| Arthur Adams (comics) | |
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Adams in 2006 |
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| Born | Arthur Adams April 5, 1963 Holyoke, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Writer, Penciller, Inker |
| Awards |
Russ Manning Award 1988 Gumby Summer Fun Special #1 – Best Single Issue |
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Influenced
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Arthur "Art" Adams is an American comic book artist and writer. He first broke into the American comic book industry with the 1985 Marvel Comics miniseries Longshot. His subsequent interior comics work includes a number Marvel's major books, including The Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur, X-Factor, Fantastic Four, Hulk and Ultimate X, as well books by various other publishers, such as Action Comics, Vampirella, The Rocketeer and The Authority. Adams has also illustrated books featuring characters for which he has a personal love, such as Godzilla, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Gumby, the latter of which garnered him a 1988 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.
In 1994, Adams joined a group of creators that included Frank Miller, John Byrne and Mike Mignola to form Legend, an imprint of creator-owned comics published by Dark Horse Comics, through which Adams published Monkeyman and O'Brien, a science fiction adventure series featuring archetypal sci-fi monsters that Adams wrote and illustrated. Although the Legend imprint ceased in 1998, Monkeyman and O'Brien continued to appear in print, sometimes in crossover stories with other comics characters, such as Gen¹³/MonkeyMan and O'Brien (1998), and Savage Dragon #41 (September 1997).
Because of his reputedly tight, labor-intensive penciling style, which was initially influenced by Michael Golden and Walter Simonson, and his admittedly slow pace, Adams does not work as the regular artist on long-running monthly series, but usually pencils stories for short storylines, one-shots, miniseries or contributions to anthologies, such as his 2002 - 2004 work on "Jonni Future", a pulp science fiction series he co-created with Steve Moore for the Wildstorm Productions anthology Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, and his 2008 work on Hulk #7 - 9. His other published work consists of cover work for books such as Avengers Classic, Wonder Woman and JLA, as well as pinups and other spot illustrations for books such as Sin City, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and his own published sketchbook series, Arthur Adams Sketchbook. He has also done design work for toys and video games, and his drawing style has influenced creators such as J. Scott Campbell.
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Arthur Adams was born April 5, 1963 in Holyoke, Massachusetts. His father was a loadmaster in the United States Air Force, and as a result, his family, which would eventually include four younger brothers, migrated frequently to places like West Virginia until Arthur was five years old, when they moved to Vacaville, California, near Travis Air Force Base. Adams' first exposure to superhero and monster comics came through the ones his mother would buy for him once a month at a thrift store, though his enthusiasm for superhero stories by particular creators began when his father returned from an overseas trip with the first Marvel Treasury Grab-Bag, which included stories by Ross Andru, Wally Wood and Gene Colan. His interest in dinosaurs and monsters such as King Kong was also fueled by watching Creature Features on TV every Saturday, and Universal Monster movies such as Frankenstein and Creature from the Black Lagoon. He also enjoyed superhero and science fiction programming, such as Super Friends, Ralph Bakshi's Spider-Man cartoon and Star Trek. Adams' enjoyed drawing frequently in his youth, as far back as he could remember. He discovered the work of Frank Frazetta when he was 13 or 14, which was a "huge" early influence on him, and attempted to mimic his style using watercolor. Adams did not consider illustration as a profession, as he harbored dreams of a paleontologist.[1][2]
The idea of drawing comics for a living began for Adams in high school when he bought Marvel Comics' Micronauts #1, which was illustrated by Michael Golden, the first artist Adams noticed significantly. Adams would subsequently seek out work by other artists, and names as influences Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson and Terry Austin. Adams also singles out Bill Sienkiewicz's Moon Knight work in Hulk magazine and in particular Walter Simonson's work on The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans, which Adams saw as "the bible of how to draw comics", and "the perfect example of how to do a team book." Simonson, who also harbored in an interest in dinosaurs and paleontology, would later become a close friend and collaborator with Adams, as would as Simonson's wife, Louise Simonson, who would edit Adam's breakthrough project, Longshot. Adams names Simonson and Golden as his two largest artistic influences. Adams also says he was influenced by Jack Kirby after he became a professional artist. Aside from books on drawing human anatomy, Adams' only formal education in illustration was learning newspaper strip-type drawing in his freshman year of high school from Mr. Vandenberg, a teacher who stressed the importance of clear storytelling and perspective.