Neal Adams (June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. During his career, Adams co-created the characters John Stewart, Man-Bat, and Ra's al Ghul for DC Comics.
After drawing the comic strip based on the television drama Ben Casey in the early 1960s, Adams was hired as a freelancer by DC Comics in 1967. Later that year, he became the artist for the superhero character Deadman in the science fiction comic book Strange Adventures. Adams and writer Dennis O'Neil collaborated on influential runs on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the early 1970s. For Batman, the duo returned the Batman character to his gothic roots as a contrast to the Batman television series of the 1960s. During their Green Lantern/Green Arrow run, O'Neil and Adams introduced a mature, realistic tone through stories such as "Snowbirds Don't Fly", in which Green Arrow's ward Roy Harper is revealed to have become addicted to drugs. The duo created and introduced the Green Lantern character John Stewart in 1971.
Following his runs on Batman and Green Lantern, Adams drew other books for DC such as Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in 1978. In addition to his work with DC, Adams simultaneously freelanced for Marvel Comics on books such as Uncanny X-Men and The Avengers. In 1971, Adams established the art and illustration studio Continuity Associates with Dick Giordano. In 1984, Adams founded his own comic book company Continuity Comics, which was in business until 1994.
Adams was inducted into the Eisner Awards' Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998, the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999, and the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame in 2019.
Early life Neal Adams was born June 15, 1941, on Governors Island, New York City, to Frank Adams, a writer for the military, and Lilian, who ran a boardinghouse. Raised in a military family, he grew up in a series of army bases, ranging from Brooklyn to Germany. His father was largely absent from his life. Adams attended the School of Industrial Art high school in Manhattan, graduating in 1959.
Career Early work After graduation in 1959, he unsuccessfully attempted to find freelance work at DC Comics, and turned then to Archie Comics, where he wanted to work on the publisher's fledgling superhero line, edited by Joe Simon. At the suggestion of staffers, Adams drew "three or four pages of [the superhero] the Fly", but did not receive encouragement from Simon. Sympathetic staffers nonetheless asked Adams to draw samples for the Archie teen-humor comics themselves. While he did so, Adams said in a 2000s interview, he unknowingly broke into comics:
That panel ran in Adventures of the Fly #4 (Jan. 1960). Afterward, Adams began writing, penciling, inking, and lettering humorous full-page and half-page gag fillers for Archie's Joke Book Magazine. In a 1976 interview, he recalled earning "[a]bout $16.00 per half-page and $32.00 for a full page. That may not seem like a great deal of money, but at the time it meant a great deal to myself as well as my mothers ... as we were not in a wealthy state. It was manna from heaven, so to speak." A recommendation led him to artist Howard Nostrand, who was beginning the Bat Masterson syndicated newspaper comic strip, and he worked as Nostrand's assistant for three months, primarily drawing backgrounds at what Adams recalled as $9 a week and "a great experience".
Having "not left Archie Comics under the best of circumstances", Adams turned to commercial art for the advertising industry. After a rocky start freelancing, he began landing regular work at the Johnstone and Cushing agency, which specialized in comic-book styled advertising. Additional, November 16, 2009. Helped by artist Elmer Wexler, who critiqued the young Adams' samples, Adams brought his portfolio to the agency, which initially "didn't believe I had done those particular samples since they looked so much like Elmer Wexler's work. But they gave me a chance and ... I stayed there for about a year".
Ben Casey
In 1962, Adams began his comics career in earnest at the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate. From a recommendation, writer Jerry Caplin, a.k.a. Jerry Capp, brother of Li'l Abner creator Al Capp, invited Adams to draw samples for Capp's proposed Ben Casey comic strip, based on the popular television medical-drama series. On the strength of his samples and of his "Chip Martin, College Reporter" AT&T advertising comic-strip pages in Boys' Life magazine, and of his similar Goodyear Tire ads,These would later include the one-page "Flash Farrell Gets the Picture at Goodyear Aerospace". See Harvey Comics' Richie Rich #39 (Nov. 1965) at the Grand Comics Database Adams landed the assignment. The first daily strip, which carried Adams' signature, appeared November 26, 1962; a color Sunday strip was added September 20, 1964. Adams continued to do Johnston & Cushing assignments during Ben Casey's -year run. Additional, November 16, 2009.
Comics historian Maurice Horn said the strip "did not shrink from tackling controversial problems, such as heroin addiction, illegitimate pregnancy, and attempted suicide. These were usually treated in soap opera fashion ... but there was also a touch of toughness to the proceedings, well rendered by Adams in a forceful, direct style that exuded realism and tension and accorded well with the overall tone of the strip".
In addition to Capp, Jerry Brondfield also wrote for the strip, with Adams stepping in occasionally.Mendez, . Archived from the original November 13, 2006. Additional, November 16, 2009.
