your knowledge?

ADAMS: He loved Cary Bates. Cary Bates, the sun rose out of Cary Bates’ ass. Because Cary had ideas that were his kind of ideas.

I believe that there was a cover that I did—I hope I don’t say that it was Cary’s and it was really somebody else’s, it might be Mike Friedrich’s—but [Mort] was deliriously happy about this cover.

I don’t recall if it was for Adventure or World’s Finest, maybe World’s Finest, and what it had was two heads of two superheroes on the left and two heads of two superheroes on the right, I think. And in the middle, was a guy sitting in a chair with some kind of a gun or something and he was in silhouette, and on him was this question mark, “Who is it?” Do you remember that cover?

EURY: I do.

ADAMS: In his mind, that was the greatest cover because it asked a question and made you buy the book. A very intelligent editorial approach. And you know, it was a boring cover to draw. I hated it.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 61

It was simple and essentially boring and it was sloppy, but it sold comic books.

EURY: It was World’s Finest #176 (June 1968)—and it was a Cary Bates story, “The Superman–Batman Split!”

ADAMS: I think it was. All it was, from his point of view, was the idea and that idea came from one of his fan guys.

EURY: Cary, as you know, broke in by suggesting cover concepts and then finally got his chance to write for Mort.

ADAMS: And from Mort’s point of view, with Cary Bates he [had] found a guy who thought like him— ask questions, make the reader read the comic book.

One of his favorite covers was one that actually was one of my favorite covers, was Superman is sitting in the witness chair in the courtroom and there’s a little girl on the floor below him, very small with a little polka-dotted dress. And she’s pointing at Superman in the witness chair, which is an odd place to be for this to be happening, and she says, “That man killed my father.”

Mort’s Picks According to Adams, Superman editor Weisinger preferred covers that asked questions, like World’s Finest #176 (left), or presented dilemmas, like Action #359 (right).

TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: That’s “The Case of the People vs. Superman,” Action #359 (Feb. 1968). Very dynamic.

ADAMS: Well, more than dynamic, it was a great idea. How can you not buy that book?

“He’s the man who killed my father!”—“My daddy,” I think she said. My goodness.

EURY: Those covers were definitely good points of entry to pique the fans’ curiosity. Every now and then, you see—or you did see—misleading comics covers that proposed something you didn’t find inside.

ADAMS: And that’s one of the most popular female heroes in comics, Miss Leading Comics.

EURY: I have an entire run of her adventures. [laughter] It was in World’s Finest that you actually did your first interior Superman and Batman story (issue #175, May 1968).

ADAMS: Oh, yeah. Wasn’t that sad?

EURY: [laughs] And Dick Giordano inked you, and you weren’t that happy with the results.

ADAMS: No, and I wasn’t very happy with the pencils.

I was not ready for it, psychologically. First of all, it was a complicated story and had lots of stuff going on. But when you read a synopsis or when you read a script that has Batman, Superman, and a squad of guys dressed like them, so you go, “Oh, God. Every panel, I have to do like 15 people.” It’s a daunting thing, you just don’t want to do it. It’s like somebody’s telling you to draw up a picture of the floor of the Stock Exchange. “Oh, thank you. That’s what I want to do. I want to draw 400 people on the floor of the Stock Market today.” An aircraft carrier with planes taking off and all the officers are all lined up on the deck and there’s a fly on the nose of the Admiral. [laughter] It wasn’t like it didn’t heat my cookies. And because of that—no, not because of that. What I was about to say was bullsh*t. I take it back even before I say it.

I just did a sloppy job. You know, I really wasn’t doing the characters well, and I really wasn’t enthusiastic about it, and I would have to say at that point, I was still in the throes of wanting to go off and become an illustrator, and I really wasn’t enjoying comic books that much. I was doing my job, I was like getting off on the experience of doing it like, “Oh, God. I finally get to do regular comics after doing everything around it, and I really can’t do this very long because they don’t pay enough money, and it’s comic books, after all. I want to do this, that, and the other thing.”

So there was a transition point there where I wanted to get out and I didn’t think I was going to do this.

So that first book was just done like that. On the other hand, I wasn’t willing to give up certain ideas that I had while I was doing it. So within that story, you will find different approaches to ideas scattered throughout the book and nothing really great, but it was fun.

EURY: When you did the very next issue of World’s Finest, were you more comfortable with it at that point?

ADAMS: No, not really. I mean I was doing the yeoman’s job. Anybody could have done it. Curt probably could have done a better job.

EURY: So what was the first story that you did for DC where you really felt that you were vested into the interiors?

ADAMS: I don’t think that happens. You know, everybody likes to know themselves, but nobody does, so I can’t tell you where the transition point was. But if you’ll look at those first two books that I did, the World’s Finest books, and then you look at Superman/Muhammad Ali, you’ll see a person who has decided that he’s a comic-book artist and he was going to do the best comic books he can do in Superman/Muhammad Ali. In those first two books, it was very indecisive. Anybody could have done them.

EURY: Well, they still stood out. For the readers, they were exciting.

ADAMS: Yeah, it seemed to be that way. They became attracted to certain things—faces—and there’s a part of me that says, “See, it would have been fun continuing doing that.” But other trumpets called.

EURY: A lot of people have commented that your style was very photorealistic for DC. But you also brought with you a new energy that the medium didn’t have at the time.

ADAMS: The truth is, many people have a limited point of view about what the potential of comic

62 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

books are, and part of it was engendered by the terrible rates that people were paid, the publishers’ attitudes, and the Comics Code. Before the Comics Code, you had EC Comics, you had guys who were doing tremendously incredible comic books, but then that all went away so comic books in America were held back. We just had little sparks here and there that went off and those of us who were outside of it, we kept on looking for those sparks.

EURY: What were some of those sparks for you, as a younger reader?

ADAMS: Jack Kirby being inked by Wally Wood on Challengers of the Unknown, Joe Kubert doing Brave and the Bold stories, Russ Heath doing Golden Gladiator, just Mort Drucker showing up out of nowhere and doing war stories that look like real, gritty war stories, we lived for those things, and they were few and far between. So when I got to do comic books, from my point of view, all those really wonderful things came back to me and I thought, “God, I have whole pages here that I can design. I can just go crazy.” And I had fun, you know?

teller.” All they wanted was Superman just standing there, because they found that the character standing there, the feet spread out wide, sold comic books.

So I said, “Well, why don’t I have him break chains, and since it’s ‘Kryptonite Nevermore,’ we’ll do the chains out of kryptonite and we’ll make that a scene I remember from my youth, but never quite looked like this.” You know, bursting chains, when you think about it, that’s an unrealistic picture. It doesn’t make any sense. When you put the chains on him, maybe he’ll stretch the metal a little bit, but you’re not going to burst them because the chest doesn’t become that big. It has nothing to do with that. It just has to do with a symbol.

So breaking chains on the chest are symbol, not really a real thing. So I thought, “Well, okay, I’m just going to do the symbol, forget the rest of it.

Don’t get real,” and I did it. And to be perfectly honest, I did it very fast and very sloppy. I didn’t really put my heart and soul into it. It was just another instruction. You know, do just the figure with chains bursting and that’s good, that’s it.

EURY: Let’s talk about Curt Swan. You said that you were a fan of his when you were a teenager. You inked him on a handful of covers. Did you lobby for that?

ADAMS: I didn’t necessarily lobby for it, but I was delighted to do it and I didn’t really think other people did him justice. You know, Curt used to make Superman chunky, but he made him chunky with muscle. When people inked him, they’d sometimes leave out the muscle and they’d leave in the chunky. So I thought, “If I’m going to ink him, I’m going to leave out the chunky and put in the muscle.” So if you look at the stuff I did, whatever stylistic things you can spot and say, “Ah, that’s Neal.” One of the things you see in Superman is you see a ten-pounds-leaner body and a more muscular Superman, a more powerful Superman.

EURY: That’s very obvious. Wayne Boring also had a tendency of making Superman very, very thick through the middle.

ADAMS: Barrel-chested, beer-bellied.

EURY: Let’s go to Superman #233 (Jan. 1971), which might be an issue number which will trigger a memory with you. That was “Kryptonite Nevermore,” the big, iconic cover with Superman bursting from the chains.

You’ve recreated that cover a few times, too. Is that your favorite Superman cover, or among your favorites?

ADAMS: Oddly enough, no.

EURY: Really?

ADAMS: When, in fact, I was asked to do it, I thought, “Well, here’s cutting my Achilles’ tendon. I’m a story-

The ‘Adamsderson’ Team Here’s an example of Adams working with the other member of the “Swanderson” Superman art team, inker Murphy Anderson, with Murph inking Neal’s pencils on the cover of Superman #263 (Apr. 1973). As the inset shows, a photo background was insert.

Original art scan courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 63

These Covers Are Hot! (left) The “Kryptonite Nevermore” cover to Superman #233 (Jan. 1971) might very well be Adams’ bestknown Superman illustration, but it wasn’t one of the artist’s favorites. (right) Neal instead preferred his explosive variant cover for All-Star Superman #1 (Jan. 2006).

