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AL SPECI SUE! IS Featuring:

ADAMS INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY

HOWARD CHAYKIN BRYAN STROUD JAMES ROSEN & RICHARD ARNDT! PLUS: RARE & NEVER-SEEN

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Vol. 3, No. 181 May 2023 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)

Comic Crypt Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich, Bill Schelly

Proofreaders

William J. Dowlding David Baldy

Contents In Memoriam: Neal Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Stephan A. Friedt’s tribute to “an icon in illustration & creators’ rights.”

Cover Artist

Writer/Editorial/Article: Neal Adams & Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Cover Colorist

“I Listened To Stories” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Roy Thomas writes about his half-century pro & personal relationship with the artist.

Neal Adams Tom Ziuko

Adams biographer James Rosen on his colorful subject’s childhood and origins.

With Special Thanks to: Alfredo Alcala, Jr. Heidi Amash Pedro Angosto Richard J. Arndt Bob Bailey Alberto Becattini Al Bigley Jackson Bostwick Bronze Age of Blogs (website) Gary F. Brown Bernie Bubnis Mike Burkey Nick Caputo Howard Chaykin Bill Crawford Shane Foley Joe Frank Stephan A. Friedt Benito Gallego Janet Gilbert Tony Gleeson Grand, Alex Grand Comics Database (website) Walt Grogan George Hagenauer Heritage Art Auctions Robert Higgerson Sharon Karibian

Jim Kealy Todd Klein Eric Jansen Zorikh Lequidre Victor Lim Art Lortie Jim Ludwig Glenn McKay Patrick Moreau Mark Muller Ron Murphy Mears Museum NewText (website) Barry Pearl Robert Policastro Reddit (website) James Rosen Alex Ross Bob Rozakis Joe Rubinstein Randy Sargent Bill Sienkiewicz Anthony Snyder Bryan Stroud Dann Thomas Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999 (website) Marv Wolfman Mike Zeck

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Neal Adams

“He Is A Giant—And No Walk In The Park— But Yes, A Living Legend” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Howard Chaykin’s classic short interview with—well, you know!

“Carmine Sent Me” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 Bryan Stroud speaks with Neal about his long career as a gadfly—and a great talent.

Neal Adams Talks About “A View From Without.....” . . . . . . 54 Richard J. Arndt converses with the writer/artist about his powerful tale of the Vietnam War

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Michael T. Gilbert’s 2023 Comic Art Portfolio, Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Batman, Doc Stearn, and pretty much everything in between.

re: [correspondence, comments, & criticisms] . . . . . . . . . . . 65 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Some FCA regulars pay homage to Neal Adams—the man and the myth..

On Our Cover: For some reason, DC Comics decided not to go with Neal Adams’ doublepsychiatrist’s-couch cover for what publisher John Morrow (who suggested it for this mag’s cover) believes was The Brave and the Bold #85 (Aug.-Sept. 1969), in which the artist introduced Green Arrow’s new, more Robin-Hoody threads. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time it’s ever been printed in color, with tints by Tom Ziuko! [TM & © DC Comics.]

Above: Neal Adams may have drawn considerably fewer pages for Marvel than he did for DC back in the day—but, all the same, every time he touched pencil or pen or brush to a character of either, he made the artists, editors, and writers at both companies sit up and take notice. Like with this (commissioned?) set-piece of Thor confronting the Hulk. Thanks to dealer Anthony Snyder, who can be dealt with at anthony@anthonysnyder.com. [Both heroes TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM issue 181, May 2023 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $73 US, $111 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material ©their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

A CELEBRATION OF

– PART ONE

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in memoriam

NEAL ADAMS

“An Icon In Illustration & Creators’ Rights”

W

by Stephan A. Friedt e lost a real hero in comics and advertising with the death of Neal Adams on April 28, 2022.

Neal was a staunch advocate of creators’ rights, helping in 1975 to secure pensions and recognition for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster after decades of neglect concerning their creation of the comicbook/TV/movie blockhouse, Superman.

Neal was born on Governors Island in New York, June 15, 1948.

Growing up as an “Army brat,” he spent his childhood on military bases from Brooklyn to Germany. Returning to New York, he graduated in 1959 from the School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan.

His first comics work was drawing “Archie” gags and fillers, followed by providing backgrounds for Howard Nostrand’s Bat Masterson newspaper strip. He soon went to work for the Johnstone and Cushing art service.

Thanks to his comic strip-like work there, Jerry Caplin invited Neal to draw a new newspaper strip, Ben Casey, in 1962.

For the next 3½ years, Neal would provide art (and occasionally write) for it, later also ghosting the strips Peter Scratch and The Heart of Juliet Jones.

In 1967, Neal was offered a new comic strip, Tales of the Green Beret, but suggested they approach Joe Kubert instead. When Kubert took that job, that left an artistic hole in DC’s war comics, and Neal saw his chance to get his foot in the door there. That led to runs on the Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope comics… and soon, work on super-heroes, first on covers, then illustrating The Brave and the Bold, where we saw his first rendition of Batman. His take on “Deadman” from 1967-69 brought him accolades and awards.

Neal Adams A portrait by fellow comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz, used by permission. With special thanks to former Adams studio associate Tony Gleeson, and to Art Lortie.

At left is the final story page from The Spectre #4 (May-June 1968); script & art by Adams.

Thanks to Bob Rozakis. [© 2023 Bill Sienkiewicz & DC Comics, respectively.]

Neal would also freelance at Marvel from 1969 through the mid-1970s (especially on X-Men and Avengers, with writer Roy Thomas), even while expanding his fanbase at DC on Batman, in whose pages he would co-create such characters as Man-Bat (with Frank Robbins) and Ra’s al Ghul (with Denny O’Neil). He and O’Neil would make waves with their revamp and controversial themes on Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

He would take on creators’ rights with the formation of the Comics Creators Guild in 1978. That same decade, his Tarzan covers would appear on Ballantine paperbacks.

From 1984-1994 his company Continuity Associates, formed with fellow artist Dick Giordano, would eventually add Continuity Comics to his list of accomplishments.

Neal kept his hand in things relating to comics into the 21st century, providing occasional material for DC or Marvel, working with the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and attending conventions with his wife Marilyn and an entourage of artists that often included their son Josh.

Neal will always be with us, thanks to his enormous body of work.

A CELEBRATION OF

– PART TWO

3

writer/editorial/article

NEAL ADAMS & Me A Personal Remembrance by Roy Thomas

A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: No, you’re not imagining things! I (Roy) elected to relinquish the lead spot this issue to Stephan Friedt’s obituary/tribute re the late great Neal Adams—since it needed to be read before interviews with that supremely talented artist. Also, for the second issue in a row, I’ve utilized (and greatly expanded) my “writer/editorial” space into an article. That’s because Neal Adams was my erstwhile colleague, my sometime friend, and my more-than-occasional sparring partner, and I wanted to set down my personal take on that relationship. My view certainly isn’t all sweetness and light—any more than his would’ve been concerning me, had he deigned to write one—but it’s as honest and complete as I can make it, at least in the space I’ve allotted to myself….

I

n the more than fifty years we knew each other, Neal Adams and I agreed about many things—and we probably disagreed concerning at least an equal number. met.

Starting with… when we

of comics professionals and fans held at various people’s apartments in Manhattan.

I’m fairly sure it was at the domicile of fan (and future Charlton editor) Bill Pearson, no later than summer of ’67, since I don’t think I had yet seen Neal’s classic “Deadman”… and I myself had been hosting those gatherings until shortly before. I was already vaguely aware of his work, having seen at least one war story he’d drawn for DC. While I recall little of our exchange that night, I’m sure I expressed admiration for his art (I’d been impressed by his draftsmanship, mostly), and it’s inconceivable that I didn’t say I’d love to see him drawing for Marvel sometime.

This Beachhead Marvel!

Writer/associate editor Roy Thomas (on left) and artist Neal Adams (on right) in photos taken at the 1971 New York Comic Art Convention—apparently contemplating the splash page of The Avengers #93 (Nov. 1971). Far as we know, the two weren’t participating in the same panel when these pics were snapped; but that July 4th Manhattan weekend took place not long after they’d teamed up to co-produce that epochal issue, which was destined to lead to considerable animosity (intermingled, at least, with continued respect) between them. The inking of this best-remembered issue of the fabled “Kree-Skrull War” is by titanic Tom Palmer. Special thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Neal stated, at least once, that he’d never even heard of me before he waltzed into Stan Lee’s office around the turn of 1968-69 and waltzed back out with the assignment to pencil The X-Men. I’ve little doubt he believed that whenever he said it, but it’s not accurate.

Some time earlier, the two of us had introduced ourselves and carried on a conversation at one of the monthly get-togethers

Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Neal didn’t recall that evening’s encounter, even though he was a cultivator of editors and by then I was Marvel’s associate editor, second only to Stan.

Be that as it may: On the day Neal became X-Men penciler, Stan informed him I was the comic’s writer, and I was called in to meet him… again. If Stan had really told him before I entered, as Neal says on p. 44, that X-Men was due to be canceled “in two issues,” he was making no more than an educated guess, since in late 1968 it was still very much publisher Martin Goodman who decided such live-or-die matters, not Stan as editor. Stan would’ve kept X-Men going till MG pulled the plug. No Marvel title in that era was ever scheduled in advance to be canceled “in two issues,” as Neal says Stan told him.

After Neal and I left Stan’s office together, I quickly

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A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

The next memory I have of Neal—not long afterward—he dropped by Marvel to show me (and doubtless Stan) the start he’d made on the 15-pager. I don’t remember how many pages he brought in, but I vividly recall his sitting at a drawing board in the bullpen while he tightened up the rough splash page pencils he’d already begun, which featured the mammoth temple of Pharaoh Rameses II at Abu Simbel. My synopsis had called only for The X-Men to be flying over the Egyptian desert with the captured Living Pharaoh (no relation) in tow; Neal had set that action at the site of that ancient monument, which at that time was in the process of being relocated, stone by stone, so it wouldn’t be underwater after construction of the country’s Aswan Dam was completed in 1970. (Since, as a then would-be Egyptologist, I had contributed a few bucks to that relocation project back in 1963-64, I was aware of the situation.)

What really impressed me that day is that, though Neal had a small, curled-up photo of the temple tacked to the drawing table— and it’s at least conceivable that earlier he’d used an “artograph” machine to blow up that image and “trace” its general outlines onto the original art page (or maybe he hadn’t)—he was now, before my very eyes, just freehand-drawing in the details of the temple: the giant carven faces, the time-worn columns—with a photographic likeness and detail.

Neal Adams Goes To War This story from Our Army at War #182 (July 1967) was the first thing Adams drew for DC Comics, under editor Robert Kanigher. The script is attributed to Howard Liss. This is only a few months before the artist’s groundbreaking debut on the “Deadman” series in Strange Adventures—so this tale may pin down the moment when Neal A. and Roy T. first met, after the one but before the other had appeared. Thanks to Mark Muller & Jim Ludwig.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

volunteered—since I knew Neal had written a few DC stories by then—to step aside and let him script X-Men. Of course, Stan would’ve had to okay that; but I had little desire to scribe X-Men, being busy with Avengers and other series. Neal, however, immediately informed me that, no, he’d read some of my stories and they were fine and he’d like me to remain as writer.

Now, how that squares with his later statement(s) that he was totally unaware of me and my work prior to that meeting, I couldn’t begin to say. I only know what he said to me that day.

Perhaps, in retrospect, he later regretted inviting me to remain on X-Men… since when you got Roy Thomas the writer you also got Roy Thomas the de facto editor.

I wouldn’t be content simply to dialogue whatever story he handed me; I’d want to be (and was) involved in the plotting process.

In fact, the first issue Neal drew—#56—he worked from a synopsis I’d typed up for Don Heck.

Give Me The Abu Simbel Life!

The first page of Neal’s that Roy ever saw in pencil form was an early stage of the splash for The X-Men #56 (May 1969), which left Roy the Boy uncharacteristically speechless. The inks are by Tom Palmer, seen at left in a photo from the 1975 Marvel Comics Convention program book. Tom’s landmark-studded comics career will be covered in depth in Alter Ego #184.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Neal Adams & Me

That was the moment I truly became a Neal Adams fan—and I have remained one, at least in my own individual way, ever since.

(His fellow comics great Gil Kane always considered The X-Men, not Batman or Green Lantern/Green Arrow or The Avengers, Neal’s best run of work in the field.)

I wasn’t involved in Neal’s first dispute with Marvel—when Goodman rejected the cover he’d prepared for #56, because he’d drawn the mutants shackled to the letters of the X-Men logo, making the latter a bit hard to read, which Stan was okay with but which the publisher would not countenance, period. Neither Neal nor I nor anyone else ever thought the replacement cover he drew was the equal of the original… and Neal later said that after that experience he didn’t give as much thought to his Marvel covers as he did to his DC ones. A short-sighted attitude, of course, since a comic’s success or failure was at least partly related to the impression its cover made on prospective readers… but that was Neal.

With the next issue (#57, June ’69), Neal and I cemented our working relationship for the remainder of our various collaborations—X-Men, “Inhumans,” Avengers, “Conan”: Rather than have me type up a synopsis, he said he’d prefer we simply go out to lunch and talk out the story. As I had plenty else to do and that approach would simply relieve me of having to dream up one more plot a month on my own, I was agreeable… since there was never any discussion that he wanted any part of my scripting wage.

(If there had been, I’d have said, no, thanks, and I’d have delivered him a several-page synopsis every month.) I knew that, in any disagreement re the storyline, I had the final say; but I’d have been hesitant about overruling him. Not because Neal might go crying to Stan (who tended to back his editors), but because I figured that almost anything the two of us came up with would wind up looking powerful and well-drawn on the page and would probably be a pleasure to script. And that’s the way it went, for the rest of The X-Men’s remaining original run.

5

soon became the Code-approved Sauron. Neal says it was him, and it doesn’t even matter to me if he was right. I had to concur and then hammer out the plot with him, and I could’ve reined him in on anything I felt necessary. But such was his talent, and our rapport at the time, that I rarely if ever overruled him. Why look for trouble?

Neal was full of challenges to a writer using the ultrasuccessful “Marvel method.” A few examples: • Double-page spreads like the one on pp. 2-3 of #58, where I had to use all the skill I could muster to place my dialogue balloons so they’d lead the reader’s eye in the proper sequence across the pages. (Stan hated diagonally-angled panel borders, and I suspect they might’ve hurt us with younger fans, both in X-Men and in Gene Colan’s and my Doctor Strange—but I liked them and strove to make them work.)

• That title Neal pencil-lettered in for the story in #59—“Do or Die, Baby!”—which I hated but went along with. When Stan wanted that title changed after he saw the story inked, I talked him out of it, arguing that, while I agreed it was a poor title, it would needlessly annoy Neal if we changed it, so we shouldn’t.

• The blank space Neal left in the largest panel on p. 4 of #60, wherein he just lightly scribbled “Write pretty, Roy!” and I felt challenged to come up with a piece of narration that hopefully wouldn’t derail the story’s pacing. We both agreed it worked out fairly well.

Naturally, the pluses with Neal far outnumbered the minuses, far as I was concerned: the wonderful costume he came up for the mutant I’d named Havok, which used expanding and contracting

Except for the deadlines, of course.

Before I had any real concept of the problems those would cause, I acceded to Neal’s request to drop the title’s 5-page backup stories so he could draw 20 pages each issue. That, too, would unburden me of a bit of work… or so I thought at the outset.

Very quickly, however, I realized Marvel and I were at the mercy of Neal’s other deadlines—not only re his DC work, which he had no intention of dropping, but also work in advertising, which, I knew, paid far better than either comics company. My sole concern was Marvel’s deadlines, of course, not those of DC or an ad agency. And that slowly led to rising friction between us, despite all I could do to alleviate the situation… e.g., by finally commissioning Don Heck to pencil a story introducing the Japanese mutant Sunfire, published as X-Men #64 when the time pressures became just too great to ignore.

Along the way, though, there was fun and good work to be had. I don’t recall if it was Neal or I who came up with the concept of the “psychic vampire” who

The X-Men #56—Lost & Found!

(Left:) Neal Adams’ original intended cover for The X-Men #56 (May ’69)—not used back in the day, but later colored (probably by Neal himself!) and since then popping up here and there. Actually, even if publisher Goodman had okayed that cover with its obscured logo, he would never have allowed anything like this metallic-looking coloring to see print in 1969! From the Internet.

(Right:) The published cover for #56; pencils and inks of both covers are by NA. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

“Write Pretty, Roy!” (Above:) In an empty space that he indicated in the middle left of the penciled page 4 for The X-Men #60 (Nov. 1969), Neal simply scribbled “Write pretty, Roy!” and left it to RT to decide what (if anything) to write there. This perhaps suggests in a nutshell the somewhat playful relationship the two collaborators had in their early days. Inks by Tom Palmer.

Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Right-hand side of page:) Three quotations from Neal Adams re collaborator Roy’s work, from an interview conducted by Martin Pasko for Word Balloons #3 (March 1974), published by Gary Groth. Thanks to Nick Caputo. (Incidentally, in the fifth line of the second box at right, Ye Editor believes the word “can” is a mis-transcription of “can’t”; the way it’s printed doesn’t make much sense.)

(Below:) Neal’s comment on two of his Silver/Bronze Age collaborators, from a 1978 interview conducted by Gary Groth for The Comics Journal. Thanks to Alex Grand. [All typeset text in this art spot © Fantagraphics, Inc.]

Neal Adams & Me

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concentric circles to indicate the amount of power Alex Summers was emitting… the wonderfulness of that climactic page in #59 whereon the Sentinels fly into the sun, presumably to their own destruction (which Neal swore to his dying day was totally his idea, and I always thought might’ve been mine, while then-intern Chris Claremont says it was a notion he casually tossed out, presumably to Neal and me together)… that final sequence in #62 in which the mysterious stranger reaches down to grasp a previously unglimpsed headpiece, thus revealing only in the last panel that he is Magneto, so that, with no suggested dialogue input from Neal, I wrote in that ending panel: “…Perhaps clothes do make the man!” (Lots of people told me that line, accompanying the visual, came as a shock.)

With increasing problems over deadlines, though, I wasn’t sure how much longer X-Men could hold on to Neal. Sales were apparently improving, but only slowly. (Neal gives at least part of a plausible explanation for sales problems re “Deadman,” X-Men, etc., on pp. 36-39, but I don’t recall his ever mentioning it at the time.)

The Sunfire story had bought us a bit of time, but now Neal informed me he’d like to “plot” the next issue (#65) on his own, because he had an idea he wanted to pursue. (Which, when you think about it, is a tacit admission that I had been involved in previous plotting.) I wasn’t particularly happy about that request, but I had plenty else to do, so I agreed. Still, when it came time to dialogue that issue, I found that, not having had a hand in plotting it, I had little interest in doing the script; so, without consulting Neal, I handed the pages over to Denny O’Neil, whom I was always trying to find a way to get re-associated with Marvel. Neal was vocally unhappy about my handoff. To make matters worse, Stan leafed through the inked story just prior to sending it out and decided he didn’t like a space-hound-like alien monster Neal had drawn on p. 12. Over my objections, he insisted on having Marie Severin redraw it in far more humanoid style in both panels, then had her pencil that issue’s cover, to boot, as per images on p. 46 of this issue. (You can imagine Neal’s reaction to that. My own reaction was negative enough. Stan had clearly come a long way from his effusive welcome of Neal some months before.)

I intended to return to scripting with #66… but for it I’d plotted another fill-in, this one guest-starring the Hulk and penciled by Sal Buscema. Frankly, I’ve no memory at what point Neal decided to step aside as X-Men artist… if he ever did. Was it after learning Stan had had Marie re-draw that hound-monster… or after he had her do the cover? Did my scheduling a Sal-penciled fill-in affect his decision? Was it my bailing on him as dialoguer of #65?

Or maybe Neal was still scheduled to pencil #67—when X-Men was finally, abruptly canceled by Goodman, at least eight issues later than Stan had originally predicted. Too many things happened too close together for me to recall the precise order of events… and I don’t know if Neal ever gave his own account, at which I would toss an admittedly jaundiced eye in any event.

The only thing I definitely remember about any X-Men sales figures, to which I had access in those days, was that the two issues penciled by Neal that sold the best were #62, with its strong, dynamic Ka-Zar-and-Zabu cover… and #65, whose cover was penciled by Marie Severin! Go figure.

Soon afterward, though, Neal and I teamed up again, when Jack Kirby abruptly departed Marvel for DC, leaving the “Inhumans” half-a-book series in Amazing Adventures without a writer or penciler. I don’t recall how our pairing happened, but I

Raisins In The Sun Whether the precise way to rid the Earth of the menace of the Sentinels in X-Men #59 (Aug. 1969) was the brainchild of Chris Claremont, Neal Adams, or Roy Thomas, the result was surely one of the most memorable pages from the 66-issue series. Roy took his cue in the scripting from a lecture given by an astronomer at L.A.’s Griffith Observatory in the 1955 film Rebel without a Cause, starring James Dean. Thanks to Barry Pearl.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

know I had no desire whatever to do that series except that Neal and Stan both wanted me to do it… and that, while Neal and I did confer on the plots, I basically let him go in the direction he wanted on that one. The stories all looked extraordinary, and were fun to script; but when the time came to dialogue the third Neal-drawn installment, I was too busy and something had to go, so I tossed scripting of that episode to Gerry Conway… which annoyed Neal even more than my giving X-Men #65 to Denny. Although I returned for the fourth Adams outing, after that issue both Neal and I departed “Inhumans.”

All the same, when, a few months later, Neal told me he’d love to pencil The Avengers for a while—a series for which I’d already scripted something like fifty issues in a row—I moved the not-at-all reluctant Sal Buscema to another title, with Stan’s approval. This was just after the first four issues of what later became known as “the Kree-Skrull War,” which was just about to go into high gear.

Not wanting to force Neal to continue that story arc if he preferred not to, I gave him an option of a detour in story direction (I’d have

8

A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

not mine. (What may have been his contribution were the precise details of the way he utilized them in #93, turning them again into doppelgängers of the FF to battle several Avengers. When I’m in a charitable mood, I opine that Neal must’ve internalized the notion of the bovine Skrull trio so deeply inside his artist’s heart that he actually came to believe he’d made that discovery himself.)

One thing he did definitely add to what we discussed at that lunch came as he immersed himself in drawing #93. He phoned me to say he’d like to have Ant-Man, who wasn’t currently an Avenger, go inside the comatose Vision à la the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage (though I’m not certain he made a specific reference to the movie).

I figured we had 34 pages to fill, so I said go for it. Thus, I freely admit that the most memorable sequence in the nine issues of the Kree-Skrull War was totally Neal’s idea… even though, ironically, that sequence had little or nothing to do with the War itself (except to repair damage to The Vision) but was basically a sidebar event.

Still, it was a visually sensational one, well-remembered to this day.

Just as incidentally, in that very sequence, Neal planted the

I’m Only Inhuman!

The Inhuman monarch Black Bolt was probably rendered in a more human mode on this page from Amazing Adventures #5 (March 1971) than in any previous appearance. Pencils & co-plotting by Neal Adams; script by Roy Thomas; inks by Tom Palmer. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

got back to that space war later—it never occurred to me Neal would draw Avengers forever). But he liked the War notion, and indeed became a major factor in its unrolling. He even drew the cover for Sal’s last issue.

I’m reluctant to re-hash the triumphs and tribulations of Avengers #93-97 again, but they can’t be avoided.

As usual, we hashed out the plot for #93 (done at a time when stories had briefly jumped from 20 pages to 34 per enlarged issue) over the usual lunch… I believe at Original Joe’s, a pizza joint. As we walked the several blocks there, I brought Neal up to speed on my plans—some specific, some vaguer—for the War going forward. One key thing I mentioned was that I had observed that, at the end of Fantastic Four #2, only three of the four Skrulls from that issue were hypnotized into turning themselves into cows, and I intended to use those three and the escaped fourth one (whom, without informing readers, I had already established as “Senator Craddock”). I can still recall Neal stopping short in his tracks there on the sidewalk, doing a mild double-take when I told him that. Thus I was startled when, in later years, Neal claimed the whole three-Skrull-cows thing had been his discovery and idea,

“Three Cows Shot Me Down!”

That was the untypical Marvel title that Neal strongly suggested to Roy for the story in The Avengers #93 (Nov. 1971). Roy, however, preferred to name each chapter of the remainder of the Kree-Skrull War after a sciencefiction classic work, beginning with “This Beachhead Earth,” as a nod to the Raymond C. Jones novel This Island Earth, which had influenced his storyline that had begun back in Avengers #89. By Thomas, Adams, & Palmer. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Neal Adams & Me

notion—but only by mentioning it to me, not by drawing anything except a surprised look on Ant-Man’s face in one panel—that Hank Pym learned while inside The Vision that the latter’s android body was actually that of the original Human Torch from 1939-54. Neal’s concept soon became common knowledge among pros, so Steve Englehart picked up on it when he took over the Avengers scripting some months later.

We were fortunate to get the titanically talented Tom Palmer to ink #93-97, just as he’d done for X-Men, despite his earlierexpressed complaints to me about having to burn way too much midnight oil because of Neal’s lateness. Like myself, though, Tom admired Neal’s talent and was willing to give it another shot.

Remember, there were no royalties or “incentive payments” then tied to added sales, so he had nothing monetarily to gain by inking one comic as opposed to another.