[1][2] After a female classmate Adams was attracted to talked him into joining the acting club, Adams also entertained notions of becoming an actor, eventually doing community theater for two years. He quit acting when he turned 19, in order to concentrate on drawing.[2]
Adams initially created a portfolio of pinups and monster splash pages, and added story sequences when he began attending comic book conventions at age 17.[1] Noting the popularity of X-Men, he drew a Wolverine story for his portfolio, despite being only a casual fan of the X-Men himself, an irony that Adams himself notes, given how closely associated with the X-Men he would become in his early career. After showing his portfolio to editor Bob Schreck at a Creation Convention, he gained permission to set up a table, doing drawings for fans $5 – $10. Although his early convention appearances led to a meeting with a collaborator who asked him to illustrate some horror material for a comic book magazine, the work, according to Adams, was poor, and it never saw print. In 1982 he was given an unpaid job illustrating "One-Eyed Jack", a story that was self-published in High Energy #1. He began submitting samples to Marvel Comics when he was 18, taking a job at a pizzeria after graduating high school. At a Creation Convention in San Francisco, Adams received career advice from Steve Leialoha and Chris Claremont, and also met another aspiring illustrator, Mike Mignola, with whom he became friends, and later, business partners.[1][2]
Adams' first published work was a Farrah Foxette pinup that he copied from Farrah Fawcett's iconic 1976 swimsuit poster, which he submitted to the letters of page of the DC Comics series, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, whose editor, Roy Thomas, paid Adams $10 to publish the piece as a fan pinup.[1]
Adams' first professional job came about after he met Joe Rubinstein at a Creation Convention, who took some of Adams' samples to Marvel editors Denny O'Neil and Linda Grant, who offered Adams the chance to write and draw "The Return of Richard Buzznick", a short story for the black and white anthology, Bizarre Adventures. Though Adams completed the story, the book was canceled before it could see print, and Adams returned to submitting samples while working at the pizzeria. (Although in retrospect, Adams dismisses this story as poorly drawn, pages from it, as well as two of the Defenders he submitted as samples to Marvel can be seen in the 2006 book, Modern Masters Volume Six: Arthur Adams by TwoMorrows Publishing.) He also drew "Away Off There Amid The Softly Winking Lights", a story in the 1984 Pacific Comics anthology Three Dimensional Alien Worlds.[3]
Al Milgrom, who was ending his career as a Marvel editor to go freelance, found Adams' samples as he was cleaning out his office for its future occupant, editor Carl Potts. Potts and his assistant editor, Ann Nocenti, sent Adams a Defenders script, from which Adams did layouts of 10 or 15 pages. Though his rendering of action scenes was not very good, according to Adams, the editors had a positive reaction to his rendition of casual, character scenes. Nocenti described to Adams the concept for a miniseries she was writing, Longshot, which had been turned down by every other artist she offered it to. Adams, now a couple of months before his twentieth birthday, did a series of preliminary design drawings, basing the main character's appearance and hairstyle on that of singer Limahl, and the female lead, Ricochet Rita, on Nocenti herself. The series was freelance-edited by Louise Simonson, and without a firm schedule, which provided Adams the time he needed to complete it, in part because of his problems with perspective and other things he was not accustomed to drawing, such as windmills and babies, and in part because he had to redraw the first half of it, as Ann Nocenti's story was so dense that the pages featured up to 20 panels, a problem alleviated by editor Elliot Brown, who showed Adams how to compose panels depicting multiple actions. Simonson would later introduce Adams to Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who furthered Adams' understanding of storytelling clarity with an old Marvel book. Longshot #1 was published with a cover date of September 1985.[1][2][3] Reviewing the first issue for Amazing Heroes, R.A. Jones, who was not fond of the writing, said, however:
