Neal Adams Interv iew
around the world. I became, in effect, a world-famous syndicated strip cartoonist, and then I voluntarily ended the strip and I was going to become an illustrator. That plan kind of backfired when the portfolio that I had spent six months on, I left it at an advertising agency and when I went back to get it, it had disappeared. EURY: And it’s never turned up? ADAMS: It’s never turned up. EURY: Who’s sitting on that, I wonder? ADAMS: I don’t know. I’d like to get a hold of them in a dark room. Anyway, I then had to face reality. I had no strip to do—I had some advertising clients, which was fine— and so I went to look for work doing comic books, which I felt was odd because I had a whole career. I had gone on above it and I really had no interest in doing comic books. They were now below me. It was comic strips and then illustration, that’s where my head was at. I realized [chuckles] that I was stuck for work. So instead of going to DC Comics, I went to Warren Publications and I did work for them. They were nice enough to give me work. I did work, but I discovered that it was very self-indulgent work in that I was looking to impress, by doing different styles and different concepts and different techniques and different things, and it was taking too long to do the work. I realized I could get a 12-pager, or a 24-page comic-book story over at DC Comics and take it home and crank it out. Here at Warren, I was getting sixpage stories. I would put my heart and soul into them and be paid just as poorly as I would be paid at DC Comics. So I thought, “Well, I’ll try, one more time, to break into DC Comics,” and I made an appointment with the war comics editor who had lost Joe Kubert to the comic strip The Green Berets. And he saw me, and I knew that Joe was missing from that position because I had helped Joe get that work [chuckles] to do Green Berets—it was offered to me first. So I went to speak to Bob Kanigher and I started doing war stories. And then I guess they just discovered there was a new creature in the zoo. EURY: You spent a lot of time actually there at the DC offices, didn’t you? ADAMS: Well, a lot of it was because they wanted me to do covers. And yeah, I kind of liked the idea of being out of the house. I had worked in my house for three-and-a-half, four years, and I was used to going out, doing commercial work, and I kind of liked the idea of finding out about the company, and what’s
Neal Adams (b. 1941) brought his photorealistic approach and non-traditional panel composition to DC Comics in 1967, after illustrating the Ben Casey newspaper strip. He started on lower-tier series like The Adventures of Bob Hope before attracting wider attention on Deadman (in Strange Adventures) and The Spectre, followed by Batman (in World’s Finest, The Brave and the Bold, Batman, and Detective) and the highly acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow. While he’s rarely drawn Superman comics, Adams’ interpretation of the Metropolis Marvel was widely seen throughout the 1970s on covers and merchandising. Neal Adams has inspired a generation of comic-book artists and remains influential in the contemporary comics and advertising mediums. Recommended reading: Neal Adams: The Sketch Book (Vanguard Productions, 1999); The Silver Age of Comic Book Art by Arlen Schumer (Collectors Press, 2003). Conducted by Michael Eury on March 3, 2006. Transcribed by Brian K. Morris. MICHAEL EURY: When did you first meet Mort Weisinger? NEAL ADAMS: Oh, I guess, when I went up to DC Comics to try to get work with Bob Kanigher, the war comics editor, which would have been—I guess I was in my late Courtesy of Roy Thomas and Alter Ego. twenties, middle twenties, something like that. And Mort was one of those people that was shuffling around, grumpy, looking mad, that didn’t seem to like anybody. EURY: I’m guessing he didn’t exactly open his arms to you on your first visit. ADAMS: I don’t think Mort opened his arms to anybody. [laughter] Mort was not an “open-your-arms” type of guy. His best relationships seemed to be with science-fiction writers and letter writers. After they worked their way into his good graces. If they came up to see him, then it was a very different thing because he had already corresponded with them for great lengths of time. But for an actual human being to meet him first time, I think he just wanted to crush them. EURY: You didn’t even make it past the door the first time you tried to show your samples. ADAMS: No. When I came out of school, my samples were very good—and I’m only saying that as Neal Adams, the adult, grown-up artist. (I still have those samples and I would give that guy work.) I couldn’t get past the door at DC Comics. A guy named Bill Perry came out and sat with me in the lobby and said, “I can’t bring you inside.” I said, “Well, can I just see an editor?” And he said, “They don’t use anybody. You really ought to do something else.” I had a hundred pages of comic-book art. EURY: This obviously didn’t discourage you, but how long did it take you before you went back again? ADAMS: Well, I didn’t really go back. I more orbited them. I did everything but work for DC Comics. I did Archie comics, I was an assistant on a comic strip, I did a comic strip, I did advertising comic books, I did everything. I did a syndicated strip for three-and-a-half years. It was quite successful. It was in 165 papers
Adams recommended Joe Kubert for the mid-’60s strip The Green Berets, based upon the book by Robin Moore. This daily was originally published on Sept. 26, 1967. © 2006 Chicago Tribune. Art courtesy of Heritage Comics.
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