TM & © DC Comics.

So that’s what I did. And I’ve heard about that cover ever since then for ages—“Oh, that cover, oh, that wonderful cover.” And I’ve looked at it and it’s like, “Geez, what a sloppy job.”

I just recently did a Superman cover for DC Comics.

It’s an alternate cover where he’s kind of moving away from the sun, and something goes on and explodes from his body.

EURY: Interesting, because I had a totally different perspective as a reader and as a fan. Maybe some of my reaction was shaped by the momentum behind this change with Superman.

ADAMS: You know, there’s many things that you look at when you look at a piece of art—and I hate to call it “art” because, of course, that’s a little too pompous— but you have to look at the artist, you have to look at the character, you have to look at the idea, and then you have to look at the iconography.

In this case, the iconography overcame the artist, and all I did was fill in the lines. I had people say to me, “Wow, how did you know that would be a great cover?” And I, like, look around for help because I don’t know if I thought it was going to be a great cover. Why didn’t I do that every time I did a cover?

I mean, there’s no way to know ahead of time what people will view as a good or important or a terrific or a wonderful cover. You can put your heart and soul into a cover and it’d be forgotten the next day. You can put the kind of effort I put into that cover and it’s remembered for years. You don’t know. As the artist, your job is to do the art. It’s the audience’s job to respond, and so you do what you can.

EURY: The All-Star Superman #1 variant.

ADAMS: Now, I was just going to do a Superman cover. [But] that cover has already become an icon.

People spent $25.00 to get it because it’s an alternate cover, but people now talk about that cover and my suspicion is that it will keep rising like foam at the top of a wave because it’s one of those covers where all you see is Superman suffering and something terrible happening to him. And you go, “Yeah, yeah, right.”

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EURY: The background colors on that cover are similar to the “Kryptonite Nevermore” cover’s—very warm oranges and reds behind Superman.

ADAMS: That certainly is a scientific analysis. It is, in fact, true, because yellow and red tends to leap to your eye because of the light spectrum. The light wave or red at that end of the spectrum is faster than the light wave at the back end of the spectrum. So what happens is if you look at something that’s blue or blue-gray, it tends to fall back—actually, it does take longer to get to your eyes so it seems further back, whereas red and yellow leap towards your eyes.

You can take a blue-gray field and put an orange-red dot somewhere, and that’s the thing that will leap

CHAIN-BREAKING EVERMORE

Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, and Action Comics TM & © DC Comics. Other characters © their respective copyright holders.

The image of a barrel-chested Superman bursting through chains is part of the hero’s iconography, appearing as early as (inset) Superman #11 and many, many other times throughout the Golden and Silver Ages.

But Neal Adams’ energetic cover for Superman #233 iconic cover took Supie’s chain-bustin’ to a new level! The “Kryptonite Nevermore” portrait has been frequently imitated, honored, and parodied—even by Neal Adams himself—on covers and in stories, as this gallery shows…

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

Superhero Hang-Ups Superman and his allies and enemies, penciled by Neal Adams and inked by Dick Giordano. (top) Back cover to Super DC Calendar 1976. (bottom) Front cover to 1977 Super DC Calendar.

Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

to your eye. You can’t similarly do an orangered field and put a blue dot there and expect anybody to just notice the blue dot because you’re looking at the field.

EURY: Were you, by chance, offered the interiors of Superman back during that 1970 revamp?

ADAMS: I think that it wasn’t so much that I was either offered or not offered, I think that I was so busy doing other stuff that there was no opening for me to do it. There were enough people that wanted to do Superman. There certainly weren’t a lot of people that could really high-style Batman, know what I mean? And Deadman was like way off the wall for anybody, and Green Lantern/ Green Arrow was my idea to do it… not so much to do it differently, but to do it because Gil Kane had left and they were handing it out to anybody who walked in the office, and they were going to cancel the book. So I thought, “Before they cancel the book, I want to be able to do Green Lantern because I love Gil Kane’s work so much.”

So the subject of doing Superman never really came up. They already had people.

EURY: Alex Ross remarked [in the Superman roundtable in The Krypton Companion] that DC, after Superman/Muhammad Ali and at the time of the first Superman movie, should have offered you a ton of money to draw Superman for a year and really pump up the character.

ADAMS: Mmm. EURY: So you doing Superman interiors was never discussed?

ADAMS: Well, DC wasn’t paying anyone a ton of money back then.

Let me tell you a story.

EURY: Please do.

ADAMS: It concerns Curt Swan and the Academy of Comic Book Arts. I was the Vice President of the Academy at the time, and I didn’t really want to be anything more because I was already doing all the work. And we had meetings at the Illustrators’ Club, and the idea was you want to bring comic-book artists together to talk because they never got to see each other. You know, everybody worked 15 hours a day, locked in a closet somewhere, so they would never get together—Jack Kirby never met Joe Sinnott. So meeting at the Illustrators’ Club was very nifty because pencilers got to meet their inkers, inkers got to meet their pencilers, something that hadn’t happened in comic books. Things like that happen all the time now, but in “them thar” days, that kind of stuff wasn’t going on.

Anyway, I had plans—little devious plans—in the back of my head about certain things that were happening in comic books and different ways to approach undoing them. But one of the plans was getting people to talk about their rates and trying to get rates up, because rates were in an awful state.

So I tried this as an experiment: I met Curt Swan, I praised him and told him how much I loved his work. And once all that fannish stuff was over—of course, I was an adult and he treated me like an adult—I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question? What are your rates? What are your pencil rates?” And Curt went all just blushy, and

66 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

kind of stepped back a half a step. He said, “Well, I don’t think it’s right to talk about your rates.”

And I said, “Well, okay, if you don’t want to. But I get $50 a page.” [laughs] And he said, “What?

You get $50 a page for pencils?” He said, “I get $45 a page.” I said, “You shouldn’t be paid $45 and me be paid $50 a page. You’re Curt Swan.”

He said, “Well, it won’t be that way on Monday.”

Now, I went around the room and had similar conversations with other people. But when I checked up on this on Monday, Curt’s rate was raised. Not bad. And if you think about it, at $50 a page from $45 a page, how much of a raise is that? That’s a pretty good raise, a ten-percent raise! A ten-percent raise because of a conversation at the Illustrators’ Club. That raise happened because we had a short conversation.

It’s one of the things I tried to teach the guys at the Illustrators’ Club when we had our meetings: “Guys, it doesn’t pay to keep information to yourself. It pays to talk to other people, because that’s how you learn. That’s how you discover somebody’s taking advantage of you.”

EURY: Curt’s attitude to your question was very polite and very professional, and gentlemanly— the logic of the day was, you just didn’t talk about

that type of thing.

ADAMS: And wrong, so wrong.

I mean, I carry that through in any area I’m at.

There were people doing animatics, which is something we do [at the Continuity studio]. The clients would say, “Well, so-and-so doesn’t charge that.

He’d charge practically half of what you charge.”

I’d say, “Oh, yeah?” I’d pick up the phone and call him. Because I knew everybody. “What’s your rate?”

“Well, we charge $300 a frame.”

“Oh, okay. Just checking, thanks a lot.”

Hang up the phone, “No, he charges exactly what I charge.”

I guess I’m not so much a union man, although God knows part of me is, but I do believe in union principles. I believe in communicating and sharing information. If you’re a freelancer you should not work at one company all the time—it’s stupid to do that. Go back and forth to see where the flexibility is, relative to how much your income can be, and don’t allow them to oppress you. I mean, they used to make people change their names.

I don’t think anybody was “forced” to change their name, but somehow, guys like “Mickey Demeo” [pseudonym for Mike Esposito] would show up and you’d wonder, “Who the hell is this guy?”

Look! Up in the Sky! (inset) Another iconic Superman pose by Adams appeared on the cover of the 100-Page Super Spectacular Superman #252 (June 1972). (above) Neal recreated that shot (sans the background heroes) for this 2000s specialty illustration (courtesy of Heritage). A version of this pose can also be found on signage in Metropolis, Illinois, home to the annual Superman Celebration each June.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

EURY: Don’t forget “Frankie Ray” [Frank Giacoia’s pseudonym].

ADAMS: Yeah, Frankie Ray. And it was because of fear, you know?

“Maybe they’ll take work away from me,” or whatever. So I put an end to that.

EURY: This is a perfect segue to a discussion about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Some people would say that your biggest contribution to Superman was your role in getting them a pension and creator acknowledgement for Superman.

ADAMS: Yeah, I’m thinking Superman/Muhammad Ali. [laughter] EURY: Did you have a personal connection with Siegel and Shuster?

ADAMS: No, nobody did.

EURY: Where were they at the time when you decided to rally on their behalf?

