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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2016 18:56:23 GMT -5
Neal Adams is a nice guy so long as you don't revere him as a comic book god. He doesn't love comics, and doesn't understand comic book fandom. He's a commercial artist from the old school when comic book creators weren't yet young enough to have grown up on comics themselves.
See - this is weird to me because when he explains his approach to writing/drawing it's from a perspective of "I'm writing/drawing so and so the way fans know he should be". I suppose this could just be commercial savvy on his part, but he famously told Julius Schwartz (when the latter asked "How come everyone's saying the real Batman's appearing in Brave and the Bold?") that "Me and every kid knows who the real Batman is". I don't know, perhaps I'm blowing it out of proportion but he does seem to present himself as a guy giving fans what they've wanted and feel is long overdue. Perhaps he says this because "Who the Hell is Batman?" doesn't work as well when promoting a new story than "I know Batman inside out".
I will love this man's art until the day I die, but I have heard he's a bit out there. Like, arguing the location of specific states in the US. With folks FROM those states. He is arrogant (but, really, who isn't?), but I've heard he's "nice enough". |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 14, 2016 19:13:39 GMT -5
Neal Adams is a nice guy so long as you don't revere him as a comic book god. He doesn't love comics, and doesn't understand comic book fandom. He's a commercial artist from the old school when comic book creators weren't yet young enough to have grown up on comics themselves.
See - this is weird to me because when he explains his approach to writing/drawing it's from a perspective of "I'm writing/drawing so and so the way fans know he should be". I suppose this could just be commercial savvy on his part
I'm inclined to believe it's that. Heck, he finally achieved the first generation comic artist dream of leaving the comic business for a gig in commercial art and only came back because he realized that the money's in comics now. Granted, my experience with Neal was limited to a single day working for him at his booth, but the impression I got is that he makes no effort to conceal the fact that he's in it for the money. He knows he did something people respect and he feels it's appropriate to cash in on that. There's no shame and no intent to hide it; he's there to make money that he deserves. And he'll sketch as little as possible and sell the maximum number of prints in order to do so. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 15, 2016 7:20:55 GMT -5
It's clear that Neal is in it for the money, but I think, deep down, he's still a fan. I do think that Neal was on the tale end of a generation that was more interested in the process and art form as opposed to the characters. The fan-turned-pro generation, for the most part, comes right after Neal's. I read an interview featuring John Buscema where he admitted that he didn't much care for the actual stories but loved studying different artists techniques. That said, virtually all of these guys were fans of older comic strip, pulp and serial characters. It makes sense if you think about it. It wasn't until Marvel in the 60's that the writing started to develop beyond one-dimensional characterizations in the comics.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jan 15, 2016 8:47:34 GMT -5
Back in the late '70s when I was first trying to break into comics, a friend of mine took my sample pages to Continuity for an evaluation. Neal Adams phoned me during the interview and told me "Your grasp of perspective is so bad, you should be shot!" It pissed me off so much I went out, bought a book on the subject (which I still have), and spent the next year mastering it, getting good enough that Jim Shooter gave me the Dr. Strange script I did as my tryout for Marvel. A couple of years ago when Neal came to Emerald City, I told him that story. He didn't insult my intelligence by pretending to remember but he did ask, "And did you learn perspective?" I said yes, and he said with a grin, "Then you're welcome."
Cei-U!
I summon the tough love!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2016 8:54:56 GMT -5
Back in the late '70s when I was first trying to break into comics, a friend of mine took my sample pages to Continuity for an evaluation. Neal Adams phoned me during the interview and told me "Your grasp of perspective is so bad, you should be shot!" It pissed me off so much I went out, bought a book on the subject (which I still have), and spent the next year mastering it, getting good enough that Jim Shooter gave me the Dr. Strange script I did as my tryout for Marvel. A couple of years ago when Neal came to Emerald City, I told him that story. He didn't insult my intelligence by pretending to remember but he did ask, "And did you learn perspective?" I said yes, and he said with a grin, "Then you're welcome." Cei-U! I summon the tough love! This was something he said to you? I did watch an interview with him recently where he said that if an artist stops learning, stops growing, or thinks he already mastered art, then he's stunted and that basically he is stupid. He said you never stop learning. And you never stop trying to be better. If this is how he really feels, then his last comment to you proves he's the teacher no one ever really wants. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Jan 15, 2016 9:45:56 GMT -5
Have I told my possibly apocryphal Neal Adams story? I think I have, but it's been a while, so I'll tell it again.
When I was a kid, my aunt was married to painter Doug Beekman, who worked in comics for a long time, and who was friends with Neal Adams. According to my aunt, Neal Adams was, and I quote, "a real asshole." Despite this, my aunt baked him a birthday cake.
So, Neal Adams is, I dunno, watching TV in the dark or something, and he calls her and says, man, this cake is great, especially those crunchy bits in the frosting! My aunt had no idea what he was talking about, as she didn't add any crunchy toppings to the cake. Neal turns the light on - the "crunchy bits" he's been eating are some of his apartment's cockroaches, crawling over the cake.
I don't know if this is true, as my aunt was a bit of a raconteur. But she absolutely cackled with glee like a mad witch when she told the story.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2016 9:49:48 GMT -5
That is the best story, ever.