"Longshot does have one major saving grace, and that is the penciling of Arthur Adams. I'm going to once again go out on my prophetic limb and predict that Art will soon become a fan favorite. He has a dynamic style that grabs your attention and won't let go. To be sure, he exhibits some of the weaknesses of any young artist, the occasional awkward pose or crude drawing--but as a first effort this is incredibly impressive. In fact, this limited series should be worth buying simply to watch the progress Adams makes from issue to issue.[3]
Nocenti's position as editor on the X-Men books led to Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont's discovery of Adams' work, and in turn to Adams' frequent association with that franchise during the 1980s, which began with New Mutants Special Edition #1 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #9, which were part of the "Asgardian Wars" storyline, and which Adams illustrated before Longshot #1 was published. Nocenti also asked Adams to produce a cover for Heroes for Hope, a 1985 book intended to benefit famine relief in Africa, which was written and illustrated by dozens of creators, including writers Harlan Ellison and Stephen King, and artists John Byrne, Charles Vess and Bernie Wrightson. Nocenti asked Adams to pattern the cover after Paul Smith's 1983 cover of Uncanny X-Men #173, whose focus was Wolverine charging the viewer. This in turn led to Bob Budiansky, who was in charge of producing Marvel's posters, asking Adams to produce a Wolverine poster with the same type of pose. The image, inked by Terry Austin, became not only a bestselling poster, but an iconic life-size standee for comics shops, and led to two other posters by Adams, a 1987 X-Men poster featuring most of the characters that had ever been a member of that team, and "Mutants", a modification of Adams' 1988 Marvel Age Annual #4 cover that featured most of the characters appearing in all the X-Men-related books at the time, also with a charging Wolverine in the center. By 1986, Adams' professional career had cemented, and he moved out of his parents' home and into an Oakland, California apartment that he shared with Mike Mignola and Steve Purcell.[1][2]
His work on the X-Men franchise would continue with a number of covers for The New Mutants and The Uncanny X-Men in 1986 and 1987, respectively. He also drew all but three of the first 23 covers and interior frontispieces to Classic X-Men from 1986 to 1988. His interior X-Men-related work included a two-issue run on X-Factor and the one-shot Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem, both in 1989, and three Uncanny X-Men Annuals, in 1986, 1988 and 1990.
Adams would also work for other publishers during the 80s, as when he drew several pages of Batman #400 in 1986 and Action Comics Annual #1 in 1987, the latter of which is viewed as a turning point in Adam's drawing style, characterized by bulkier figures of Batman and Superman, though Adams explains that this was in part due to the influence of The Dark Knight Returns, and that the overall change in art style partly due to deliberate experimentation on his part, and partly to Dick Giordano's inking, which exhibited a different line weight. Concurrent with the Action Annual, he illustrated Gumby Summer Fun Special #1 by Comico Comics, also in 1987, a job he obtained through Comico editor Diana Schutz, an old friend who noticed the incidental images of Gumby that Adams had included in the pages of Longshot.[2] That book, which demonstrated his versatility in handling comedy as well as superheroics,[3] garnered Adams (and writer Bob Burden) a 1988 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.[4] Adams was one of 54 artists profiled in Ron Goulart's 1989 book, The Great Comic Book Artists, Volume 2, whose front and back covers Adams himself illustrated.[3]
His 1990s Marvel work included a 1990 three-issue run on Fantastic Four, in which the Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine and Ghost Rider formed a replacement Fantastic Four after being falsely informed that three of the original Fantastic Four had been murdered. The story allowed Adams the opportunity to draw a number of various monsters and other characters, such as the classic FF foe, Mole Man, the Moloids and the Skrulls, and is cited by Adams as one of his favorite works. He also did more work for the X-Men franchise, such as the 1997 crossover one-shot Gen¹³/Generation X.[1][2]
Adams also managed to illustrate a number of Dark Horse Comics books featuring the classic Universal Monsters he loved in his youth. His first Godzilla work was Godzilla Color Special #1 in 1992. He would follow these with other Godzilla works, such as "King Kong vs. Godzilla", a story that appeared in the anthology Urban Legends #1 that is notable for being the only work of his to date that he wrote, penciled, inked and lettered, and "Tramplin' Tokyo", an Alan Moore story he drew for Negative Burn #18 (December 1994). In 1995 he drew Godzilla vs. Hero Zero, and wrote issues 5 - 8 of Target: Godzilla!. He also drew Creature From the Black Lagoon, a 50-page, 1993 adaptation of the 1954 film of the same name.
