Artiste

One of the things the young Friar appreciated in his comic-book consumption -- which, despite claims from certain authority figures, was not indiscriminate -- was a well-done realist style of art. Yeah, you're reading a story about a guy who was born on another world or one who dresses up like a bat to fight bad guys, but they had to look plausible.

His favorite artists of that time leaned heavily in that direction -- Mike Grell, Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano and, king of them all, Neal Adams. It was only later I realized how important Adams' art was to some of the medium-changing ideas circulating at the time. Denny O'Neil's far more grounded Batman stories would not have worked if they'd been drawn by Dick Sprang. Sprang's cartoony style matched for the sometimes goofy adventures of the 1950's and '60's Dynamic Duo, but the decision to emphasize the "detective" aspect of the hero left little room for giant exploding jack-in-the-boxes.

Adams also help maximize the new trend of characters' facial expressions resembling those of real people. His classic cover to Green Lantern #85, in which the Lantern confronts fellow super-hero Green Arrow with undeniable evidence that Arrow's ward Speedy was using heroin, shows the expected gritted-teeth judgment of GL, the wide-eyed horror of Arrow and the haunted shame of Speedy. Though there are dialog balloons, they really aren't needed to read even deeper into the three and see GL's confrontation with Arrow's self-righteousness, Arrow's own lament that he missed the entire situation and Speedy's self-disgust and loathing at being exposed by men he had grown up respecting.

As I aged I saw how creative the supposed "cartoony" art could be -- Jack Kirby's blunt, forceful action, Steve Ditko's trippy visions and non-standard heroic characters and Darwyn Cooke's clean retro style. But a Neal Adams cover, inked by frequent collaborator Giordano, could always draw my eye (heh), even if the book featured not one single character I would ever read.

Neal Adams laid down his pencil for good on Thursday, at the age of 80. Comic-book-wise, he leaves behind several who draw in the style he pioneered and who built well with the excellent example they were given. Fans of the medium are certainly better for his choice to enter the field.