I just spit all over myself.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 15, 2016 10:39:41 GMT -5
Back in the late '70s when I was first trying to break into comics, a friend of mine took my sample pages to Continuity for an evaluation. Neal Adams phoned me during the interview and told me "Your grasp of perspective is so bad, you should be shot!" It pissed me off so much I went out, bought a book on the subject (which I still have), and spent the next year mastering it, getting good enough that Jim Shooter gave me the Dr. Strange script I did as my tryout for Marvel. A couple of years ago when Neal came to Emerald City, I told him that story. He didn't insult my intelligence by pretending to remember but he did ask, "And did you learn perspective?" I said yes, and he said with a grin, "Then you're welcome." Cei-U! I summon the tough love! This was something he said to you? I did watch an interview with him recently where he said that if an artist stops learning, stops growing, or thinks he already mastered art, then he's stunted and that basically he is stupid. He said you never stop learning. And you never stop trying to be better. If this is how he really feels, then his last comment to you proves he's the teacher no one ever really wants. Sometimes the teacher you don't want is the one you really need. You don't need to like someone to be able to learn from them. |
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Post by The Captain on Jan 15, 2016 10:56:27 GMT -5
This was something he said to you? I did watch an interview with him recently where he said that if an artist stops learning, stops growing, or thinks he already mastered art, then he's stunted and that basically he is stupid. He said you never stop learning. And you never stop trying to be better. If this is how he really feels, then his last comment to you proves he's the teacher no one ever really wants. Sometimes the teacher you don't want is the one you really need. You don't need to like someone to be able to learn from them. My daughter and I had a similar conversation in the car last night following her swim practice. One of the assistant coaches ran her group's practice, and he worked them HARD. Lots of 50m sprints, with very little time in between, and for some of the 25m sprints, he was challenging them to take as few breaths as possible. All of the kids left the pool winded and holding their sides, and she was a little upset by it, saying that the other coaches don't make them do that and their practices are "more fun". I told her that on the sprints where she was taking fewer breaths, she was finishing faster because she was not pulling herself out of her rhythm to grab the extra breaths. It was designed to help the kids realize they don't need to breath every two or four strokes, and that in a meet, where they swim an event and then usually rest for at least 30 minutes until their next event, pushing themselves really hard for the time it takes to swim a 25m or 50m race isn't going to kill them. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2016 11:00:10 GMT -5
This was something he said to you? I did watch an interview with him recently where he said that if an artist stops learning, stops growing, or thinks he already mastered art, then he's stunted and that basically he is stupid. He said you never stop learning. And you never stop trying to be better. If this is how he really feels, then his last comment to you proves he's the teacher no one ever really wants. Sometimes the teacher you don't want is the one you really need. You don't need to like someone to be able to learn from them. Yes, exactly.  Sorry if my post was not clear enough with that. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 15, 2016 11:23:32 GMT -5
Sometimes the teacher you don't want is the one you really need. You don't need to like someone to be able to learn from them. Yes, exactly. Sorry if my post was not clear enough with that. No worries, sometimes I miss a perfectly clear point. Must be getting old. Now get off my lawn. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 15, 2016 11:50:23 GMT -5
Speaking of getting old, I was having a conversation with a co-worker, and she was complaining about the amount of work going into the year-end close for accounting. She concluded with, "I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm 31 and a half." I then informed her that I had uniforms from when I was in the Navy that were older than that. I swear, these kids today....
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2016 12:04:20 GMT -5
Speaking of getting old, I was having a conversation with a co-worker, and she was complaining about the amount of work going into the year-end close for accounting. She concluded with, "I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm 31 and a half." I then informed her that I had uniforms from when I was in the Navy that were older than that. I swear, these kids today.... I'm getting old. Women are viewed old faster than men are. My job has increased the age my joints feel. But that is getting better because I am more adequately staffed for my job now. But, yeah, I'm getting old enough now to start feeling ashamed to tell people my age. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 15, 2016 13:39:35 GMT -5
This was something he said to you? I did watch an interview with him recently where he said that if an artist stops learning, stops growing, or thinks he already mastered art, then he's stunted and that basically he is stupid. He said you never stop learning. And you never stop trying to be better. If this is how he really feels, then his last comment to you proves he's the teacher no one ever really wants. Sometimes the teacher you don't want is the one you really need. You don't need to like someone to be able to learn from them. So he was not the teacher Cei-U! deserved, but he was the teacher Cei-U! needed? |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 15, 2016 13:41:50 GMT -5
Speaking of getting old, I was having a conversation with a co-worker, and she was complaining about the amount of work going into the year-end close for accounting. She concluded with, "I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm 31 and a half." I then informed her that I had uniforms from when I was in the Navy that were older than that. I swear, these kids today.... I'm getting old. Women are viewed old faster than men are. My job has increased the age my joints feel. But that is getting better because I am more adequately staffed for my job now. But, yeah, I'm getting old enough now to start feeling ashamed to tell people my age. Yep. Folks still find a 60+ year old George Clooney desirable, but as soon as Scarlet Johansson turns 40, she's going to fall off the face of the Earth unless she can pull a Meryl Streep. The bigger tragedy than the inequity in who the general population finds desirable is the fact that it also equates desirability with worth. |
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