Neal Adams passed away on Thursday at the age of 80. Along with Jim Steranko, he was one of my favorites. Quite a talent.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/29/us/ne...ies/index.html
Neal Adams passed away on Thursday at the age of 80. Along with Jim Steranko, he was one of my favorites. Quite a talent.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/29/us/ne...ies/index.html
Neal Adams. A name to be spoken with Steve Ditko, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jack Kirby, and, yes, I'll admit, Frank Miller: the artists that have truly defined Marvel. (Yes, I know I'm pushing it with Sienkiewicz, but he brought new life to Marvel when they were going stagnant.)
To me, though, his high point was his original run on Deadman. He did good stuff after that, to be sure, but never as crazy good.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I wasn't that familiar with Adams, as I wasn't buying comics during those years. I guess he got more famous during his Batman run. RIP
Like Richard Corben, Neal Adams passed away at 80. Both were still working and still operating at the high standard they're known for and had projects on the table.
I'd bet $20 that Neal Adams inspired more guys to become comic book artists than Jack Kirby. Yes, I said that. When I was a kid and first saw Adams' Batman art and (later, via reprints) X-Men, I lost my shit. Nobody was drawing at Adams' level at the time, at least not for a while, apart from Williamson and Steranko (I'm not counting Frazetta because he wasn't drawing sequential comics when Neal was the hot new kid on the block).
He did great work in the late 60s/early 70s on X-Men and The Avengers.Originally Posted by hippypants
I've been collecting comics for more than 60 years. This is as profound a loss as can be. I am more a DC person than Marvel, but he was the absolute top.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Neal did a lot more work at DC than Marvel.
I know- a lot of Batman, Green Lantern and Strange Adventures, but I got to know him first with X-Men even though I still love DC more.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Same. DC had far better horror titles in the '70s (House of Mystery/Secrets, Ghosts, The Witching Hour, The Unexpected, etc.); Kirby's Fourth World; Swamp Thing by Wein & Wrightson, and so much other great stuff.
And as far as I'm concerned, DC positively owned the Eighties! (Marvel did crush it with Miller's Daredevil, early Moon Knight by Moench & Sienkiewicz, and Simonson's Thor reboot.)
And now George Pérez has left us.
F*ck.
That was my era of Batman as a kid -- early - mid '70s. Loved the artwork. RIP.
George Perez was a truly class act- and his loss is profound. Reading first his own tweets after his cancer diagnosis, and then later those of his family as his strength began to fail, is poignant beyond the telling. What grace he displayed as he began to fail- the love he sent out to the world, the love people sent back to him, picture after picture of fans with him at cons, with his huge smile, and he always had time for everyone always. I think I am going to read Teen Titans and Wonder Woman in his honor- and whenever anyone can quiet Gail Simone for a day, you know he had to be someone special.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
I already had my Crisis on Infinite Earths HC out on display - time to re-read and absorb George's triumph
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Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
Titans is where my George Pérez worship began, starting with the preview in DCCP #26. George and Marv Wolfman proceeded to create the defining superteam chronicle. They wrecked my brain with a new take on the team dynamic, and that was before Brother Blood, Deathstroke and Terra's double-cross got added to the mixer. And that ART! As the generation before me saw with Neal Adams, it blew my mind to see gold-standard sequential art produced on a regular schedule with an almost inhuman consistency. (Credit to inker Romeo Tanghal, too.)
And then COIE? Shoot, Marv and George did it again. We must remind ourselves that that level of quality was being produced on a schedule. It wasn't a back-burner labor of love or graphic novel made free of the constraints of a timetable. COIE makes Secret Wars look like a backup story in one of the old Treasury editions (the only thing people remember about that is you-know-who's black suit).
And then George wrecked me again with his Wonder Woman reboot, which IMO soundly bests Miller's Batman: Year One and Byrne's Man of Steel as far as updates/reboots go. And again...the art was just SAVAGE. George's Diana is the definitive Diana, with full respect to those who have drawn her before and after.
Last edited by dropforge; 05-08-2022 at 02:00 PM.
No kidding.
She is really hurting. And she owns twitter, right? I agree that his WW reboot is the best ever done- it has made a world of difference in the superhero comic world.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Gail definitely has an audience.
The only downside (your mileage may vary) is that every story produced since dwells in the shadow of what George did. I believe DC knows this, which is why they commissioned so many covers from Brian Bolland.
(The same applies to Miller's Daredevil. I've checked out various issues over the years, and I've seen nothing that comes close to what he — and Klaus Janson — did. Virtually all of the issues done after Miller's departure the second time aren't worth two nickels you can rub together with your thumb and index finger.)
Totally agree re: Wonder Woman. Of all the reboots that came out of the COIE, that one walked away with the prize.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Can't agree there. Daredevil has been mostly outstanding for the last 20+ years, through the runs of Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, Charles Soule, and Chip Zdarsky. The only times it has really suffered was when it was forced into a couple of the gimmicky crossover events (e.g. Shadowland, King in Black).
I've tried. I just can't get into any of it. I didn't like The Man Without Fear by Miller/Romita, either. (Romita was wrong for DD, anyway.)
Batman's fared much better, at least till recently. I enjoyed the run by Snyder/Capullo.
i concur with the Bendis / Brubaker runs on DD as "on par" with FM's run including Born Again.
Not as big a fan of Soule's run and have not read Chip's.
I also heartily recommend Snyder/Capullo New52 run on Batman.
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Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
Comparing who did what better is merely a subjective call.
Here's a good obit for Perez.
I couldn't decide which was the worse "jump the shark" moment for Batman: Jim Gordon putting on the cowl or "evil" Thomas Wayne from an alternate earth.
Neither actually IMO - its Alfred dying....
I like Tom King - but he needs to be limited to 12 issues - his work on both Vision and Mister Miracle was excellent.
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Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
I wouldn't expect that to last. Death is just a phase people go through in comic books, and DC has rebooted or "retconned away" at least 80% of everything they ever published.
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