ADAMS: Okay, well, we didn’t know. What happened was that Jerry wrote a letter to various news media and to the Academy of Comic Book Arts, of which, at that point, I was president, and I got the letter and I let folks see the letter. But it was one of these letters you just can’t believe because, first of all, Jerry was very bitter toward DC Comics and [publisher] Jack Liebowitz.

Joe didn’t seem to have anything to say. He was the super-nice-guy partner. Joe was legally blind at that point and was living in his brother’s apartment, sleeping on a cot next to a window that had a broken windowpane.

EURY: This was in 1975, when the news about the Superman movie being in development was breaking.

ADAMS: Yeah, it was breaking and that was part of the impetus of this letter. And the letter was volatile and vociferous and any other “V” words you want. [Michael laughs] Vehement, vascular—

stop working on it until this happens.’”

So I told the guys in the studio, “Look, you know I’m going to be spending an awful lot of time doing this. Anybody that wants to help voluntarily, I appreciate the effort. But I’m letting you know now that my studio is going to be dedicated to this until it changes, no matter when that is.”

Anyway, I called up Jerry and Joe and told them I’d like to represent them, and Jerry said, “But we can’t go to court anymore. We’ve run out the time.” I said, “No, you basically lost the court thing, you know that. That’s what it says in your letter and I believe you. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not a lawyer, I can’t represent you in court. But I can represent you to the people. That’s all I can do, and maybe not well, but I’d like to take the job.” He said, “Well, what will you do?” I said, “Well, I don’t know what I’ll do. But if you let me do it, I will do it. I will get publicity, I will get attention, and I will try to turn this around.” He said, “Okay,” and then he wrote a note, and Joe wrote a note, that said they’d let me do this for them.

And so, from that point on, I worked on the media. We did television interviews, we did newspaper interviews. By the time the thing was coming to an end, which was three-and-a-half months later, reporters were calling me just about every day to find out if anything had changed. We got a fair amount of attention and DC Comics, or Warners, assigned a person—a vice president of the company, because Steve Ross didn’t want to talk to me—assigned Jay Emmett, the nephew of Jack Liebowitz, to be the liaison to communicate and to talk me out of this.

EURY: “Talk you out of it”?

ADAMS: Well, you know, it’s a big company, you want to pay out the least you can. Of course, something would be good. And so his goal was “nothing,” my goal was “something,” so we had to find a meeting of the minds. I don’t think we ever found a meeting of the minds, exactly, but we were back-and-forth and it was a fairly friendly discussion. It got EURY: Venomous. a little bit unfriendly now and then, but I ADAMS: Venomous, yeah. And if [Siegel] can’t even imagine why anybody’d be was a company, I would bet that DC Comics jerry siegel and joe shuster angry at me. You know, I don’t do anything would have sued him. © DC Comics. to get angry at! [laughter] But he made $7,500 a year being a And the conversation would be, “Why are you doing this? We clerk. He also had a heart condition. A heart condition and $7,500 a year… for the guy who wrote Superman. Joe had no income and are going to sell DC Comics. We’re not even sure we’re going to was living off his brother in Queens… for the artist who created keep it because it’s not making any money, so it’s ridiculous and Superman. Not very good. And they had kept silent for 15 years on you’re looking for money for these guys.” I would say, “First of all, the advice of their lawyers who told them that, when [they] get to I’m not looking for a lot of money. I’m looking for you guys to pay be 60, they will go, if they have to, to the Supreme Court and get them what you’d pay a glorified secretary. That’s not a lot of money. the rights to Superman back into their hands. And then, when the These guys created Superman.” And I’d say, “Jay, you’re the nephew time rolled around—the lawyers didn’t answer their mail or phone. of the man who basically was the accountant and held on to DC These people—I call these particular lawyers “people” because Comics. You came back from the Korean War and your uncle gave we’re forced to call all lawyers “people” [Michael laughs]—of course, you the right to do the licensing for DC Comics. And you created, they do work from the level of humanity down to the slugs, in my and live within, Licensing Corporation of America and you made opinion, and many of them are at slug level, and there are some millions of dollars. And you’re going to tell me that DC Comics or Warners is going to give up DC Comics with all that licensing? You that are human.

So anyway, they essentially deserted the boys, these 60-year- know how much that is.” He said, “Well, let’s change the subject.” old boys. And so Jerry, in frustration, wrote this very, very powerful nine-page letter. And it got to the Washington Post, and it got to EURY: So you did this negotiation without any—if I could use the the New York Times, and it got to various people; and even the “L” word—legal representation at all?

Washington Post wrote an article about it and it was carried on the ADAMS: I wasn’t trying to do anything legal. newswires and it was carried to other newspapers.

I read it and then I saw the article in the Post and I sat back, and EURY: You were just nudging them along into doing what was right.

I thought about it, and I thought, “Well, you know what? This is, ADAMS: Yeah. Well, you know, I don’t really think the law and sort of, what will happen: They’ll get the article in the Post, which ethics and justice really belong in the same room. To me, the law is they did, then it will be run in a smaller article in the New York Times, in the anteroom, screwing everybody. [Michael laughs] And ethics then some other newspapers around the country, and then it will and justice and doing the right thing, they’re in a room by themslowly go away. [pause] And that’s not going to fix things. What selves where people talk to one another and act real, and that’s a has to happen is somebody has to stand up and say, ‘Okay, starting totally different thing and I think people will listen to that. And I today, we’re going to decide that this is going to end, that these wasn’t talking to a judge. I was saying to people, whoever would guys are going to get some kind of a pension from DC Comics, the listen, “Listen, is this right? These guys created Superman. There’s people that are making all of this money, and we are not going to going to be a movie, a multimillion-dollar movie. My understanding 68 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

from the rare publicity that they’ve put out is that DC Comics—not Warners, DC Comics—is immediately going to get an initial payment of three million dollars. And the guys that created Superman, one of them lives in an apartment by a broken window on a cot; the other one has a heart problem and he makes $7,500 a year as a clerk. Does anybody think this is right? I mean, you’d have to be insane, so why are people arguing with me?”

I know that Warners recognized this immediately.

Warners was not responsible for oppressing Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. But they could be responsible for fixing it. “So wouldn’t that be nice?” Well, it took me three-and-a-half months to convince people that that would be nice, but we managed.

EURY: Well, we appreciate what you did, too. I’m actually surprised that it was accomplished in such a short amount of time. It probably didn’t seem like a short amount of time when you were going through it.

ADAMS: Well, we had some high points. [But] I got very frustrated because Joe would come into town from Queens and we’d do TV spots, and then Jerry would come in from California, and the problem was, Jerry had to go back to California because he couldn’t afford to stay in New York because he couldn’t afford to pay the hotel bill. So I would call the news reporters who were interested. I’d say, “Are you interested in interviewing Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, before they get away?” And they’d say, “Oh, yeah.” I’d say, “Well, when can you do it?”

They’d say, “How about like early next week?” And I’d say, “Well, no, we can’t do it because Jerry has to go back to California. He can’t afford to stay in New York unless you pay his rent at the hotel.” And they’d say, “Well, we can’t do that because we’re a news medium. That’s like buying news. You can’t do that.” And I’d say, “Well, not exactly. Don’t you guys have what they call ‘petty cash’?

I mean, petty cash for you guys is the hotel bill for two days or three days for Jerry and his wife. How about you just pull some money out of petty cash and pay a couple of days of hotel?” “Well, I guess we can do that.” [Michael chuckles] “Okay, good. Let’s do that.”

So I got Jerry to stay in town quite a bit of time.

Joe [couldn’t afford] to come in from Queens, and I gave him taxi money. He’d come in, but because he was legally blind, he kept on bashing his head on the edge of the cab. So I’d have to put my hand up there any time he got in or out of a cab because he’d smack his head on the doorway.

the president of the United States, famous movie stars, Frank Sinatra, and all these people would go in and they were going to see my character.” And I said, “Joe, that’s interesting—wow. But what I really wanted to know was what you thought of the show.”

Joe said, “Oh, well, I couldn’t afford to go to the show. Much too expensive.”

EURY: How tragic. There’s a similar story from Jerry Siegel where he couldn’t bear to say hello to [1950s television Superman] George Reeves. His wife knew George Reeves, but Jerry was so frustrated over this horrible situation, he couldn’t even say hello to the man who played Superman.

ADAMS: The turning point really sort of came in frustration, when I’d gotten a lot of notice from some certain TV shows, [like] The Tomorrow Show, the old Tom Snyder show—the tape of which, by the way, is missing. I heard it’s the only tape in their library that went missing. It’s interesting because I asked him one time, “So, Tom, you ever think of replaying that show?” He said, “Neal, I was going to replay it just a couple months afterwards, especially when the whole thing got cleared up.

We went to the library, it wasn’t there.”

Never-Ending Battle Adams illustrated this “To the Rescue” illo, featuring Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as part of his media campaign (with Jerry Robinson) for the Superman co-creators.

Superman TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: The poor guy!

ADAMS: And we would sit and they’d tell stories to me about what it was like, horror stories. I’m leaving out the worst stuff here.

