Adams was easily one of the most influential artists of his time - John Byrne and Bill Sienkiewicz were both heavily influenced by his style and Larry Hama was one of the many he mentored. He drew some of the definitive Batman, Green Lantern, X-Men and Avengers comics.
I have to say, though, that he didn't have a great impact on me as a fan; growing up as a reader in the 80s and 90s he was someone I heard about often, but he wasn't working for Marvel or DC then and his old stuff was scarce. I knew of him - I heard the anecdotes about how his Deadman comics were supposedly the only DC Comics Stan Lee liked, or how he was offered anything at Marvel to draw but chose X-Men because it was the lowest-selling book.
I think if I had read him when I was younger his work would occupy a vivid space in my mind, but I'm afraid I didn't come to him until much later. I still like his work, but after a couple of generations of his successors could fine-tune his concepts, what he did wasn't groundbreaking when I finally came to it. It still pops out, but I'm afraid I grew up in the age of flashy Image artists, so it doesn't push the envelope any more.
Still, there were all the stories about Adams; about how he's a weirdo who belives the Earth is expanding in size; about standing up for Siegel and Shuster when DC made the Superman movie; or any of the numerous anecdotes where he stood up for fellow comic book creators, using his cache to force the publishers to make better deals.
Rest in peace, Mr. Adams.
I have all three volumes of his compiled Batman works. To me, Batman looks like the Neal Adams Batman in my mind and he always will even though I know this was a 70's sort of evolution that involved several artists and inkers. Batman has a yellow oval and eh, it's just pathetic when they don't use it today. It's marketing 101 to have DC's dual logo, along with Superman's "S".
ReplyDeleteI revisit especially Adams' 70's work and have reprints of the O'Neil Lantern/Arrow comics.
I love how athletic Adams' Batman was and how, eery, for lack of a better word. Batman was almost supernatural during this period without any super powers. He just was and this was almost a subtle Batman compared to later versions. Of course, my very young days involved the campy Batman usually scouring other planets and the like and that is valid too.