By issue #94, sensing that deadline problems with Neal were liable to arise again (especially with 34 pages to account for every 30 days!), I arranged—and I informed Neal in advance, this time— to produce a backup feature that would take up 8 or so of those pages. I plotted a “Black Panther” tale that had zilch to do with the War… but intended artist Alex Toth swiftly proved impossible to deal with. Meanwhile, Goodman had suddenly dropped the Marvel comics back to just 22 pages of story, so I shelved the “Panther” plot (I’d rework it later for Fantastic Four #115) and instead had John Buscema pencil a chapter featuring Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), so that the entire issue would be part of the War arc.

Since Neal had wanted to widen the scope of the War by reeling in The Inhumans in #94, mostly to finish the storyline we’d begun in our Amazing Adventures 10-pagers, issue #95 opened with Triton climbing up onto a NYC pier.

Neal had another idea, re #96: When The Avengers headed off to battle the Kree and the Skrulls on their own interstellar turf, they would stop at a space station run by Nick Fury. I was a bit apprehensive about this sizable step up from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier, but I knew it would make for dramatic pictures, even if it would add little to the storyline, so I signed off on that. That issue, I was particularly impressed by the full-page shot of the Skrull space-borne armada on page 4, since Neal gave each ship an individual design. Well, why not? His main contribution to the

9

story that issue was having the usually placid Vision nearly kill a Skrull commandant. Neal was so proud of that, he proposed making that scene the issue’s cover, which worked for me.

What I didn’t know—when I added dialogue to the final page of #96, on which, as he and I had worked out in advance, Rick Jones is afloat in the Negative Zone, about to be attacked by the ever-abusive Annihilus—was that Neal Adams and I had collaborated on our last Avengers page ever.

That issue was late. Well, every issue had been late, and of course what happens is that such lateness is cumulative. If each issue takes five weeks to draw instead of four, then by the time you’ve done four issues, you’ve lost a whole month on the schedule… and that kind of thing is unsustainable, in the end. At least, it was by the economics of the comics field in 1971.

Thus, as both writer and associate editor, I came under ever-increasing pressure from Marvel’s production manager (and my good friend) John Verpoorten to find some way out of the ever-tightening deadline bind… or else the next round of lateness might well cost Marvel hundreds if not thousands of dollars, in an era when even a comic selling as well as The Avengers didn’t make more than that per issue. I resisted as long as I could, cajoling John by telling him issue #97 would wind up the War and then we could toss in another fill-in, even if Neal otherwise continued on as artist after that.

Meanwhile, I had let Neal talk me into going along with a new idea of his. He wanted the final issue of the War to be… a flashback. It would open in a Kree museum, centuries in the future, with a tour guide relating events of the long-ago War by pointing out exhibits to onlookers. I didn’t like that notion at all, and told Neal so. It not only lacked the immediacy I wanted for the War’s finale; it also would take away at least two or three valuable pages of the 21 we now had in which to complete the story! But Neal was forceful in a polite, almost pleading way… so I said okay. If nothing else, I hoped letting him have his own way might encourage him to deliver on time this go-round… for I’d stressed to him how incredibly late the book was, and that he didn’t have anything like a month to pencil this one. He said no sweat, he’d turn it around super-quickly even if he had to stay up several nights. (Something I’m sure he did many times in his long career. Whatever his faults, Neal Adams was not a lazy guy! Over the years, I’ve gone back and

I Spy With My Ant-Sized Eye… (Left:) Ant-Man spots something anomalous inside The Vision’s android form in the Adams-penciled panel from Avengers #93, p. 15, as per the images reproduced in Comic Book Artist #3 (1999). (Right:) That panel as printed, with script by Thomas and inks by Palmer. Thanks to Barry Pearl.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

10

A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

forth in my mind as to whether he really believed the stories he’d tell when promising to deliver work on time… but the fact remains that I let myself be swayed again and again, such was my admiration for his talent. And this despite the fact that, in #96’s finale panel, he had accidentally drawn the huge figure of Rick Jones with six fingers on one hand—something proofreader Steve Englehart, thankfully, pointed out to me in time to have Tom Palmer fix it.)

However, days—must’ve been at least a week—went by, and none of the promised pages materialized. Not. One. Finally, one day, Verpoorten really laid it out forcefully for me: We had to have John Buscema pencil #97 and get it to Palmer to ink, pronto! At this point I couldn’t argue any longer. So I banged out a synopsis of the story as Neal and I had discussed it—before he’d imposed his “futuristic flashback” on me. It picked up on the image back in the Sal B.-penciled #92 in which Rick reminisced about 1940s comicbook heroes (which I’d put there as a harbinger of the story’s climax)… it unmasked “Senator Craddock” as the fourth Skrull from FF #2… and it wound up the story basically as I had envisioned it since pre-Neal days. I don’t know if Marvel SpecialDelivery’d the plot to John B., or even messengered it… that was Verpoorten’s department… but Buscema went right to work, doing probably layouts, which were then rushed to me in big pieces and always written overnight and hustled off first to letterer Sam

Rosen, then to Palmer. (This, I think, is the occasion when Tom, although he said he’d finish #97, told me, “I’ve stayed up all night for the last time to make up for the fact that Neal Adams can’t make a deadline!”)

While I was in the midst of all this, one day Neal came into the office—looking indeed as if he’d just pulled an all-nighter— with a few pages in hand. Not 21, but only a few. In fact, although I couldn’t swear to it, I believe they may actually have been only small thumbnail sketches that he intended me to script from while he presumably did the full-size pencils. He assured me, with complete apparent sincerity, that the entire 21-page story would be finished—the very next day! (So help me God, that’s what he said. I wish I’d had a tape recorder.)

I knew this to be an impossibility even for Neal, but at this point it didn’t matter. I took a deep breath and informed him the whole discussion was now academic, because, as of a couple of days or so ago, I’d had to have John Buscema start drawing #97, and he’d be finished with it in a day or so. I told Neal Marvel wouldn’t be able to use, or to pay for, any work he was doing related to the issue.

Neal was literally amazed—he couldn’t believe I’d done that to him. My attempt to make him understand I’d had no choice fell on deaf ears, but I was all past arguing. After a few minutes, Neal bowed to the stone wall I had, finally and belatedly, presented— and he left. (I’ll admit, had Neal actually turned up with 21 finished pages in the next day or so, I’d probably have found a way to script them and use them in #97… although then I’d have had to find a way somehow to utilize John B.’s pages soon as well. Martin Goodman didn’t like spending money twice for the same issue!)

Anyway, we got the Thomas/Buscema/Palmer #97 to the printers in the nick of time, and that was the somewhat anticlimactic end of Neal’s and my Avengers collaboration.

Well, there was a minor aftermath. When #97 went on sale not that many weeks afterward, word swiftly got back to me that Neal was grousing to various pros how that issue wasn’t nearly as good as it would’ve been if he’d drawn it. Furious, I sent him a memo saying that, when he’d had his chance to draw #97, he’d blown it, so he should shut up with the criticisms already. My memo’s coda: “In the arena of deeds, you are a whispering gladiator.”

Neal and I never discussed The Avengers face to face again.

But we did have an encounter, in late 1972, that I’ll remember as long as I live.

Around Halloween, just after my then-wife and I returned from a trip up to Rutland, Vermont, to take part in that city’s fabled Halloween parade and after-party, she abruptly announced she was leaving me… and later that same evening, she was gone.

Sitting depressed in our—now my—apartment on East 87th Street, I wound up talking to Neal on the phone. I’ve no recollection if I called him, or if he happened to call me and I told him of my situation. Realizing how upset I was, Neal was there about as fast as a cab could bring him, and he sat around and we talked for a couple of hours. I felt a little better by the time he left.

Let’s Not Get Negative!

The final story page of The Avengers #96 (Feb. 1972), the last one produced by the Thomas/Adams/Palmer trio. Well, at least they went out together on a high note! Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

And, no matter what else happened between us, before or after, I’ll never forget the gratitude and warmth I felt about what Neal Adams did that night.

Amazingly, we even did do two “Conan” stories (and part of the “War of the Worlds” debut issue—don’t ask!) together after the

Neal Adams & Me

Avengers fiasco. The first, which appeared in the color Conan the Barbarian #37 (cover-dated April 1974), started life as an adaptation of the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter pastiche “The City of Skulls”—only to have to switch gears a third of the way through when those two writers suddenly withdrew permission to adapt their story, although they did allow us to use their character Juma the Black in the new events we had to concoct to finish the yarn.

That tale had apparently been begun as a 30-plus-page black-&white entry for The Savage Sword of Conan, but somewhere along the line I decided it needed to go in the color comic instead, so we reluctantly compressed events considerably and completed it in 19. Even so, we had fun with it… and when Neal drew the tale’s giant slug-creature with a “face” that more than slightly suggested female genitalia, I looked the other way and figured we’d let the Comics Code tell us we had to change it. They must’ve missed the likeness, or else that wasn’t as great as I’d imagined, because the story wound up printed as it was.

That led Neal and me to decide in 1976 that we’d do another “Conan” adventure together, this one a lengthy adaptation of the Robert E. Howard story “Shadows in Zamboula” for Savage Sword.

Neal was doing a magnificent version of it visually. After our initial discussion and my handing him a copy of the yarn, I’d really have nothing to do till he turned in pages, for the tale was REH’s, not his or mine or ours. Except that he didn’t turn in any pages, just occasionally showed me the thumbnail sketches he was doing for it.

11

after time after time—but I never suggested another team-up to him, nor did Neal ever approach me in that vein.

Our only connections during the final few decades of his life, I’m sorry to say, were indirect, sometimes downright acrimonious.

At various times, I tried to get Marvel to let me write (or at least plot and partly dialogue) a multi-issue Untold Tales of the Kree-Skrull War series that would relate the parts that the non-Avenger Marvel heroes had played during the original conflict: Daredevil sensing that “Senator Craddock” was not what he seemed… what the real FF were doing while Skrull ex-cows were again imitating them… whatever Spider-Man and The X-Men and the rest had been up to, in War-related stories that took place in between the issues Neal and the Buscema Brothers and I had dreamed up in 1971-72. I suggested Neal and Sal and John (before the latter’s passing in 2002) all be invited to draw some of the issues; I always made it clear I wanted Neal involved to the extent he wanted to be. Hell, I’d even have been willing to co-plot with him again.

However, I got angry when I learned later that Neal was also lobbying Marvel with requests to be allowed to do his own version of the Kree-Skrull War… and (to my great surprise… not) my

To buy us time, for several months, I kept tossing into Savage Sword stories I had commissioned by others. However, in the meantime, Savage Sword’s rising sales figures caused Stan to make it a monthly, so that after a few months I finally had to tell Neal I had totally run out of fill-ins and we either had to have “Shadows” ready for the next issue, or that one would have to be a reprint.

And that’s how Savage Sword of Conan #13 became an issue with no new “Conan” story in it—as it would turn out, the only mostly-reprint issue in the magazine’s entire run of 235!

Meanwhile, at some late stage, Neal had finally turned over the whole story to me—but only in thumbnail form, not full-size finished art—with another of his promises (collect them all!) to complete the actual art in the next few days.

At that juncture, I decided I was through messing around with Neal. I dialogued the story from the thumbnails virtually overnight, then shipped script and thumbnails to the Philippines, and to the art studio of Tony DeZuniga—so that Tony and his shop of artists (“The Tribe” as they styled themselves when they worked en masse) could finish it on the double, lettering and all. The fact that we’d had to air-mail the story to the far side of the planet to get it done in time to be included in Savage Sword #14 had me shaking my head for a long time.

When I told him what I’d done, Neal, of course, was furious and screamed betrayal… even though I don’t recall his ever showing me, even then, a single finished penciled page… because, of course, the Adams-and-The-Tribe “Shadows in Zamboula” wouldn’t look quite as good as the all-Adams version might have.

But that was beside the point. Tony and his crew came through, while Neal hadn’t. I said I was sorry I’d had to do it, but that was as far as I was willing to go.

This one, at last, was the one that finally did it: Neal and I never worked together again.

I’ll admit it: I would always have been willing to suck it up and give a collaboration another stab—I guess I’m like Charlie Brown letting Lucy pull the football away at the last moment, time

Slugfest!

Conan and Juma about to be devoured by a giant slug, in the climax of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #37 (April 1974). Script by Roy Thomas, full art

by Neal Adams. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Heroic Signatures LLC.]

12

A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

Barbarian Barbecue In or out of Marvel, Neal Adams drew his fair share of Conan (and Conanesque) artwork. A few examples: (a) His powerful, oft-reproduced cover for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #37 (April 1974)—in this case, the French edition. Thanks to Ron Murphy. [TM & © Heroic Signatures, LLC.] (b) What he, or at least the publisher, apparently referred to as a “Conan print,” No. 551 out of a series of 750, done for Christopher Enterprises in 1976. (c ) This particular barbarian, drawn for the cover of the Triple Fan Fair’s 1972 Progress Report #1, may or may not have been meant to be a certain Cimmerian—but it can certainly hold its own with the other images in this section. [Previous two images © Estate of Neal Adams.]

name evidently never escaped his lips in the course of his various pitches.

All Neal and I did, I suppose, was cancel each other out, so that neither was allowed to realize his dream… and I’ll admit I resented that, because, despite the wonderfulness of his contributions to it, the Kree-Skrull War had been my idea, my project, from start to finish.

I had basically consigned Untold Tales of the Kree-Skrull War to the scrap heap of comics non-history when I discovered, not long before the MCU film Captain Marvel was set to open in 2019 (with its clear Kree-Skrull War derivation), that Neal was making claims on the Internet about how the War was pretty much all his doing. I felt I couldn’t let those and other remarks of his stand uncommented-upon, since silence implies agreement and I most decidedly did not concur… so I responded online, as vehemently as I felt the situation warranted.

Neal Adams & Me

13

Okay, This Is Really It, This Time!

The last page on which Roy and Neal worked together (more or less) was the ending of their adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s story “Shadows in Zamboula,” in The Savage Sword of Conan #14 (Sept. 1975). Neal’s strong thumbnail breakdowns were Photostatted up in size and finished in ink in the Philippines

by Tony DeZuniga and his art studio, as “The Tribe.” Script by RT. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Heroic Signatures LLC.]

People took sides, depending on whether they believed Neal or believed me… or whether they were totally indifferent… and I didn’t follow that line of conversation.

The movie came, made its millions, and went… and things died down again.

I’m happy to say that Neal and I did have one last face-to-face encounter, if only in passing… as I was coming out of, and he was going into, the men’s room at the Manhattan premiere screening of the film Avengers: Endgame that same year. I nodded and said, “Hello, Neal”…. he replied in kind… …and then we passed into each other’s memory banks… for good.

But you know what?

I fervently wish Neal Adams was still around… both for the sake of the comics industry (I consider him the most important comicbook artist between Jack Kirby and—well, actually, there’s no name I’d care to stick on the end of the foregoing clause, because it would diminish both Jack and Neal)… and for my own sake… because, as long as we were both still alive, I could idly daydream, from time to time, that one day we would patch up our very real differences and work together on a final grand project.

But this time, please, God… one with no deadlines!

Bestest,

182

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14

A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

NEAL ADAMS Checklist This checklist is adapted primarily from materials available for view in the online Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999, established by Dr. Jerry Bails, and contains information only on work produced through the latter year; hence there are no 21st-century listings herein. Names of features that appeared both in their own titles and in others are generally not italicized. Key: (w) = writer; (p) = penciler; (i) = inker; (S) Sunday comics strip; (d) daily comic strip, Monday thru Saturday Names & Vital Stats: Neal Adams (1941-2022) – artist, writer, publisher, editor Pen Names: Harper Adams (joint pen name of Neal Adams & Steve Harper) Family in Arts: Joel Adams (son); Kristine Adams (daughter); Marilyn (wife); Cory (former spouse) Education: High School of Industrial Arts, New York City Influences: Bernie Fuchs, Bob Peak, Joe Kubert, Mort Drucker, Russ Heath, Austin Briggs, Lou Fine Member: Academy of Comics Arts, early 1970s [NOTE: The Who’s Who lists him as ACBA’s “founder and first president,” but neither of those identifications is accurate, although he was later a president of the professional organization.]

Print Media (Non-Comics): [If no date attached, then date is not listed in Who’s Who] Artist for Johnstone and Cushing 1960-61 Artist on project for United Presbyterian Church 1959 Artist - Advertising: American Machine Foundery; Avco Embassy; Avon Cosmetics; Bell; Bose sound equipment; Breck; Camels; Capital Tapes; Chevrolet; Colonial Bank; Crest Toothpaste; Dr. Rhythm machine; Esso; Fresca; G.I. Joe Dolls; Goodyear Tire; Inco Nickel; Lady Schick; Levittown; Massengill; Metropolis Amusement Park; Miles Shoes; National Cash Register; New York Telephone; Popov Vodka; Savage Rifles; Time [magazine]; Tintex Dye Artist – Album covers: Who Will Save the World 1972; All the Girls in the World Beware!!! 1974; Promised Love 1975; Trixter 1990 Artist – Books: The Art of Neal Adams, Vol. 1 & 2 1975 & 1977; Neal Adams Treasury, Vol. 1 & 2 1976 & 1979; Pretty Girl Sketchbook [contributing artist] 1984; Artist – Dustjackets: Put-ons and Put-downs 1966; Mighty Groundhogs’ Who Will Save the World 1972; Trixter’s Trixter 1990 Artist: Harvard Annual Report 1969 Artist – Magazine Illustration: Boy’s Life 1962; Discover 1964 Artist – Paperbacks: Great Crimes of San Francisco 1975; The Platypus of Doom 1976; Swords against Darkness; Tarzan, various volumes 1976+; Weird Heroes Artist – Promotion – for Captain Planet [TV series] Artist – Portfolios/Prints/Posters: Captain Cash New York Lottery 1973; The Death of Bruce Lee; Grizzly; Heroines Portfolio [contributing artist]; Look-Out!; movies, various 1970s; Neal Adams Portfolios 1982-86; Nunzio; Phantom of the Paradise; Warp [Broadway]; Psychology Today; Sal Quartuccio prints; Scholastic Magazine; Skateboard; Star*Reach; Superman; Werewolf Artist – Juvenile Books: Ben Casey [asst. artist] c. 1965

“Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

Neal drew Charlton’s Atomic Mouse separating the Marvel and DC superheroes on the cover of The Art of Neal Adams, Vol. 1—although the Bails online Who’s Who site doesn’t list the 1950s nuclear-powered rodent among the characters he drew professionally. Maybe Neal just liked the look of him? [Marvel heroes TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; DC heroes TM & © DC Comics; Atomic Mouse TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Animation: Les Studio, Potterton – character designer 1981 (Heavy Metal feature film); Turner Home Entertainment – character designer 1990 Captain Planet; Zander – storyboarder c. 1977 Crest commercials Performing Arts: The Forever War 1973 (costume & set designer); Nannaz 1983-84 (producer, director, & actor); storyboarder (commercials) for Alka-Seltzer, AT&T, Breck; Doublemint Gum; Ford; Hardees Hamburgers; Hefty Trash Can Liners; Light and Lively; Mercury; Mr. Coffee Maker, Pips; Purina Dog Chow; Sealtest; Warp 1973 (costume & set designer); & film Moments 1977 Commercial Art & Design: Continuity Associates 1970s thru 1990s Honors: Academy of Comic Book Arts – Shazam for Best Dramatic Penciler 1971; Alley Awards (comics fandom) 1969; Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award 1998; Goethe Award (comics fandom) Favorite Pro

Neal Adams & Me

Artist 1970; Harvey Award for Lifetime Achievement 1999; Phoenix – Best Foreign Artist 1971 Syndication: Bat Masterson (d)(ghost p&i) 1959; Ben Casey (d)(S)(p&i, some w on daily) 1962-66; Big Ben Bolt (S)(p&i) 1978; Buck Rogers (S) (ghost i) 1981; The Heart of Juliet Jones (d)(asst. p) 1966; On Stage (d) (ghost p) c. 1970; Peter Scratch (d)(ghost p) 1966; Rip Kirby (d)(asst. p) 1968; Sally Forth (S)(ghost p&i) 1972; Secret Agent Corrigan (d)(asst. p) 1967 Comics in Other Media: (All are pencils & inks of cover and/or comics, as part of record album package:) Batman and The Joker: Stacked Cards c. 1976; Batman: Mystery of The Scarecrow Corpse 1976; Batman: Robin Meets Man-Bat c. 1976; Batman: Scarecrow Mirages 1976; 20,000 Leagues under the Sea 1970s; Cannon (ghost art) 1972; Curse of the Werewolf c. 1977; Davy Crockett 1970s; “The Defender” in Comic Crusader Storybook [fanzine] 1978; Dracula c. 1977; Elongated Man 1970s; Flash and Aquaman 1970s; Frankenstein c. 1977; Huckleberry Finn 1970s; Jaws of the Shark 1970s; Little Women 1970s; Mighty Groundhogs 1970s; gag cartoons for National Lampoon (also some w) 1973, 1976, 1986; Planet of the Apes 1970s; Plastic Man record album 1970s; Promised Land 1970s; Robin Hood 1970s; Robinson Crusoe 1970s; Sally Forth (ghost art) for Overseas Weekly; Six Million Dollar Man 1970s; Space: 1999 – Breakaway 1970s; Superman: Alien Creatures 1970s; Superman: City Under Siege 1970s;

15

Superman: The Man from Krypton 1970s; Who Will Save the World? 1972; The Wolfman 1970s; Wonder Woman: Secret of the Magic Tiara 1970s Graphics Story Guild: All-Slug (p&i) 1976 Kelva Communications: Mayhem Promotional Comics: Adventures in Leather (p&i) for Tandy Leather through Johnstone and Cushing 1961; Bill and Wes Adventures (p&i) for Winchester in Boy’s Life [d.u.]; Case of the Wasted Crazyman, Crazy!

Water (p&i) for The cover of Crazyman #1, penciled by Neal for Rheem Water his own company Continuity Comics. The inker’s Heating c. 1972; identity is uncertain. Courtesy of the Grand Comics Chip Martin, Database. [TM & © Continuity Comics.]

College Reporter (p&i) for Bell Telephone in Boy’s Life [d.u.]; Dave and His Dad (p&i) for Savage Rifles in Boy’s Life 1960-69; Flash Farrell Adventures (p&i) for Goodyear in Boy’s Life 1960-69; I Am the Guard (layouts) through Johnstone and Cushing 1960; Journey of Discovery with Mark Steel! (p&i) through Al Stenzel Productions 1968; Mark Steel Fights Pollution (p&i) for American Iron & Steel through Al Stenzel Productions 1968; Tarzan (p&i) for Aurora Comic Scenes booklet Overseas Comics: Hanna-Barbera strips (finish) (w)(p&i) 1980-81; Special USA (p&i) for France 1986 Assisted: Gil Kane (some p&i) on Blackmark paperback graphic novel 1971 Comics Studio/Shop: The Crusty Bunkers (head) 1971-77, artists at Continuity Studios Big Apple Productions: Big Apple Comix (p&i) 1975 Fantagraphics Books: covers (p&i) 1986-87 J.C. Comics: The Black Hood (p) in JCP Features – The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 1981 Landgraphics: Rock Comics (p&i) 1979; Star Fighters (p&i) 1979 Pacific Comics: covers (p&i) 1982-84; Ms. Mystic (w)(p&i) 1982-84; Skateman (w)(p&i) 1983 [Publisher Identity Uncertain]: International Insanity (i) 1976

Power To The People!

Adams’ cover for the Power Records dramatization Batman: Robin Meets Man-Bat, which many consider one of the best of that series of recordings, for both art and story. [TM & © DC Comics.]

