Monday 11 January 2016

Comic Book Greats #4: Neal Adams

Art by Dave Sim
(from Glamourpuss #1, April 2008)

DAVE SIM:
(from Following Cerebus #9, August 2006)
...He had been a guest at the first comic book convention I had attended in 1972, Cosmicon in Toronto. I had had no problem talking to Jim Steranko or Joe Kubert or Gary Morrow when the opportunities had presented themselves -- as if I had known them for years -- but at one point Neal Adams had been walking through the Dealers' Room, unattended and at a leisurely pace, and I had just watched dumbfounded -- I'm sure with my mouth agape -- as he walked past me. The convention had been held at Winters College on the campus of York University, and part of the set-up had featured six classrooms upstairs dedicated to displays of original artwork by the attending artist guests. Neal Adams' room was literally wallpapered with the original artwork to "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" (Green Lantern / Green Arrow 76), "What Can One Man Do?" (Green Lantern / Green Arrow 87), "Night Of The Reaper" (Batman 237) and a couple of other stories and as-yet unpublished covers. I could feel my brain detaching from my body and doing backflips just standing in there looking at those pages. I literally had to leave to recover my equilibrium. That's really the point where I knew I wanted to draw comic books for a living. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that that was when I knew I wanted to be Neal Adams when I grew up, but the one ambition eventually eroded into the other one once I had come to my senses...

4 comments:

CerebusTV said...

"Gary Morrow" should be Gray Morrow, the late great comics and science fiction illustrator.

Jon Marvin said...

I attended that Cosmic on as well (still have the program somehwere, I think). I well remember the Neal Adams room, too. I was still pretty new to Toronto, had no idea where I was going, but loved every second.

Steve said...


Neal was here in Albuquerque just this past weekend at a comic con. I help a friend out who is a vendor and try to be available for artists to run errands, that sort of thing, so they get used to my coming around and checking on them.

Sunday morning, before the doors officially opened, I asked Neal how well he was doing at the con.

"Well, it'll be even better once you buy something from me!" was his response.

Several dealers have told me that he will swing thru the dealer room telling them to pull all his books, jack the price up, and then send the buyers to his booth so he can charge them to sign the covers.

That said, I did have a nice chat with Neal and his wife about their trip to Niagra Falls and how courteous Dave was.



Steve

CerebusTV said...

Neal is trying to avoid the ignominious end predicted by some nattering nabobs of negativism for comic book greats...