My Con is over, and I’m on a train bound for Baltimore. The Philadelphia Comic-Con runs through tomorrow—and it would’ve been fun to watch the Sci-Fi Speed Dating—but I’ve done everything I wanted to do here, and decided to cut costs by going home a little early. I had three goals for today: attend a panel on the comics industry by Mike Deodato and David Campiti, make one more slow pass through Artist Alley, and talk to Neal Adams. (More on Neal in a minute.)
The Mike Deodato/David Campiti panel started off a little rocky; rather, it started almost half an hour late due to a Convention staff screw-up. Once it got rolling, though, it was definitely interesting. Deodato is an incredible artist who in recent years has become one of Marvel’s golden boys, on such titles as Dark Avengers and New Avengers. David Campiti is a comic writer and manager of Glass House Graphics, a company that represents hundreds of artists, animators, sculptors, designers and writers, including Deodato himself.
I’ve been a fan of Deodato’s work for a few years, but for me, most of the good stuff happened after the panel. I walked back to the Glass House Graphics booth with Campiti, who answered all my questions and told me some interesting behind-the-scenes stories. He also showed me what he considered to be ideal pitch packets for editor submission, which was helpful. The highlight, though, was some great advice he gave a young artist: “Your portfolio should look like the career you want.” It might seem obvious, but I’ve seen a lot of portfolios that could’ve used a brush-up with that in mind. I looked through his talent list, and there are some very capable artists at Glass House. Many thanks to David, Jinky and Mike for their time.
My final lap through Artist Alley was fun. There were some artists there today who weren’t there yesterday, including newly-crowned superstar Greg Capullo, who is killing it on Scott Snyder’s Batman right now. I touched base with some old friends and some new friends, and made a few last-minute buys. Another shout-out to artists Aaron Kuder, Stuart Sayger, Sara Richard and Alex Sanchez; the guys at FUBAR (a fun and creative take on zombie comics); Billy from the kicking-ass-out-of-nowhere 1821 Comics; and John and Adam, the creators of Dead Weight.
The last item on my list was to talk to legendary comic artist Neal Adams. Among his many noteworthy contributions, Neal did pencils on Batman and Detective Comics for many years. With writer Denny O’Neil, he tore Batman out of the 1960’s, Adam West-style campy adventures he’d been reduced to and threw him back into the dark where he belonged. Adams and O’Neil gave Batman some of his darkest, coolest villains (Ra’s al Ghul, Man-Bat) and made the Joker the psychopath we all know and love. Simply put, without Neal Adams, Batman wouldn’t be the modern icon he is. The foundation for Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, and The Long Halloween (in short, the Christopher Nolan movies and Arkham games) wouldn’t exist, and all we’d have is the grinning idiot from the ‘60’s and the colorful, nipply Batman & Robin of the ‘90’s. Thanks, Neal!
On top of his contributions to the comics form, Neal’s work means a lot to me personally because it was some of the first stuff I ever read. I learned what words were from a stack of old Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and The Brave & The Bold comics, and Neal drew an awful lot of them. By the time I got to kindergarten, while other kids were trying to differentiate between the big, colorful letter-shaped creatures, I was spelling cool words like “malevolent” and “inter-galactic.” Thanks, Neal!
I later found out that Neal was also an early advocate for creator’s rights, earning comic artists the right to retain their original art after publication. (This allows them to sell the pages to fans and collectors, now an important source of income for many artists.) He also fought for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to return the paintings of Holocaust survivor Dina Babbitt, who was forced to paint them for Josef Mengele while a prisoner at Auschwitz. In short, Neil is a pretty amazing guy.
After a weekend of disappointing stories (that I can’t repeat) about the douchebaggery of another beloved writer, I was thrilled to learn that Neal Adams is one of the nicest, coolest guys around. I could have easily hung out with him all day, even if he weren’t who he is. We talked about his favorite work, how kid-targeted comics are better for kids than children’s books, why girls like some female characters more than others, and his recent projects. If there wasn’t a mob of people waiting for signatures and photos, I would’ve stayed a lot longer. Many thanks, Neil. You’re the man.
‘Bye, Philly. In five weeks: San Diego.