S.Q. Productions: Hot Stuf’ (w)(p&i) 1974-78 Star*Reach Productions: covers (p&i) 1975; Imagine (w) 1978; Star*Reach (p&i) 1975

16

A Personal Remembrance By Roy Thomas

COMICBOOKS (U.S. Mainstream Publishers:) Acclaim Comics: covers (p&i) 1993, 1995 (imprint: Valiant); Knighthawk (w)(p&i) 1995 Archie Comic Publications: Archie’s Joke Book (p&i) 1960; The Black Hood (w)(p) 1979, 1984 (reprint); covers (i) 1979; The Fly (asst.) c. 1960 Charlton Comics: cover (paint) for Six Million Dollar Man 1976; Emergency (p&i) 1976 Continuity Comics: AE-35 (i) 1985-86; Armor and Silver Streak (w)(some p&i) 1985-90; The Basics (w) 1985; Captain Power (w)(p) 1988; covers (paint)(p&i) 1984-94; Crazyman (p)(i) 1985-86, 1989-91; Cyberrad (plot)(layouts) (i) 1991-93; The Damned City (w) 1986; Earth 4 (plot) 1993; Frankenstein (w)(p&i) 1994; Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and Werewolf (w)(p&i) 1984-85; The Hybrids (plot)(i) 1993-94; Megalith (w)(plot)(p)(layouts)(i) 1985-94; Megalith and The Revengers (w) 1992-93; Ms. Mystic (w) (plot)(p&i) 1984-90, 1992-94; The Revengers (p)(i)(some w) 1985, 1988-89, 1992; Samureer (w)(plot)(p)(some i) 1986-90, 1993-94; Shadow Hunter (plot)(p&i) 1985; Shaman (w)(some p&i) 1985, 1989-90, 1994; support (publisher, editor) 1984-94; Tippytoe Jones (i) 1985; Toyboy (w)(p)(i) 1986-87; Urth 4 (w) 1985, 1990; Valeria the She Bat (w)(p&i) 1993; Zero Patrol (w) (p&i) 1984, 1988-89 Dark Horse Comics: Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor Quarterly (p&i) 2007 (reprint) DC Comics: Adventures of Bob Hope (p&i) 1968; Adventures of Jerry Lewis (p&i) 1967; Batman (p)(some i)(some plots) 1970-77, 1984, 1989; Batman team-ups in The Brave and the Bold 1967-772, 1989; Challengers of the Unknown (p&i) 1970; Challengers of the Unknown and Deadman (i) 1975; covers (p&i) 1967-88, 1995-96; Deadman (p&i)(some w) 1967-68, 1970, 1972; El Diablo (p)(some i) 1972-73; Elongated Man (i) 1967; Enemy Ace (p) 1969; Fanboy (p&i) 1999; Green Arrow (p) 1971-72; Green Lantern (p&i) 1970-74 (includes Green Lantern/Green Arrow); Hot Wheels (p&i) 1971; House of Mystery (p)(i)(some w) 1969-70, 1974-75; House of Secrets (i) 1969-71; The Human Target (p&i) 1989, 1996; Fear Itself Justice League of America (p)(i) 1971; Our Army at War (p&i) The second “Man-Thing” story, written by Len Wein and reproduced from Neal Adams’ 1967, 1972; Pellucidar (i) 1972-73; The Phantom Stranger (p) powerful pencils, had been produced for Savage Tales #2 in 1971; but, when that black-&-white mag was temporarily canceled, the yarn got folded into the full-length 1969; Private Life of Clark Kent (p&i) 1972; public service “Ka-Zar” adventure in Astonishing Tales #12 (June 1972). In it, the concept that any page (p&i) 1976; Secret Hearts (w) 1971; Secrets of Sinister person who feels fear will be burned by the Man-Thing’s touch was firmed up, if not House (i) 1973; The Spectre (p&i)(some w) 1968; Star Spangled quite yet verbalized. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] War Stories (p&i) 1967; Superman (p&i) 1972; Superman and Batman (p&i) 1968; Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (p&i)(some Solomon Kane (i) 1975; support (color) 1969-70; Thor (p) 1970); Tower w); support (color) 1960s; Sword of Sorcery (i) 1973; Teen of Shadows (w)(p) 1969; Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction (w)(p&i) Titans (w)(p&i) 1969; Terra-Man (i) 1972; War That Time Forgot (p&i) (reprint) 1975; X-Men (p, some i on covers) 1969-70 1967; Weird War Tales (i) 1972; The Witching Hour (p&i) 1969-71 Disney Productions: cover (p&i) for The Rocketeer 3-D Eclipse Productions: covers (i) 1982 Heavy Metal: Heavy Metal Magazine (w) 1979 Marvel Comics: The Avengers (p)(some i on covers) 1971-72; Conan (p&i) 1974, 1975, 1980; covers (p&i)(paint) 1969-75, 1979-81; Crazy Magazine (p&i) 1974; Crypt of Darkness (w) 1969; Doctor Strange (i) 1973; Dracula (p&i) 1973; Epic Illustrated (w)(p&i) 1981; The Inhumans (p) 1971-72; Iron Man (asst.) 1975; Ka-Zar (p) 1972; Killraven/War of the Worlds (p)(some w) 1973; Man-Thing (p) 1972; Marvel Preview (i) 1975 tribute to EC Comics; Monsters Unleashed (i) 1973; Red Sonja (p&i) 1974; Shadow Hunter (w)(p&i) 1981;

National Lampoon: National Lampoon Book of Comical Funnies (p&i) 1986; National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor (p&i) [d.u.]; Very Large Book of Comical Funnies (p&i) Now Comics: covers (p&i) 1991-92; The Twilight Zone Premiere (p&i) 1991 Ross Periodicals: Harpoon (p&i) 1974-75 Seaboard Comics: covers (p&i) 1975; illustration (p&i) 1975 Warren Publications: Creepy (p&i) 1967, 1970, 1975, 1977; Eerie (p&i) 1967, 1974, 1981; Schreck (p&i) 1974; Vampirella (p&i) 1969-75; Vampirella Annual (p&i) 1972

A CELEBRATION OF

– PART THREE

17

“I Listened To Stories” The Childhood & Origins Of NEAL ADAMS

by James Rosen [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Well-known journalist James Rosen is currently writing an in-depth biography of Neal Adams’ life and career, both in and out of comics.]

N

eal Adams’ first paid work as an artist came in 1951, when he was ten years old, at a Brooklyn saloon called Clark’s Bar. He was there accompanying his mother, Lillian Rose Barry Adams. Short, attractive, she had been orphaned as a child and possessed only a third-grade education.

During the long absences of her husband, Army Sgt. Frank Wayne Adams, then stationed in Germany and never much of a family man, Lillian, “terrifically lonely,” basked in the attention of Clark’s male customers. “She went to those bars not to get drunk or to have an affair,” her son said. “She went to those bars to have comradeship with people she could talk to and tell stories with and laugh.”

Invariably, she brought Neal along. “She took me, in effect, for protection,” the artist told me in one of our lengthy recorded interviews, more than twenty hours in all, in October 2018. “What could you do if a woman comes into a bar and she’s got her son with her? You really can’t go out. You really can’t shack up…. You can just hang out because that kid is not going to go away.”

Young Neal found the scene at Clark’s “boring,” but Lillian “would go to that place a lot… laughing it up and having a good time… people buying her drinks.” At the end of these evenings, she would cadge $10 from strangers, enough to cover the cab-fare back to Seagate, in Coney Island, where she operated a rooming house for boarders. Until then, Neal would stand at Clark’s jukebox and memorize the pre-rock’n’roll titles he saw, songs like “Come On-A My House” and “Accentuate the Positive.”

The Artist & The Arrow Neal Adams, as per his high school yearbook (class of ’59), and a Green Arrow sketch he drew for biographer James Rosen. [Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics.]

them... People got used to me there because I would draw their profiles. I would draw their pictures on napkins and placemats and they would give me a quarter so I could use it on the jukebox…. It gave me something to do.”

There was another skill he honed at Clark’s. “I became a father confessor,” he told me. “Anytime there was somebody with a sad story or a bad story and nobody would listen to them, they’d trap me at some table and they’d tell me their story. And I guess I was a good listener, or I would give good advice, or I would be sympathetic… So they sought me out [and] I got to listen to lots of stories. I became a great listener at ten years old to adults telling stories…. And I’m still a pretty good—damned good—audience.

People like to tell me stories.”

In time the youngster “fell in love with” a record called “Detour (There’s A Muddy Road Ahead)” by Patti Page (“Headed down life’s crooked road/lots of things I never knowed”). But as the Adamses were perennially “on the poor end of the spectrum,” Neal couldn’t always afford the nickel Clark’s charged for the jukebox. Already aware of his exceptional drawing talent, he came up with a remedy.

An alcoholic, cheater, and deadbeat, Sgt. Adams abandoned his family for good when Neal was thirteen. They saw each other one additional time, in 1960, when Neal was nineteen. Frank’s last words to his son were: “You know, I never liked you.”

“I would find a way to draw somebody’s picture, and they would be stunned and happy by it because it looked just like

That was made clear to Neal early on. Once, when he was five or six and the family lived in Troy, New York, eight miles north of

18

So You Won’t Cough Next Time You Go To The Movies!

Some researchers recently sent James Rosen these three newspaper-style ad comics for Vick’s Cough Drops, prepared by Neal Adams (and an unidentified writer) to relate littleknown incidents that took place behind the scenes of the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia and 1963’s Cleopatra.

James points out that the two former strips contained more explosions and violence than was usual in material prepared for insertion in the Sundaycomics supplement of newspapers. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Childhood & Origins Of Neal Adams

“I Listened To Stories”

19

The Children’s Crusade While still in high school, Neal was clearly drawing at professional level when he re-drew, in his own style, a Robert Kanigher/Jerry Grandenetti story from a DC war comic. His re-do, of course, was never published by DC. Thanks to Gary F. Brown, who was allowed to print it some years back in the 20th issue of his fanzine Ibid.

[Art © Estate of Neal Adams; script © DC Comics.]

Albany, Neal’s pal Charlie Root abruptly picked a fight.

It was “weird,” Neal told me, because their previous wrestling matches, innocuous, had always shown Neal to be bigger and stronger. Now, Charlie was swinging at Neal’s head.

With ease, Neal deflected the punches, pleading with his friend between swings, “What’s wrong, Charlie? I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

Suddenly, Neal glimpsed his father standing in the Adamses’ doorway, watching the mismatch. Sgt. Adams yelled at Neal to throw his own punches. “No,” Neal protested, “it’s my friend. It’s Charlie. I’m not going to fight with him. There’s nothing to fight about.”

“Don’t be a sissy!” the father bellowed. “Fight, fight, sissy!”

The desultory contest petered out. A perplexed Neal watched Charlie skulk away. As the boy passed Sgt. Adams, the father handed Charlie a quarter. “My father paid him to pick a fight with me!” Neal recalled with amazement seven decades later. “He was ashamed of me.”

Asked if he had any positive memories of his father, Neal recalled how Sgt. Adams, entertaining fellow Army officers in the Adamses’ living room, would allow Neal to join them. “They talked about their war experiences and he didn’t chase me out of the room, which lots of dads did because some of those war experiences were pretty rough…. So I got to hear a lot of man talk, adult talk.

“The war stories were fantastic,” he continued. “I listened to stories—not so much read stories. I listened to them from real people, and maybe they’re more real to me.”

And All That Jazz…

A sketch by Adams, clearly of a jazz club (perhaps during a practice session). However, when he gifted this drawing to James Rosen, he said he had no recollection of where or when it was done. [© Estate of Neal Adams.]

James Rosen is the chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and a New York Times-bestselling author. His latest book, Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936-1986, part of a two-volume biography of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was published in March by Regnery. For a future biography of Neal James Rosen Adams, Rosen interviewed the artist extensively between 1994 and 2019, along with others close to Neal, including his family members and collaborators such as Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, and Tom Palmer.

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TM & © 2023 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

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ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR ADVENTURES —NOW PLAYING ON AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

by ROY THOMAS & BENITO GALLEGO

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999

Art by Neal Adams & Tom Palmer.

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Batman hurls himself through the air in a dynamic panel from Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970). Script by Dennis O’Neil; art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano. Thanks to Bob Bailey.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

A CELEBRATION OF

– PART FOUR

21

“He Is A Giant— And No Walk In The Park— But Yes, A Living Legend” HOWARD CHAYKIN Interviews NEAL ADAMS [NOTE: This interview, which was conducted in August 2020, originally appeared on the NeoText website and is © Howard Chaykin.]

I

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: I first became aware of Neal’s work in the pages of Scholastic and Boy’s Life, in his work shilling for GE. I had no idea who he was—I was just a kid—and the work made little or no impression on me.

later. But the comicbook work that began to flow from Adams flabbergasted me, just as, at the same time, the small cadre of comics enthusiasts who were my friends reacted with dismay to this material—with what can only be called the shock of the new.

I first met him in the 1960s, when DC Comics was still conducting tours of the office. He was slim, and good-looking, and a good ten to twenty years the junior of everybody else in the office. This was before I’d seen what would become his comicbook output—and before I’d seen and studied the brilliant Ben Casey newspaper strip.

His work was so radical a departure from what we were used to— the Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Joe Kubert stuff—that it demanded an entirely new and different way of thinking about comics.

It’s been mostly forgotten over these many years, but those early jobs were often met with hostility from fans who, even then, were constricted by a conservative shortsighted constipation in their preferences.

Like most kids, I had no eyes, so that brilliance I mention above didn’t impress me until much

What struck us was the alarming(!) and eccentric approach

Neal Adams & Howard Chaykin Two singular comicbook artists—and a color commission by Adams of his early signature character Deadman. Courtesy of Heritage Art Auctions. [Deadman TM & © DC Comics.]

22

Howard Chaykin Interview’s Neal Adams

a typically sniffy dismissal of Neal’s stuff from the typically sniffy Gil Kane—another mentor of mine, by the way.

“Neal Adams makes comics safe for commercial illustration,” he said, unwilling to or perhaps incapable of getting past that old-school traditional approach to comics.

In short order, of course, Neal developed followers, fans and acolytes.

I was one of the latter, and after assisting Gil Kane, and ghosting a strip for Wallace Wood, Neal got me my first actual assignment at DC—for which, to be sure, I was utterly ill-equipped.

To be specific, and to be clear—he got my professional, signing-myown-work career underway. He carried that much weight at DC. We went our separate ways in the late 1970s, seeing each other inadvertently at conventions or social gatherings. All the while, via his studio, he attempted to reignite and keep alive the sort of commercial use for comics that he learned at Johnstone and Cushing, where he produced that GE stuff—and which he left to do the Ben Casey strip, months before he turned twenty-one, and thus had to have his mother sign his contractual release.

I’m an old man now, and Neal’s got a decade on me, but we’re both still working. He’s moved from those razor-sharp pen lines of his youth to a more organic, and frankly baroque approach to the rendering of the figure, a figure which still retains that propulsive dynamism that defined the shock of the new for comics enthusiasts over a half-century ago.

He is a giant, and no walk in the park, but yes, a living legend.

HOWARD CHAYKIN: When and where’d you spend your childhood?

This Is The Life!

Neal Adams illustrated the Chip Martin comic strip for Boy’s Life magazine from 1960 to 1966—which is where many youngsters first encountered his art.

Scripter uncertain. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

to layout and picturemaking, not to mention the predominance of pen work over brush, pen employed in a series of techniques that bore no resemblance to what we identified as traditional.

It wasn’t until a few years later, with the development of those eyes mentioned here, that I and others were able to draw the line from his drawing and rendering to the work of Stan Drake [artist of The Heart of Juliet Jones] and the like—which illuminated

The Doctor Is In! The Adams-drawn Ben Casey strip for March 6, 1966. Script by Jerry Caplin. Neal was 24 years old at the time he did this Sunday.

Thanks to Heritage Art Auctions.

[TM & © NEA Syndicate or successors in interest.]

NEAL ADAMS: Since I’m an Army brat, my childhood was on the East Coast of the United States, including the Bronx, New York City, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and towns up and down the East Coast, and for a time Germany and finally Brooklyn.

HC: Where you a fan of comics—either newspaper strips or comicbooks?

If so, which?

“He Is A Giant—And No Walk In The Park—But Yes, A Living Legend”

23

ADAMS: When I grew up, every kid in America read comic strips and every kid read the Sunday papers, but the stories in the Sunday papers were either gags or parts of stories, and so to satisfy the desire to read complete stories we all read comics and traded comicbooks and we all read every comicbook out there.

HC: Of pulps—either of the actual thing or the latter-day stuff— paperback originals, as an example?

Again, if so, which?

ADAMS: Kids in my day did not read pulps. Some of us read science-fiction, adventures, and novels. Pulps were for the previous generation or the older teenagers and adults. We read comics. I didn’t even know who Doc Savage was or Conan or The Shadow or any of that.

I knew who Captain Marvel was… Blackhawk, Supersnipe, etc. etc. etc.

“I Knew Who Captain Marvel Was… Blackhawk, Supersnipe…”

And so did most American kids, back when these three covers went on sale during 1949, when Neal was eight: Captain Marvel Adventures #93 (art by C.C. Beck)… Blackhawk #28 (art by Reed Crandall)… and Supersnipe Comics, Vol. 5, #1 [a.k.a. #49] (art by George Marcoux). Well, maybe they were a bit less familiar with Supersnipe, since this was his final issue—but you get the idea. [Shazam hero & Blackhawk TM & © DC Comics; Supersnipe cover TM & © Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc./The Condé Nast Publications.]

that, unlike everyone else around me, I could draw. So I would draw and give kids the drawings. I would draw for the teachers. I, like everyone else of my ilk, became the class or school artist. There are one or two in every school. Although my inclination was toward drawing big-foot stuff, I was drawn toward the Batmans and Blackhawks. At ten years old I was drawing Atomic Mouse, but I was also drawing and writing a Batman encyclopedia.

HC: What movies, music, radio, and television drama informed your growing-up years?

ADAMS: I was past the popular radio shows except for The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and the horror-mystery shows, and I watched early TV which included Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Captain Video, Tom Corbett, and all the old black-&-white cartoon shows. It took a long time before we got to the modern cartoon shows, which they saved for Saturday Morning at the movies. When I was sick, which everyone was a lot in those days, we stayed home and watched the Westerns…

Hopalong Cassidy, Charlie Chan, and all those terrible black-&-whites, which led me to an early childhood of being brain-dead.

I wanted to be an artist or a scientist, but I knew I could never afford to go to college. Then my mother found an art high school. Then, I thought I could draw comics with all that entails.

Unfortunately, the world said no. But as usual I didn’t listen. I was right and they were wrong. It’s a nasty habit I have.

HC: You worked briefly as an assistant to Howard Nostrand, on the Bat Masterson newspaper strip, as I recall. How did that come about, and what was that experience like?

HC: In that time in every boy’s life between “fireman/policeman/cowboy,” what was an early ambition that consumed you before you became who you are?

ADAMS: Being something between Tarzan and Supersnipe. And I wouldn’t say I was consumed by it.

HC: What and when did you first seriously entertain the idea that you could do the job?

ADAMS: When I was a kid traveling around from town to town, tragically facing the consequences of losing all my old friends and assuming I would never get new friends, I discovered

Me Tarzan—You Neal!

In the 1970s, Neal Adams created a stunning series of paintings for reprints of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan books, of which this was the first. Many ERB fans—Alter Ego’s editor definitely included—feel that Adams’ interpretation of the ape-man gives even those of J. Allen St. John and Frank Frazetta a run for their money.

[TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

ADAMS: Somebody recommended me, I don’t remember who. Howard was a jazz fan, and he burned his candle at both ends, 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 studio 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,

24

Howard Chaykin Interview’s Neal Adams

Before Neal Adams Did Batman, There Was… The Bat Masterson comic strip was drawn by Howard Nostrand and written by France “Ed” Herron. Neal Adams did some art-ghosting for it in 1959. Seen below is the daily for October 15. A studio mate of Nostrand’s who taught Neal a lot was former comicbook artist Elmer “Red” Wexler. (Nostrand was interviewed in A/E #89, Wexler in #36.) [Strip TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Howard Nostrand

Elmer “Red” Wexler

and a Spanish fellow whose name I forget who laughed every time Howard sang “Besame Culo.” Elmer Wexler, a line illustrator and ex-Marine, taught me a work ethic that Howard would never learn. From Howard I got broad experience and learned tons. From Wexler I learned a work ethic. I paid attention to both but never confused the two.

HC: Whose career did you first want to supplant?

ADAMS: Everybody’s! I was like an animal. I wanted to be Stan Drake, Mort Drucker, Elmer Wexler, and the rest, and in many ways, I did. They just didn’t notice.

HC: Legendarily, you nailed the Ben Casey newspaper strip before you were of legal age, and had to have your mother sign off on the contract.

How did that come about, and what was that experience like?

ADAMS: Although I nailed the strip, the contract came around after my 21st birthday, so I did not have to suffer the humiliation, because I committed one of my two professional lies there. I told them I was 25, which made it a little embarrassing when I quit the strip when I was 25. As to Ben Casey, Eliott Caplin, writer and brother to Al Capp, had landed the Dr. Kildare strip. Jerry, the third brother, was given the opportunity to sell the NEA syndicate the Ben Casey strip if he could find an artist who was qualified. Jerry inquired at Johnstone and Cushing where I freelanced. They gave him my name. The rest, as they say, is history.

paid $50 a week, which ended up earning me a whopping $11.50 a week. So much for clever horse-trading. I did a sample for a commercial strip and begged Elmer Wexler to review it for me. When I did, he told me there was so much wrong with it that it would take him all day to tell me what it was and he didn’t have the time. Once I recovered, I made another attempt. I showed it to Elmer. He called Johnston and Cushing and told them that they should hire me on a freelance basis. And they did. Long story short.

HC: Some of that work, in particular the General Electric stuff, is among the first work of yours seen by me and my contemporaries. Did you enjoy this experience? If so, why? If not, why?

ADAMS: I enjoy every experience in life. I am the worst Pollyanna on Earth. I take joy in everything. It is truly disgusting to watch. I love people. I love history, science. I love art. And I love America. I hate Hitler, Alan Kupperberg, and Donald Trump. I don’t need my other fingers to count any more.

HC: In our world, it’s an anomaly to go from newspaper strips to comicbooks, and yet that’s precisely what you did.

HC: You might be the last man standing, certainly the last man hired, by Johnstone and Cushing. How did that come about, and what was that experience like?

ADAMS: The Bat Masterson strip ended after three months.

I stupidly took a ten percent part of the strip rather than be

An Ad To Dye For! A color ad for Tintex fabric dye, drawn by Adams for a Sunday supplement comic strip section. Writer unknown. Thanks to Adams biographer James Rosen. Incidentally, neither Rosen nor any of his research contacts has knowledge of any specifically “GE” (General Electric) ads done by Neal, as interviewer Chaykin mentions in the article… but ad art there was, in proficiency. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

“He Is A Giant—And No Walk In The Park—But Yes, A Living Legend”

25

ADAMS: I was lost in time and space. I hit a moment in history that no one else really experienced. A time where America transitioned from comic strips to comicbooks. Few would have believed it. None would have approved of the choice to go into comics. They were wrong, I was right. As I said, a very bad habit.

to be in there. Morality and general fairness. Yeah, there’s more, but I’m beginning to bore myself.

HC: What compelled you to make this move?

HC: That you love that everyone hates?

ADAMS: Several answers. First, I was a student of the illustrators and I was a fan of comics. Because of Congress’ attack on comicbooks [in the 1950s], comicbooks, through no fault of their own, I suppose, deserted their geniuses. Alex Toth, Al Williamson, a burgeoning Frazetta, Wally Wood, and the rest. It makes me sad to recite them. They all landed somewhere, mostly not good places.

Reed Crandall, for example, became a security guard. Alex Toth?

Well, I don’t want to say what happened to Alex, because if I do his ghost will rise up and assail me.

HC: You brought to comicbooks a visual sensibility—specifically an approach to the figure—that had vanished with the 1950s, with a layout and design sense that had never been seen before. What was it about that time and circumstance in comics that brought you to follow and frankly blaze such a path?

ADAMS: Since the comicbook industry was blinded by the attack and hid themselves away in rabbit warrens around the country hoping that no one would notice them, when I showed up they had no idea who I was or that I had a syndicated strip for 3½ years and in a New York paper, no less. So when I showed up in the offices of Bob Kanigher, it was as though I had fallen out of the sky. Who the hell is this smiling idiot who seems to be doing everything different? They called me Smiley. They wondered how I could be so happy drawing comics in an industry that wouldn’t be there next year. Didn’t I know that comics would soon disappear? I told them, with Jack Kirby over at Timely, it looked to me like the world was being set on fire. They insisted one more year and we would all be out looking for a new job. I told them I don’t think so. They were wrong. I was right. It’s a really bad habit.

HC: Is there a book you hate that everyone loves?

ADAMS: No. ADAMS: No. HC: Five favorite movies since the birth of film.

ADAMS: I consider most old movies to be primitive and amateurish and I have trouble abiding them, though I am forced to recognize the evolution and a certain highbrow appreciation by many. I am much more attached to the technology. The idea of moving microphones so that actors can move more freely. Special effects and people who go beyond the technology that is available.

King Kong—the original—is horrible animation, but it took place in a time where it shouldn’t have even existed and launched filmmaking forward. Then there are the multiple lenses of cameras.

I remember watching a TV show that was directed by Steven Spielberg… I believe it was a Colombo and the villain was someone like Jack Cassidy and I was taken aback by the camera angles that actually improved the storytelling, only to find out later that the episode was directed by a young Steven Spielberg. That’s the kind of thing I like. Cary Grant in North by Northwest had moments of brilliance. Not just good acting, but action acting blended with tech to make a seamless story.

HC: In that regard, can you point to an artist who was an early inspiration who remains of interest…?

ADAMS: I could point to many artists. It’s easy to mention Alex Toth. But then there was Williamson, inheritor of the Raymond crown. Woody and Jack Davis. The newly arrived Mort Drucker, the best caricaturist on Earth for many decades. Bob Peak. Hal Foster. Norman Rockwell, like a giant blazing star. Alphonse Mucha. I’ll steal from anybody. I have no ego.

HC: In that same regard, can you point to an artist you once held in high regard in whom you’ve lost interest?

ADAMS: No, I can’t.

HC: Is there a genre that you loathe?

ADAMS: I don’t like to draw crowds or buildings or X-Men fighting an army on a double-page spread where the writer says have fun. I don’t much like chamber music or 90% of rap music, but I do like 10% of it.

HC: Is there a genre that your fans would be surprised you dig?

ADAMS: Certainly. Physics and all sciences. Anthropology and sciences of all sorts. I love history. Any applications of art.

50% of my art career has been devoted to advertising, designing amusement park rides, and theatrics. That’s 50%, not 20%. Relative to science. I really don’t have patience for people who don’t study. That’s very hard for me. Ethics, I suppose, would have

“Killing” It Adams’ splash page for Star Spangled War Stories #134 (Aug.-Sept. 1967)— part of DC’s “War That Time Forgot” series. Script by Robert Kanigher.

Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

26

Howard Chaykin Interview’s Neal Adams

HC: How would you like to best be remembered?

