Neal Adams’ work in Batman comics is often associated with gothic art. The tales he drew in the early 1970s (collected in stark black & white in Showcase Presents: Batman, volumes 5 and 6) are mandatory reading for any fans of moody, horror-influenced pencils. They deserve a place on your shelf right next to anthologies like Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson and Gary Gianni’s MonsterMen and Other Scary Stories.
However, there is another, more playful side to Neal Adams’ craft which I think is worth highlighting. For a while, he specialized in covers with bombastic and intriguing premises – the kind of shamelessly shocking stuff that made readers curious and puzzled and damn giddy to check out the main story inside that issue, even when they suspected the image was probably a cheat…
Such over-the-top sensationalism creates quite a cool contrast with Adam’s naturalistic style, as you can almost believe that basic laws of physics apply in his version of the DC Universe (except, sometimes, to Batman’s cape). This makes the stakes seem so much higher, especially as the covers tend to go for literal depictions of upcoming scenes, with only the occasional venture into pure symbolism (as in Detective Comics #398). The result was a string of truly exciting and dramatic images!
Here are ten beautiful examples:
