Neal Adams Batman was the best

[Jim Kelly]

Which is your top favorite between Neal Adams and Dick Sprang? Just curious.

To be perfectly honest, I have a lot of fond memories of buying the Neal Adams comics and I have great respect for his talent. His Batman was one I really admired. Yet I rate Dick Sprang as the greatest Batman artist and there's few artists that come close in my mind.

[blackbolt396]

To be perfectly honest, I have a lot of fond memories of buying the Neal Adams comics and I have great respect for his talent. His Batman was one I really admired. Yet I rate Dick Sprang as the greatest Batman artist and there's few artists that come close in my mind.

Marshall Rogers ?

[Steven Ely]

Excuse me Stephen Ely, but Neal Adams Batman was still being used back then in the 1980s. That was the best Batman ever.

Used in merchandise? Character designs for Super Friends/Super Powers? In the '70s it was Alex Toth's art used for Super Friends. In the '80s it was Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez' art being used as the style guide for the '80s Super Friends/Super Powers model sheets, and in merchandise, which was Neal Adams-esque, granted, but not literally Neal's.
DC-Style-Guide-3.jpgbats-l1600.jpg
However, Neal Adams' 1973 Batman art, which was merchandised in the '70s as a jigsaw puzzle, etc., was used in 1989 for this Taco Bell cup Batman movie promotion, but altered to Michael Keaton's Batsuit.
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[cgh]

To be perfectly honest, I have a lot of fond memories of buying the Neal Adams comics and I have great respect for his talent. His Batman was one I really admired. Yet I rate Dick Sprang as the greatest Batman artist and there's few artists that come close in my mind.

The Don Newton/Dan Adkins combo, for me.

[blackbolt396]

The Don Newton/Dan Adkins combo, for me.

Very underrated.

[RumpusMagoo]

Don't forget James Aparo & Norm Breyfogle too. So many great artists for this character.

[EcoBatman]

I love Neal Adams Batman. I'm actually not a big fan of the story in the Neal Adams Omnibus (with most of the stories by O'Neil) but Adams draws a mean Batman.

My favourites will always be Norm Breyfogle and Greg Capullo though.

[Mark Trail]

I picked up Batman by Neil Adams and I was pretty disappointed, but that was mostly his earlier work on the Brave and the Bold.

The problem with the art was the recoloring/redrawing for the most part.

[Jim Kelly]

I only ever bought the first volume of BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS--in hardcover. And I was actually upset when I brought it home from the store and realized that half of the contents were revamped by Neal Adams.

The other two volumes that followed were completely revamped (with the exception of cover art).

I wanted to buy the first volume, because I didn't have all the B&B comics by Adams in my collection. I still don't (but I'm slowly trying to get them now). Having Adams revamp the art just meant that I still couldn't see what the actual original comics looked like. The pages that didn't have revamps are still not entirely faithful--I think they use the work that was done for the Baxter book reprints. The Baxters were closer to the original comics, but played around with the colouring. Adams not only changes the colouring (in often garish ways), he changes lettering, inking, panel borders--to the point where it's not really the same story anymore.

Granted that Neal--given the opportunity--wanted to make the stories look like what he envisioned they could be. But I want to see how the comics progressed. Because I know--from Adams having said so--that Neal made changes in the stories--changing day scenes to night, for example. So it's good to look at the progress of B&B and how Adams increasingly changed the style of Batman over that run of stories. It seems that this was what convinced Carmine Infantino to put Adams on DETECTIVE COMICS--paired usually with Denny O'Neil (sometimes with Frank Robbins)--and to insist on changing how other artists were pencilling Batman (based on the "New Look" that Carmine himself had started).

[Alan2099]

I kinda prefer Jim Aparo, but there was a strong similarity in style there.

Regardless, I miss when Batman was more human, less jerkish, and actually had some color in his super suit.

[Mace Dolex]

The problem with the art was the recoloring/redrawing for the most part.

It was worse on the first released hardcovers because of the matte paper type being used made all the pages dark and murky which is why I traded them in for the softcovers that have smooth glossy paper.

I'm still on the fence about getting the giant Omnibus as it has Batman Odyssey and I already have that in tpb format.

[Chazro]

As far as the collected volumes go, I also felt the 1st to be underwhelming, but the 2nd is absolutely killa no filla!

[RegalSin]

Everything from the 1980's was the best. The Berlin wall fell and we had an influx of blind consumers. Everything we have now was already invented then after was a white washing of everything else.


Take TMNT. Look at April O'niel from the Comics compared to the 70's pornstar that replaced her into the videogames.

It is called white washing and during that time, it was popular to have "Dark things"

[Calighoula]

I kinda prefer Jim Aparo, but there was a strong similarity in style there.

Finally...somebody else who noticed!

Aparo is probably "the" Batman artist, but Adams, JLGL, Rogers, Gulacy, and Mazz, and even Caputo, all rate highly in my book.

[Dr.Octagon]

Finally...somebody else who noticed!

Aparo is probably "the" Batman artist, but Adams, JLGL, Rogers, Gulacy, and Mazz, and even Caputo, all rate highly in my book.

Neal Addams was a trend setter as far as drawing Batman is concerned.. So many talented artists of the time dropped there own style and purposely drew Batman in the Neal Addams style..
If you look at Jim Aparo's very early work his pencils are a lot cleaner and mimicked Addams style..
I actually preferred Aparo's early work that replicated Addams style to his own later style of the 90's.. Not a fan of Aparo's real natural style.. Aparo's later Batman work in the early 90's looked so cheap rushed and poor.. And Aparo's art work during the Knightfall saga of the 90's was in my opinion severely undermined quality wise by the work of Breyfogle/Kevin Nolan/Jim Balent/Barry Kitson/Tom Grummet all there work on Batman looked far more superior and in my opinion they were hugely more talented artists.