ADAMS: I’d like to be remembered as someone who hates to answer the question how would I like to be remembered. It makes me seem like an old fart and I hate old farts, but to put it another way, I have all my hair, I bench-press 300 pounds, and I don’t drink blood or smoke s**t, and I have the best kids in the world, and my wife, on a good day, is a total delight, and I don’t give a damn if anyone remembers me. I’m just happy to have their friendship.

Howard Chaykin has been a professional comics artist since 1981. Among his most noted works are Marvel’s Star Wars film adaptation (1977), American Flagg!, and Time2 .

“The Writer Says Have Fun” We couldn’t locate what Neal described as “X-Men fighting an army on a double-page spread where the writer says have fun,” because there was no such animal in the Silver Age run—so here’s a one-page Adams mob scene from X-Men #63 (Dec. 1969), as scripted by Roy Thomas and inked by Tom Palmer. Of course, the “writer” never instructed the penciler to “have fun” on this or any other page—partly because Neal decided what the precise layouts and pacing would be. Great page, though, huh? Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

HC: Five favorite television series since anybody started actually caring about the medium.

ADAMS: I don’t think in those terms, because I rarely allow myself to be drawn into those kinds of conversations. I’ll go over the pros and cons of a particular show, but I think of this stuff as food for my brain and not my mouth, although I did love The Dick Van Dyke Show. And Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

“Did You Ever Hear Of… Kong?”

(Above:) Since Neal references the original 1933 King Kong film, here’s a page from X-Men #62 (Nov. ’69) on which he drew his own version of a dinosaur-like creature in Ka-Zar’s Savage Land. Script by Thomas, inks by Palmer. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Left:) And, since the artist mentions that vintage kiddie-TV show twice, here’s a publicity pose of puppets Kukla the clown and Oliver J. Dragon, with live comedienne/co-star Fran Allison, from the 1947-1957 Kukla, Fran and Ollie. The master puppeteer was Burr Tillstrom—and reportedly, the entire show was ad-libbed! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Stories selected and introduced by ROY THOMAS

Cover, slipcase and endpaper designs by MARCOS MARTÍN

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A CELEBRATION OF

– PART FIVE

28

“Carmine Sent Me” NEAL ADAMS On Being A Gadfly— And A Great Comics Artist

I

Interview Conducted by Bryan Stroud

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: My lifelong best friend had begun The Silver Lantern, a website dedicated to documenting the Silver Age of DC Comics that we’d loved so much as boys… and, thanks to some lucky breaks and a little boldness on my part, I started reaching out to creators from that period to interview. This began in January of 2007 with a call to letterer Gaspar Saladino. I thought I’d hit the pinnacle with interview #4, with Carmine Infantino, in May of that year.

During the conversation he asked, “Have you talked to Neal?”

“Well, no.” “Tell him I sent you.” Who was I to argue with Carmine Infantino? So I sent an e-mail to Neal Adams through his webpage, which I titled “Carmine Sent Me.” Neal responded, agreed to the interview, and it took place on May 28, 2007, as only the fourth one I’d conducted over the phone. I was on my way.

BRYAN STROUD: When did you start at DC, exactly?

NEAL ADAMS: Golly. There must be some historians around who can tell you that. I don’t know. It was in the ’60s.

I’m sure some geek around will know exactly when that was, probably the month and the day. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Wikipedia tells us it was 1967: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Neal_Adams.]

BS: Oh, no doubt. Carmine was telling me that he knew more than one person who worshipped the ground you walked on.

Neal & Friends Neal Adams contemplates his cover for Batman #251 (Sept. 1973). Although others from Bob Kane through Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Lew Sayre Schwartz, and Sheldon Moldoff had made significant contributions to the Caped Crusader’s artistic look over the preceding three decades, it was Neal who restored to the masked hero the visual aspect of the “Darknight Detective”—on his way to becoming the grim “Dark Knight” of the 1980s and beyond. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

ADAMS: That’s ’cause I walk in very special places. I don’t walk along those cold cracks. [chuckles] BS: He also told me… this one kind of surprised me… he said he first discovered you in the bullpen working on Jerry Lewis [comics], of all things. Is that true?

ADAMS: No. I was first introduced to Carmine… Carmine was, of course, as with many comicbook artists, a bit of a hero of mine, because when the s**t hit the fan in the country when the book

Seduction of the Innocent came out [in 1954]…

BS: Ah, yes, good old Doc Wertham…

ADAMS: Many, many artists had to desert the field, or were hidden among the cracks and crevices in various places, like Al Williamson was doing, I guess, ghosting for certain comic strip artists, and I guess he would do a comicbook every now and then, and Alex Toth went to California to do animation, and all these guys really disappeared, and the few guys that were left were the guys at DC Comics. There was Joe Kubert, there was Russ Heath, there was Carmine, there was Gil Kane—Eli Katz was his original name.

And Carmine had a very unique style. He was then doing The Flash, and his style kind of got covered up, but I was a fan of his original style when he was doing “Pow-Wow Smith” and some of those other things, so as a fan, you know, to meet Carmine… and Carmine was actually working on staff… not really staff, he had a desk in with the romance editor… what’s his name? Miller. Jack Miller. Jack Miller and his girl assistant, and he was in there when I first came to DC Comics. I came to DC to try to get work with Robert Kanigher. The “much-beloved” A Jerry-mandered Cover Robert Kanigher.

Neal got a chance to draw the madcap comedian plenty of times on the cover of The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #104 (Jan.Feb. 1968). Courtesy of the GCD. (P.S.: Carmine Infantino you’ll see in a little bit!) [TM & © DC Comics.]

BS: Sometimes referred to as “The Dragon”?

ADAMS: Who was a beast in human disguise. And I got to work with Bob, partially because he had lost Joe Kubert because I had recommended Joe to do

“Carmine Sent Me”

29

“Goddess From The Sea” a comic strip called The Green Beret Splash page drawn by Neal Adams for that I had been asked to do, and the Warren Publishing’s Vampirella #1 (Sept. comic strip people had no idea who 1969). Script by Don Glut. Thanks to Jim the good comicbook artists were, Kealy. [TM & © New Comic Company.] and when I realized that I really couldn’t do the strip… I was doing Ben Casey and I couldn’t handle two strips… I took the people from the syndicate and the writer down the path of possibly recognizing that there was such a thing as comicbooks, and rather than try to find somebody in the Ozarks, perhaps they ought to go to some of the best artists that were left in comicbooks, among whom was Joe Kubert, who was the perfect guy for the strip.

BS: Oh, sure. All his war-comic experience.

ADAMS: Yeah. So, I recommended him for The Green Beret to Elliot Caplin, the writer of the strip. [NOTE: Neal misspoke. The writer was apparently Jerry Caplin, the brother of Elliot—and of Al Capp (nee Caplin).] They interviewed him, and Joe worked on The Green Beret for the longest time; and Bob Kanigher, coincidentally, was a little short on artists. I had ended my syndicated strip, which was based on the Ben Casey TV series, and things were just a little bit slow for me. I had been doing some stuff for Jim Warren, and I realized I was putting way too much effort into that and it wasn’t worth it to me, and I thought maybe I’d give it a crack at DC Comics, in spite of the fact that, when I was a teenager and I’d left school, they wouldn’t even let me in the door.

It was a very bad time then. An old fella came out to meet me, a guy named Bill Perry, and I showed him my samples, just to try to meet an editor, and he told me he couldn’t even bring me inside. It didn’t matter if my stuff was good, it didn’t matter anything. They weren’t interested.

BS: That’s surprising.

How Green Was My Beret Joe Kubert’s 12-3-67 Sunday strip for the feature whose actual title was Tales of the Green Beret. Script by Jerry Caplin, though the official writer was book author Robin Moore.

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

ADAMS: No, not at all. For those times it was very typical. Not enough work to go around, The Caplin Brothers and they were (Left to right:) Elliot, Jerry, & Al Caplin, from feeding the a 1940 issue of Newsweek magazine. They’re mouths that examining a toy image of a Shmoo, the were faithful to creation of Al (as “Al Capp”) in his ultrathem, and they popular comic strip Li’l Abner. Thanks to Art just weren’t Lortie. interested.

Nobody really got in easily. Once in a while some guys broke through, like John Severin did a little work for a while, but it didn’t seem like that lasted and I guess he found something else in Crazy [sic—Neal clearly meant Cracked] magazine. But when I went there as a teenager, this very nice old guy just told me I’m wasting my time. As far as they Joe Kubert were concerned, any minute the comicbook business would end.

30

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

Things were not so good.

BS: That just blows my mind to consider it.

ADAMS: Well, I’ll tell you another story that is actually coincidental to that story. Timely magazines, which later became Marvel, really wasn’t doing anything, and you didn’t even know where they were, and I was this 18-year-old kid who was trying to get some work, so I thought maybe I could go to Archie Comics and work for Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, who at that time were doing The Fly and The Shield for Archie Comics.

So, after failing at DC and searching around for nothing… I didn’t know where anybody was… I went over to Archie Comics and I showed my samples. The Archie guys obviously felt sorry for me, because I was foolish enough to want to do comics. Nobody did. Nobody was showing samples. It was a dead field. So they suggested I come back with some samples of The Fly, and they’d introduce me to either Joe Simon or Jack Kirby. So, I came back a week later with my samples and it turns out neither one of them was there.

So I showed my samples to the guys at Archie, and they looked at them sympathetically with kind of a sad look around their eyes, an embarrassed look, and they said, “Well, why don’t we get Joe Simon on the phone for you?” And so they did. Now, it turns out they had shown Joe Simon the samples I had brought in previously. Joe said to me, “Neal… young man, your samples are good. I’d use you on stories, but I’m going to do you a really big favor. I’m gonna turn you down, kid, because this is not a business to be in. It’s gonna fall on its face any day now and everybody’s gonna be out looking for other work and you want to get a job doing something worthwhile, so it may not seem like I’m doing you a favor, but I’m turning you down, and it’s the biggest favor anybody could ever do for you.” “Gosh, thank you, Mr. Simon.”

BS: How very gregarious.

ADAMS: So, the guys at Archie said, “Well, Neal, do you want to do some samples of Archie? Maybe we can give you some work doing our joke pages or something.” So I came back with some samples, and in the end I did work the “Archie” joke pages for a couple of months, and that’s how I got my first work in comics— because Joe Simon turned me down.

The end of that story is: Years later, I made my way into comics and the world of comics had changed, the revolution was on, Neal had established himself as a gigantic pain in the ass, but a sufficiently talented pain in the ass that they put up with me, and I was fighting for the return of original art and royalties and all the rest of it, and I was helping various people… I don’t know if I helped Jerry [Siegel] and Joe [Shuster] at that time or whatever.

Anyway, I was up at DC, for whatever reason, and I’m talking to editors and people that I know, and apparently Joe Simon was up there, and the word was that he was fighting a battle over Captain America and some other things, because he felt he owned certain properties and under certain circumstances, blah, blah, blah.

Apparently, he was looking for Neal Adams. He was down the hallway somewhere, so I sought him out and introduced myself and he said, “Listen. Can I talk to you? I really have to get your advice on something.” And I said, “Well, DC has a coffee room.”

So, we had a cup of coffee and Joe explained to me something of his situation with Captain America and the various characters he felt he had a right to, and I said, “Well, first of all, I can give you these two lawyers and I can give you this person here who seems to be fighting for graphic arts and I can tell you that you should begin by sending bills in and making a paper trail and establishing yourself with the people that you work with and the people who are in charge of the people that you work with as requiring and demanding that you didn’t have contracts; you have rights to these things, you have to create paper, and then you can go and see these people, although most lawyers won’t think much of this… but there are a couple lawyers that you can talk to and also people who are associated with the National Cartoonists Society that you should talk to.”

So, I wrote down a list and we got up. He said, “Thank you.

You have no idea how much I appreciate this.” I said, “I have a pretty good idea.” And so we shook hands and he was gonna leave, and as he was about to leave I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Simon.”

He turned around, he said, “Yeah?” I said, “I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Neal Adams.” He said, “I know.” I said, “Well, let me tell you a story….” He had no idea, no idea that this was the same person that he had spoken to. Absolutely no idea.

Joe Simon in later years. Adams recounts two meetings with the legendary artist/writer/entrepreneur, perhaps a decade or more apart.

A Fly In The Ointment (Above:) In another interview, Neal said that, although Joe Simon wasn’t around to go over his super-hero samples for “The Fly” series in 1959, the Archie group editors who were there that day preferred the above panel of his to one drawn by another artist (unidentified in the Grand Comics Database) for The Fly #4 (Jan. 1960). So they pasted his version of Tommy Troy’s insectular transformation over the other guy’s—and it became Adams’ first art ever published in a comicbook. Thanks to the Reddit site.

(Right:) Neal’s humor work initially saw print in Archie’s Joke Book #45 (March ’60). [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

“Carmine Sent Me”

Through Rain, Sleet, And Hail (Unless It’s Yellow)…

The Green Lantern US postage stamp, utilizing an Adams cover image, sports an already-quaint 39¢ price. [Green Lantern art TM & © DC Comics.]

BS: And what was his final reaction?

ADAMS: His final reaction was, “I guess that wasn’t such very good advice, was it?”

BS: Oh, how the pendulum does swing!

That’s just too funny. You actually have a US postage stamp of your work now… obviously the iconic Green Lantern one.

ADAMS: Very pleasant to see that. Really not so much for me, but I think for an industry that was basically considered to be just one small step above toilet paper. To have come so far that the stuff we have done in comicbooks is appearing on our screens for hundreds of millions of dollars, is appearing on our postage stamps and on our television shows, and is essentially making a contribution to popular culture across the board. Quite incredible. I had a little to do with that. [laughter]

31

BS: It’s modern-day mythology.

ADAMS: You’re a writer, I can tell. Are you a historian, too?

BS: Well, I dabble. Let’s put it that way. And perhaps I lift a little from your old compadre Denny O’Neil. In [the “Batman” story arc] “Knightfall” he said something to the effect, talking about Superman being a modern-day incarnation of Gilgamesh, I believe—but he says, “But you take Batman and what is he, really? Is he a hero?”

ADAMS: Well, certainly Batman is a hero, but Batman is the antithesis of the super-hero if you think in terms of what superheroes have become. You know, bitten by a radioactive spider is pretty much the standard. Batman is the opposite of Superman.

You have Superman, who is the most powerful super-hero there is, essentially, and almost too unrealistic to deal with, and on the other end of the scale you have a person who is in fact not a super-hero at all.

Batman is a not-super-hero. I don’t know who else is a not-super-hero and is successful. I mean, there have been guys around who have put on costumes and have acted like superheroes, but generally they get themselves pasted. Batman succeeds where no one else succeeds. He is not, in any way, a super-hero. He wears a costume, but that’s to scare people.

BS: You did, which is one of the reasons I was pleased to get the opportunity to pick your brain a little bit. Anyway, as I was saying…

Carmine, being part of the old guard, was just hacking out a living, and he was asking me, “Now, how old are you?” I said, “I’m 44.” “Why all this interest in comicbooks?” I said, “Well, Carmine, I…” ADAMS: [laughter] I don’t think actually Carmine has absorbed the impact of what is actually going on here, of what a cultural change this is making. I think Carmine perhaps even thinks that there are illustrators out there doing illustration work, when in fact there is a minority of illustration work out there. All the magazines that used to carry illustration work no longer do it.

The movie posters that used to be Bob Peak and Drew Struzan now are photographs, for the most part. You get a Drew Struzan poster once in a while, but really, the illustration field—it hasn’t totally dried up, but nothing like what used to exist in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s and before that. So the question today is, what does an illustrator do? What does somebody who is really good and really professional and loves to create and draw—what does he do? Who would ever think that somebody would say, “Do comicbooks”?

It’s just a phenomenon. But that’s what’s happening. There are more illustrators and artists doing comicbooks, excellent comicbooks… there’s not even a question.

And then if you think of all the ancillary stuff, the computer games, the movies, the television, the T-shirts.

The people walking around who are proudly wearing Superman t-shirts are not some 12-year-old kid. There are people who are wearing stylish shirts and clothing with these various logos.

It’s become a major part of our culture and is spreading around the world. It’s really quite phenomenal.

Carmine Infantino This photo of the comic artist who by the late ’60s had become DC’s editorial director and would become its publisher in the early ’70s was taken by Bill Crawford; it appeared in the book The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino.

Batman And Robbers One of many dynamic covers produced by longtime artist Carmine Infantino during the 1960s. That of Batman #197 (Dec. 1967) was inked by Mike Esposito. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

32

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

When I started my work on “Batman,” it wasn’t with Denny at all. It was with Bob Haney in The Brave and the Bold. We did something like seven issues, so Bob Haney was my original writer, and that is where I got the opportunity to change Batman, and it was a very good association.

One day I walked into DC Comics, and all the lights were turned down. [sotto voce] Very low. As I walked down the hall, I could see a shadowed figure Bob Haney with hair bristling from its back, and its eyes gleaming and glowing, staring at me coming down the corridor. And it said, “Adams!” I said, “Hi, Julie.”

And it said, “I gotta talk to you.” “Julie, I talk to you every day.”

“Get over here!” “What’s up, Julie?” “You know what I have in my hand?” He had a whole bunch of pieces of paper in his hand. I said, “Letters.” He said, “That’s right. You know what they say? They say ‘How come the only Batman at DC Comics is in Brave and Bold?’” I could see the Hulk features more clearly. Julie was steamed. I said, “So?” “How come you think you know what Batman should be and you don’t think we know?” I said, “Julie, it’s not just me that knows who Batman should be, it’s every kid in America. The only people who don’t know who Batman should be is people here at DC Comics.” “Get in here and write Batman for me!” “Oka-a-y. We’ll forget about how about seven months ago I asked to draw ‘Batman’ for you.” “Yeah, well, forget about that!”

So, I started to draw Batman, and they gave me Denny O’Neil [as writer], who had recently come from Charlton Comics with Dick Giordano. Dick told me about Denny, and the one thing that stuck with me, that was important to me, was that Denny had been working the night beat on a newspaper. I thought, “Oh, that’s good.

Reality. Hmm. That could be good.”

So I had to tell [editor] Murray Boltinoff that I was now doing Batman and I couldn’t do any more Brave and Bold, so they gave it to Bob Brown, I think. I couldn’t get Bob Haney because he was stuck on that, but I got Denny O’Neil, who turned out a really terrific series of scripts. I don’t want to take anything away from Bob Haney. I thought his stories were terrific. They were really very full and wonderful and they were good plots, they had good beginnings, middles, and ends.

But Denny was now working with me, and he started with non-clown characters. He wasn’t going to do The Joker and The Riddler and The Mad Hatter and all those weird characters. He was gonna try to do real stories. And I thought that was pretty cool. I’m sort of a realistic guy myself. I can do the clown characters, but I’d rather do real stories.

So we started with “Secret of the Waiting Graves,” which was really quite wonderful. A little odd, because we didn’t have powerful heroes and villains to deal with, but we had good characters and good characterizations and a good story.

So, I thought, “Hmm, this could be good.”

Everybody else thought so, too. So we started to do a series of stories.

Julius Schwartz

At some point along the way, we did actually think maybe we would do some of those weird costumed characters that Batman would often face, because Batman did start back in the day when Dick Tracy was a very popular strip and the writers did kind of follow the Dick Tracy idea and do

The Adams Batman Begins Adams’ cover for The Brave and the Bold #85 (Aug.-Sept. 1969) not only teamed up Batman and his longtime archery-inclined imitator Green Arrow, but gave the masked bowman a new, more Robin Hood-inspired costume.

The script within was by Bob Haney. Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

these strange characters like Prune Face and these other strange characters. “Batman” was kind of like the Dick Tracy strip, only with more action, and that sort of set the mold for “Batman” stories in many ways. So we did a Two-Face story and a Joker story, and I think that Joker story set the mold for the movie because of the plot, which was “The Five-Way Revenge of the Joker.” He knocks off his henchman, so that was a theme of the story, and that was used in the movie. People talked about the movie [as if] The Killing Joke was the inspiration, but the writer said it’s really “Five-Way Revenge.”

I can see that you’re a person who tries to attribute rational thought to anything that might have been going on in those days, which is a big mistake. Nothing made any sense. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing. It was catch as catch can.

BS: It’s kind of a shame that, after all of the efforts you made on behalf of Siegel and Shuster [circa 1975], you were too late to save somebody like a Bill Finger, for example.

ADAMS: I don’t look for these things, but what happens is that people don’t come to me and say… basically I say, “I’m at your service. I owe enough to this industry to be willing to say, if you

“Carmine Sent Me”

33

The Secret Of The Waiting Readers Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil (the latter on our right) on a comics convention panel, probably in the early 1970s… and, at left, the splash page of their first “Batman” tandem venture, “The Secret of the Waiting Graves,” from Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970). It was the start of a major shift storywise in the way the hero was handled. Inks by Dick Giordano. Thanks to Robert Policastro and Bob Bailey, respectively. [TM & © DC Comics.]

need my help, you just have to reach out and I’ll help. Whatever it takes.” And sometimes people have too much pride to ask for help and I understand that perfectly, you know. That’s just such a natural phenomenon, but when people ask, very often people will rally around and do things. It’s just very often the hardest thing in the world to ask. And so anything I’ve been able to do has really been when a person is at the end of their line. “I can’t do anything else.” Call Neal. And then we turn things around, and everybody rallies, everybody comes to it, it’s just…

Dick Giordano at the 1971 NY con.

Courtesy of Mike Zeck & Pedro Angosto.

BS: It’s the right thing to do.

ADAMS: Well, of course. No surprise.

BS: It’s no more complex than that. What’s right is what’s right. I don’t know… the things I’ve read about both Bill and Bob Kane, you just shake your head after a while…

ADAMS: You know, I think [Bill Finger] did kind of okay. He made a living at it. I don’t know. Yeah, he didn’t get rich, that’s true. On the other hand, nobody was getting rich… well, that’s bulls**t. I’m lying. I just started to lie there. [chuckles] It’s crap. It’s always been a mom-and-pop business, it’s always been s**t, and the one thing that’s happened is it’s gotten a lot better.

You know, God bless the people who get into it now. It’s way, way better for them. For the guys who were in it at the beginning when it was going to be flushed down the toilet, you know… the mere fact that they held on or they were able to hold on is a glory, in my opinion, but nobody expected it to survive and everybody

The Joker’s On You! The actual title of the story Neal refers to in the interview as “The Five-Way Revenge of The Joker” was just a wee bit different in actual form, but what’s an apostrophe and a bit of verbal musical chairs between friends? Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

34

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

BS: Yeah, for that era, as near as I can tell, you’re absolutely right.

Bob Kane

ADAMS: And he was paid for comicbooks he never did. He had other people do them… he got royalties, he got some kind of deal at the end, so he was able to take care of himself and they didn’t bother him when he did paintings with Batman on them, and he did a TV show. You know, Bob was all right. I don’t know so much about Bill Finger, but I hear he wasn’t so good for that.

BS: Yeah, from what I’ve been able to gather, Bill toiled in obscurity and unfortunately died the same way.

ADAMS: But you know, most of those guys went home at night and they kissed their wives and they watched television and they lived a normal life and it was that kind of a business in those days.

You just can’t compare it to today. How could you find a Frank Miller back in those days?

Bill Finger Bob Kane & Co. As a very young man, Kane created Batman with writer Bill Finger—and in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) he was delivering powerful pages like this one, with an inking assist from an equally youthful Jerry Robinson. Courtesy of Robert Higgerson. [TM & © DC Comics.]

was grabbing for whatever little piece of s**t they could. You know they didn’t even have contracts. They had “contracts.” [uses air quotes] Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster signed a contract, but when I got in [people] didn’t even have contracts. They were ready to go out of business. They had this statement on the back of the check that says, “We own everything.” I went to a lawyer and he said, “That’s not a contract. Just write ‘under protest’ under it or cross it out.

It means nothing. It means nothing Two Of A Kind in court.” So, we went through that To draw the “Deadman” terrible time, and it was like being feature, Neal reports, he in the Stone Age, it was unreal. You had to relinquish drawing can’t put a definition on it. And those The Spectre comic for guys who suffered through it… you editor Julius Schwartz. This know, God bless Bob Kane, who [as a black-&-white illo of both supernatural heroes is very young artist] was able to bring courtesy of “Romitaman” his mom or his dad down and bring a dealer Mike Burkey; see lawyer down and was actually able to his ad on p. 27. [Spectre get a contract. He is, as far as I know, & Deadman TM & © DC the only guy in the business that Comics.] actually got a contract.

I went through it. I tried as much as I could to change it… it was a disaster and it needed every bit of help it could get. I wish there were more people that could repair the broken animal that it was, but we came out of it. We came out of it the better for it. And I don’t know, is it because we’re America and we’re Americans and we have a better attitude? Why is it? Is it because we believe in heroes, is it because we’re optimistic? What is it about the nature of comicbooks that makes it such an American thing? It makes a universal thing, but it all really comes from America, and to think that our greatest comicbook super-hero came from two little Jewish kids in Cleveland, Ohio, of all places, is a wonderful story. So, as much as I get pissed off about it, you know I got up out of the fight and I had blood all over me and mud all over me, but you know around me everybody was smiling and moving forward, so I went and washed off and cleaned up and everything’s fine. [laughter] BS: Absolutely… and well, it was pivotal, the work that you did. More than one person has commented to me that the efforts that you put forth led to that sea change that was long overdue.