In the early 1990s, Adams and Mignola were contacted by Erik Larsen, who invited them to produce books of their own creation for Image Comics, which Larsen and a group of other artists formed to publish creator-owned books. Although Adams had never before considered producing original material of his own creation, his talks with Larsen, and his love of monsters such as King Kong led to the concept of Monkeyman and O'Brien, a duo similar in concept to Angel and the Ape,[1] consisting of Ann O'Brien and Axewell Tiberius, a super-intelligent gorilla man from another dimension with whom Ann finds herself embroiled in a variety of adventures typical of classic B-movies, often featuring the monsters Adams is fond of, such as the subterranean Shrewmanoid[5] and the extraterrestrial Froglodytes.[6] Despite the offer from Image, Adams and Mignola (the latter of whom created Hellboy, which had been rejected by DC Comics[7]) took their ideas to Dark Horse, for whom Adams had already done work, as it would allow them to collaborate with creators they admired, such as Frank Miller and John Byrne, to form Legend, a creator-owned imprint of Dark Horse. After an initial 1993 appearance in San Diego Comic Con Comics #2, Monkeyman and O'Brien appeared in installments in Dark Horse Presents #80 in 1993 and Dark Horse Insider #27 in 1994. The duo's first appearance under the Legend imprint was an ongoing backup story in Mike Mignola's 1994 Hellboy: Seed of Destruction miniseries. They would eventually graduate to their own self-titled miniseries in 1996. When first producing the series, Adams had on hand the Marvel Monsterworks reprint of the Atlas Comics monster stories "Where Monsters Dwell" and "Creatures on the Loose" for inspiration.[1][2] Although the Legend imprint ceased in 1998, Monkeyman and O'Brien continued to appear in print, sometimes in crossover stories with other comics characters, as in Savage Dragon #41 (September 1997) by Erik Larsen, and Gen¹³/MonkeyMan and O'Brien (1998), both published by Image Comics, the latter of which Adams wrote and drew for Wildstorm Productions.
In 1996 Dark Horse Comics published Art Adams' Creature Features, a collection of Adams' previously published stories that paid tribute to various B-movie monsters, some of which had originally been published in black and white, but which were colored for the collection. They included Adams' Creature from the Black Lagoon, two of his Godzilla stories, and the "Trapped In The Lair of the Shrewmanoid" story from Dark Horse Insider #27.
In 1999, Adams returned to Wildstorm to draw an eight-page flashback sequence in issue #4 of Alan Moore's series, Tom Strong, which was published under Moore's brand for Wildstorm, America's Best Comics. His subsequent Wildstorm work would include Danger Girl Special #1 (2000) and two issues of The Authority in 2002, significant portions of which Adams was asked by DC Comics to redraw in order to de-emphasize the violence, in light of the September 11 attacks, much to Adams' frustration. That same year, Adams and writer Steve Moore co-created "Jonni Future", a pastiche of a pulp science fiction series like Adam Strange and Barbarella, which was published in eight-page installments in the America's Best Comics anthology Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, the first ten issues of which Adams penciled from 2002–2004. Adams work on "Jonni Future" has been characterized as exhibiting a romantic influence, with greater amounts realism and fine hatching, which Adams refers to as "noodling". Adams says he was inspired by sources such as Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Warren Publishing's Vampirella, and the character designs in Capcom video game character books when he drew "Jonni Future", and refrained from using straight edges or templates in order to achieve a more elegant, hand-drawn appearance. He regards "Jonni Future" as his best work.[2]
Throughout the 2000s, Adams provided cover images for various DC Comics, such as Superman, Batman and JLA: Scary Monsters, as well as for books by various other publishers, such as Vampirella, Red Sonja, Jurassic Park, Madman Adventures, Thundercats, Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Adams' 2000s Marvel cover work include Generation X #67 - 72 in 2000 and 2001, and Incredible Hercules #113 - 115 in 2008, as well for three of its collected editions. His 2000s interior comics work includes Superman/Batman #26 (2006), an issue dedicated to writer Jeph Loeb's late son, Sam, to which dozens of writers and artists contributed. In 2008 he illustrated a Red Hulk story in King-Size Hulk#1, and later illustrated a Hulk/Wendigo story that appeared in 11-page installments Hulk #7 - 9, as well as those issues' covers. In 2010 he illustrated Ultimate X #1-3, his first work for the Ultimate Marvel line of books.[8]
Outside the field of comics, he has also provided illustrations for various magazines, such as PlayStation Magazine, as well as toy designs, video games,[2] and a series of X-Men-themed Campbell Soup cans.
