In the world of comic books there are your struggling professionals who put out your favourite comic books each month and then there are legends who are put on a pedestal due to their individual successes and achievements. However there is another even more rare type. One that's harder to define. These are the people who are not only tremendously talented, but due to their vision, their risk-taking and their craftsmanship changed the face of comic books forever. One of these visionaries is Neal Adams. Starting his career in comics in 1962, Neal Adams revolutionized the way that comic art was done in the mid sixties and early seventies, and also transformed some of comics' most iconic characters into the fan favourites they are today. Teamed up with writer Denny O'Neil, it was Neal Adams who took Batman away from the "Zap Pow Bang" of the Adam West TV series and brought him back to his dark and brooding roots; and he who brought us the critically acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow series which had the heroes dealing with sensitive issues such as drugs, racism, native rights and environmental issues for the first time in comic books which, even over thirty years later, are some of the most powerful and realistic takes on these important subjects. Over at Marvel Comics it was Neal Adams who re-envisioned the endangered X-Men title, sparking new interest from the House of M in their Mutant characters and turning them into the phenomena they are today. It was Neal Adams who co-created characters such as John Stewart, Ra's al Ghul and Talia, Sauron and Havok; brought back characters like Roy "Speedy" Harper, Magneto and Professor X; made characters like Deadman, Green Arrow and Black Canary into fan favourites and even got Muhammad Ali to beat the crap out of Superman. Neal Adams is more than an artist. More than a creator. Even more than a legend. Neal Adams is something that few men in the world of comic books can ever hope to be - Neal Adams is an icon.

I had the pleasure of meeting Neal Adams back in August 2004 at a comic book convention in Toronto. During a short visit Neal told me some of the most amazing stories about the comic industry. This is when I knew that talking to Neal Adams was like listening to the history of comic books itself. Thus, in July 2006 I was thrilled to have a lengthy phone interview with Neal Adams. As Neal sat at his drawing board in his Manhattan studio he told me about the origins of his career, the struggle to make it in the comic book industry, the behind the scenes stories of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series and his involvement in the fight for the dignity and creative rights of Superman's creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. Neal Adams is an intelligent man who, like one of his most famous characters, Green Lantern, is a man without fear. Without any fear to say things as he sees them and to stand up against the odds. He understands that a man without an opinion isn't worth a damn and is both tough as nails and incredibly interesting. So, dear friends and comic book fans, get ready to hear about the Silver Age of comics from one of the people who helped shaped it as:

CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICT PROUDLY PRESENTS:

A VISIT WITH NEAL ADAMS:

THE MAN WHO MADE GREEN ARROW CRY

Neal Adams: Hello?

Sam: Hello! Is this Mr. Adams?

Neal: Yes it is.

Sam: Oh. Hello. This is Sam Tweedle from "Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict".

Neal (chuckling): Okay.

Sam: Anyway, I was just wondering if you had some time to talk with us for a little while about your career and comics.

Neal: Sure.

Sam: Yeah? Do you have much time?

Neal: I have a bit of time. I'll draw while we talk.

Sam: That sounds great! I actually met you about two years ago in Toronto and we talked for a little while and some of the stories that you told me were some of the most amazing stories I've ever had told to me about the comic book industry. So you started your career in the early 50s/late 60s?

Neal: Yes. I don't like to think about it but that is indeed true.

Sam: Now were you a life long comic fan or did you have any other interests in art besides comics?

Neal: I was a life long comic reader and I was, like most of the comic book artists that you see, or most of the illustrators that you see, a school artist all the time. In some schools they have two or three school artists that everybody says they're going to become artists or cartoonists or whatever when they grow up and I was one of those. Now, that wasn't my only interest. I was interested in science and engineering. I had a rather broad interests but I seemed to have... you know what happens when you do things because people appreciate them?

Sam: Sure.

Neal: Like if you're strong you lift stuff and join the football team or whatever; or if you're tall you, for some reason, join the basketball team; and if you're good in science and your parents like an academic kid you might become a scientist. My mom was tolerant and when I was a little kid I drew pictures of... copied pictures... that appeared on these Old Maid cards. You know, the card game Old Maid?

