Mark Jarek sent me this question about Neal Adams…
I have wanted to ask you this for a couple of years, but never got around to it. With Neal's death, it is unfortunately timely to ask you what it was like for a long-time comics fan (as you were at the time Neal started at DC) to see his work for the first time. I assume it stood out immediately to you and would love to hear your recollections of your initial reaction to his pseudo-realistic art.
I think I first saw Neal's work in one of DC's war comics and maybe on either the Bob Hope or Jerry Lewis comics. He did not stand out in the war books amidst Kubert and Heath, and I still don't think he was as good as Bob Oksner on Bob's or Jerry's comics. The first Neal Adams work that particularly impressed me was a story he drew for Warren Publishing's Eerie #9 called "Fair Exchange."
And in hindsight, I think one of the things that excited me about it was that, apart from the drawings of Cousin Eerie on the first and last pages, it was not him doing a new version of an established character. I know a lot of folks would soon be saying, "Oh, I love the Adams version of The Flash" or "I love how Neal draws Green Lantern." I'm more impressed when artists create as opposed to reinterpret.
One of the rare exceptions to that was when Neal got around to Batman. He didn't just draw a neater-looking Batman than others had. His drawings reinvented the character and the scripts fell in line with what he was drawing. And it wasn't just how he drew the hero but also the whole environment in which the character operated.
By that time, I was starting to hear tales of what Neal was doing besides drawing…how he was influencing the way creators and their work were treated and how he was inspiring new artists and writers. It became harder to judge the man just by what he was putting on paper, especially when I thought some people were learning all the wrong lessons from him.
I never thought of his work as "pseudo-realistic" except in the sense that most art for adventure or romance comic books is "pseudo-realistic." I just thought of him as a very talented artist who broke through a system that discouraged individuality. The field was very lucky to have him, especially coming along at the time it needed a force like him.