It's going to take a lot of time — time I don't have today — to write what I want to write about Neal Adams, who died yesterday in New York from "complications from sepsis." Here, I'll save you Googling it: "Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when an infection you already have triggers a chain reaction throughout your body. Infections that lead to sepsis most often start in the lung, urinary tract, skin, or gastrointestinal tract." Neal was 80.
I probably need to write two articles about him — one about what he put onto pages of comic books and how his unique skills revolutionized comics, changing minds everywhere about how they had to be drawn. A lot of people began drawing like him (or trying to) but one of his main achievements was convincing editors and publishers that comics didn't all have to look like what others had done before. Everyone after him who cultivated a unique, individual approach was more welcome in the field because of Neal.
And I need to write about what he did as a crusader, a champion of creators' rights not only in a legal but in a moral sense, as well. I have a dozen stories most people don't know about in which Neal, behind the scenes, saved some colleague's career or prevented the ruination of his or her work.
He could be abrasive and arrogant at times — I might need a third article for that — and God Help You if you were a young kid showing him your portfolio and asking him for a critique. But on balance, he was a force for good in the field and the field was better off for his presence in it.
I'll get around to all this. There's no rush. In the coming weeks, there will be no lack of articles and observations about his work and his accomplishments. He was clearly one of the most important figures in comics and maybe in a few other fields.