 |
| Copyright DC COMICS |
Like to read loads about the life and career of Neal Adams, Crivs? Too much of a chore for a lazy loafer like me, but you can find out everything you need to know by clicking this link. (That spares me all the hard work and also saves my typing finger from any more repetitive strain injury than it can cope with.) Besides, you only come here for the pictures anyway, admit it.
So make sure you're wearing a clean pair of underpants and fasten your seatbelts as we take a look at all the classic Batman covers that Neal Adams illustrated (or inked) over the course of his long and celebrated career. Can you handle the visual sensory overload? And if you have a favourite or three, be sure to share 'em with your fellow Crivs ('cos we're all nosey buggahs).
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
19 comments:
On the subject of comics I think my local comics shop has closed. Inside the shop there are boards pressed up against the windows and they'd already stopped selling new comics several months ago.
Funny how many comic shops are closing, eh, CJ? And to think they were once regarded as the 'saviour' of the comicbook business. I get any comics I buy via eBay nowadays, the very rare exception aside.
What a great selection of covers, it must have taking you ages to scan and/or download these. I have a few of these and have seen most of them at some point but I don't recall seeing Detective Comics #396 before. Great stuff Kid, I enjoyed looking at all these again all in one place you may not be aware im a big Neal Adams fan lol. I will need to look at buying some of these at some point.
I'd previously scanned them for several separate posts on Adams, McS, but spent a bit of time resizing them (I now post images at 1200mm, not 1600mm) and tidying them up a bit. You a Neal Adams fan? Nobody told me, what a coincidence, eh? I'll have to see about buying some of them myself.
Superb post Kid.Adams was the definitive Batman artist and set the tone for the 1970's.I think DC must have advised their other artists to copy his style.Novick,Brown,Wrightson.Kaluta,Amendola etc followed his lead,I think, and that period from1970 -75 was ,for me, the Golden Era.Witches,Haunted Houses,Ghosts,Swamps, Moors,Castles,ghost Knights in armour(what a cover!)....basically anything with a supernatural slant was open to interpretation.DC went a bit 'Scooby Doo' with many superhero titles becoming extensions of the Mystery books ...thinking Challengers of the Unknown,Teen Titans,Wonder Woman etc.All good with great covers but Batman/Detective was the best.Was it DC's best selling title,probably not but it was the finest comic for story and art on the newsstands!Many thanks for compiling the listKid...is that every cover he did?Best wishes and stay well.
Horror story for you! When I was a kid, I would tear these covers off and glue them in a scrap book! They were only 15 cents each, after all. Then one day I grew bored and chucked the scrap book! I look back and wonder just what was wrong with me! Of course, now I want them all back. Sigh.
I think it's every DC cover with Batman on it up until the three volume Neal Adams Batman books were published, though he may have done others after that point, Triple F. If I've missed any, it's an inadvertent oversight on my part. As for DC's best-selling title, that probably varied from time-to-time, but I imagine Batman mags must have at least been near the top of the list. And best wishes to you, too.
******
A similar horror story for you in return, LM: In the early '70s, I used to remove the covers from my US comics, punch holes in them, then store them in a ring-pull binder. I had quite a big pile of coverless comics until I realised the error of my ways and stopped doing it.
(WARNING ALL COMIC COLLECTORS, THIS POST CONTAINS ATITUDES AND LANGUAGE OF THE TIME, THAT SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING). Not Batman Comic related, but just as mindless and horrific. Back in the day 70's -80's I collected all of the Star Wars weekly and Planet of the apes comics, every edition 100's of paper based treasures. Then one tragic day hormones kicked in, and my mind started to function from a different anatomical department, changing my molecular make-up (without any greeness). Well with no obvious regret at the time, I had my precious comics weighed and scrapped at a local paper recycle company for the bounty of £15, just so I could get P*****! and maybe be on a promise from some unfortunate female. The scars still cut deep to today over that period of inexcusable blatant madness, and worse, I still struck out with my ill gotten blood money. "I'm guilty ma lurd, take me down".
Well, at least you made some money from them, R - unlike myself when I gave away or threw out my comics on a regular basis to make room for new ones. What was I thinking? Back around 1980 I started acquiring replacement issues for a few of the comics I used to have (Fantastic #1, Terrific #1, MWOM #1, and SMCW #1) and it gradually snowballed from there. I've got more comics today (and toys) than I ever had at one time when I was growing up.
Sounds like you've more than redeemed yourself K. We might earn money as we grow up, but we were richer on all levels back then, we just didn't realise it.
All too true, R. And something that was beyond price was the sense of eternity (illusion though it was) we possessed when young. Now where did that go to?
Our hair may go grey, our joints may hurt, and life can knock you about, but deep inside is that same child from years ago, but he's now got the key's to a Lada, when he still wishes it was a Ferrari, so we buy things to keep that inner child happy. "AND WHY THE HECK NOT! I'm already eyeing up my next retro buy, the inner child demands it. (And he's an eternally spoilt little sod!) That arrangement is fine by me...
Strangely, I've never been interested in real cars, only toy ones. Not sure what my next 'retro' buy will be. I don't always hunt them down, I just wait until they become available.
Excellent covers gallery. I think I mentioned before that there was only one shop near to me that sold DC Comics so I only had a few growing up. Batman would have definitely been one of my regular titles had I had easier access to them. If those covers don't draw you in, nothing will!
The cover is very often what sells the comic, M. Sometimes DC editors would have what they considered an interesting cover drawn, then get a writer to create a story around it.
Always fun when you see the issues that you have in your own collection. Detective #370 has quite the "Infantino" look to it.
It does indeed, RH. I'd say it's pencilled by Infantino and inked by Adams. There are a couple of issues later down the page that look as if they were pencilled by Curt Swan.
I sometimes associate Adams and his most famous collaborator with "baby boomers.," but Adams and O'Neil were born at the end of the so called "Traditional Generation," the one between the "Greatest Generation" and the baby boomers. But they still had their greatest appeal with the baby boomers reading comics in the late sixties and early seventies, including my humble self. And they arguably paved their way for the actual baby boomer talents of the seventies.
Funnily enough, I wasn't really familiar with any of Adams' and O'Neil's early work together at the time it was first published, I discovered it through reprints, though I did get the Man-Bat and Ras al Ghul issues at the time. No doubt what you say is largely true, GP.
Post a Comment