“Carmine Sent Me”

35

Requiem For A Deadman (Left:) Co-creators Arnold Drake (writer) and Carmine Infantino (penciler) produced the first installment of the groundbreaking series “Deadman” for Strange Adventures #205 (Oct. 1967). (Right:) Neal Adams took over as penciler with #206 (Nov. ’67) and drew the remainder of its original run. Drake scripted and George Roussos inked both these stories. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

ADAMS: Well, there you go. Somebody had to do it.

BS: It’s certainly something to be proud of. You kind of broke out on the “Deadman” comic. Was it intimidating at all to be thrown a project that was started by others? Did that bother you at all?

ADAMS: Not at all. I was just accepting assignments, and I thought it was wonderful that Carmine did that first issue… and then Carmine wanted to be an art director, so they cast around and I was basically the only fish to be able to fry and to follow something like that, and I just loved the hell out of it. I had to give up The Spectre at the time. I thought I was giving up something more significant, but “Deadman” turned out to be a pretty interesting project. Remember, I had done this soap opera syndicated strip based on Ben Casey. I wasn’t really that much of a super-hero guy. To me, super-heroes are a little… if you punch somebody in the face, he bleeds and he falls down and you have to take him to the hospital to get him fixed and maybe he won’t get fixed and there’s lots of problems. It’s not that you’re battling in abandoned warehouses and nobody really suffers the blow. I don’t really do very well in that kind of thing. I’ll do it, because I’m a professional. But Deadman was a very interesting character. Once again, not only not a super-hero, but he’s dead. [laughter] He’s dead, man.

BS: Yeah, he’s certainly not pleased with his station in life… or death.

ADAMS: Right. So it was my kind of comicbook, because it had a real gritty sense of reality to it. You’ve got to remember, too, that a

lot of those older guys came out of those times where there weren’t that many super-heroes. I guess Carmine did super-hero stuff, but he also did Western stuff; he did other stuff, too, and he was also a tremendous designer, and even his characters weren’t necessarily super-heroes, you know. Flash was, I guess, and he became famous for that. Deadman didn’t have balloon muscles, he had real anatomy, he was a gymnast and a trapeze artist and so if I had to make the choice, I’d have picked me first, but I think Carmine doing it really set up a great character, and passing it on to me really said basically, “Dinner is made. Would you like to enjoy it?”

And I said, “Yeah.”

BS: Great analogy. Now, later on you actually took over scripting as well.

What led you to that?

ADAMS: Well, what was happening with “Deadman” was that you have a certain standard of writing, of a given time, and it flows with the time, and in those days, it was, “Here is a super-hero; do a story about him.” You know, do a “Superman” story, do a “Batman” story, whatever it is, because there’s going to be hundreds of them, and you’re just going to do one… so you come up with a story, bring somebody else into it… blah, blah, blah. To me, that’s not what “Deadman” was about. “Deadman” was about Deadman.

Maybe it had an end, but it didn’t matter if it had an end.

The idea was you wanted to do the story about Deadman, you didn’t want to do the story about Fred who is a divorced parent

36

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

Left For Deadman Neal says he became “Deadman’s” writer as well as artist after drawing a single script (actually two scripts he had accordioned into one) from veteran Robert Kanigher. But since Adams’ first credited writing for Boston Brand appeared in Strange Adventures #212 (May-June 1968), seen above left—while the RK story only showed up in #214 (Sept.-Oct. ’68), seen at right—that would mean the Kanigher yarn was published out of order. Well, stranger things have happened—and, after all, the name of the mag was Strange Adventures! Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

or whatever the hell it is. It should be about Deadman, it should circulate around Deadman. It seemed like Deadman became something that everybody threw up in the air and everybody took shots at it. Everybody wanted to write a “Deadman” story because it was the only book at DC Comics that was getting any attention. So Bob Kanigher wrote a two-part story, and I went to my editor at the time, who turned out to be Dick Giordano, because it had been passed on to Dick after Miller had left under dubious circumstances. I don’t know how to say that the right way. It wasn’t good.

So, Dick had it, and Kanigher wrote a 2-part script, and Kanigher did kind of that thing that Kanigher does. He sets up a situation, the character fails at the situation one time, then he fails at the situation a second time, and then he succeeds. If you read Bob’s stuff, that’s how it works. I was a Bob Kanigher fan, and the longer he made the story the more the guy would fail until he succeeded. So, what I did was, I took that story and I compressed it into one book, because it was really only worth one book. I took the story to my editor and I said, “Dick, it took a lot of work to take that story from two books into one, but if I’d left it as two books it just would have been….” He said, “I know.” And then he had some other scripts that were being submitted and he said, “Maybe you should take a look at these.” And I looked at them and I talked to him and I said, “This is just taking Deadman and turning him into The Flash or something. It’s not a ‘Deadman’ story.” He said, “You want to write it?” I said, “Yeah. I’d love to write it. At least it’ll be a

‘Deadman’ story.”

So that’s what I did. I started writing “Deadman.” You can’t really tell when you read the stories how much it re-focuses on Deadman, because I’d always kind of made it focus on Deadman through the art, but it became even more re-focused on Deadman.

People seemed to like that.

BS: It did pretty well there for quite some time, although of course ultimately it got canceled.

ADAMS: Well, it got canceled for very interesting reasons. You said you’re a historian?

BS: A little bit. Like I say, my focus is more the Silver Age than anything else.

ADAMS: One of the interesting stories of the Silver Age is the advent of comicbook shops. You’re aware of comicbook stores?

BS: Right, instead of the twirling metal rack at the corner grocery.

ADAMS: Yes. The twirling metal rack at the corner grocery was actually the magazine rack at the magazine distribution center or toy store or candy store where they had comicbooks. What was happening in those days was that the distribution of comicbooks and magazines was going way, way down, because they had discovered this concept. Originally, and this happened when I was a kid, they had a concept of returns… like, if they didn’t sell your

“Carmine Sent Me”

37

BS: Wasn’t working.

ADAMS: Not only didn’t work, it didn’t work a lot. I used to trade comicbooks with kids with the tops cut off all the time. I don’t know if the comicbook fans have those copies, but whatever the reasons and however the manipulations went, everybody sort of agreed that wasn’t a great idea.

But then they came up with a worse idea. An idea so much worse that you can’t even conceive of it.

When I tell it to you, you will say to yourself, “That can’t be. It’s not even possible.” They said, “Why don’t we have what is called an ‘affidavit return’?

I will say that I destroyed 500 copies, and sign a piece of paper to that effect.” [laughter] BS: Ah. The old honor system.

Question Of The Issue: How Could These Comics Not Sell?

Adams relates a compelling, if not perhaps ultimately provable, theory as to why several fan-favorite comics titles drawn by himself and others failed to “sell”—at least, to sell so far as the comics companies themselves were concerned. If he was correct, then two issues of his to suffer may well have been Strange Adventures #216 (Jan.-Feb. 1969), which featured the swan song of the original “Deadman” series—and The X-Men #57 (June 1969), whose cover we post here mainly because Neal’s first X-Men cover (#56) was seen earlier this issue. Other analysts have suggested other reasons for the failure of such series, such as a lack of visual sophistication on the part of the still relatively youthful readership of the late 1960s; still, it’s tempting to wonder if whole shipments of certain comics “falling off the back of a truck” might indeed have had something to do with these classic mags’ low official sales figures at the time. Will we ever know the truth for certain? [Covers TM & © DC Comics & Marvel Characters, Inc., respectively.]

magazines, they’d return them and then you’d try to redistribute them to various places or you’d try to work out some kind of deal, give them to hospitals or whatever, but it was a big pain in the ass.

You’re doing a magazine and you get these magazines returned to you… what do you do with them? Well, you take them to a warehouse and eventually you destroy them. So, the distributor said, “Well, why don’t we destroy them?” “Well, how do we know that you’re telling us the truth, that you didn’t sell so many, because you could just keep the money?” [laughter] So, the distributor said, “Well, why don’t we do this: We’ll put them through a machine and just slice the logo off the top, and we’ll wrap them in rubber bands, and we’ll send you those back.”

Sounds like a good idea. So, they started to do that. Now, in my neighborhood I would go to this toy shop that was on the way to Mark Twain Junior High in Coney Island, and there would be this toy shop where you could buy comicbooks, last month’s or the month’s before, comicbooks, for 3¢ and 2¢ and 5¢. But the top, where the logo is, would be sliced off.

The two-cent ones, the slicer would go through 2 or 3 pages, so you’d really lose reading material, but if you just wanted to read the comicbook you could sort of imagine what was there and pay 2¢ for it. Or 3¢ or 5¢. The 5-cent ones, just the logo was stripped off.

So, this whole idea of keeping the distributor honest… [laughter]

ADAMS: The honor system.

BS: With no honor.

ADAMS: “I will say that I threw them into the shredder. So now that I’ve said I’m throwing them into the shredder, what do I do with them?

I can either throw them into the shredder, or make a buck.” Hmmm. Difficult decision.

For an honest man, a difficult decision. But you know, magazine distributors are not exactly honest men. Affidavit returns… “I’ve got customers who will take those Playboy magazines missing the logo and sell them easy to all the barber shops in town.” So, at that time there were 440 local distributors. Why do I know that? I know everything. 440 local distributors around the country. Some of them have consolidated in recent years, but at that time it was about 440.

If you were an entrepreneurial young man, a teenager, or maybe a little bit older, and you had your father’s station wagon, or van—not too many vans in those days—you could drive up to the back of your local distributor, 440 of them, one in your area, and you could walk in the back, and there would be a table next to the door where the trucks loaded. And on the table would be Playboy magazines, Cosmo, tons of comicbooks, and you could buy them for—let’s say it was a 15-cent comicbook, you could buy them for 5¢ [each].

BS: Bargain basement.

ADAMS: Bargain basement. Now, there’s no way that you’re going to report as a distributor that you sold those comicbooks, because

38

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

if you report that you sold them, you’d have to sell them for 8¢ or 9¢. If you sold them for 5¢, nobody’s making any profit, so you just write them off as being destroyed. Shredded. So, you had guys with station wagons all around the country who would do that— buy those comicbooks—and they would go to their friends who were interested and then they would rent a motel room or a hotel room, like in the Penta Hotel in New York.

And then they’d invite all the comicbook fans in the area that they have learned to know and love over the past years because they were all comicbook fans and they did newsletters among one another, and the announcement would go out that these comicbooks would be for sale at various prices in this hotel room. Guys would come up, drink a little punch, buy whatever comicbooks they wanted at whatever condition they wanted to buy them at. And some of them would go out and sell some of those.

So, all around the country, you’ve got these little get-togethers in motel rooms, in the local church, outside of school, blah, blah, blah, of people buying comicbooks from the back of the distributor for 5¢ apiece and selling them for 15 or 20¢, sometimes they’d sell them for two bucks because they got some really nice stuff that you couldn’t get in your local distributors because your local distributors, your local store, wasn’t even getting them.

Those guys, all around the country, became your first comicbook stores. You want to know where the guys who owned

those comicbook stores came from? Those are the guys with the vans. That would buy the books out of the back of the distributor, and sell them at the motel room. Those are the guys who became the comicbook stores.

That’s how the direct sales market began. From those guys.

One guy went into DC Comics and said, “Look. Instead of you sending them to your distributor, telling you he only sold 40% of them, I’ll buy them from you direct, and I’ll pay you full price, no returns.” How could you lose? They went to Marvel and did the same thing. Once DC started to do it, Marvel started to do it. That became Phil Seuling and the direct sales market, the beginning of the direct sales market.

BS: Wow. Just an obvious, logical progression.

ADAMS: Exactly. Now, put yourself in that historical position.

Forget that the direct sales market has begun. Think of all those distributors around the country and all those guys pulling up in the vans. You’re gonna go in and you’re gonna buy comicbooks, only you’re gonna focus, to a certain degree, on comicbooks you can sell for two bucks or 50¢ rather than 15¢.

So, you’re going to get, let me see, Steranko’s Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Barry Smith’s Conan, Neal Adams’ “Deadman,” Green Lantern/Green Arrow. What books are you gonna buy? Batman, by Neal Adams. I go to a comicbook convention now, I sign mint condition copies of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman, bought by the box load out of the distributor. My good friend Carmine says, “Gosh, Neal, I don’t know why ‘Deadman’ isn’t selling better.

I mean, when you do a cover on another comicbook it goes up 10 points, but your own comicbooks just aren’t doing that well.” [laughter] BS: Just all that work in the shadows. Interesting…

ADAMS: How much sense does it make that the most popular comicbooks out there didn’t do any better than the other comicbooks? Just pick the comicbooks at the time. The most popular comicbooks and the ones that everybody wanted to get, they didn’t do any better than any other comicbooks. There’s a reason. Some of them actually did worse. Nobody understood why.

The reason they didn’t understand why is because nobody in the comicbook business thought to investigate the distributors, and if they did, what could they do? Arms broken?

BS: Totally out of control at that point.

ADAMS: Right. Now, they could have asked for returns. It’s possible. The reason I know this is because, when we [Continuity Associates] did comicbooks, we got into the distribution business—well, we didn’t get into the business, but we dealt with the distributors, and my daughter went around to the various distributors in our area, and they were only too delighted to show her the table in the back with this old s**t. “Ah, yeah. This is the table where we sell s**t. The guys come in; they just pick the stuff up.” “Oh, really?” [laughter]

Covered With Glory Adams’ first “Deadman” cover—for Strange Adventures #207 (Nov. 1967).

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

We’re at a comicbook convention when we were distributing, and we had some comicbook store owner come over with a bunch of comicbooks to our table, and this is well into this whole idea, because that business didn’t discontinue. What happened was, as time went on, as the comicbook stores opened—let’s say they ordered a certain comicbook and it did well. And they discovered that it did well by selling out. So, what they’d do is they’d take their vans and go down to the local distributor and say, “Have you got any of these left?” Then they’d buy them for 5¢ or whatever amount the percentage was, and they’d take them back to their stores and sell them as if they were the direct market sales copies. Right?

“Carmine Sent Me”

So, what happened was, certain comicbook companies, and us included, we did things with our comicbooks. For example, we did a glow-in-the-dark Cyber Rad and we distributed it to the direct sales market, but the regular copy went to the retail market. One day my daughter is at a convention and we’re selling stuff, and some comicbook store, local retailer, comes up and says, “Why doesn’t this have the glow-in-the-dark? This is a rip-off.”

My daughter looked at him and she said, “You got that from Diamond?” “Yeah.” “Well, you know, we didn’t ship the glow-inthe-darks to the regular retail stores, we only shipped the glow-inthe-dark to the direct sales market. So, are those direct sales market copies or are those from the local distributor?” “Uh… uh…

I’ll go check.”

BS: [laughs] Never to be seen again.

ADAMS: Yeah, you go check. Schmuck. Thief. Anyway, you wanted an explanation… and I believe Carmine is still confused about it. Carmine did a speaking tour, went around the country and did radio interviews on Green Lantern/Green Arrow. He was invited to all these places and, “Why aren’t the damn comicbooks selling?” “I don’t know.”

BS: That was quite a watershed event there, too. Was it just mainly Denny’s work, or was it pretty collaborative as far as the socially conscious effort?

ADAMS: I would have to say that you have to give Denny total credit for the extremely socially conscious aspect of it. What had happened was that I was a big fan of Gil Kane, and Gil had left DC Comics to do whatever he was doing, Blackmark or some stuff. So, he was no longer going to be doing Green Lantern, which, if you

39

had interviewed Julie Schwartz at the time, he would say, “Goodbye, good riddance, goddammit.” But essentially, he knew that Gil made Green Lantern. So, they started to hand out the scripts to other people… Jack Sparling and people like that… and of course the stuff was terrible. So, I went to Julie and I said, “Look, Julie, please, before you cancel the book, let me do a couple of issues.” He said, “You wanna do Green Lantern?” And I said, “Yeah.” “Why? You’re out of your mind. The sales are diving down.” I said, “No, man, I really love the character and I love Gil Kane’s work. I’d like to do kind of a Gil Kane thing; I’d really love to do it.”

So, I had done a kind of a revise of Green Arrow in The Brave and the Bold. They decided to pull Green Arrow, and I thought, “Wow, shoot. The character’s kind of a nothing character, why don’t I turn him into something?” So, I had turned Green Arrow into a pretty good character, but there was nothing for him to do.

Everybody was like; “Wow, he’s cool-looking,” but they didn’t know what to do, so it occurred to Julie, why don’t we do Green Lantern and Green Arrow? Of course, he mentioned it to me and I said, “Are you out of your mind?”

BS: [laughter] They’re both green!

ADAMS: “What is that? That’s not even funny. You’re out of your mind.” He said, “Well, I’m thinking of maybe making it a continuing story with the two characters, and I’ll call Denny O’Neil in. You’re doing pretty good work with Denny.” I said, “Yeah, that would be good.” So, he called Denny in, and essentially Denny, having been a reporter and also being very socially conscious, was a bit of a radical at the time. They kind of asked me if I minded it going off in a little bit more meaningful direction and of course

Green Power Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (April 1970)—technically Green Lantern #76, according to the all-important indicia, but more usually called by the former title— introduced the Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams run of “relevant” issues, which were very influential on the comics field. Pictured are the cover, with full art by Adams, and the iconic “orange skins/purple skins/black skins” sequence, inked by Dick Giordano. Courtesy of the GCD & Bob Bailey, respectively. Within, as [TM & © DC Comics.]

40

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

I said, “No, no, that sounds great. If I’m going to have to do two green guys, it doesn’t really matter where I’m going. Let’s get crazy.” So essentially all I gave was approval. Denny went off and started writing very, very socially conscious stories. He knew that I would carry them through. It’s sort of like a writer and director, you know if the director is going to do the job, then you can basically focus on the story. So that’s what Denny did, he really focused on these stories and we did some pretty darn good stories, in my opinion, until we got to the drug thing.

BS: Yeah, I imagine the Comics Code kind of tripped that one up a bit.

ADAMS: Not really. What happened was, we were going along and Denny did a number of good issues. We attacked President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew and that got a letter from the Governor of Florida telling us that if we ever do such a thing again, he’s going to discontinue distribution of DC comics in Florida. Florida has managed to keep that reputation, even up to recent years. So, we managed to ruffle some feathers along the way, but essentially nobody actually knew what we were doing until we were about into our third issue and then everybody liked it.

My good buddy Carmine will tell you he knew what was going on, but he had no idea. That was the good thing about it: No one was paying any attention, so we actually got really into the meat of it before anybody kind of woke up, so we were into our third or fourth issue by the time everybody goes, “Whoa! What’s going on here? This is like cool, or awful,” or whatever the hell they

might have thought.

So, we got into a number of issues, but we were starting to get into overpopulation by that point, and I was getting a little antsy because I don’t consider overpopulation to be what you call your “issue.” It’s a phenomenon and people have to deal with it, but if you have Americans getting vasectomies while Indians are having as many as 10 to 12 children in a family, this is not the solution to the problem. Not a good direction. So, people who can afford it not having kids—it’s just stupid.

Anyway, so I was feeling, we’re coming to the end of this run here, but you know what we haven’t done? We haven’t done anything on drugs. And it was a big issue, and the state of New York came to DC Comics and they wanted to do a drug comicbook, and Denny was asked about it and I was asked about it, so Denny did an outline and I did an outline of what kind of book it could be and they didn’t like our outlines, [laughter] and we had taken a lot of time. Both Denny and I had gone to Phoenix houses and we had talked to the guys and you know the s**t that you hear isn’t exactly the s**t you hear from the guys who are really junkies. Very, very different. I was also the president of the local board of our drug addiction house in the Bronx.

BS: So, you saw it all.

ADAMS: I saw it all, had some experience, and I was taking guys down from 42nd Street with their noses running on their bellies and locking them away into our local, what was originally a nunnery, and getting people in who were banging on the doors, and it was just like… nuts. Anyway, I knew a lot about it.

Before People Was Even A Magazine…

(Left:) Neal didn’t really identify with the “overpopulation” theme of GL/GA #81 (Dec. 1970), which was probably partly inspired by Paul & Ann Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb, whose first two sentences predicted (quite inaccurately, as it turned out) that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death during the 1970s.

(Right:) The cover (and interior) of issue #83 (April-May 1971) used a visual image of Vice President Spiro Agnew as the villain, and resulted in a threat from Florida’s governor to block distribution of DC’s comics if such a thing happened again. Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

So, because I had a lot of experience, I had an awful lot of knowledge, and things were not, you know, “Oh, just stop. Just tell people no.”

That’s not the way it is when you have a kid coming home from school at night and he’s got a load of homework to do and a load of things to do and he wants to enjoy himself and hang out with his friends but he can’t because he’s loaded down with homework and his dad comes home, kicks his shoes off, smokes a cigar, gets some booze and sits in front of the television, and yet he’s treated like a king and this kid is treated like s**t. A kid can get annoyed at that and perhaps unhappy, and if he hasn’t got too much to go to, there’s a very good chance that he will go to drug addiction. I can’t imagine why…

BS: [laughter] Yeah, go figure.

ADAMS: So, the problem with society, both of us,

“Carmine Sent Me”

41

Denny and I, realized was that we were not taking care of our kids and we were not giving them alternate things to do and we’re not rewarding them for their hard work and we weren’t doing much of anything. We were actually making potential addicts.

And they [the state of New York] wanted us to do something about telling them to say “no.”

This is like, “You’re bad.”

No. We don’t think so.

You’re bad, society, you’re screwed up and you’re making us bad, but we’re not that bad. So, they weren’t happy with what we did, so they abandoned the project.

So, we’re going into this overpopulation thing with this Green Lantern/ Green Arrow thing and I think, “We’ve got to do something on drug addiction,” but of course it’s against the Comic Code, so I went home and I did that first cover.

You know, with Speedy in the foreground?

Uncontrolled Substances Two blockbuster covers by Neal Adams, for GL/GA #85 & 86 (Aug.-Sept. & Oct.-Nov. 1971)… “the drug issues.” The stories inside were written by Denny O’Neil. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

I penciled it and I inked it and I put the lettering in and I brought it in and I gave it to Julie Schwartz and his hand grabbed it very briefly and then he dropped it on the desk as if it were on fire.

He said, “We can’t do this!” I said, “Well, we ought to.” He said, “You know we can’t do this. It’s against everything.” I said, “Well, this is where we’re going. This is what we ought to be doing.”

So, he said, “You’re out of your mind. Once again, you’re being a pain in the ass.” So, I took it in to Carmine. Carmine didn’t know what to make of it. I took it into the Kinney people, who were now running DC Comics and were sort of used to this, and of course they dropped it like a hot potato.

I said, “You know, guys, this is where we ought to be going with this.” “Oh, no, Neal, please, just go and work. Leave us alone.

You can’t do this.” And of course, Julie had a twinkle in his eye, but still he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He said, “Why did you finish the cover?” I said, “Well, because it’s going to get printed.”

“No, this will never get printed.” Anyway, I make a visit over to Marvel Comics a week or so later and somebody comes over to me, probably Roy [Thomas] or somebody, I don’t know, and says, “You know what Stan [Lee] is doing?” I said, “What?” He says, “He had this guy, this drug addict popping pills and he like walks off a roof.” I said, “Stan had a guy popping pills and he walks off a roof?

That’s kind of a unique situation. [laughter] I don’t exactly know where you’re going to find that, you know… I don’t know who’s going to be walking off a roof.” “Well, you know, Stan read some kind of article about a guy who went off a roof.” “Oh, okay. Sure.

All right. Whatever.” And he said, “So we did it and we sent it over

to the Comics Code and the Comics Code rejected it, they said he has to change it.” So, I said, “Well, what’s Stan gonna do?” “He’s not gonna change it.” “You’re kidding.” He says, “No. Not gonna change it. We’re just gonna send it out, it’s ready to go out. We’re sending it out. It’s going to be on the stands next week. Week after next.” “Really? No s**t. What about the Comics Code seal?” “Not gonna put the Comics Code seal on it.” “Really?”

So, sure enough, he sends it out, and I go over to Marvel Comics since I heard it was out and I say, “What happened?” He said, “Nobody said anything.” “Nobody said anything?” “Nobody even noticed that the seal wasn’t on there.” “No s**t. Nobody even noticed?”

BS: What do we do now, Batman?

ADAMS: What do we do now? So I go back to DC, and now that word had gotten out… Now try to imagine DC… they’ve got this cover, right? Could have scooped Stan with something real and solid. They screwed up. So, within a day or two they call a meeting of the Comics Code Authority. Remember the Comics Code Authority is bought for and paid for by the comicbook companies.

It doesn’t exist independently. It’s a self-regulating organization.

So, DC Comics calls Marvel, they call Archie, they go and have this emergency meeting. “We’re going to revise the Comics Code!”

Okay, within a week they revised the Code and within a week and a half they tell me and Denny to go ahead with the story. [laughter] BS: Just that easy.

ADAMS: Just that easy. Well, it took the cooperation of quite a few people, but there you go. That’s how it happened. So, Stan is

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Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

responsible for us being able to do that drug story, when you get right down to it. Thank you, Stan. I’m popping a pill, walking off a roof.

BS: Now you went over to Marvel shortly thereafter, did you not? Did you prefer the Marvel method for your kind of work or did it make any difference? Was it that Marvel had different kinds of characters from DC?

BS: About as unrealistic as possible, but nonetheless…broke down the door.

ADAMS: You never want a whole, good character who knows what he’s all about. You want a wounded dove, who doesn’t necessarily know which direction they’re going. You know, that’s how Marvel made their living and continues to make their living, in these partially corrupted and destroyed characters. That’s really the difference between Marvel and DC. Not that the characters are flawed, but the origins of DC characters have always been that somebody gets power, they realize they can do good with it, so they become a hero. That’s the sparkling, shiny teeth, and they’re the good guys from the get-go and that’s the end of it. That was the standard for the DC characters. They all know that they’re good guys and they sit around the table and congratulate each other on their goodness.