On a less dramatic note, DC’s officers would donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the war effort, while Jerry and Joe were sitting in the cheap seats up in the balcony and could barely see who was on the stage.

And I asked Joe one time, “Joe, there was a Superman musical on Broadway, right?

[Editor’s note: 1966’s It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane…

It’s Superman!] Did you ever see the musical?”

And Joe said, “Oh, you know that musical was so popular that everybody came there.

I used to go down there and I would watch the famous people that would go in like Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

A Fortress of Fun Neal Adams was hired in the early 1970s to produce these designs for a proposed Amazing World of Superman amusement park that would be built in Metropolis, Illinois. The park plans fizzled, but the city of Metropolis co-opted the Superman brand from DC Comics and has since hosted an annual Superman Celebration each summer.

TM & © DC Comics.

70 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

EURY: [mock gasp] Where… could… it… be?

ADAMS: I wonder where it could be, hm, hm, hm.

Anyway, Jerry was going to have to go home the next week, and I wasn’t making enough of an impact and was frustrated. So I called the National Cartoonists Society, of which Jerry Robinson was the president at that time, and I said, “Look, I’d like to have a meeting to see if you guys can do anything.”

So we went to what was then called the Allied Chemical Building—I believe that’s what it was, it was that building on Times Square—and they apparently were doing their meetings there. They had this meeting in a room that was like a cartoon. It was gigantic and there was one table and there were lights hanging over the table like an old pool table from a black-and-white movie. And the cartoonists’ board, or whoever they were, were sitting around the table and they were talking with me about what they could do—you know, “What’s going on, how’d we get so far, blah, blah, blah.” So I described the whole thing and told them about the shows that we were on and I said, “We can continue doing shows and stuff, but I’d like to get some help from professionals. And to be perfectly honest, DC Comics isn’t going to help me and Marvel Comics isn’t going to help me, and told me so. But maybe you guys can do something.”

So they talked about it for a while. Most of these guys were syndicated strip cartoonists. Some of them used to work for DC Comics, but then they went on to do their syndicated strips. And they said, finally, “Why don’t we do a letter, an official letter, from the National Cartoonists Society?” [Their idea was,] they’ll do a letter, and then they’ll send it up to the gag cartoonists who were at another floor and they were having a meeting, so they would get a letter from them, too.

I’d just been through a ragged couple of months.

And so they turned to me and they said, “So what do you think, Neal?” I was quiet for a while. And I got up and said, “These two guys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, created the comic-book business. Half the people in this room owe their income and their livelihood, their ability to put their kids in school, to these two men. They created the comic-book business… and you’re going to tell me you’re going to write a letter… and then you’re going to ask me if I’m happy. No, I’m not happy. Goodbye.” Well, the speech was a little bit longer than that. It took about five or six minutes. It was very eloquent because I was feeling eloquent that day.

So I’m on my way out, and there’s this long walk across the floor and to this cloakroom, and there’s a guy standing by the cloakroom, kind of an Irish-looking guy—a little bit short, but not too short—and he’d just gotten his coat and he was just kind of standing there under another light—it’s like movies, you know? I walk over and I’m going to get my overcoat and go. And he says, “Excuse me.” I said, “Yeah?”

He says, “You know, that was a pretty good speech.”

I said, “Thank you. I wish I could do more with it than just talk.” He says, “You know what you ought to do?” I said, “Well, I don’t know. I’m trying whatever I can.” He said, “You ought to have a press conference.” [chuckles] I said, “I wouldn’t know the first thing about a press conference. I would have no idea what I would do.” He said, “You know what building this is?” And I said, “The Allied Chemical Building, or something like that?” He said, “This is the home of the International Press Corps.” I said, “Really? Wow.” EURY: “Right place at the right time…”

ADAMS: And he said, “You know who I am? I’m the president of the International Press Corps. If you want to have a press conference any day on this subject, any day that you want, you got it.” I said, “Come with me.”

And I hurried over to the [cartoonists’] table and I said, “Gentlemen, this is the president of the International Press Corps and he says we can have a press conference any time we want it, and he’s going to see to it that it gets done.”

So the guy was great. He set up a press conference.

We had many artists, creators of comic strips that were in the New York area, come up. Irwin Hasen came up, he did a drawing of Dondi with a tear in his eye, [and we got] letters from Milton Caniff and all these other guys getting behind Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. It was so impressive that after I made my personal statement, I got the hell out of there. But enter all the cartoonists, and it just totally torpedoed Warners. They were like, “Whoa, step back! We gotta do something about settling this. This can’t go on.”

EURY: What was Jerry and Joe’s emotional reaction to this outpouring?

ADAMS: Well, their eyes, at a certain point, they started to open up. First of all, they’re going on these shows and doing interviews and being spoken to by some famous interviewers and people, so they’re very impressed by that. But when the Cartoonists Society got behind them, they were totally blown away that anybody would, that everybody would, want to stand up for them. They were in awe.

EURY: Cue the weepy soundtrack—this is a classic Hollywood moment.

ADAMS: Yeah, totally. The problem was, right after the press conference, when Warners was feeling good, Jerry finally had to go back to California. He got together with me at my studio and he said, “Neal, whatever they offer, now take it.” I said, [disbelieving] “Oh-kay. You know, the last conversation I had, they were like at $**,000 a year. I’d really like to bring it up to ** at least, minimum, with benefits and other things.” [Editor’s note: Exact figures are confidential.]

In those days, that was not too bad. It’s way more now—Warners is treating the [Siegel and Shuster] families very nicely. Anyway, they said, “Neal, we just can’t do this anymore. We’re gone, we’re exhausted.

Take whatever they offer. It’s ** now. If they add a couple more thousand, that’ll be fine.” I said, “Okay,” and I put them on a plane and sent them to California.

So I get the call from Warners and I say, “Okay, what’s it going to be? What have you got?” And they said, “Well, $**,000 a year [three thousand more], and that’s our last offer.” I said, “Well, I’ll ask them, see if it’s okay.” So I held the phone and I didn’t do anything.

[Michael chuckles] At the end of the day I called them back and I said, “Well, I guess I’m just not good at this.”

They said, “What do you mean?” “Well, you were at $**,000 and then you go to $**,000, it’s insulting.

So they said they can’t do it. They were just pissed off.”

They said, “How much would they need?” I said, “A minimum of $**,000 [five thousand more].” [pause] “So okay, they got it.” Whew! Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

What happened in the end was, we sealed it up before the Christmas holidays. And so when the reporters called and we’re finally able to accomplish just a couple of more little things, I said to the reporters, “Look at this. You know, Warners was never involved in this to begin with. Now they’ve solved the problem and we have a Jerry Siegel and Joe

Shuster that can go to see their character in the movies. Everybody’s happy, they’re happy, Warners is happy—Merry Christmas, guys.” Hurray, great story.

So Warners came out looking good. In the end, they looked like the rescuers.

EURY: The Christmas timing too was just perfect.

[The agreement was announced on Friday, December 19, 1975.]

ADAMS: It worked out great. So it all turned out great and it’s exactly what I told them when I was talking to them. I said, “Look, you guys can end up easily being the good guys here. Question what it would cost you to hire a couple of secretaries and you’re the good guys. You’re the heroes. Why wouldn’t you do that? You’re gonna, you know, save this and it’ll never show up again. You’re good.”

And that’s exactly the way it turned out. It’s good for Warners, it’s good for Jerry and Joe, it’s good for the comic-book business to get this stupid sh*t settled—everybody benefits. It worked out great.

A Rare Treat By the late 1970s, Superman covers by Neal Adams were uncommon… but when they occurred, they were a delight.

Case in point: Superman #317 (Nov. 1977).

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 71

It was a tough time. I mean, it wasn’t “tough” tough, not like being trapped in an alley with three guys with knives, but it was tough—but when it was finished, it was great!

From Cher to Eternity Ah, look at all the famous people on Adams’ unforgettable wraparound cover to the 1978 smash, All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56, a.k.a.

Superman vs.

Muhammad Ali. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Muhammad Ali © Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC.

EURY: It had to be exhilarating. Did anybody try to professionally pressure you against getting involved like this?

ADAMS: You know, I have never said anything to anybody in the comic-book business that didn’t make more sense than the way it was before. I have never tried to get DC or Marvel to do anything that’s against their best interests. I have never given bad advice. It’s all been good advice and I’ve never done it without thinking about it long and hard, and discussing it with people, and saying, “Okay, finally, why don’t we do this? Isn’t this better? What if you give royalties to the people who do the work, aren’t they going to make a better comic book to earn that royalty? So what you can do is you can figure out how much money you have to make before you’d ever give a royalty, and then from that point on, you give a royalty? Let’s say you’re not going to do well until you sell 75,000 copies of a comic book. At that point, start the royalty. What is your problem with that?

“If that’s what you want, and they do more, then you give them a little piece, doesn’t that make sense?

Why are you arguing with me? I don’t understand.

