Marvel comic book called The Invaders but I hated—hated—Frank Robbins’ art on it. So when I looked at Caniff all I could see is Frank Robbins! [laughter] I thought, “It’s that guy who drew Captain America in all those weird poses!” Those twisted legs and he’d be jumping around like a ballerina with the splotchy ink lines. Karl Kesel is the guy that got me to look seriously at Caniff’s work. He had all the Terry and the Pirates stuff and I was finally at a point that I could understand it. I can see the art in Robbins’ work now too. I’m growin’. CBA: This was well into your professional career? Adam: Yeah, but like I said, it’s such an ongoing process for me. It never ends. CBA: When did you did your first real mainstream professional job? Adam: After Apple Comics, it’s been one assignment after another since then. Lots of b-&-w comics during that B-&-W Boom for companies that no longer exists. I did my first color work at Comico on Mike Barr’s Maze Agency. It was a good old fashioned guy-girl detective book. That was my big color gig, back then it was really big to be in color, as we were all coming out of the b-&-w movement. I was penciling, and that work led to me being hired to draw Justice League America. CBA: This was after Kevin Maguire’s run? Adam: Right. I was hired to draw wacky, expressive faces to match Kevin Maguire’s style. CBA: Did you admire Kevin’s work as it was coming out? Adam: I sure did, because I was selling Kevin’s work. In the comic shop, I was selling Justice League and I’d open the book up and say, “Look at this guy! He’s drawing all this amazing, funny stuff and the characters actually look like they’re saying what’s in the balloons.” It was just a really neat approach and a breath of fresh air at that time. CBA: How did you score that gig? Adam: During that Chicago Summer of ’88 Con I was talking about, I met Bill Willingham who was really riding high off The Elementals at that point. Bill was doing some work at DC for Andy Helfer, and he said, “Let me introduce you to Andy.” I showed Andy my work and, as he was editing Justice League at the time, Andy was the main guy responsible for that big hit. He said, “Whenever you’re free, give me a call.” What was really funny was that ever since I have started doing that stuff for Blood of Dracula in the Summer of ’87, I haven’t been without work. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been going from one assignment to another with the exception of when Maze Agency got put on hiatus. I got a call from the editor, Mike Eury— CBA: Was that due to the financial troubles of Comico? Adam: Yes. Mike said, “The book has to be put on hiatus. We’re really sorry about this. Please don’t tell anybody about this for a couple of days because we don’t want other Comico writers and artists finding out about this until we tell them. We’re trying to get in touch with them as well.” So I was out of work and was like, “Oh sh*t, I’m out of work!” So I just sat around sharpening pencils and playing with eraser shavings and an hour-and-a-half later, I get a call from Andy Helfer saying, “Hey, I hear you’re free.” [laughter] I said, “I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.” Andy said, “Come up to DC. We want to talk to you.” So in my 15 years in comics, the longest I’ve been out of work is an hour-and-ahalf. [laughter] But it was a rough hour-and-a-half! I was ready to sell the children. [laughter] So I immediately started to work on Justice League for Andy. CBA: How was Andy as an editor? He seems quite a nice, easy-going guy. Adam: He is. I certainly gave him a lot of gray hairs with my shenanigans, but he’s a fun guy and pretty much knows what he’s doing. I think that first year with him and J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire—that was the Golden Age for him. I was patently aware that I was the replacement guitarist of the Rolling Stones. [laughter] Those guys loved that August 2002
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first year together. They really had a good thing going. CBA: How long did you stay doing interior pages? Adam: About 12 issues, I think, plus covers. I then did a Star Trek graphic novel for DC Comics (which was me addressing my childhood and all the Star Trek stuff). Then I went over to Dark Horse and did Ghost for a while. That’s when I realized that I’m so bent out of shape about making these pages beautiful that I’m really of no use to anybody. CBA: Were you satisfied with your sequential work? Adam: Not really. I hated the compromises that I had to make to get it done. I’m one of those people who wants it all to be beautiful. I can’t accomplish that under the best of circumstances so when you’re doing a book on a deadline, it just doesn’t work. CBA: After working on Justice League and Star Trek, did your star rise? Did you believe that you were getting attention? Adam: I felt at that point that I was “last year’s girl.” I felt that was the most popular that I was ever going to get was as a pseudofan favorite artist of Justice League. I thought that was the the best it was going to get and it was going to be downhill from there. CBA: Did you give up the assignment or pass on to do other things or was it just a parting of the ways? Adam: I had a choice of doing another year of Justice League or doing the Star Trek
Opposite page: Top are AH’s pencils for Voodoo #2 cover; bottom is the inked version of another Voodoo cover, #3; inset is Voodoo drawing from AH’s sketchbook. Art ©2002 Adam Hughes. Voodoo ©2002 the respective copyright holder.
Below: Preliminary AH sketchbook drawing of the X-Men/WildC.A.Ts: The Modern Age cover. Art ©2002 Adam Hughes. WildC.A.Ts ©2002 Wildstorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. X-Men ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.
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