ADAMS: Incredible. Stan was always kind of like innocently naïve.

“I wonder what would happen if we just threw this out.” Not, “Oh, the s**t hit the fan and we’re in trouble now.” Just “Oh.” Stan in his own way is just wonderful. He’s like the world’s innocent.

BS: Just go for forgiveness rather than permission and see what happens?

ADAMS: I guess. I don’t even understand it, but still he won the day. He won the day for us. Incredible. Stan, thank you. How do you say thank you? Thank you, Stan, for having a guy popping pills and walking off a roof.

BS: Excelsior!

ADAMS: Excelsior.

Now, Marvel Comics started as Timely Comics, and at Timely Comics Stan Lee was doing his five plots on a regular basis. You can’t necessarily name them, but that’s how we referred to them…

Drug Issues—And Issues With Drugs (Left:) Marvel’s wall-crawler saves a drug-addled youth in Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May 1971), though Adams and others criticized Stan Lee’s story for not being authentic enough—saying that no one ever took drugs and then lept off a building. While the yarn was perhaps a bit vague and under-researched, A/E’s editor recalls reading accounts of drug-addled people doing precisely that. Art by Gil Kane & John Romita. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Right:) All the same, the discovery that Green Arrow’s partner/ward Speedy is drug-addicted packs more of a punch, between writer Denny O’Neil’s reportorial credentials and Neal Adams’ realistic artwork . From Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85. Inks by Dick Giordano. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“Carmine Sent Me”

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someone would have to stop him.

Stan Lee

So, we’d call them Stan’s five plots. When Jack Kirby came to Marvel, Jack Kirby’s philosophy was, “Who wants to draw six pages when you can draw 22 pages? So why don’t we take your monsters, Stan, and turn them into sort of heroes?” So, four people go up into space and they get affected by gamma rays and come back as monsters, but these monsters have turned into heroes.

Then you get The Fantastic Four. Some kid rides out to a nuclear bomb site, the scientist goes out to rescue him, he gets irradiated by the radiation, and it turns him into a monster, the Hulk. There’s another hero…well, not quite a hero.

Then you’ve got a doctor who’s the greatest surgeon in the world, but he’s a prick and a bastard and something happens to him and he can’t use his hands any more so now he decides to go up into the mountains and become a mystic and the only thing that stops him from being a Jack Kirby total prick is that he learns magic from this sage old man, who says there’s another guy up there who’s more of a prick than he is and now he has to fight him because he’s not enough of a prick himself, so he turns into Doctor Strange. Another standard plot.

So, Jack Kirby was basically turning these flawed creatures from Stan’s short stories into the heroes of Marvel. All of which were flawed and start out as bad guys and turn into good guys. Even Spider-Man. That is essentially the difference between Marvel and DC Comics. People think that Marvel is just about flawed heroes, but the reason they’re flawed heroes is because they come from monsters.

A Thing That Needs Saying Jack Kirby’s powerful penciling for the first page of Fantastic Four #2 (Dec. 1961)—since we ran so many pages from FF #1 just two issues ago. Script & editing by Stan Lee; inks by George Klein. Ye Editor again: “Jack Kirby was arguably the most innovative and important action comicbook artist of all time, and the early success of Marvel Comics is inconceivable without him. That said, however, I feel compelled to note that Neal Adams’ fanciful reconstruction of how the Marvel Universe came about—as if it were definitely and solely Kirby’s inspiration to do longer stories and turn the Timely monsters into heroes, rather than Lee’s—is no more indisputable than the belief that concepts like The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, etc., were all Stan Lee’s idea. Neal’s backward-looking crystal ball is not necessarily any more accurate than anyone else’s.” [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

as “Stan Lee’s five plots”… and they were usually about six pages long and it would be Mogog the Gogog from space and he would come to Earth and he would have some sort of weakness. In one of them this guy conquers the universe and arrives on Earth and he’s only a foot high. [chuckles] A really cute idea.

Then you’ve got Ant-Man, a guy with a formula that can make him gigantic or really small. Then there’s Fin Fang Foom, the only dragon with pajama pants. He would terrorize the countryside and

As to how I did some work for Marvel—I’ll tell you the sequence of events. I had done a “Deadman” story in which I did this optical illusion, because Deadman was going into this mysterious, hell-like place or heaven-like place, or whatever. To find Vishnu or whoever. And there’s this one panel where I have the steam rising up from below going past Deadman.

And if you take the comicbook and hold it at an angle, that steam that rises up coalesces

Jim Steranko

“Hey A Jim Steranko Effect” (Left:) Jim Steranko’s psychedelic cover for Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4 (Sept. 1968). The artist’s work during this period was inspiring comics fans and pop-art lovers alike. Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Above:) In the “Deadman” tale in Strange Adventures #216 (Jan.-Feb. 1969), writer/artist Neal Adams used vaporous “rays” rising from below to give an esoteric, cross-company shout-out to Steranko. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

into letters. It says: “Hey, a Jim Steranko effect.” [sustained laughter] BS: Subliminal messages.

ADAMS: Because Jim was over there with op effects and doing all kinds of things, so I thought, “I’ll do this.” Cute little thing.

Anyway, the thing comes out, and a week or two afterward Jim Steranko comes over to DC Comics, seeks me out, shakes my hand, and says, “Hey, that was cool.” I said, “Thanks.” And so, we got to talking and I asked him about what was going on at Marvel and he said, “Well, they have this way of doing it. Stan does so many books that he just lets you do the story and you hand in the pages and you write the story on the side or with notes as to what takes place and Stan writes the dialogue.” “That’s pretty interesting. You get scripts over here.” He said, “It’s a pretty good way to work, because basically you’re in control of the story. You decide what the story is and Stan puts in the words.” “Huh.” That was known in those days as the Marvel method. Because there was Stan, you could just do so many books. At that time, they were bringing in Roy. So anyway, I thought, you know, I would like to do something like that for a couple of issues. I would enjoy

that. Hmmmm. So, I thought about it for a couple of weeks. And I went over. I called Stan and I said I’d like to come over and talk, I’m interested in doing something. Not that things were slow, it’s just, I just do things like that. Also, some other things were happening at that time that were bothering me. For example, when artists would go back and forth between the companies, they would sign different names. “Mickey Demeo” was, uh… I don’t know who the hell he was.

BS: Wasn’t that Mike Esposito?

ADAMS: I think so, somebody like that. Anyway, so they would sign different names, because they didn’t want the companies to know. Like, you know, you’re not gonna know? So they worked under aliases, and I thought it was stupid and also not good for the freelancers. Very bad. So, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. So, I went over and I talked to Stan and I said, “I’d like to do a Marvel book in the Marvel style, you know, where I do the book and the dialogue gets put in.” Stan said, “What book do you want to do?” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “Well, you can do any book you want.” I said, “Stan, that’s very nice. Why are you saying that?” He said, “I’m saying it because the guys around here are saying that the only book they’re reading from DC Comics is ‘Deadman.’”

BS: Ah-hah! Your reputation precedes you.

ADAMS: So, I said, “You don’t mean any book.” He said, “You can have any book you want. You can have Fantastic Four, you can have Spider-Man, you can have anything.”

So, I said, “Okay. What’s your worst-selling title?” He said, “The worst-selling title is X-Men. We’re going to cancel it in two issues.” [pause] Let that sink in. ‘The worst-selling title is X-Men. We’re going to cancel it in two issues.’

BS: Unfathomable.

ADAMS: Well, it wasn’t so much, if you look at the books at the time. Barry Smith—one of his earliest jobs at Marvel was an X-Men book, and when I say early job, I mean crap. [laughter] And they really weren’t very good. So I said to Stan, “I tell you what. I’d like to do X-Men.” He said, “But I told you we’re going to cancel it in two issues.” I said, “Well, that’s fine.” He said, “Why do you want to do X-Men?” I said, “Well, if I do X-Men and I work in the Marvel style, you’re pretty much not going to pay too much attention to what I do, right?” He said, “That’s true.” I said, “Well, then, I’d like to do that.”

BS: Gonna have some fun here.

ADAMS: I’ll have some fun. He said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you. You do X-Men until we cancel it and then you do a really important book, like The Avengers.” Now, in those days The Avengers was a big deal. I don’t know about today. Maybe it’s not as funny a story as it was 10 years ago. So, he says, “Then you’ll do Avengers.” So, I said, “Okay, that sounds like a deal.”

So, I did ten books of The X-Men, which you see reprinted all the time. Then they canceled the book. Why did they cancel the book?

Because sales weren’t so good. [laughter] Let me see—you have a mint condition copy of The X-Men? How did you get that?” “I don’t know. Some guy had a box of them.”

Dazed In The Desert Neal pulled off a few “psychedelic effects” of his own in the pages of The X-Men #56 (May 1969), his first effort for Marvel. Script by Roy Thomas, who had originally intended his written synopsis to go to artist Don Heck—and inks by Tom Palmer, uniting with Adams for the first time ever. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BS: Fell off the truck.

ADAMS: I must have signed more than they actually sold over the years. I sign them all the time. Where do they come from? Well, we know where they came from. Back of the warehouse. Those X-Men books, they did pretty good. So anyway, what happened was, they

“Carmine Sent Me”

45

Sauron, I wanna do him.” Sauron suddenly shows up. New artist, there’s Sauron. It’s incredible. Anyway, that’s what happened.

BS: You really blazed a trail as far as the more realistic style. Prior to your arrival, the only one I can think of offhand is Murphy Anderson, but following you it seems like you’ve got Jim Aparo and Mike Grell and so forth. Were they aping you, do you think, or was it just the new wave?

ADAMS: [laughs] What do you think?

BS: It was interesting to me that Grell did Green Lantern…

ADAMS: “Anybody with a beard. Anybody with a blond beard. [laughter] In fact, I’ll grow a beard. I’m growing a beard.” Hey, listen, s**t happens, you know? To be perfectly honest, between you, me, and the fencepost, I don’t feel that guys aping my style was the contribution.

I think the contribution, if anything, was the realization that somebody could be a good artist and do comicbooks. There’s nothing wrong with the idea. There’s nothing incompatible with being a good artist and doing comicbooks.

That essentially was the message, and it’s

Cat Fight Original art for a page of Adams/Palmer art from The X-Men #63 (Dec. 1969); script by Roy Thomas.

Courtesy of owner Victor Lim; with special thanks to James Rosen. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

cancel the book and the fans’ jaws drop. “What the hell’s going on?” And of course, fans wrote in letters, they wanted to see The X-Men again, so they [Marvel] basically started to do reprints, and then they started to do [new stories] again, but every artist, every new artist that came to Marvel Comics from that point on wanted to do X-Men. Dave Cockrum. John Byrne. All those guys… well, not all, but the next group of guys, all they wanted to do was The X-Men. That was it.

And if you look at the X-Men runs by the various guys, what you’ll see, interestingly enough, is that those guys have all gone through the basic stories that I did when I did those ten issues. They all do Sentinels, they all go into the Savage Land, they all have one story with Ka-Zar, one story with dinosaurs. Essentially, they just travel through that same sequence of stories to give their take on another version of those stories. Almost every guy. Just to go ahead and do it. “I want a shot at doing that.

The Ka-Zar Cover The X-Men #62 (Nov. 1969), inked by Tom Palmer, was the best-selling of Neal’s covers for Marvel’s merry mutants, but overall sales of the title must have been on the rise, since, after it was canceled with #66, publisher Martin Goodman soon brought the comicbook back—if only in reprints for the next several years, until 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1. Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

You Ain’t Nothing Like A Hound Dog! (Above left:) The other best-selling X-Men issue in the Adams run was #65 (Feb. 1970)—but, although Neal both plotted and penciled the latter yarn, editor Stan Lee wound up having Marie Severin pencil that particular cover, to be inked by Tom Palmer. Whether Neal still intended, at that point, to do any further penciling for the series is unclear. Courtesy of the GCD. (Above:) Surely, one reason for the Severin-penciled cover is the fact that Lee wanted a more humanoid alien monster than Neal had penciled on p. 12 of #65, so that he had previously instructed Mirthful Marie to totally redraw that creature in both panels. Script by Denny O’Neil; inks

by Palmer. Thanks to Barry Pearl.

(Left:) Jon B. Cooke printed, in his and TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Artist #3 (1999), this unused set of panels Neal penciled for X-Men #65, p. 12, but which Stan rejected.

When he scripted these pages, Denny O. must’ve agreed that the alien creature looked very canine, as per his dialogue in the biggest of the two panels. Those lines got left in the issue, even after the monster was redrawn to be far more humanoid. Thanks to Nick Caputo for finding this for us! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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47

the most lasting message. I mean, you know, you’re going to have guys that will ape your style. Only one or two of them were really any good… I mean Bill Sienkiewicz, who managed to go on past that style, and other people who possibly went beyond it have made greater contributions than the guys who aped the style, but it wasn’t that so much as this idea that here were comicbooks that were being sold to college students.

I mean, you talk about Green Lantern/Green Robert Arrow and even Batman, even The X-Men—they Kanigher sold very well in colleges. When I say very well, of course—off the back of the warehouse. All my fans wrote with a typewriter. They didn’t write on grocery bags with crayons. They were intelligent, they were well-read, they had something to say, and the people who followed in the industry, we have a much more intelligent, talented field. But the only way to get something like that is if somebody says, “Hey, yeah. I could choose to do anything I wanted to do. I choose to do comicbooks.”

BS: Legitimacy as an art form.

ADAMS: Well, I wouldn’t give it an art form status. I’m kind of hoping to duck that one, but to give it a pop culture status that is as good as music, is as good as dance, is as good as filmmaking on a high-level quality… we’re not looking to make art, but we are looking to please people and to do good art while we do it. Mixing good art in there is not a bad thing as long as you don’t get too hoity-toity.

BS: I think that’s a very accurate summation. They were also showing a lot of artists the door about the time you showed up… guys like George Papp and Shelly Moldoff. Was that in any way related?

ADAMS: There was Curt Swan. Curt Swan was the classic Superman artist. The comics needed all the good artists they could hold on to. You know, if you’re in this industry for a long time and then you discover that there is somebody else out there who will actually pay you money to draw and probably pay you more than these comicbook publishers, you tend to want to do that. To be perfectly honest, doing comicbooks to a certain extent in the ’60s was like a charity. I would do story boards for advertising agencies and I would get paid the same for a story board frame as I would get paid for a page of comicbook art.

BS: That’s pretty consistent with what Joe Giella was telling me about when he was doing advertising-type work. He said the money was much, much better.

ADAMS: No comparison. And if you were able to pick up enough work…let’s say you’re in Detroit and you’re mailing your comicbook pages in, if you’re lucky enough to be in a situation like that. In Detroit it’s a smaller pond than, say, New York, so the competition isn’t quite as stiff, so somebody who has reasonable ability suddenly finds themselves in an advertising agency and being paid a reasonable rate to do a storyboard frame, what he would be paid to do a comicbook page, and suddenly somebody from down the hall has work for him and suddenly from this other agency and they’re letting him do freelance work at night… suddenly he’s tripled or quadrupled his income. Why would he want to do comicbooks, when these people are grateful and they’re saying, “Thanks. Gee, that’s great. You were able to knock it out so fast. I really appreciate it.” It’s a different world. A totally different world.

“Invisible Sniper”—And Visible Sniping Splash page of the second war story Neal Adams drew for DC editor Robert Kanigher—since the first was seen back on p. 4. This one, too, was written

by Howard Liss, for Our Army at War #183 (Aug. 1967). It’s quite possibly the yarn over which Adams and Kanigher reportedly had words—mostly Neal’s. Of course, it should be noted that, unless Kanigher was overly abusive verbally (which, by many accounts, he often was), he had been hired as editor of the company’s war comics, and was thus entirely within his rights to criticize artistic aspects of any work delivered to him. Thanks to Bob Bailey.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

BS: Sure, sure. Instead of a Kanigher or a Weisinger, saying, “What’s wrong with you? This sucks.”

ADAMS: There were editors who were, in fact, ogres. I never had any problem with any of them, but other people I know did.

Sometimes I’d have to take them aside and say, “Why don’t you take it easy on this guy? He’s got to make a living. He’s not going to change if you get mad at him overnight or something.” I got along with Kanigher just fine. I got along fine with Weisinger.

BS: It sounds like you’re one of the few.

ADAMS: Well, I’m not really the kind of person you want to get angry. ‘Cause I really just have a positive attitude about everything, and to me if somebody crawls up my back it’s like a surprise, it’s “What are you crawling up my back for?” I’ll give you an example.

I’ll give you my Kanigher story… and I’ll give you my Weisinger story.

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Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

My Kanigher story: I’m in the room with Bob. I give him my second war story.

I did a series of war stories. First war story went just fine. Handed it in, looked at it, that’s it. Brought in my second war story.

He starts to look at it… maybe he’s got a little more time, I don’t know. A little grumpy. He starts to correct my art. He starts to criticize my art. I said, “Hold on, Bob. Just hold on a second.” So, I got up out of the chair, and I closed the door to Mort Weisinger the room. I said, “I’ll tell you what we’ll Photo courtesy of do. We’ll have an arrangement between us.”

Todd Klein.

Now you know when you close the door on somebody, they kind of go, “Why is he doing that?” [laughter] The thought doesn’t necessarily occur to somebody that you’re going to hit them, but if you close the door, nobody knows. I wasn’t going to hit him, but I said, “Now let’s be real quiet about this, because I don’t want anybody to think you raised your voice at me. You’re the writer. I’m the artist. I’m not gonna criticize your writing, you don’t criticize my drawing. Sound like a deal?”

He draws his head back, he goes, “Yeah, I guess that’s okay.” I said, “Fine.” Then I opened the door and we went on.

That was the last harsh word, or even partially harsh word, I ever heard from Kanigher. From that point on, we were friends.

He’d come and tell me about his conquests, he’d tell me about the girl he laid up in the Himalayas or whatever the hell it is. He’d bitch to me about other people and I’d try to calm him down, but essentially, we got along easy. I know Joe Kubert got along with Bob Kanigher, but Joe Kubert’s the kind of guy that doesn’t take any s**t from anybody. So, I think Kanigher was one of those guys that would challenge you unless you got up on your hind legs, and then suddenly you’re okay. That’s the way it was with Bob. That’s my Bob Kanigher story.

Now, my Mort Weisinger story. [chuckles] Mort Weisinger was always nasty to everybody. Always, always nasty. And Carmine wanted me to do covers for Mort Weisinger. Mort Weisinger had Curt Swan. Now, between you, me, and the fencepost, if I had Curt Swan that would be enough for me, and it was enough for Weisinger, but Carmine kept on him: “Have Neal do a Superman cover.” And Weisinger is giving me these glowering looks like,

Superman’s Boy Artist—Neal Adams The first cover Neal Adams drew for Superman-group editor Mort Weisinger—and perhaps his first super-hero cover ever: for Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #79 (Nov. 1967). There would, of course, be many more.

Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

No-Cape Capers A trio of Neal Adams’ non-superhero covers: The Adventures of Bob Hope #109 (Feb.March 1968)…

Tomahawk #116 (May-June ’68)… and House of Mystery #187 (July-Aug. 1970).

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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What’s Black-&-White—And Read All Over?

In the old joke, the answers is “newspapers.” On this page, assuming a somewhat loose interpretation of the past-tense word “read,” it’s these three convention or otherwise commissioned sketches by Neal Adams, showing Catwoman— a Deadman pencil sketch, courtesy of Al Bigley—and an ectoplasmic battle between The Spectre and Deadman. Funny, the latter pair seemed on far better terms back on p. 34. The latter art, provided to Gary F. Brown by Marv Wolfman, appeared as a cover of the fanzine Ibid. #20 (June 1970). [All heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

somehow, I’m part of this…

BS: Conspiracy.

ADAMS: Yeah, or whatever it is. So Carmine says, “You know, you ought to do covers for Mort.” So finally I walk into Mort’s office and I said, “Mort, I just want to talk to you for a minute.” “What?” “Carmine wants me to do covers for you.” He said, “I don’t want it.” I said, “I understand that. I’ve got it, totally, and I don’t disagree with you, but to satisfy Carmine, why don’t we do this: You give me one cover to do, I do it, you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it; you don’t like it, you never use me again, we forget about it, but at least we’re satisfying Carmine.” He said, “Okay.”

“So, one shot, one cover, that’s it. That’s the end of it.” “Okay.” He says, “Fine.”

So, he gave me a cover to do. After I did the cover, suddenly, “Hey, we’ve got to do some more covers.” [laughter] Suddenly Mort wants more covers.

Anyway, now it’s a reasonably friendly situation with Mort. So, one day… now I’m working quite well with Mort… I go into Mort’s office. Mort has just yelled at somebody on the phone. I said, “Mort, between you and me, you know, you treat an awful lot of people

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Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

Think While You Ink! Pages from two comicbooks penciled by Neal and inked by his favorite (non-Adams) inkers at the two major companies: Batman #251 (Sept. 1973), embellished

by Dick Giordano, and The Avengers #95 (Jan. 1972), by Tom Palmer. Batman script by Denny O’Neil; Avengers script by Roy Thomas. (Ye Editor had to make sure to get his credit in a caption, since Neal never let his name slip when discussing Avengers and/or X-Men. An oversight, surely.) Thanks to Bob Bailey and Barry Pearl, respectively. [Batman page TM & © DC Comics; Avengers page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

bad. You really ought not to do that and I don’t understand. What’s the problem?” And he gets real quiet. He looks at me, and he says, “Look, I’m going to tell you something. Never repeat it.” Now, of course, I’m repeating it. He says, “If you got up in the morning, and you went to the mirror to shave, you saw this face looking back at you, would you be a happy man?” Oh. And I thought, “No. That’s really sad.”

BS: Quite an insight.

ADAMS: So, I understood Mort. I didn’t like the idea that he treated people bad, but to be perfectly honest, you know, that’s a hell of a thing to look at in the morning. So, there you go. So, I got along with him fine. You know, to me they were just guys. I never had trouble with any of them.

BS: Good for you. Was there anyone you preferred interpreting penciling or so forth?

ADAMS: You mean as far as an inker is concerned? I prefer Neal Adams. I think I’m one of the best inkers around. I know that sounds egotistical, but when I did the Ben Casey strip, I did it for 3½ years and I based my inking on the best inkers in the field and I learned skills that other people didn’t learn. When I was in high school at night, I did animation for a guy named Fred Ang, who did animation for a Japanese animator, and he could handle

a brush like no American, and he taught me how to use a brush; and when I look at Americans inking with a brush it seems to me that they’re like gorillas holding a brush. The man taught me, and I learned from Stan Drake how to handle the most sensitive pen that there is out there. If you hand a 290 pen point to any typical inker, all they’ll make is a blob on a piece of paper, so I learned an awful lot about inking.

The best inker outside of myself at DC was Dick Giordano.

The best inker for me at Marvel at that time was Tom Palmer. Tom Palmer continues as a terrific inker, but neither one of them—I mean, if you look at the work of them over my stuff, you see a total opposite of style. One very rough and very slashy and one very tight and very controlled, and mine falls somewhere in between, but it’s more a kind of a classical ink style that you would get from Charles Andy Gibson or the Japanese brush painters or whatever.

So, my stuff is better served by myself.

Nowadays there are better inkers around. You have to remember that we worked in a very, very difficult time where people were slashing and hacking at stuff like crazy. Now you have inkers that actually know how to ink very well and they’re willing to do the job. I’m working on a Batman series now and I have to think about, “Do I want to have some other people ink this stuff?”… and there are people who, in my view, are tremendously

“Carmine Sent Me”

51

BS: I believe it. I’m reminded of one of my co-workers touting how women can multi-task and so forth, but “that’s beyond you men,” and so forth, and I said, “Well, here’s my theory. Do you want something done quick, or do you want something done well? Do you want several things done poorly or one thing done well?” That’s the way I work, anyway.

ADAMS: There you go. I wouldn’t necessarily equate it to women, just people who just don’t care. We didn’t have too many women in comicbooks, as I think of it. The ones who were there were of a true quality, and there’s the dichotomy. The women in comicbooks were… and they’re still alive… are tremendously quality-oriented. Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon… one of my favorite artists. I never had any idea she was a woman. I had no idea. She used to do the backup “Aquaman” stories.

BS: Right… and “Metamorpho.”

Advertisements For Myself & Others A display page drawn by Neal Adams for the Johnstone and Cushing art service for which he worked in his early years. Courtesy of James Rosen. [TM & © Johnstone and Cushing or successors in interest.]

worthy inkers that I’d like to give a try to, and probably will.

Things have changed. Boy, it’s become very, very different.

There’s a half a dozen inkers that I would trust with a page of mine that I think I’m gonna get something close to what I’m able to do, and that’s saying a lot, I gotta tell you.

BS: So obviously you haven’t completely left comicbooks behind, but I understand you do a lot of storyboards for movies and so forth, is that correct?

BS: Do you think some of it is the time constraints aren’t quite what they used to be on these special projects?

ADAMS: Oh, yeah. Time constraints are practically nothing. There are people who have work out now, guys who will take 2, 3 days on a page and not think anything of it, because they know, down the line, they’re going to get royalties or their page rate is good or whatever and they’re also competing with a lot of very good people. The drive of competition in the comicbook business has become a drive of quality and ability to sell books. So, the link between quality and selling books is very, very firm these days.