You’re not making any sense.

“What are you doing with your original art? You’re destroying it! Think about it. It’s stupid! Give it back to the artists.”

72 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

EURY: With all the original art that was destroyed back then, I’m surprised to find as much of it surfacing today in the marketplace.

ADAMS: Because a lot of it was taken illegally, and that’s just too bad. I tried to deal with it, but you can’t because it’s gone generations down. You know, it’s with the fifth guy or the third guy, and he bought it in all honesty. He didn’t steal it, he just bought it because he’s a fan. He kept it, he loves it, but now if he sells it, he’ll probably get ten times as much as he paid for it and somehow he thinks he deserves it because he made a smart investment. Well, although that’s not true, that’s just the way it is with folks.

EURY: Let’s talk about your other big Superman moment of the late ’70s, the Ali book.

ADAMS: Okay.

EURY: How did that wind up with you? Originally, Joe Kubert was attached to it.

ADAMS: Yeah, exactly right. And I thought he was doing a great job, but apparently the Muslims that were representing Muhammad Ali did not think that Joe was doing likenesses properly. That really came down to likenesses and Joe’s style is a little bit of a rough style. So even if he did a likeness, for somebody who’s untutored in art style, they would still find that, “No, that’s not going to do it. That’s too rough, too hard to deal with.”

So I was asked because, of course, I’m more realistic and I draw more photorealistic stuff. If I would do it, that would be the right answer. I’ve done likenesses so it really came down to doing likenesses.

So as a tribute to Joe, I kept the composition of the cover that Joe made, only I replaced it, replaced it with the art that would be satisfactory to the people. So the one thing that’s remaining of that book that’s Joe Kubert is the layout and composition of that cover.

EURY: Did he do any interior pages?

ADAMS: He just did the cover, and that’s what the judgment was based on. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad decided it did not look enough like Muhammad Ali. In fact, it was even [chuckles] more interesting than that.

Denny O’Neil, who was going to write it, and myself had to be approved of by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

EURY: And what kind of approval was required?

ADAMS: Denny and I had to fly to Chicago, be taken by limousine out to the house of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and to be approved. It wasn’t exactly a ceremony.

We went out to Chicago, and there’s this gated mansion. The house looked like it was about ten blocks from the gate, with armed guards, and they designed the living room area like a Turkish living room where you have columns around the outside and you sit around the outside and the center is empty, I guess for the dancing girls or whatever. Anyway, they served us anything we wanted, a coffee, Tab, or whatever. In those days, it was Tab, not Diet Coke. [chuckling] And we sat there like bumps on a log. Across the room, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came out with two women, and he sat there, nodded at us, picked up the phone, had a phone conversation, looked at us, somebody came in and had him sign something. [He] sort of waved, left the room, and we’re back to New York.

EURY: So it was you and Denny, not your work, that had to be approved. What an experience that had to be.

ADAMS: Right. Well, we didn’t know what to expect. We definitely got what we deserved. We were both approved, whatever that means.

EURY: And Denny didn’t finish the project.

ADAMS: No, I don’t think that Denny was thrilled doing the project to begin with because, essentially, his outlines were rejected at the beginning and then I took his outlines and moved them into a slightly different direction, and that made the editor happy, and

The TKO from Tokyo Japanese poster promoting Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. Courtesy of Heritage.

Superman TM & © DC Comics. Muhammad Ali © Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC.

everybody was happy with the outline, and Denny seemed to be okay with it. He started to write it and then basically he lost enthusiasm for it. And he decided for whatever reason that he wasn’t going to finish it. He was exhausted at the time.

He actually needed a vacation so he took some time off. It was, I think, coincidentally, the burden of the thing and his overwork—he was called upon to do so much work at the time that he basically just had to go take a rest. I think it just got to be too much for him.

EURY: Denny has said many, many times that he just never really could get his hands around Superman. At least he doesn’t feel that he could.

ADAMS: You have to remember that Denny is a reporter and he likes “real.” One of the reasons that he’s good for Batman is because Batman isn’t a superhero. He is the antithesis of Superman.

Superman is the ultimate superhero, Batman is the non-superhero superhero.

He has no superpowers— everything is him. Even his gadgets are exaggerated too much by a lot of people. He is Sherlock Holmes and some powerful gladiator wrapped in one body, so Denny could more easily deal with that. Look at Ra’s al Ghul, look at the work that he did. He stuck more to the real stuff.

There was no Penguin. Later on, yes, you know you get pushed into doing these things.

But when I worked with Denny, I saw more of the reporter there than I saw of the superhero writer. So I think that made a big difference—to do Superman, you know, Superman was just too much. What are his powers? What can he do? I like it as an exercise.

I enjoy it, you know. I like to create limits and then work within the limits, even though those limits can be grand—so I was way more comfortable writing Superman/Muhammad Ali than Denny was.

He was not comfortable, clearly not comfortable.

For me, at the time, he was the perfect writer because my stuff was more realistic, so if you take somebody who’s very realistic and you have him do too much fantasy, it just ruins the

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

realism—I mean, humans bleed. We have this sequence in Green Lantern/Green Arrow where Green Arrow gets a quarrel shot into his shoulder from a crossbow. Well, you can see a ton of action in lots of other comics where stuff ought to happen and the consequences should be so great. Well, Green Arrow gets a quarrel in his shoulder and you go through two or three pages of him just crawling along the street, not being able to get it out of his shoulder, asking for help from people, going into a hospital, fainting across the desk of a nurse, and you realize,

yeah, he may just have a thing in his shoulder, there’s definitely consequences. In comics, people are [routinely] getting blown up and shot up, and I think Wolverine just got clove in half the other day.

EURY: Ouch! No kidding?

ADAMS: Yeah. It has aspects of unreality, and yet you’re putting realistic illustrators to do this. It’s just a little crazy, and Denny, for me at that time, was very, very good. It was a terrific partnership.

Put Up Yer Dukes The fight begins on this beautiful Superman vs.

Muhammad Ali original art page signed by the master himself.

Courtesy of Heritage.

Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Muhammad Ali © Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC.

74 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

EURY: Despite the outer-space setting of Ali/Superman, there was a lot of realism there, too. You have Superman bleed, which is something you don’t see every day.

ADAMS: And he gets the sh*t kicked out of him. I did so many things in that comic book. I got to get Superman beat up, really beat up nice and slow. Then you got to see him beaten up.

EURY: That great downshot on the stretcher, yeah.

ADAMS: Then he essentially recreated himself. His superpowers came back, and you saw him using his superpowers in space where you can’t hear—but suddenly, you can hear his cry. Using this [artistic] idea of a small, little body, you can do all these things. He would fly through a spaceship, he would look like a needle punching through a piece of cloth.

So I had him grab the hatch of a ship and drive the hatch through the ship, so the relationship between Superman and the hatch and then the hatch and the ship blasted this big hole through it, dealing with what do you do with a Superman? How do you make him effective flying through stuff? It was lots of fun.

EURY: We had a lot of fun reading it. What a great book. But you took some heat it being late. It was 72 pages. How long did it take you to draw it?

ADAMS: Oh, it didn’t take me that long to draw it.

The truth is that when Joe turned it down and it came to me, I said, “Look, you know, I’m really not working for DC any more. Maybe you guys know that, okay?

But this is, to me, an important project. I cannot accept this project if you give me a deadline, because I’m starting a studio. I mean, I’m out of here and I have my own studio and doing lots of advertising work.

I’m supporting a family and I’m supporting my studio. I can’t just sit down and do this book. If I can do it on an open-ended deadline, that’s fine.” They said, “Fine, it’s in the contract. There’s no deadline.”

“No deadline” to me means “no deadline.” I don’t know what it means to anybody else, but to me, it means “no deadline.” After a while, they start [hounding] me, and they were really worried because in the middle of the thing, Ali lost the championship, which was going to hurt it. And I’m going, “Guys, he lost it twice before and got it back. What are you worried about? He’s going to get it back, right?” And he did just before we came out.

Julie, and you tell him that you don’t want Neal to do your cover.” “I’m not going to do that.” “Then stop bitching, you know? If I fail to get a book out, then you have a right to complain, fine. But if I don’t, what are you complaining about?” “Well, you shouldn’t be doing covers for those other editors.” “Okay. All right, fine. I can’t have this conversation. I really can’t.”

All you’ve got to do is on my site, there’s a list of all the stuff I did in those few years at DC Comics. Figure out how much I did in a given year, [laughs] figure out how many days there are in that year, and then add in the covers and see how much work I did. See if there’s anybody in the business that turned out as much work in a short time.

EURY: You were definitely all over the place.

ADAMS: Maybe Steve Ditko, maybe it’s possible.

And Jack Kirby, Jack Kirby beats everybody. And Joe Kubert. Okay, I’ll give it to Joe Kubert, [Michael laughs] Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko. That’s it.

