Neal Adams article from National Review 2 2

[OuterboroGuy]

May be of interest -- Read It Here

[Terry JSA]

It’s a wonderful read. Going over the legacy of the legendary comic artist Neal Adams. It’s crazy to hear how close we came to losing him, glad to hear he’s recovered since from sepsis. 

[csaag]

Several years ago I found some physics related forums where Neal got into quite a spirited debate about his hollow earth theory and planetary physics.   I believe he taught himself serious physics over a long period

[VintageComics]

8 hours ago, csaag said:

Several years ago I found some physics related forums where Neal got into quite a spirited debate about his hollow earth theory and planetary physics.   I believe he taught himself serious physics over a long period

He actually came on here to talk about it for a bit and then left.

[thunsicker]

The article makes the claim he’s the current ‘king of comics’.  Got me thinking, who is the biggest old timer left?  Is it Neal?  John Romita Sr.?  Jim Steranko?  Who’ve you got?

[jick]

14 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

The article makes the claim he’s the current ‘king of comics’.  Got me thinking, who is the biggest old timer left?  Is it Neal?  John Romita Sr.?  Jim Steranko?  Who’ve you got?

I would say Neal is the biggest "active" old-timer left since he still does commissions.  

Even if he was retired, I'd still rate him above Romita Sr. and Steranko because Neal's body of work and influence spans so many different publishers.

There would be no Dark Knight Returns if Neal did not modernize Batman.  There would be no Arrowverse if Neal did not save Green Arrow in his GL run.

And the original comic art portion of this forum would probably have never existed has Neal not championed artists' rights and the return of original art pages to them.

I say this with full admiration for Neal, and in no way meant to diminish the accomplishments and influence of the other two artists you mentioned.  They are titans of the comic industry too!

[VintageComics]

32 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

The article makes the claim he’s the current ‘king of comics’.  Got me thinking, who is the biggest old timer left?  Is it Neal?  John Romita Sr.?  Jim Steranko?  Who’ve you got?

It's such a subjective discussion because art is appreciated differently by everyone but what draws me to Neal is the same thing that draws me to Wrighteson and Frazetta and that is how they are able to translate a character's humanity in their work.

Facial expressions, body anatomy, hands (hands are so hard to draw properly and for me it's always been a litmus to an artists's accomplishment - just look at all the great artists in comics like the ones mentioned above and compare how they draw hands to lesser artists - it's also something I loved about Michaelangelo's work) all of these things transfer emotion and motion in such a manner that it puts them a cut above the rest IMO.

Ditko was great at it too, from facial expressions to the flow of the clothing of his characters.

Eisner and Miller are another few.

Other greats like Kirby were amazing at creating action and layout but not as good as the subtle and nuanced detail that the above artists were at expressing a character's humanity.

[JTLarsen]

2 hours ago, jick said:

I would say Neal is the biggest "active" old-timer left since he still does commissions.  

Even if he was retired, I'd still rate him above Romita Sr. and Steranko because Neal's body of work and influence spans so many different publishers.

There would be no Dark Knight Returns if Neal did not modernize Batman.  There would be no Arrowverse if Neal did not save Green Arrow in his GL run.

And the original comic art portion of this forum would probably have never existed has Neal not championed artists' rights and the return of original art pages to them.

I say this with full admiration for Neal, and in no way meant to diminish the accomplishments and influence of the other two artists you mentioned.  They are titans of the comic industry too!

I looked into it, and this is factually correct.

[kav]

I love Kneel Atoms stuff but as far as his viewpoints on most anything-not so much.

[KCOComics]

Man... Great discussion. 

My initial impulse was Romita Sr without a question.  I mean, he took Spidey from Ditko and put together such an amazing run.  I just think of all those classic Romita Spidey covers. He was amazing.  He also changed Peter Parker a bit, which was really important. Lightened him up a bit. 

But what a body of work for Neal! I said the other day I thought he was the greatest Batman artist in history. His horror work was tremendous. 

I could flip a coin and feel really good about either of those two guys. 

Sterenko is amazing in his own right. I feel like his Nick Fury run is sorely under appreciated.  He didn't really do the number of titles as Neal or John and he didn't have a transformational run of a major character like Spidey or Batman.... So I don't think he's up with those guys, but of those 1968 Marvel line ups, purely from an art stand point, Jim's work was my favorite! 

 

[kav]

His writing is silly-anyone read them spectre books?   

[kav]

Keep all writing implemens away from Kneel  Atoms.  Batman Oddysey. 

[HotKey]

15 hours ago, csaag said:

Several years ago I found some physics related forums where Neal got into quite a spirited debate about his hollow earth theory and planetary physics.   I believe he taught himself serious physics over a long period

I had no idea Neal Adams was a hollow earther. Does he still hold this belief?

Edited June 20, 2021 by HotKey
Spelling

[csaag]

5 hours ago, HotKey said:

I had no idea Neal Adams was a hollow earther. Does he still hold this belief?

I never found any later interviews concerning  that  so can't say for sure.  Though if you read them, he's very opinionated and he wasn't always  nice during those online discussions  so I don't think he's the type of guy to change his mind over criticism.  Any stuff I found later concerned electric cars, for which he was a strong proponent  of.

[csaag]

8 hours ago, kav said:

His writing is silly-anyone read them spectre books?   

Yeah his writing  doesn't  hold a candle to his artwork, but as a kid finding all of that Spectre run in the dollar bins - I loved them at the time.

[jick]

Beyond his Batman run, he also:

-created John Stewart and championed social justice in the GL/GA run.  While this can be attributed to Denny O Neil, Neal Adams has said it was his idea to make John Stewart not the stereotypical characters of color for that era - making him a superhero with a college degree

-championed artists' right by insisting original art be returned to them.  He also championed the recognition of Siegel and Shuster as Superman's creators.  It was only after Neal fought for them that Superman comics started having the blurb crediting their creators in the opening splashes

-In the Marvel universe, he had those memorable runs on X-Men and Avengers.  I think he designed the costume/helmet of Havok.

-co-created Ra's Al Ghul who has appeared in at least 3 different live action forms in the span of just a few years - Dark Knight trilogy movies, Gotham TV series, and Arrowverse TV shows

-The Superman Muhammed Ali crossover also put Adams' influence beyond just comics and into the world of sports.  He reprised that cover in ESPN Magazine athletes of the century issue featuring Ali vs Michael Jordan.  

-and let's not forget the legion of artists who were influenced by his style - which is more than any other comic artist I can think of

 

His writing is nothing to write home about. I still haven't fully understood Batman Odyssey - and not even close to full!  And more than the hollow earth theories, he also believes that sasquatches and dogmen walk among us.  But nevertheless, I still stand by my earlier statement that I agree that Neal is the biggest active living old-timer.  And that was such a great read of an article by James Rosen.

[csaag]