BS: So, it’s no longer a quantity game so much.

Ramona ADAMS: No. And if you have people out there who are Fradon turning out less work and getting more money, you have to think that that’s possibly the future and not cranking out pages. The day of Vinnie Beyond The Sea Colletta has gone.

Splash page of the story BS: May it rest in peace.

ADAMS: I’ve seen Vinnie destroy more pages than any five artists have drawn. My favorite quote from Vinnie Colletta is, “Do you want a good inking job or do you want it on Monday?” The answer I’ve heard from editors is, “I want it on Monday.”

that introduced Aqualad, from Adventure Comics #257 (Feb. 1960), not many months before artist Ramon Fradon retired from comics for more than a decade to raise her family. Script by Robert Bernstein. [TM & © DC Comics.]

ADAMS: And from her you get John Byrne and other people who work in a very similar style. She’s actually much-aped, even though people don’t necessarily recognize it or admit it. When you look at her work and you look at Alan Davis and John Byrne… people that you might say imitated my stuff, actually. There’s a tremendous influence, in every era, of Ramona Fradon. A tremendously good artist. She’s one of my heroes.

52

Neil Adams On Being A Gadfly—And A Great Comics Artist

ADAMS: Nothing for movies. It doesn’t pay well enough. I do advertising storyboards and I do some designs for film, but not a lot, but here and there I’ll hit something.

If you’re a designer for movies it’s different than doing storyboards.

Storyboards, you turn out a ton of stuff and you turn it out very fast and you sort of work at it by the gallon.

If you ever see storyboards from film, you are often amazed at how scritchy-scratchy they are and how quickly they’re done, but they get across the idea.

They get paid well by the week if you get two, three, four thousand dollars a week, but you’re expected to turn out a tremendous amount of work, and I can’t dedicate myself to boards for that reason. What I’ll do is, I’ll do storyboard designs for amusement park rides, like the Terminator T2 3-D ride or the Spider-Man ride, stuff like that. If you go to my site www.nealadams.com,you’ll see a lot of the stuff that I do. You won’t see any movie stuff, really.

BS: Tell me one thing people would be surprised to know about Neal Adams.

ADAMS: I’m not the pain in the ass they say I am.

BS: Ah-hah. Okay.

ADAMS: The truth is, what happens is that history has a way of coloring things so that is seems as though, when you put all the things together, that things are a given way, when in fact they were nothing like that. One has the impression that I was just a maniac running around causing problems and getting people upset and fighting and carrying signs and s**t. None of that is true. The most I would ever do… I would go and have a private conversation with, say, Carmine or Stan or whatever and I’d say some things that perhaps they should think about and consider. They were throwing away the Alex Toth stories and the Tomahawk stories and the color

And, In Conclusion…

Neal & (wife) Marilyn Adams with a copy of Tarzan of the Apes— The Artist Edition at a con event in 2021—flanked by dynamic work from the two comics companies with which Adams’ work is most associated: Marvel’s X-Men #58 (July 1969), and DC’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87 (Dec. 1971). Inks, respectively,

by Palmer & Giordano; scripts, respectively, by Thomas & O’Neil.

Thanks to Barry Pearl & Bob Bailey. [X-Men page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; GL/GA page TM & © DC Comics.]

guides that the staffers would use because they didn’t give a crap. Eventually they raised the quality of the color up so that it was recognizably better.

I was really quite mellow, and contrary to what people might think, people at DC would call me Smiley. Oh, there would be days when, “What the hell’s going on? He brought in this drug cover!”

Once we had this meeting, and before we went into the meeting I said, “Look, I’ve been doing a little research and here are some things you should know.

According to the standard of living, if you go to those figures in the ’50s and ’60s to today and factor in simply increases in rates, somebody who was making $45 a page would now be making $300 a page.” Now everybody who was there thought I was crazy. “$300? That’s totally insane. Neal, you’ve gone off the deep end.”

“No, I’m just saying how much [the rates have] stayed down. That is why we are not part of the rest of America.” And people laughed.

“Another hare-brained scheme by Neal.” But things changed.

BS: History has proven you correct.

ADAMS: That’s the problem with being right at the beginning.

Nobody thinks you’re right, and then at the end, everybody agrees with it. [laughter] BS: Yeah, what is it? “A prophet has no honor in his own country”?

ADAMS: The funny thing now is people saying they were with me, and I’m like, “Well, why didn’t you raise your hand? Pretty lonely out there. Guys? Hello?”

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.

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Examines US War comics from EC, DC COMICS, WARREN PUBLISHING, CHARLTON, and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

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Career-spanning tribute to the Legion of Super-Heroes & Warlord comics art legend!

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A CELEBRATION OF

– PART SIX

NEAL ADAMS Talks About “A View From Without.....”

A Story Of The Vietnam War Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

I

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: In 1971 Neal Adams produced and published one of the hardest-hitting Vietnam War stories to appear in the genre. Entitled “A View from Without…..,” it debuted in an independent black-&white magazine called Phase.

This 2015 interview, which features Adams talking about that story, ended up considerably different from what I had initially imagined. I had prepared a list of questions dealing with his obvious attempt to use this tale as a showcase for various art approaches to telling a comic story—since nearly every panel featured a different artistic approach or technique: straight pen & ink; pencils only; shaded charcoal; even a panel on every page in fumetti style, starring Adams himself as an alien narrator.

I particularly wanted to discuss a tribute panel to Joe Kubert that appeared in the story, featuring an African-American soldier standing over an American grave, with the slain soldier’s rifle and helmet as a grave marker—a very familiar Kubert image for those who read his DC war tales.

However, Adams was completely uninterested in discussing any of that. He wanted to talk about Vietnam, his feelings and perceptions about the war, and the way it was ultimately published—in an early independent/ground-level (and vastly overpriced for the day) magazine. It was the only war story in the magazine, which featured largely fantasy, science-fiction, and underground-type stories intended for adults. Adams’ desire to point the interview that way was, in my own opinion, entirely correct.

RICHARD ARNDT: You published “A View from Without…..” in 1971, but you’ve mentioned elsewhere that you wrote and drew it some years earlier than that.

NEAL ADAMS: Yes, I did.

RA: Was there a particular magazine or project you were doing it for?

“View” Point The wordless “Prologue” page of “A View from Without…..” Written & illustrated by Neal Adams. Thanks to Glenn McKay & Art Lortie. [© Estate of Neal Adams.]

54

Neal Adams Talks About “A View From Without.....”

55

and it got in the palm of your hand it was best for you to let it eat through the hand and fall out the other side rather than try to get it off, because it would melt anything it touched.

It was pretty firm in my mind that I was not going to do this comic strip, so I recommended Joe Kubert as the artist for the strip. Still, there were things that I was learning about Vietnam, which was essentially a civil war. The Vietnamese civilian population was embroiled in a conflict between opposing Vietnamese soldiers. Whichever side the civilians were on, they were pretty much grist for the mill.

So, having heard these stories, I decided to draw a story dealing with that kind of event. A little story, with one person.

So I did, and I was thinking of sending it off for the possibility of publication. But this was some time before things like the My Lai massacre had been revealed to the American public. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: The My Lai massacre occurred in the Our Army At War—Vietnam Edition Vietnamese village of My Lai on March 16, One of the things interviewer Richard Arndt had wanted to discuss with Adams was this Joe Kubert 1968, committed by American troops, who homage panel from the fifth page of the story—but the artist (who had himself photographed in “alien” killed 504 civilians, including 182 women—17 makeup to narrate the yarn) had other ideas. Thanks to Art Lortie. [© Estate of Neal Adams.] of whom were pregnant—173 children, and 53 infants. The news of the massacre was covered ADAMS: I was contacted, in 1965 or so, by the brother of writer up and didn’t become public knowledge in the States until November Jerry Caplin, who wrote the Ben Casey comic strip I was drawing 1969.] Certain other atrocities that had been taking place were not at the time. Jerry was a brother of Al Capp, the creator of Li’l common knowledge.

Abner. But this brother was Jerry’s other brother—Elliot Caplin [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: the original family name]—who was At that time, to put out that particular story without the more of a professional writer and was doing something like four general public having that knowledge, I thought, would perhaps different comic strips at the time. Elliot had the opportunity to be a danger, not only to myself, but to my family. My family was do the Tales of the Green Beret comic strip, which was based on the my biggest concern. I thought, “I’ve drawn it. It’s pretty good, but I best-selling book by Robin Moore. In fact, Moore’s name was on don’t want to do this.” I didn’t want to get hit by it. the strip, but Caplin actually wrote it. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: About a year or two later, some of that stuff started coming Whichever Caplin brother Neal met with, comic strip expert Alberto out, becoming Becattini informs us it was Jerry Caplin who actually scripted the early general Green Beret strip.] knowledge.

I really couldn’t do two strips at once, but Elliot arranged Villagers were that I have lunch with Robin Moore and I did. I guess because being killed. Some I was “gung ho,” [laughs] he talked a lot about things that were were castrated, etc. happening in Vietnam. Some of them, the things he described as It was only after going on, were from my point of view quite disturbing. I was also that that I had the in touch with certain newspaper folk because I was a syndicated balls to see about strip artist, so I had access to certain things that I might not getting the story otherwise have access to. Things that many people at the time may in print. It was not have been aware of. because the truth of those things I As I said, the lunch was very disturbing, and I think that was writing and it went on for nearly three hours. I found Robin Moore to be drawing in that thoroughly reprehensible. He seemed to glory in the horror that particular story was going on in Vietnam. It was one thing to have a war. My dad were finally being was in the Army. He fought in World War II. When I was a kid I reported for the heard a lot of stories about war. There was the dark side to it, you general American know, and a noble side. The dark side was pretty rough. public. I cursed myself for being It was the “dark side” that Robin Moore focused on. The the coward that I idea of wearing a string of people’s ears around your neck was Robin Moore was for not putting delightful to him. I also heard things throughout during that Author of the memoir/history Tales of the out the story earlier. conversation with Moore that made me aware of some of the things Green Beret, and generator (and official Maybe I might have that were going on in that war—even as early as 1965. Things like writer) of the comic strip inspired by the book. saved some lives. You the use of napalm—and white phosphorus, which if you handled it

56

A Story Of The Vietnam War

it into print right after writing and drawing it. Still, these war stories, many of them, were things that had been told to me in confidence, to a certain extent. Even though I knew they were going on and I’d committed them to paper, it wasn’t until they became public in other areas that I published the story. It had been sitting around for a year, maybe two years.

RA: Well, to be fair, if we’re talking about 1969/70, where was the venue to put that story out? Blazing Combat, as edited by Archie Goodwin, was long gone. Magazines that published stories with an edge, such as National Lampoon, wouldn’t have touched that story because it’s not funny in the least.

ADAMS: I had thought of sending it to the New York Post, or the Mirror, or the Journal-American. These were the papers that were around at this point, and the possibility existed that somebody might pick it up and make a story out of it. When you get to a certain point in your career, people will at least consider the idea of publishing something like that. If it had not been published, I might have viewed that as a relief. [laughs] But I stepped back from it because I feared my family might come into danger from publishing it. We’ll never know what effect, if any, it might have had if it had come out in 1969. We’ll never know where it might have appeared or who might have had the balls to publish it before all those horrible things came out to be viewed by the public eye.

Just before it was published, I slipped the story to Archie Goodwin and he called me and asked me if I knew where he was. Of course, I didn’t and told him so. He said he’d been on a subway car reading it and that he’d had to get off the train because he was crying so much. His throat was all choked up because the story was so hard to read. He didn’t feel he could be with other people just after reading it. Many people in their own quiet way were affected by it.

The things related in “A View from Without.....” were true.

They were related to me by an awful lot of people. Their names aren’t in the story because they weren’t telling me these stories

Neal Adams’ History Of The Vietnam War The third page of “A View from Without…..” Courtesy of Art Lortie. [© Estate of Neal Adams.]

never know the effect a story can have on people. Sometimes you only find out years later. Sometimes, never.

I realized that I had not stepped up. But here, at least, it was probably time to add my voice to the throng of voices, to say that this was not a war we should be involved in. Things of a very personal, very terrible nature were happening to people, and we shouldn’t be there helping those things happen.

So, then I published it. It was still a pretty rough story. Even when it was published, in late 1971, it surprised a few people.

RA: I first read the story in 1975, when it was reprinted in [Marvel’s] Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1 (Jan. 1975), then went back and found the original publication. I remember being strongly influenced by it at the time. I still think it is one of the best statements on that particular war that I’d found up until that point, that made sense of what was going on.

ADAMS: I’ve met people who have cried after reading it. It’s a tough story to read, and I can say to you that I really don’t have any pride in holding back on it when I did. There just was a possibility that things, people might have been influenced sooner if I’d put

“A Pretty Rough Story” The powerful visual revelation on p. 6 of “View.” Courtesy of Art Lortie. [© Estate of Neal Adams.]

Neal Adams Talks About “A View From Without.....”

57

with the idea, “Yeah, put my name to it.” These were things that were happening in Vietnam Those poor Vietnamese villagers, often as not, were just being recruited by one side or the other. It didn’t seem to matter how the recruitment came about. It could be something as simple as which hut you lived in, what district was controlled by which side, who gave you the gun. These things were based on the tipping of balances, and the story was meant to apply that to the reader, for the reader to consider the notion that decisions were being based on things that seemed so unimportant.

If you study the war, it depended on which direction you were born on—this side or that side—North or South—that determined the side you were on.

Maybe you were being paid to fight, and ideology or direction had nothing to do with it.

Mankind’s approach to war has been quite casual, considering the consequences!

Remember, the US was coming from World War II and, my God, you could not have had a more noble war, with a more hideous enemy.

We were clearly the good guys in that war. So clearly good guys that there’s really no comparison in the history of the world as to how good the Allies were compared to the Nazis and the Japanese. Then to come from that to all these realities that were actually happening in the Vietnam War. Things that the people who were there knew were happening but, in the US, very little actual knowledge early on for the general public as to what was actually happening. Our soldiers over there, many were doing drugs to wipe the horror mentally out of their minds. They were seeing children being killed on a constant “Greetings:” basis. Women, grandmas, and the The eighth and final page, in which the finder of the alien message learns that he will soon become a potential children—not even teenagers—but part of that story. Courtesy of Art Lortie. [ © Estate of Neal Adams.] very young children who would be riding bicycles with bombs attached inhuman, so based on the prejudices of certain people. We were to them. It was very different from what had been going on in clearly up against the bad guys. In Vietnam, it was difficult to tell World War II. who the bad guys were. It might even have been us! We were doing terrible things, forced into doing horrible things, not just to soldiers RA: For World War II, we were liberators for the most part, freeing people or guerillas but to children. We were raining fire on children from from their oppressors. the skies. Not a thing you should be sending men to do.

ADAMS: And not just the liberators. We were saving America!

That’s what that story is about… It’s a hard story.

We were saving England! We were saving France! We were saving It’s a really hard story. the world! Fighting against a philosophy that was so horrible, so

HALFPAGE-Back Issue-HC2023.pdf

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1:28 PM

C

M

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CM

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SATURDAY ONLY!

ROY THOMAS

CMY

K

Alter Ego’s ROY THOMAS will be at Heroes Con 2023 on Saturday only!

59

[TM & © Michael T. Gilbert.]

60

I

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Michael T. Gilbert’s 2023 Comic Art Portfolio!

(Part 2)

created Dr. Strongfort Stearn way back in 1983, and have been writing and drawing my monster-fighting hero ever since. In the course of doing so, I experimented with a variety of art and writing styles. Such is the case with the drawings in my Mr. Monster “portfolio.”

I’m hoping our “Crypt” fans will enjoy a sneak peek at some of my more recent Mr. Monster pin-ups and such (most of which have never previously seen print!). Let’s start with…

A Perplexing Mystery!

For some reason, Mr. Monster’s never tangled with one of H.P. Lovecraft’s murky eldritch monsters––most famously, the ancient god Cthulhu. I decided to rectify that oversight with the picture that graces this issue’s intro page. Hopefully, Mr. Monster will figure out the subtle clues concerning the gruesome demise of the bow-tied chap before it’s too late!

Mr. Monster: Sushi For Supper!

The 2020 Mr. Monster commission below was unusual in two respects. First, I had never drawn my hero fighting an underwater monster, nor had he encountered a sexy mermaid during his travels.

I had fun with both. Gotta love that creepy Skull-topus, too!

Beyond that, I wanted to try my hand at a horizontal layout, something a bit unusual for me. I subsequently colored it in Photoshop, hoping to achieve an underwater feel.

Destructive Comics!

Many Alter Ego readers, like myself, started collecting comics in the late 1950s. And many of those kids (though they didn’t know it at the time!) were Shelly Moldoff fans. That’s because Bob Kane made sure his signature was the only one on all comics featuring Batman.

But if you were reading the silly sci-fi era Batman, or the great fantasy-oriented stories of the ’50s, chances are they were written by Bill Finger and drawn by either the great Dick Sprang or the more cartoony Shelly Moldoff.

That was the era when Batman would become a Zebra Batman, or a Giant Batman, or a Merman Batman, or even… a Mummy Batman!

If You Knew Sushi Like I Know Sushi…

Michael T.’s “Sushi For Supper,” flanked by another spicy dish! [TM & © Michael T. Gilbert.]

Michael T. Gilbert’s 2023 Comic Art Portfolio (Part 2)

61

Yes, you heard right! A Mummy Batman, as seen on the cover of Detective Comics #320 (Oct. 1963). A year later, Julie Schwartz would take over the editing reigns from Jack Schiff, and assign John Broome, Gardner Fox, and Carmine Infantino to introduce a slightly more mature “New Look” to Batman.

More detective, less fantasy. I loved it at the time.

But today I prefer the sillier version, even the much-maligned “bug-eyed-monsters-from-space” stories.

Those are the “Batman” stories I grew up with, and Shelly Moldoff’s “The Mummy Crime Fighters!” cover is a prime example of that glorious silliness.

Mummy Dearest (Above left:) Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff did the honors to this cover to Detective Comics #320 (Oct. 1963), followed by Gilbert’s take on the cover, above right. So why are Batman and Mr. Monster dressed like this? We could tell, but mum-my’s the word! [TM & © DC Comics and Michael T. Gilbert, respectively.]

I was about twelve when it came out, and you can be certain I was dying to know why Batman and Robin were swathed in mummy bandages. [Spoiler warning: B & R had to hide the fact that they had accidentally turned green!]

The mummy motif seemed tailor-made for Mr. Monster, so I decided to try a version featuring Doc and his sexy partner Kelly. Since there wasn’t a monster on the original cover, I added one.

After all, what’s a Mr. Monster cover without monsters?

Bad Brain Stout!

Mr. Monster Beer, Anyone?

Try some Bad Brain Stout! Hellishly good! Just don’t call Doc “stout!”

[Art TM & © Michael T. Gilbert.]

Every year the folks behind the 3-Rivers Comicon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, put out a special beer celebrating the con. And every year they invite a favored comic creator to create a label for it. In 2021 I was invited to do the honors, and came up with Bad Brain Stout.

Of course, Doc generally prefers a fine aged burgundy, but he made an exception in this case….

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Mr. Monster…

100,000,000 BC! Back in 2011, I drew a slightly different version of the picture at right for a web-based entertainment company.

I enjoyed doing this in a more cartoony style. Later, with some minor redrawing, I transformed my illustration into this prehistoric Mr. Monster scene.

Mighty Joe Kong!

The pair of images below was inspired by some stills I discovered depicting scenes from Mighty Joe Young. I loved that movie as a kid. It was King Kong with a happy ending! Doc looks like he’s having the time of his life, partying with the primates!

Mr. Monster Detective!

On the facing page, we have a lurid True Detective- style cover, popular in the ’40s and ’50s, only now with Doc and Kelly in the lead.

Hmmm! Why does Mr. Monster always seem to be fighting some giant slimy, tentacled sea monster? Could it be because the artist enjoys drawing them?

Alley Oooops!

(Above:) Caveman hijinks with Mr. Monster and Kelly. [TM & © Michael T. Gilbert.]

Shouldn’t The Sound Effect Be: “KONGk!” (Above:) Michael T. depicts Doc duking it out with the movies’ original (1948) Mighty Joe Young, or some distant relative. Bad ape! [©Michael T. Gilbert.]

Michael T. Gilbert’s 2023 Comic Art Portfolio (Part 2)

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Malibu Monster!

And now for something completely different!

Inasmuch as this is a Gilbert portfolio, I thought I’d stretch the point a bit and include one from my darling wife Janet, who came up with Malibu Monster (below) some thirty-odd years back. Isn’t it adorable?

Hey, if “Bob Kane’s” Batman can have a zillion silly costumes, why not Mr. Monster?

For the record, “Mrs. Monster” is a talented cartoonist, but is perhaps best known for her Disney scripting (she’s written Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and Mickey Mouse comics for almost thirty years). In the ’90s she also scripted some hilarious “Mr. Monster and Kelly” stories.

Maybe someday I’ll talk her into writing a real Malibu Monster tale!

Mr. Monster’s True Crime!

I’ve been a fan of Jack Cole since coming across some IW Publishing Plastic Man reprints as a teenager. Cole, best-known for creating that stretchable super-hero, also wrote and drew some of comics’ most gruesome over-the-top crime stories.

The Costumed Hero & The Carrot-Top (Above:) “The Sex Starved Redhead Who Slept with a Stiff” and other lurid tales of terror!

Stories like this lure readers into the imaginary world of Mr. Monster Detective magazine. Art

by MTG, of course! [TM & © Michael T. Gilbert.]

These appeared in Magazine Village’s True Crime Comics in the late ’40s.

Which Way To The Beach?

Gangway, creatures! It’s Janet Gilbert’s Malibu Monster!

Cowabunga! [© Janet & Michael T. Gilbert.]

When die-hard comic-hater Dr. Fredric Wertham wrote his notorious book Seduction of the Innocent in 1954, he featured a special illustrated section devoted to art that he especially despised. A gruesome “injury-to-the-eye” panel that Cole drew for True Crime Comics made the cut (so to speak!). You can’t buy that kind of publicity!

In 1986 I reprinted all the Jack Cole True Crime stories as part of my Mr. Monster’s Super Duper Special reprint series for Eclipse.

Cole’s famous cover (featuring a squealer getting blasted from behind with the word “Rat” written in his own blood!) graced the cover of my first issue. (See next page.)

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Cut to 2018, when I was commissioned to create a new Mr. Monster image. I thought it would be fun to re-create Cole’s cover, with Mr. Monster replacing the machine-gun killer, Kelly standing in for Cole’s gun moll, and a nasty monster getting blasted!

Next Issue: Oh, I’ll figure something out… ’Til Next Time…

Speaking of which, I hope you had a blast with these Mr. Monster drawings. I know I did… digging them up for you!

Blast The Rats!

(Clockwise from above left:) Michael T. reimagines Jack Cole’s classic True Crime cover. Next, the real thing—True Crime, Vol. 2, #3 (1948). And, finally, Eclipse’s re-colored 1986 reprint of same, for Mr. Monster’s Super-Duper Special #3 (a.k.a. Mr. Monster‘s True Crime #1) (Sept. 1986). [©Michael T. Gilbert & the respective copyright holders, respectively.]

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The only sad part to the story was his separation from his family to come here and have more work opportunities. His choice, I suppose.

Found the Leo Rosenblum article [in “Comic Crypt”] amusing since it wasn’t just the stories under consideration but the fictitious writing staff. Was it to convince people they [American Comic Group] had a diverse and talented writing pool? Or just a sense of humor and manipulation, where one man can pit his pseudonyms against one another for readers to choose a favorite? [EDITOR’S NOTE: Mostly the former, I’d suspect…though there was probably a touch of the latter as well.] Was this a different Leon Lazarus, pictured, than the one who wrote one “Giant-Man” story (in Tales to Astonish #64)? [EDITOR’S NOTE: Same guy.]

Enjoyed your Denny O’Neil career highlights. His two “Dr. Strange” efforts with Steve Ditko, as with yours preceding them, seemed right in line with Stan’s dialogue. Were they heavily edited, or did you both get it right? I think there was more contention [between O’Neil and Ditko] a couple of years later, when Denny wrote Beware The Creeper with Steve over at DC.

B

eneath a dynamic adaptation by Shane Foley of a Neal Adams heroic figure, as artfully colored by Randy Sargent, let’s dive right into the missives and messages we received on Alter Ego #172, which cover-featured the splendid work of Filipino-born artist Alfredo Alcala. Well, we’ll plunge into that, anyway, as soon we record that the super-hero called Alter Ego was visually designed by Ron Harris and is TM & © by Roy (that’s me) & Dann Thomas. We’ll start things off with a long and inquisitive letter from regular correspondent Joe Frank: Dear Roy,

I enjoyed Alter Ego #172 more than I thought I would.

I hadn’t had overmuch familiarity with Alfredo Alcala’s work.

I’d really only seen it, consistently, over Jack [Kirby], in Destroyer Duck. Didn’t find it a complementary combo. In #172 I discovered Alcala knew Steve Gerber and Jack and did it for free. I’d also seen Alcala’s art when I’d occasionally pick up a copy of Savage Sword of Conan. I was surprised to learn, as well, that John Buscema didn’t care for the finished look. That begs the question of how much say, if any, does a layout man or penciler have when it comes to approving or disapproving an inker/embellisher? Wouldn’t that be up to an editor? Or perhaps to fans who stopped buying it because the art was off-putting to them?