EURY: I want to ask you a question about when Kirby was doing Jimmy Olsen and the Fourth World. Years later, a whole generation reveres those characters and Kirby himself, but at that time, what was the reaction in the artist community?

ADAMS: You’re going, “So, what did you think about Jack Kirby coming over to DC Comics?” Oh, there’s way more to the story than that and there’s, of course, the relationship between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and

Ready for a Rematch, Ali? The Metropolis Marvel in a fight stance, sketched

by Neal Adams for an unspecified convention booklet.

Courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: Great timing.

ADAMS: So I don’t mind the criticism, but I think when people criticize people, they ought to check the facts and find out if it’s really a criticism. You’re talking to a guy who did consecutive issues of Deadman, consecutive issues of Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

Consecutive, that means every month or every two months, whenever they came out; consecutive issues of X-Men. People used to bitch at me because they’d see me doing covers, and you’d have editors going up and down the hallways at DC: “He’s supposed to be working on this and he’s doing covers,” and I want to stop time and go, “Okay, we’ll stop it right here.

I’m doing the covers why? Because you want me to, okay? I’ve been just assigned five covers for you guys; one for you, the one who’s bitching, Julie [Schwartz]; two for Murray [Boltinoff] and two for Joe Orlando, okay? Five covers. I shouldn’t do any of your work this week. Five covers should take me five days, why should I be doing your work? But I’m going to be doing your work or Carmine, take the covers away, have somebody else do the covers. Or you go to Carmine, Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

Marvel Comics, which could have been settled, but Jack is a hothead so Jack didn’t want to settle it. Exactly. So he came over to DC and he demanded certain things. One of the things he demanded was to write his own stuff without really having stuff edited. But you know, when you say something like that, and you say it in words, it doesn’t necessarily happen in fact. That’s one on the side of the creator. On the side of the company, it’s a stupid deal to make. I wouldn’t have somebody come to my company and say, “I get to write everything that I do.” “No, because if I give you the right to write everything you do, you can just voluntarily write sh*t. I’ve made an agreement to let you write everything that you do. Now there has to be some kind of control. How about this? I’ll give you the right to write everything if we approve it? If I don’t approve it, we rewrite it, or restructure, or whatever it is we have to do to make it fit the standards of our company, but we’ll pay you for the writing. In other words, you can do the writing.” Well, if you start giving away too many freedoms to people, people abuse them. Have a conversation about Jack’s work, okay? At DC Comics, you sort of have to. If you look at the writing, you have to say, “Let’s call it ‘brief,’ okay?

Sort of as a flow, unedited.”

EURY: That’s fair.

ADAMS: If a writer had come back and said, “Well, okay, this is a rough thing. Now I’m going to rewrite it so that things are clear, there’s an evolution of the dialogue, then we throw in little anecdotal things, other things to make it flow like a book or a movie or a comic book.” It wasn’t done that way.

Because he was cranking out so much stuff, he never went back over the stuff, but he was given the right not to because he was foolishly given the right to have total autonomy. It should not have been done.

Everybody needs somebody.

You could be a Stephen King, you could be anybody—well, I don’t know what autonomy Stephen King has—but you write a novel, right? And you hand it in to your editor, everybody has an editor, and the editor sits back, takes it home, and reads it, and calls you in and says, “Look, chapter seven here, can you just read this over? You don’t actually need chapter seven. And I just marked up this other stuff over here, but this is redundant dialogue, isn’t it? Take a look at it. And the writer takes it home and goes, “Oh, sh*t. I don’t really need chapter seven, take it out. Redundant dialogue,

Loch Ness Distress Inker Neal Adams preserves Jack Kirby’s dynamic pencils while stylizing the Man of Steel (per editorial decree) on the cover of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144 (Dec. 1971).

TM & © DC Comics.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” That’s what you need an editor for, a wall to bounce ideas and to bounce your skills off of.

Well, Jack hadn’t written stuff in a long time. He was writing notes in the sides of the pages for Stan Lee. Why would people, why would anybody, assume that he could really dialogue a story?

It doesn’t make any sense, not to say that he didn’t tell a story. That is not to say that he didn’t put melodrama in the story, but it’s brief and unedited. That’s not the way it ought to be.

Well, DC did it to themselves, okay? I don’t know that Carmine recognized it, but I think everybody else recognized it. I don’t think I’m telling stories out of school, either. I think everybody knows it, okay? And it’s a tragedy of what happened. You give somebody too much freedom, very often, they screw themselves, and that’s what Jack did. And yet nobody came to Jack and said, “Jack, we gotta redo this thing. Let’s sit and talk here. I really have to give this to some professional writers and have them flesh it out because we’re not getting whole stories here, too much of it is being left out, it’s just not working.”

It should have been done early on, but wasn’t done. Well, what happens is then animosity builds up, [then they do] whatever they can—“Well, if you do Superman, we’ll change Superman if we don’t like it.

You know, we’ll change the stuff that belongs to us.” So they started to do that. They had nothing else that they could do. Now there was also a certain amount of freedom that Jack Kirby had that other people didn’t have, so people actually were happy to make these little changes, to do this stuff. People without being happy, you know, they didn’t dance down the hallways, but the King was given too big a kingdom. People resented it. I’m not going to say who resented it, but I know people resented it, and I found myself in a very weird situation. People were being asked to change his artwork. Al Plastino was being given figures to redo.

EURY: Murphy Anderson, as well.

ADAMS: A definite schism in style. So I went to Carmine, I said, “Carmine, if you’re going to make these changes, let me do it. Then if Jack gets upset, he gets upset at me and then it’s okay. But really, this stuff is bad. You’ve got Jack Kirby, hard with all these angles, and then you’ve got these soft, mushy characters. They don’t go together. So I’d rather take a hit on this than just to go on.” He said, “Well, if you’re willing to do it.”

I said, “I’m willing to do it. Just let me—anything you want to do and screw around with this stuff, I’ll fix it, whatever it takes.”

So I plugged myself into that place and those things that I did, yes, they didn’t look like Jack Kirby. They looked like I was working for DC Comics and doing my job. On the other hand, they didn’t look that bad and they were action, and they didn’t really conflict that much with the hard edge because my stuff is kind of hard. So I did what I could to soften the blows that were coming and there

76 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

were lots of blows, so it shouldn’t have happened that way, but there you go.

EURY: What about that Superman story you did that was in The Amazing World of DC Comics, the convention booklet? The five-pager that Len Wein wrote? Do you remember this? [Editor’s note: See this issue’s “Rough Stuff” column for a sample page.]

ADAMS: I sort of remember it.

EURY: It’s a curiosity for a lot of us who saw it years ago. Len didn’t remember it. I sent him jpegs of the pages and it still didn’t trigger a memory for him.

ADAMS: Every once in a while, DC Comics does things that are socially [aware] to show that they’re on the side of the good guys. And this had to do with some kind of a direction, that they were promoting goodwill in some area or something, and they would pick people at various times to go ahead and do this.

Sometimes, it would be strips to help sell comic books through the distributors, sometimes it would be to help homeless kids, sometimes it would be this, that, or the other. Well, it was some kind of project that they wanted to do and nine times out of ten, these things would go to bust. You know, we’d do the work, show the work, and then the enthusiasm for it would dribble away, and then it would be gone. Sometimes it would happen, sometimes they wouldn’t, and this was one of those things, but because it didn’t happen, you kind of go, “Well, who gives a crap? I was a good scout and I did the work, but nobody cares so the hell with it.” And you could tell from the creators that we were disappointed in the people who wanted this to happen.

The people who did it, did it with all honesty and straightforwardness. But the people who were supposedly behind it really didn’t do much of anything.

DC is not known for going out of their way to do stuff.

EURY: I bring this up because that particular story and the “Justice for All Includes Children” PSAs you did are some of the rare instances where you drew Superman beyond covers and merchandising—and the Muhammad Ali book, of course.

As far as Superman vs. Muhammad Ali is concerned, is there a chance it will ever be reprinted?

ADAMS: My mom used to say to me, “You know, time only works one way, forward. It never goes backwards.” And you never know what to expect.

[Editor’s note: After this interview was conducted and published, DC Comics reprinted Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in 2010 in two different upscale formats.]

EURY: It would be nice to see some type of collection of your Superman work.

ADAMS: You know what I’d like to see—I understand that this is about Superman, but I’d love to see a Muhammad Ali book, even if it’s not extra thick or anything, just by itself, maybe a few extra pieces in it to decorate it. And I think that would make a great book.

hardcover, DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams vol.

1. His Spectre tales have been reprinted in Showcase Presents and Omnibus editions.]

ADAMS: Superman/Muhammad Ali did better in the world than it did in America. In other words, every country in the world bought licenses for DC Comics, paid extra money to get that book, and they had great sales.

EURY: It would.

ADAMS: What I’d like to see is a book that collects the extra stuff, the other stuff that I did for DC, perhaps re-colored and turned into an “all-the-extrastuff” or something book. I did some Spectre stories that were pretty nifty.