The ABC series, which ran five seasons, ended March 21, 1966, with the final comic strip appearing Sunday, July 31, 1966. Despite the end of the series, Adams has said the strip, which he claimed at different points to have appeared in 365 newspapers, 265 newspapers, and 165 newspapers, ended "for no other reason that it was an unhappy situation":
Adams' goal at this point was to be a commercial illustrator. While drawing Ben Casey, he had continued to do storyboards and other work for ad agencies, and said in 1976 that after leaving the strip he had shopped around a portfolio for agencies and for men's magazines, "but my material was a little too realistic and not exactly right for most. I left my portfolio in an advertising agency promising they were going to hold on to it. In the meantime I needed to make some money ... and I thought, 'Why don't I do some comics?'" In a 2000s interview, he remembered the events slightly differently, saying "I took [my portfolio] to various advertising people. I left it at one place overnight and when I came back to get it the next morning it was gone. So six months worth of work down the drain. ... "
He worked as a ghost artist for a few weeks in 1966 on the comic strip Peter Scratch (1965–1967), a hardboiled detective serial created by writer Elliot Caplin, brother of Al Capp and Jerry Capp, and artist Lou Fine. Comics historians also credit Adams with ghosting two weeks of dailies for Stan Drake's The Heart of Juliet Jones, but are uncertain on dates; some sources give 1966, another 1968, and Adams himself 1963. As well, Adams drew 18 sample dailies (three weeks' continuity) of a proposed dramatic serial, Tangent, about construction engineer Barnaby Peake, his college-student brother Jeff, and their teenaged sibling Chad, in 1965, but it was not syndicated. Adams later said that Elliot Caplin offered Adams the job of drawing a comic strip based on author Robin Moore's The Green Berets, but that Adams, who opposed the Vietnam War, where the series was set, suggested longtime DC Comics war comics artist Joe Kubert, who landed that assignment.
Silver Age splash
Turning to comic books, Adams found work at Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror-comics magazines, under editor Archie Goodwin.Arndt, Richard J. "The Warren Magazines" (2005 version with five interviews). Accessed October 11, 2009. Link updated November 16, 2009. WebCite archive. Adams debuted there as penciler and inker of writer Goodwin's eight-page story "Curse of the Vampire" in Creepy #14 (April 1967). He and Goodwin quickly collaborated on two more stories, "Fair Exchange" in Eerie #9 (May 1967) and "The Terror Beyond Time" in Creepy #15 (June 1967), and Adams reapproached DC Comics.
With DC war comics stalwart Joe Kubert now concentrating on the comic strip The Green Berets, Adams, despite his opposition to then-current U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, saw an opening:
Adams made his DC debut as penciler-inker of the -page story "It's My Turn to Die", written by Howard Liss, in the anthology series Our Army at War #182 (July 1967). He did a smattering of additional horror and war stories, respectively, for the two publishers, and then, after being turned down by DC's Batman editor Julius Schwartz, approached fellow DC editor Murray Boltinoff in the hopes of drawing for Boltinoff's Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold. Boltinoff instead assigned him to The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #101 (July–August 1967) and its full-length story "Jerry the Astro-Nut", written by Arnold Drake. It became the first of a slew of stories and covers Adams would draw for that series and The Adventures of Bob Hope, two licensed titles starring fictional versions of the TV, film and nightclub comedians.
During this period near the end of the industry revival historians call the Silver Age of comic books, Adams was soon assigned his first superhero covers, illustrating that of the Superman flagship Action Comics #356 (Nov. 1967) and the same month's Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #79 (Nov. 1967), featuring Superman and a mysterious new costumed character, Titanman. Also that month, Adams drew his first superhero story, teaming with writer Gardner Fox on the lighthearted backup feature "The Elongated Man" in Detective Comics #369 (November 1967), the flagship Batman title. Shortly afterward, he drew Batman himself, along with the supernatural superhero the Spectre, on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #75 (Jan. 1968) – the first published instance of Adams' work on what would become two of his signature comics characters. The first instance of Adams drawing Batman in an interior story was "The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads" in World's Finest Comics #175 (May 1968).McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 129: "1968 was the year when Neal Adams and Batman's fates became forever intertwined ... Adams tackled his first interior with Batman on Leo Dorfman's script for 'The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads' story in World's Finest Comics #175."
Another signature character, in what would prove Adams' breakout series, was the supernatural hero Deadman, who had debuted in DC's Strange Adventures #205 (Nov. 1967). Adams succeeded co-creator artist Carmine Infantino with the following issue's 17-page story "An Eye for an Eye",McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 125: "In a story by scribe Arnold Drake and artist Carmine Infantino, circus aerialist Boston Brand learned there was much more to life after his death ... In addition, Neal Adams, the artist who succeeded Infantino with the second issue, would soon become an industry legend." written by Arnold Drake, with George Roussos inking Adams' pencils. Adams went on to draw both the covers and stories for issues 207–216 (Dec. 1967 – Feb. 1969), and taking over the scripting with #212 (June 1968). The series became a fan sensation, winning many awards and being almost immediately inducted into the Alley Award Hall of Fame, with Adams himself receiving a special award "for the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art".