In such cases, does the penciler even make his displeasure known, or “suffer” in silence? Or, if it was contentious, couldn’t Alfredo just have done the whole job on his own?

I cracked up when reading Alfredo estimating the number of pages he could turn out a week (forty!) to Joe Orlando. All the more amazing in that it wasn’t bare-bones but labor-intensive with no end of detail. For example, the detailed wood flooring and bedspread wrinkles in “Rest in Peace” or the meticulously rendered trees in “This Will Kill You.” When I look at the line shading on the splash to “Black Colossus,” my erroneous guess would have been two weeks plus.

What surprised me the most was his range. The Rick O’Shay, Scooby Doo, and Captain Carrot demonstrated his versatility. It wasn’t all one style of intricately shaded figures and backdrops.

The euphemism used here was, “When assignments became scarce for him at Marvel in 1966…” Wasn’t Denny O’Neil let go

by Stan? As editor, did Stan not appreciate or see the value in his writing at that early stage? Denny did fine work elsewhere. I especially enjoyed his run with Mike Kaluta on The Shadow. That’s personally surprising, in that I didn’t really follow that character or have much fondness for him prior. Denny’s work with Neal Adams on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, while short-lived, created a different manner and type of comics. That was a new manner of exploring social ills [in comics]…a regular method of operation rather than just an occasional mention.

Joe Frank

Yes, Joe, for a combination of reasons, not all of which I fully understand, Stan Lee did indeed relieve Denny of his several-month staff job in early ’66. Somehow, the two men just weren’t on the same wave length at that time… or maybe ever. However, Stan was quite agreeable to Denny continuing to do some freelance writing for Marvel (on the “Millie the Model” mags and Westerns) for some time, though I (Ye Editor Roy) quickly arranged a meeting between Denny and Charlton’s then-editor Dick Giordano. After a few months of Denny’s writing for that company, Dick took Denny with him to DC when he migrated there, and the rest is history. Of course, Denny even returned to Marvel as an editor and writer not too many years later.

As to whether Stan rewrote as much of Denny’s two scripts for “Dr. Strange” as he did of my own two, at least the first one—frankly, I don’t recall. But he did have Denny script a couple of others near the start of Bill Everett’s artistic tenure on the strip, so he couldn’t have been too unhappy with them. Denny himself always remained publicly positive about what he felt he’d learned from Stan.

As for the Buscema/Alcala teaming: I made the decision as to who inked John’s “Conan” pencils (and later, layouts). In that case—as also with Ernie Chan over in Barbarian—John disliked the result; but I explained to him that I felt it advisable to have his beautiful but spare pencils embellished in a manner that echoed, in their different ways, the super-detail Barry Smith had put into his later “Conan” work, and John accepted that view. If he had objected more forcefully, I might’ve had to reconsider; but he understood it was my decision if he didn’t want to ink his own pencils, as I gave him the option of doing. (Of course, Stan might have objected if John had begun doing much inking; he wanted to get vast quantities of penciling, not finished work, from Big John. Comicbooks are an art, not a science—and a commercial art, at that. And I’m happy that I was proved correct that Conan readers would love the Buscema/Alcala combination… even though they also welcomed Tony DeZuniga’s more Buscema-friendly embellishing of John’s pencils a bit later. The common

66

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Conan The Colorful Because Alcala’s Conan artwork for Marvel’s Savage Sword of Conan, both inking John Buscema’s pencils and his own solo stories, have mostly been reprinted in the beautiful Omnibus editions published by Marvel in the past few years, here’s a 1972 painting that Alfredo did of the Cimmerian, as found by Michael T. Gilbert on the online Heritage Auctions site. Enjoy!

[Conan TM & © Conan Properties LLC or successors in interest; other art © Estate of Alfredo Alcala.]

denominator, of course, was Buscema himself, one of comics’ greatest artistic talents.)

Next up, a missive from 1964 first-comics-convention-ever co-host Bernie Bubnis, who starts off by remarking on the supply-chain foul-ups which, as he knew from the Internet, had delayed the arrival of A/E #172 on his doorstep for at least a couple of weeks: Hi Roy,

#172 has docked, finally free of its container!

In the past I have jabbed you a few times about A/E’s interviews with a pro’s relatives, since at times it seems the interviewer knows more than the relative. Well… this issue’s UNBELIEVABLE PRO-RELATIVE interview makes any to follow a steep hill to climb.

My kids know me from birth, and I’m damn sure neither will ever equal Alfredo Alcala, Jr.’s, fantastic memories of a father’s career highlights. Sure, they may remember a couple of weddings I paid for, but they’ll never fill an A/E tribute page with any memories of my fanboy days. I learned a lot about someone I knew nothing about. Funny, like others, those black-&-white Savage Sword art pages were the first thing that came to my mind. That made that much of an impression on me, even though I had really cut back on my other comic reading at that time. Those pages were that memorable.

The Road To Elric Is Paved With Good Intentions!

And here, courtesy of dealer Mike Burkey, is a color commission Alfredo Alcala did of Conan battling Elric of Melniboné—even though he drew him with the same “duncecap” that adorned him on the 1960s Ace paperback covers, which was totally inaccurate, but which was reflected in Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #14-15 by Barry Smith and Roy Thomas.

Nice drawing anyway, huh? See Mike Burkey’s ad on p. 27 of this issue. [Conan TM & © Conan Properties LLC or successors in interest; Elric TM & © Michael Moorcock.]

re:

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I always enjoyed Alcala Sr.’s artwork, but his sheer output seems incredible.

Them’s a bunch of pages!

A relativity story for you: My wife heard that a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 sold for over 3 million dollars. She asked me if I still had that comic. Easy answer: NO. Well, not anymore, actually. That issue was part of a group of comics I sold in the 1970s for deposit money on our first house. Got $17,000 and was happy as a pig (you ought to know: are pigs happy?). My answer seemed to disappoint her, but it is all relative. If I had held on to it till 2021, we would have been homeless—but $3 million richer. Relativity.

Bernie Bubnis

Please, Bernie, don’t get me—or any number of other older A/E readers—started down that particular memory hole. Glad you were able to come to an even greater appreciation of Alfredo’s work; he was quite a guy, in addition to being quite an artist.

Another who was intrigued by the Comic Crypt’s study of the “many faces of Richard Hughes” in ACG’s 1960s comics was longtime collector/researcher George Hagenauer: Hi Roy,

I really enjoyed Michael T. Gilbert’s piece on the innumerable pseudonyms that editor Richard Hughes used to mask the fact that he wrote all the stories in the many titles ACG produced. What Mike didn’t mention is that, in addition to the artists like Hy Eisman who figured out Hughes was doing all the writing, the artists who drew the portraits were definitely in on the deception.

Shane O’Shea, Lafacdio Lee, and Zev Zimmer’s portraits are by Kurt Schaffenberger (not sure about the others; they may be by Ogden Whitney).

In Schaffenberger’s case, he also used pseudonyms on some of his ACG covers—“Jay Kafka” on the super-heroes, and “Lou Wahl” on others (possibly to hide [from DC] the fact he was working for ACG).

There also exists Schaffenberger cover art for a Beyond Space title, suggesting that at one point Hughes was going to add yet another 28 pages of script to his workload!

Extra! Extra!

An Alcala cover for Extra #12, a comicbook for which Alcala drew back in his native Philippines, in 1952. With thanks to Alfredo Alcala, Jr., and Richard Arndt. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The use of pseudonyms to mask that writers had multiple stories in the same issue was common in many pulp magazines, too. Ziff-Davis pulps had a lot of them, some specific to one author—others slapped on whoever had too many stories in a given issue.

By the way, the art on that amazing Tailspin Tommy daily with the Hawkman panel swipe is probably by Reynold Brown, who assisted or ghosted for Hal Forrest in the 1940s and later went on to do poster art for movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Brown was, I think, 23 years old at the time; this was his first job (he left the next year—the strip folded a bit later). The art looks like it is all his, though he may have been working off prelims from

Forrest. As such, it’s hard to tell which of them did the swiping!

When the art on Tailspin Tommy begins to improve (after 1936 or ’37), that is Reynold Brown, a far better artist and inker than Forrest. And yes, it was pretty unique for a comic strip to swipe a comicbook—though given the artist crossovers between the two in the 1940s and ’50s, my guess is that this is not the only one—just the one that is most obvious!

George Hagenauer

Yeah, it couldn’t have been much clearer, George.

68

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Tailspin Tommy Flies Again!

This undated Tailspin Tommy strip, though signed by creator Hal Forrest, may well have been ghosted by Reynold Brown, who, George Hagenauer suggests on the preceding page, was “a far better artist and inker than Forrest.” Even so, the strip lasted for a number of years. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

One more item re #172, from FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck: “On page 76, next to the photo of Captain Billy Fawcett that I provided, the Whiz Comics cover date should have been ‘February 1940’ instead of ‘January’ in the caption.

Great seeing all that Alcala art in the issue!” Thanks for the correction, P.C. I, and I’m sure many another reader, thoroughly enjoyed your presentation of David Saunders’ two-issue study of his father’s fabulous work for Fawcett’s pulp magazines and other publications—including for a handful of comics.

Oh, and we know we’re one issue late with this one, but, re A/E #171, Nick Caputo writes, with regard to our tribute to the late great Joe Sinnott: “You list FF #4 instead of #5 as Joe’s first FF ink job (the caption is correct, though), and you wrote that Joe inked every issue of FF from #44 through #102. However, Frank Giacoia subbed for Joe on issues #93, 96, & 97, which Joe always regretted (I believe he took time off for a vacation).” We appreciate the data corrections, Nick.

Joltin’ Joe was a real pro, right to the end!

Now—got any corrections (or compliments, or complaints) related to this issue? If so, send them to: Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

SPECIAL NOTICE: As I stated several issues back, I was ecstatic to have worked with the UK publisher PS Artbooks to reprint the entire “Frankenstein” output of the super-talented Golden Age writer/artist Dick Briefer in a series of eight volumes, with the long-delayed Vol. 1 & 2 coming out over the past year or so. However, since few things in life are ever 100% perfect, we were soon informed by the aforementioned George Hagenauer that, somehow, a single page of art and story had been left out of Vol. 2— and George helpfully sent me a scan of it. It should have appeared as the 9th and final page of the “Frankenstein” story from Prize Comics #66 (Oct.-Nov. 1947), which would have made it page 240 of Vol. 2. Unfortunately, since most “Frankenstein” stories in Prize were eight pages long, this one, by accident, was omitted. So, even though I know that most A/E readers will not have copies of the quality trade-paperback Roy Thomas Presents Frankenstein, Vol. 2 – Collected Works, I decided I’d toss it into this edition of “re:” at full-page size, just so I could say with impunity that I had seen to it that every page of that classic series got reprinted. Thus, you can admire it on the facing page.

And if seeing this errant page causes any discriminating readers to go online to PSArtbooks.com to check out how to order the other 255 pages that go with that one—well, just tell ’em Rascally Roy sent you, okay?

Bestest,

Oh, and for exchanges of views and info, try the discussion group https://groups.io/g/Alter-Ego-Fans. If you can’t find it, or have any difficulty getting in, please e-mail our miraculous moderator Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com. Lots of data and opinions and queries there, including requests for help re A/E from Ye Editor.

And if you happen to be meandering through Facebook, check out what its creator and moderator, my manager/pal John Cimino, is up to over at The Roy Thomas Appreciation Board. Me, I’ve never been on Facebook in my life—but I make contributions (and read extracts) thanks to John and my wife Dann. In addition to everything else, it’s a good way to keep up with my comics-convention and comics-store appearances, of which I seem to be making quite a few in 2023. I have to keep tabs on the site myself in order to figure out where I’m supposed to be!

re:

The final Dick Briefer “Frankenstein” page from Prize Comics #66 (Nov.-Dec. 1947). [TM © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

69

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A CELEBRATION OF

– PART SEVEN

73

FCA’s Farewell To NEAL ADAMS

Fans Of The Original Captain Marvel Pay Homage To The Artist’s SHAZAM! Art

FCA

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: We celebrate artist Neal Adams with tributes from four past and present FCA contributors: Zorikh Lequidre, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts, who has worked for the Big Apple Comic Con since 2003 and is currently writing Captain Marvel Culture, a definitive history of all the characters with the Captain Marvel moniker… Mark Lewis, 20-year veteran animator for numerous Hollywood studios, as well as being FCA’s cover coordinator … Eric Jansen, a writer/artist who has produced Christian tracts distributed all over the world, including half a million copies of his Paraman mini-comic … and finally, Alex Ross, master comics painter who powerfully rendered Captain Marvel in DC Comics’ Kingdom Come, Justice, and Shazam: Power of Hope.

I myself was one of many who were enthralled with Neal’s superlative renditions of Captain Marvel for DC Comics products and licensees in the 1970s. His clear understanding of the character’s true essence shone forth in those illustrations that skillfully assimilated Cap back into the modern world.

If only Neal had been given the opportunity to draw a full Captain Marvel story! Alas, such an addition to his long list of awe-inspiring achievements can now exist only in our mind’s eye. —P.C. Hamerlinck

ZORIKH LEQUIDRE:

Can You Spell “Iconic”?

As you’ll see in this edition of FCA, fans—and pros—are still talking about this perfect image of Captain Marvel and Billy Batson that Neal Adams drew for the 1976 Super DC Calendar. Inks by Dick Giordano. [Billy Batson & Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

I got to see Neal Adams regularly, and we became friendly acquaintances through my work with the Big Apple Comic Con over the years. I’ve been a fan of Neal’s since the 1978 release of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali [All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56].

Zorikh Lequidre

In my research on the many Captain Marvels, I’ve sought out anyone who has done any work on any CM, and that included Neal. For Marvel Comics he drew “Kree-Skrull War” stories in The Avengers that featured Captain Mar-Vell …and he also did illustrations for DC that included the original Captain Marvel. He said that the “real” Captain Marvel was “the Big Red Cheese” and that he didn’t really count “the other guy.” And, just

as he fought for the rights of creators and artists to be adequately compensated and appropriately credited for their work, he had strong opinions about the whole business regarding Marvel’s hold on the Captain Marvel name.

At the Big Apple Comic Con in 2008, he gave me just over a minute of priceless video footage. His statement, for the record, in its entirety, was as fine a piece of direct talk as there ever could be: “For anyone who is interested in my opinion, and I don’t feel it’s required that you be interested in my opinion, I think it would be very, very nice for Marvel Comics to encourage the idea within the company that Captain Marvel should be known as the character that is essentially owned by DC Comics now, should be called Captain Marvel on the cover of the comicbook. For the sake of copyright protection, for the sake of ego, for the sake of competition, Marvel Comics has, in effect, made it impossible to call Captain Marvel ‘Captain Marvel.’ We are a family business. We are a mom-and-pop business. That’s a stupid attitude to take. I don’t care whose

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“Captain Marvel In Space” (Left:) Even Billy Batson shows up—somewhere on Neal’s densely populated cover for the 1978 Superman vs Muhammad Ali. [TM & © DC Comics.]

(Above:) A screen shot from Zorikh Lequidre’s video interview with Neal Adams, recorded at a 2008 Big Apple Comic Con appearance. [© Zorikh Lequidre/ captainmarvelculture.com]

attitude it is, it’s wrong. You should allow and encourage Captain Marvel to be called ‘Captain Marvel’ in a Captain Marvel comicbook. If they want to use Captain Mar-Vell in their own comicbook, I think that’s fine. But stop being an a**hole about it and let Captain Marvel be called ‘Captain Marvel,’ not ‘Shazam.’ That’s stupid.”

That was Neal Adams: to the point, bottom line, straight talk.

If he saw something that was unjust or just stupid, he would call it as he saw it. On top of all that, he was a hard-working artist who revolutionized comicbook art with his realism, dynamism, and creativity, inspiring a generation of artists to push the boundaries of excellence in comicbook art. We are poorer without him, but richer for having had him.

MARK LEWIS: Most people appreciate Neal Adams for being a trailblazer, finding a new path that hadn’t been explored before. But before all that, one of the things I like about his work is when he would “play by the rules.” He would stick to the established style or approach, yet still find some fresh angle on it. The DC Comics calendar image of Billy Batson and Captain Marvel is a perfect example. He followed C.C. Beck’s lead, kept the drawing very simple and recognizable, yet still managed to put something of himself in there.

[See previous page.]

In the same way, I really like some of Adams’ earliest DC covers. He was Mark Lewis working within the boundaries of DC’s house approach to their covers at the time, yet still found some life and freshness in the way he would execute them. He seemed to be coming from a place of showing first that you understood the rules and could play by them, before judiciously and intelligently breaking them (based on the years of experience he’d had as a professional working artist before getting into comics).

A Mar-Vell Mystery Adams drew Marvel’s Captain Marvel (“the other guy”) in The Avengers #93 (Nov. ’71).

This page (inked by Tom Palmer) is located a little past the middle of the eminent “Kree/Skrull War” saga written by Roy Thomas. Neal may have disliked Marvel’s enforcing its 1967-plus trademark on the name “Captain Marvel,” but clearly that didn’t stop him from drawing a mean Mar-Vell! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

FCA’s Farewell To Neal Adams

The Spirit Of ’76 (Above, left to right:) 1976 DC Comics licensing art by Adams included the World’s Mightiest Mortal (image courtesy of Heritage Auctions) and his cover art for the groundbreaking hardcover collection Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes for Harmony Books). (Below:) That same annum, Neal Adams/Dick Giordano artwork decorated the Shazam! Stamps packaging— and accompanying DC Super Hero Stamp Album. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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The Other “World’s Most Powerful Mortal” (Left:) One of Mark Lewis’ favorite Silver Age DC covers by Neal Adams was Action Comics #366 (Aug. ’68): “The scenario/set-up here should be somewhat familiar to fans of the Superman books at the time, but Adams brings a little more life into it by bringing the camera in a bit closer, and having each of the characters in their own different poses, not identical to each other.” [TM & © DC Comics.]

Calendar Girl—And Boys (Above:) Since one of Adams & Giordano’s twelve main interior illustrations for the 1976 Super DC Calendar was depicted a couple of pages back, here are the front (at top) and back covers Neal drew for that same marvelous merchandise.

Neal inked the front cover, Dick Giordano the back. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Live From DC Comics—It’s Saturday Morning!

(Left:) Neal Adams’ original, uncolored drawing of actor Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel in the 1970s TV series Shazam! Courtesy of Jackson Bostwick & the MEARS Museum. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

FCA’s Farewell To Neal Adams

ERIC JANSEN: Ever since I was a kid, Neal Adams has always been my art-hero.

In the last decade or so, I’d see him every year at San Diego Comic-Con. The first time I saw him in person, I just asked him for a handshake. I wanted a little of that Neal Adams “magic” to rub off on me.

We chatted several times over the years at SDCC; he’d always recognize me, even though he had to ask my Eric Jansen name every time. He’d always be smiling… always drawing. He was there to work and make money, but he loved drawing; having drawn professionally for around sixty years, he still loved it.

About five years into our “few-minutes-everyyear-friendship,” I worked up the courage to ask him if I could show him my portfolio. His ever-present smile faded and his face fell. I interpreted the look as being sad that he would have to destroy me now.

He reluctantly opened my portfolio, then seemed to look relieved as he went through my pages—mostly a story which began with a man in a hat and trench coat running down a city street.

He paused on a window I drew and explained that even for a fantasy story, the window should make sense, it should work, and whatever you draw, it should function realistically.

He paused on the

Don’t Rain On My Parade!

(Above:) Eric Jansen’s portrait of his art-hero, Neal Adams.

(Right:) The first time Neal Adams drew the Big Red Cheese (sort of) was in the form of a cosplayer atop a Rutland, Vermont, Halloween parade float in the Denny O’Neil-scripted “Night of the Reaper” in Batman #237 (Dec. ’71). Inks by Dick Giordano. This story appeared before DC Comics had licensed, let alone fully purchased, the rights to Fawcett’s Captain Marvel. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Between Caped Crusader & Dark Knight (Right:) Eric Jansen purchased this original Batman piece from Neal Adams one year at the San Diego ComicCon… and the artist graciously touched it up right before his eyes. Neal was one of the pre-eminent artists of Batman— ever! [Batman TM & © DC Comics.]

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ALEX ROSS: Neal Adams’ work was one of the essential forces in comics that would shape a young reader like I was, growing up in the 1970s. Given the enormous impact that Neal’s stylized realism made in the 1960s and the subsequent projects he did that cemented his legacy, anyone following the art form had to be affected by him.

I am one of those who was shaped by his example. Whenever Neal’s art appeared on covers, in whole comic stories or merchandising, it made one feel his presence as the preeminent illustrator in the field. He was the Alex Ross artist of record for my childhood, particularly in representing DC Comics.

If Neal did a piece of a character, that was now the high bar of their depiction that others had to compete with.

Putting His Cards On The Table (Above & below right:) Captain Marvel and Black Adam playing cards (drawn

by Adams) that were found online by Walt Grogan at NealAdams.com—and colored by Walt for this edition of FCA. Although today a hero-villain icon, Black Adam had only appeared in a single Golden Age story—in Marvel Family Comics #1 (1945). [Shazam hero & Black Adam TM & © DC Comics.]

character’s hat in one panel, which I had drawn a bit stylized and overly broad-brimmed. He took me to school on drawing hats! He drew a number of hats on his own paper to explain things to me— oh, how I wished that he was going to give that sheet to me! (He didn’t.)

He asked me what I did for a living. I was working for a Christian publisher at the time, and I had a booklet I had done on the life of Christ in my pocket. I showed it to him and he looked through it, then gave it back and congratulated me on being a working artist. That was important in his view, it seemed, to get the work and produce it. Before moving on to the next person in line, he left me with these words (paraphrasing): “God makes everything beautiful; so should we.”

Another year at his table he was inking a Swamp Thing piece penciled by Bernie Wrightson, telling me that Bernie was paying him to ink it. He was, if I may, a bit giddy about it, excited to be inking another master artist’s work.

The last time I saw Neal at SDCC, he had a number of original Batman head portraits he was selling. I found one three-quarter view that I loved with just a few white spots in the black areas and I audaciously asked him (he had his pen out) if he could just fill those in a little bit. He seemed glad to, and spent a few minutes on those and also strengthening some other lines.

They say don’t meet your heroes. I’m glad I did.

In particular to this point, the Captain Marvel/Billy Batson merchandising piece he did was just such an artwork that would captivate the audience. Neal Adams depicted a dramatic forced perspective on the Captain coming at us from his change as Billy in the background, establishing a modern dynamic aesthetic that still kept accurate facial details that defined them. The slightest bit of fuller hair for Captain Marvel would seem to bring him into the ’70s, and the classic cartooning that artist/co-creator C.C. Beck established was translated into realistic forms. The artwork was created for a 1976 DC calendar that was illustrated throughout by Neal and longtime collaborator artist/inker Dick Giordano. This calendar offered Neal the opportunity to make some of the most

FCA’s Farewell To Neal Adams

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Adams + Ross = Power!

In his 2000 book Shazam!: Power of Hope, Alex Ross summoned up Neal Adams’ 1976 Captain Marvel/Billy Batson calendar artwork in this origin retelling sequence. [TM & © DC Comics.]

If One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words…

(Left:) From Ross’ personal art collection, we see the original illustration of Adams’ Captain Marvel/Billy Batson calendar piece—framed with the color calendar page for which it was made, the preserved T-shirt from his childhood, and the school photo he wore it in.

(Above:) Here’s a closeup of Alex’s 2nd-grade photo from 1976, with the future star artist wearing his favorite T-shirt. Both photos courtesy of Alex.

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private collector, and it is the key piece of my personal art collection. For many years now, this beautiful work that Neal clearly inked himself is framed with the color calendar page it was made for, the preserved yellow shirt of my childhood, and the school photo I wore it in.

The effect of this single work of art seems quite large from my perspective. It’s because of artists like Neal, who applied his love for super-heroes and comics into examples of the greatest effort seen in the medium, that the characters would be put on an evolutionary path to continually inspire us.

A Couple Of Hero Sandwiches (Left:) Harvested from the “Little John” art gallery at Comicartfans.com, FCA contributor Walt Grogan colored a commissioned Neal Adams Captain Marvel sketch and transformed it into a faux Shazam! cover. That’s a Jim Aparo-drawn CM head on the upper left, beneath the DC logo. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

(Below:) Adams also illustrated the front cover of the 1977 Super DC Calendar (inked by Giordano). Even ol’ Doc Sivana joined his criminal cohorts on top of the Statue of Liberty! [TM & © DC Comics.]

re-purposed art of his career, where each character portrait had impact in the industry for years to come. I myself have made multiple tribute pieces to compositions from this work.

At the time in 1976, though, I didn’t own the calendar, and wouldn’t for many years to come, but I got the T-shirt that bore Neal’s Shazam! art.

On a vibrant yellow shirt (that I wore at age 6 in my 1976 second-grade school portrait photo) was a crude transfer of Neal’s drawing, with the line work blurring in the printing process. I loved it, and I’m certain I wore it well through the rest of the decade, beyond its fitting properly. Prescient of something, my mother saved this one article of clothing in storage.

In the 21st century, I’ve worked on a single graphic novel about Captain Marvel called Shazam!: Power of Hope (2000), where I did an illustration that evoked the transforming change piece that Neal did, within a sequence retelling the hero’s origin. I was very fortunate to be able to purchase the original art for Neal’s Captain Marvel/Billy Batson calendar portrait from a

[Special thanks to Walt Grogan, who provided many of the scans for this issue.]

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