EURY: Two of the most recognizable figures in the world there together.

ADAMS: Well, one of them is more respected out in the world than respected in his home, something that I resent my home country for. But there you go.

I think of Muhammad Ali as a man who stands up for what he believes in.

EURY: Package all the other odds and ends in one nice volume. [Editor’s note: The artist’s non-Superman and non-Batman stories were collected in the 2008

EURY: Well, as Cassius Clay, he was sort of like the Siegel and Shuster Superman, the champion for the oppressed.

Hitchin’ a Ride From the Heritage archives, signed original art by Adams for one of DC’s “Justice for All Includes Children” PSAs from the mid-1970s.

TM & © DC Comics.

Neal Adams Tribute Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

ADAMS: Yeah. I did a cover for ESPN Magazine at the turn of the century. The art director of ESPN Magazine said, “We’re going to have on the Hundred Greatest Athletes of the Century and we have to do a wraparound cover. I’m stuck with doing a hundred photographs, or pictures, of these people just smeared all over the cover with some kind of designs. Or… do you remember that Superman/Muhammad Ali comic book you did?” I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “You think you can do it again and do Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan boxing and then have the hundred greatest athletes, or the [remaining] 98 greatest athletes as the audience around them?” I said, “You’re kidding.” She said, “No, I think that would be great.” And I thought, “God, that was a horror, doing that cover.” But I thought, “When’s the next time this kind of job is gonna come around? A hundred years from now. I don’t think I’m going to be doing that one.” [Michael laughs] So I did Ali and Jordan boxing—actually, that’s very interesting, but there’s one more thing that’s interesting.

It’s a nifty cover. The thing about the cover is that it went out to three million people, subscribers to ESPN Magazine.

Among those, I figure about five of them are comic-book fans. It didn’t go to the comic-book fans, so they didn’t get to see it. It went to ESPN subscribers.

At any rate, it was it was sort of a poll, and each one of the sports networks and the sports groups had the same thing, the Hundred Greatest Athletes. The people voted, or the staff voted, or whatever. And ESPN Magazine decided, in their great wisdom, that the number-one athlete was going to be Michael Jordan. I thought, “You know, Michael Jordan is a great athlete, I agree. And Michael Jordan may even be a great man. But Muhammad Ali changed people’s views about black people in America and no greater thing could be done by an athlete.

“But to take his athleticism and to channel it for good, and you’re going to vote for Michael Jordan? I don’t get it.

It doesn’t make any sense.”

EURY: I guess that Jordan was, from their perspective, more recognizable as a brand name.

ADAMS: Hey, that sounds like that bullsh*t, too.

EURY: [laughs] I’m just parroting it. I don’t believe it.

ADAMS: Right. [chuckles] EURY: I do agree, though, about what Ali did as a human being as being very, very important.

ADAMS: He put it on the line. He lost the championship for it. Oh, man. It was tough. I mean, they were threatening to put him away for a long time, a long time.

EURY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, did you see the Will Smith biopic of him?

ADAMS: Yeah.

Man of Tomorrow An undated specialty illustration of the most legendary superhero by one of comics’ most legendary artists. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: What did you think about that?

ADAMS: I thought it was okay, I thought it was okay. I saw it just to see Will Smith doing Ali. You know, they hung around too much about the relationships and stuff, and that’s not the public image that we saw. We saw him going through this process. We didn’t see the process of women. I never saw the women. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with that and I didn’t, to be perfectly honest, give a sh*t. I was interested in his involvement with going through the process with the boxers and going through the political process.

EURY: So, who’s going to play you in the Neal Adams movie?

ADAMS: He hasn’t been born yet.

78 • BACK ISSUE • Neal Adams Tribute Issue

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief BACK ISSUE • 112 Fairmount Way New Bern, NC 28562

NEAL ADAMS, COMICS ROCK STAR

In the 1970s there were two comicbook rock stars—Jack Kirby and Neal Adams, and naturally, we fans were obliged to take sides.

I was firmly in the Neal Adams camp.

His dynamic realism was unlike anything I had ever seen in a comic, and I made it my mission to track down his work, which became the crown jewels of my fledgling collection.

I was lucky enough to meet Neal Adams on June 16, 1979. I know the exact date, because I have a badge to prove it [inset]. He was guest of honor at Forbidden Planet in London—in those days a rather small comic-book store.

He sat at an otherwise empty table and smiled graciously as a succession of comics was thrust under his nose by excited fans. We were allowed to bring only a couple of comics each, so I press-ganged two of my non-collecting friends to take some for me.

There was something of the eternal youth about Neal Adams—not least in his appearance—so I was shocked and saddened when I heard the news of his passing. His death is going to leave an enormous hole. After all, the man has been ever present in our comic-book lives—whether as creators or collectors—for upwards of 50 years. As an artist, and as an advocate for change in the industry, Neal Adams has been a titan, and leaves behind an astonishing body of work. Thank you, Neal.

– Simon Bullivant And thank you, Simon, for sharing this story and the convention button image.

Next issue: The Bronze Age’s Savage Lands, starring Ka-Zar in the 1970s! Plus: DON GLUT’s Dagar and Tragg, Annihilus and the Negative Zone, Seaboard/ Atlas’ Planet of Vampires, PAT MILLS’ Flesh (from 2000AD), WALTER SIMONSON and MIKE MIGNOLA’s Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure, and the return of Turok—Dinosaur Hunter. With GERRY CONWAY, PAUL GULACY, LARRY HAMA, FABIAN NICIEZA, BART SEARS, ROY THOMAS, and more superstar creators. Re-presenting the Ka-Zar #1 cover by JOHN BUSCEMA. Don’t ask—just BI it!

See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

Ka-Zar TM & © Marvel. BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows. All Rights Reserved.

TwoMorrows 2023 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS

by JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY Introduction by JOHN MORROW

In 1954, industry legends JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY founded MAINLINE PUBLICATIONS to publish their own comics during that turbulent era in comics history. The four titles—BULLSEYE, FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE—looked to build off their reputation as hit makers in the Western, War, Crime, and Romance genres, but the 1950s backlash against comics killed any chance at success, and Mainline closed its doors just two years later. For the first time, TwoMorrows Publishing is compiling the best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline comics work, including all of the stories with S&K art, as well as key tales with contributions

by MORT MESKIN and others. After the company’s dissolution, their partnership ended with Simon leaving comics for advertising, and Kirby taking unused Mainline concepts to both DC and Marvel. This collection bridges the gap between Simon & Kirby’s peak with their 1950s romance comics, and the lows that led to Kirby’s resurgence with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and the early MARVEL UNIVERSE. With loving art restoration by CHRIS FAMA, and an historical overview by JOHN MORROW to put it all into perspective, the BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S MAINLINE COMICS presents some of the final, and finest, work Joe and Jack ever produced. SHIPS SUMMER 2023!

(256-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION

by JACK KIRBY & STEVE GERBER Introduction by MARK EVANIER

In the 1980s, writer STEVE GERBER was embroiled in a lawsuit against MARVEL COMICS over ownership of his creation HOWARD THE DUCK. To raise funds for legal fees, Gerber asked JACK KIRBY to contribute to a benefit comic titled DESTROYER DUCK. Without hesitation, Kirby (who was in his own dispute with Marvel at the time) donated his services for the first issue, and the duo took aim at their former employer in an outrageous five-issue run. With biting satire and guns blazing, Duke “Destroyer” Duck battled the thinly veiled Godcorp (whose infamous credo was “Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!”), its evil leader Ned Packer and the (literally) spineless Booster Cogburn, Medea (a parody of Daredevil’s Elektra), and more! Now, all five Gerber/Kirby issues are collected—but relettered and reproduced from JACK’S UNBRIDLED, UNINKED PENCIL ART! Also included are select examples of ALFREDO ALCALA’s unique inking style over Kirby on the original issues, Gerber’s script pages, an historical Introduction by MARK EVANIER (co-editor of the original 1980s issues), and an Afterword by BUZZ DIXON (who continued the series after Gerber)! Discover all the hidden jabs you missed when DESTROYER DUCK was first published, and experience page after page of Kirby’s raw pencil art! SHIPS SPRING 2023!

(128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS

By overwhelming demand, editor ROY THOMAS has compiled all the material on the founders of the Marvel Bullpen from three SOLD-OUT ALTER EGO ISSUES—plus OVER 30 NEW PAGES OF CONTENT! There’s the STEVE DITKO ISSUE (#160 with a rare ’60s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL, biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO, and Ditko tributes)! The STAN LEE ISSUE (#161 with ROY THOMAS on his 50+ year relationship with Stan, art by KIRBY, DITKO, MANEELY, EVERETT, SEVERIN, ROMITA, plus tributes from pros and fans)! And the JACK KIRBY ISSUE (#170 with WILL MURRAY on Kirby’s contributions to Iron Man’s creation, Jack’s Captain Marvel/Mr. Scarlet Fawcett work, Kirby in 1960s fanzines, plus STAN LEE and ROY THOMAS on Jack)! Whether you missed these issues, or can’t live without the extensive NEW MATERIAL on DITKO, LEE, and KIRBY, it’s sure to be an AMAZING, ASTONISHING, FANTASTIC tribute to the main men who made Marvel! NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

CLIFFHANGER!