Adams has a reputation of being a "tight" penciller, and admits to a slow pace, which limits the amount of work he does. When he penciled Fantastic Four #347 - 349 in 1990 for regular writer/illustrator Walter Simonson, who needed a break in order to catch up on his own work on that title, Adams managed to pencil the first two issues in five weeks and four weeks, respectively, but was considerably late on the third. In a 2007 interview, Adams stated he tends to produce 2/3 to 3/4 of a page a day, and can also ink at that rate, but can do up to two pages in a day if he is under pressure, as when he produced Cloak and Dagger #9 (1986) in 22 days, for example. Another example is the 1989 one-shot Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem, which due to changing deadlines, he completed at a quicker pace. Adams singles out one page of that book that he drew a half hour as his personal record for speed, but decries its poor quality.[1]
Adams usually works from 10am to 4 or 5pm, and often works another two to three hours after dinner. He prefers to work from a plot rather than from a full script, a result of Ann Nocenti's dense Longshot scripts, though he has worked from a full script, as with his work on The Authority. Though he says he prefers group books because they more easily allow him to hide his "bad layout skills", he is nonetheless comfortable with solo character books. He begins drawing thumbnail layouts from the story he is given, either at home or in a public place. The thumbnails range in size from 2 inches x 3 inches to half the size of the printed comic book. He or an assistant will then enlarge the thumbnails and trace them onto illustration board with a non-photo blue pencil, sometimes using a Prismacolor light blue pencil, because it is not too waxy, and erases easily. When working on the final illustration board, he does so on a large drawing board when in his basement studio, and a lapboard when sitting on his living room couch. After tracing the thumbnails, he will then clarify details with another light blue pencil, and finalize the details with a Number 2 pencil. He drew the first three chapters of "Jonni Future" at twice the printed comic size, and also drew the fifth chapter, "The Garden of the Sklin", at a size larger than standard, in order to render more detail than usual in those stories. For a large poster image with a multitude of characters, he will go over the figure outlines with a marker in order to emphasize them. He will use photographic reference when appropriate, as when he draws things that he is not accustomed to.[1][2]
In the early part of his career, Adams' pencils were embellished by inkers such as Whilce Portacio, Dick Giordano and Terry Austin.[3] When Adams attempted to ink his own work before becoming a professional, he initially used a Croquille pen, but after meeting Mike Mignola, he was spurred to switch to a brush, which he used for a year or so before returning to a Croquille. He eventually began to ink his own work, which he prefers to do.[1] Beginning in the late 1990s, he began using the Staedtler Pigment Liner, a felt-tip pen. He prefers pens to brushes because pens feel "looser", and cited this as his reason for using felt-tip pens when he inked "Jonni Future".[2]
Although Adams has experimented with painting with watercolor and oil paints (his 1989 covers for Appleseed were rendered with a combination of ink, watercolor and color pencil), his color work is so sporadic that he says he has to relearn what he has forgotten in the interim each time, and is usually dissatisfied with the results.[1][2]
Adams' distinctive style has been named as a considerable influence artists such as J. Scott Campbell.[2][9]
Adams is married to Joyce Chin, a comics artist who has inked a number of his cover pencils. Adams has also inked his wife's pencils, as on Xena: Warrior Princess #4 (January 2000).[2][10] They and their children live in San Francisco, California.[1]
Regarding religious beliefs, Adams has stated that he does not believe in "any particular god".[2]