CINEMATIC SUPERHEROES OF THE SERIALS: 1941–1952 by CHRISTOPHER IRVING

Hold on tight as historian CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the origins of the first on-screen superheroes and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life. CLIFFHANGER! touches on the early days of the film serial, to its explosion as a juvenile medium of the 1930s and ‘40s. See how the creation of characters like SUPERMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, SPY SMASHER, and CAPTAIN MARVEL dovetailed with the early film adaptations. Along the way, you’ll meet the stuntmen, directors (SPENCER BENNETT, WILLIAM WITNEY, producer SAM KATZMAN), comic book creators (SIEGEL & SHUSTER, SIMON & KIRBY, BOB KANE, C.C. BECK, FRANK FRAZETTA, WILL EISNER), and actors (BUSTER CRABBE, GEORGE REEVES, LORNA GRAY, KANE RICHMOND, KIRK ALYN, DAVE O’BRIEN) who brought them to the silver screen—and how that resonates with today’s cinematic superhero universe. SHIPS SUMMER 2023!

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

THE CHILLINGLY WEIRD ART OF

MATT FOX

by ROGER HILL

MATT FOX (1906–1988) first gained notoriety for his jarring cover paintings on the pulp magazine WEIRD TALES from 1943 to 1951. His almost primitive artistry encompassed ghouls, demons, and grotesqueries of all types, evoking a disquieting horror vibe that no one since has ever matched. Fox suffered with chronic pain throughout his life, and that anguish permeated his classic 1950s cover illustrations and his lone story for CHILLING TALES, putting them at the top of all pre-code horror comic enthusiasts’ want lists.

He brought his evocative storytelling skills (and an almost BASIL WOLVERTON-esque ink line over other artists) to ATLAS/MARVEL horror comics of the 1950s and ’60s, but since Fox never gave an interview, this unique creator remained largely unheralded—until now! Comic art historian ROGER HILL finally tells Fox’s life story, through an informative biographical essay, augmented with an insightful introduction by FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER also showcases all of the artist’s WEIRD TALES covers and interior illustrations, and a special Atlas Comics gallery with examples of his inking over GIL KANE, LARRY LIEBER, and others.

Plus, there’s a wealth of other delightfully disturbing images by this grand master of horror—many previously unpublished and reproduced from his original paintings and art—sure to make an indelible imprint on a new legion of fans. SHIPS FALL 2023!

(128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-120-2

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

RETROFAN #27

Interview with Captain Kangaroo BOB KEESHAN, The ROCKFORD FILES, teen monster movies, the Kung Fu and BRUCE Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB LEE crazes, JACK KIRBY’s comedy comics, (the UK’s preeminent horror comics history DON DRYSDALE’s TV drop-ins, outrageous magazine), with early RICHARD CORBEN toys, Challenge of the Super Friends, and art, HP LOVECRAFT, and more! more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, (192-page paperback with COLOR) $29.95 SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and (Digital Edition) $10.99 MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6 (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships June 2023

BRICKJOURNAL #80

BRICKJOURNAL #81

RETROFAN #28

RETROFAN #29

RETROFAN #30

The BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The Brady Bunch’s FLORENCE HENDERSON, the UNKNOWN COMIC revealed, Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat, a Barbie history, RANKIN/BASS’ Frosty the Snowman, Dell Comics’ Monster SuperHeroes, Slushy Drinks, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #86

KIRBY COLLECTOR #87

KIRBY COLLECTOR #88

Explore the CASTLE theme with builders GUILLAUME GRENZARD and AMENK SACHO! And building castles with some of the best castle builders in the LEGO fan community! Plus: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS! Edited by JOE MENO.

Head to the city: Ellis City by GARETH and CATHY ELLIS, New Hasima by STEFAN FORMENTATO, and Fabuland City by STEVEN LAUGHLIN! Plus a wealth of other MOCs (”My Own Creations”) are showcased, along with: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

KIRBY COMPARISONS! Analysis of unused vs. known Kirby covers and art, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH on his stylizations in Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, Kirby’s incorporation of real-life images in his work, WILL MURRAY’s conversations with top pros just after Jack’s passing, unused Mister Miracle cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON, and more! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

LAW & ORDER! Kirby’s lawmen from the Newsboy Legion’s Jim Harper and “Terrible” Turpin, to Western gunfighters, and even future policemen like OMAC and Captain Victory! Also: how a Marvel cop led to the creation of Funky Flashman!

Justice Traps The Guilty and Headline Comics! Plus MARK EVANIER moderating 2022’s Kirby Tribute Panel (with Sin City’s FRANK MILLER). MACHLAN cover inks.

THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships June 2023

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #183

ALTER EGO #184

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #30

Golden/Silver/Bronze Age artist IRV NOVICK (Shield, Steel Sterling, Batman, The Flash, and DC war stories) is immortalized by JOHN COATES and DEWEY CASSELL. Interviews with Irv and family members, tributes by DENNY O’NEIL, MARK EVANIER, and PAUL LEVITZ, Irv’s involvement with painter ROY LICHTENSTEIN (who used Novick’s work in his paintings), Mr. Monster, FCA, and more!

Known as one of the finest inkers in comics history, the late TOM PALMER was also an accomplished penciler and painter, as you’ll see in an-depth interview with Palmer by ALEX GRAND and JIM THOMPSON. Learn his approach to, and thoughts on, working with NEAL ADAMS, GENE COLAN, JOHN BUSCEMA, and others who helped define the Marvel Universe. Plus Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

Canadian comic book artist, illustrator, and graphic novelist MICHAEL CHO in a career-spanning interview and art gallery, a 1974 look at JACK ADLER and the DC Comics production department’s process of reprinting Golden Age material, color newspaper tabloid THE FUNNY PAGES examined in depth by its editor RON BARRETT, plus CBC’s usual columns and features, including HEMBECK! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #31

BACK ISSUE #144

BACK ISSUE #145

BACK ISSUE #146

BACK ISSUE #147

Career-spanning interview with Bane’s co-creator GRAHAM NOLAN! Plus, STAN LEE at Carnegie Hall in 1972, Part One of a look at cartoonist FRANK BORTH (Phantom Lady, Treasure Chest, and Cracked magazine artist), and GREG BIGA talks with former DC Comics co-publisher DAN DIDIO about his fannish beginnings, being a DC comics executive and writer, and publisher of FRANK MILLER’s current comics line!

BRONZE AGE SAVAGE LANDS, starring Ka-Zar in the 1970s! Plus: Turok—Dinosaur Hunter, DON GLUT’s Dagar and Tragg, Annihilus and the Negative Zone, Planet of Vampires, Pat Mills’s Flesh (from 2000AD), and WALTER SIMONSON and MIKE MIGNOLA’s Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure. With CONWAY, GULACY, HAMA, NICIEZA, SEARS, THOMAS, and more! JOHN BUSCEMA cover!

SPIDER-ROGUES ISSUE! Villain histories of Dr. Octopus, Lizard, Kingpin, Spidey’s mob foes, the Jackal and Carrion, Tarantula, Puma, plus the rehabilitation of Sandman!

Featuring the work of ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, CONWAY, DeFALCO, GIL KANE, McFARLANE, MILLER, POLLARD, JOHN ROMITA JR. & SR., STERN, THOMAS, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and more!

DUSTY ABELL cover!

MEN WITHOUT FEAR, featuring Daredevil’s swinging ’70s adventures!

Plus: Challengers of the Unknown in the Bronze Age, JEPH LOEB interview about his Challs and DD projects with TIM SALE, Sinestro and Mr. Fear histories, superheroes with disabilities, and... Who Is Hal Jordan? Featuring CONWAY, ENGLEHART, McKENZIE, ROZAKIS, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, & more! GENE COLAN cover!

Great Hera, it’s the 20th ANNIVERSARY of BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more!

With a stunning Wonder Woman cover

by PÉREZ!

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

ALTER EGO #182

An FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) special, behind a breathtaking JERRY ORDWAY cover! Features on Uncle Marvel and the Fawcett Family by P.C. HAMERLINCK, ACG artist KENNETH LANDAU (Commander Battle and The Atomic Sub), and writer LEE GOLDSMITH (Golden Age Green Lantern, Flash, and others). Plus Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more!

PRINTED IN CHINA

ALTER EGO #181

Special NEAL ADAMS ISSUE, featuring in-depth interviews with Neal by HOWARD CHAYKIN, BRYAN STROUD, and RICHARD ARNDT. Also: a “lost” ADAMS BRAVE & THE BOLD COVER with Batman and Green Arrow, and unseen Adams art and artifacts.

Plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (Plus: See BACK ISSUE #143!)