Sam: Sure.

Neal: And the drawings on the cards were quite good. Maybe they weren't. I wouldn't know at this point. I was six years old. But I copied the drawings and they looked a lot like the drawings that were on the cards and my mother loved it. She thought it was great. So I did it again and every time I did it she loved it. So, in the end, I probably became an artist because my mom loved the little drawings that I did when I was six years old.

Sam: Did your mother end up buying all the books that you drew later on?

Neal: Naw. She didn't care. She wasn't that much of a fan. She was just a fan of her son that could draw. I mean what do you say to the neighbour ladies about your kid? "My son can draw! He's amazing! He's wonderful!" To be able to say that to the ladies over the back fence, well, that's a very special thing.

Sam: So that's pretty much what got you on your go?

Neal: Well I don't know. I think that's really for other people to say. Certainly it made me like to draw. If my mom liked it then how bad could it be? Now there are other people who drew in spite of their moms and their dads which I consider to be climbing a higher fence. My mom liked it so I really didn't have those head trips that other people have to go through.

Sam: So back when you were reading comic books it wasn't something you aimed to get into? Maybe something you stumbled into?

Neal: Well I don't think I stumbled into it. In fact, everybody along the way did as much as they could to keep me from stumbling into it. It may be a surprise to you to learn this, or I may have already told you this, but there's nobody within five years of my age in comic books either side. In fact, you could probably spread it out to about seven years. That is, there was nobody getting into comics for probably ten years easy, maybe more. Now that is not to say that there aren't people my age who are in comics, like Roy Thomas or Archie Goodwin are in comics... Denny O'Neil. But those people, each one of them, did something else. In other words, they were goaled into something else and they got into comics later. Even Jim Steranko, who is somewhere near my age, was a magician at first and then he got into comic books later. I did it as a start up and of course I did it in spite of the fact that everyone... now there was a reason why nobody got into comics because there were no real comics or business to get into. Nobody wanted you, nobody was interested and nobody even liked comic books. So for me to get into comic books was really stupid. I spoke to an art teacher at that time who couldn't even express just how stupid it was. They tried to. They tried to tell me and they would stutter because it was beyond their comprehension why somebody wouldn't understand that there was no future in comics and comic books were dying and any day now DC Comics would close up their doors and that would be the end of it. Everybody believed that and there was a reason. The reason was in 1953 in America this fellow wrote a book called "Seduction of the Innocent". Written by Dr. Fredric Wertham. Worthless in my opinion, and he described all kinds of terrible deeds that kids would do because of reading comic books.

Sam: Well he was attacking EC Comics and saying that Superman was a fascist and stuff.

Neal: You know, to be perfectly honest I've never read the book, nor would I read it. It's sort of like reading books from flat-earthers. You know, people who think that planes are kept in the air by mind control and that the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood and didn't really happen. That's how much credence I would give to it except for the fact that it affected my life and there are people who feel intellectually better if they do read the stuff. I don't. I'm not the kind of person who goes and sees movies that I'm not going to like. And the idea that some kid bashed a cop over the head with a billy club and then they found comic books at the bottom of his closet at home somehow implied that somehow the comics made him go out and bash the cop across the head with the billy club is patently ridiculous. I knew that and I was eleven years old and I don't see how other people didn't but there you go.

Sam: Well they still seem to do things like that these days. I mean, when the kids from Columbine shot up the school they were looking into their music and their video games.

Neal: Exactly. And I have no doubt that you can, in general, make some sort of connection because the connection is there to be made but the implication of it is that one causes the other not that one "oh, by the way" happens to incidentally be part of this person's past even though he was going to become a serial killer anyways, this didn't help it. I don't understand that kind of logic but I understand the kind of logic that says if you have guns in your house then the more people that are likely to get shot. So I don't all the time say no, and I don't think its good to sell sex books and ultra violence books to kids below a certain age. I think you have to respect their parents and the way they are raising their kids. So I'm really not against censorship in the pure form but there is no pure form unfortunately. It's sort of like of like, "what's the purest form of communism?" Well... it's a democracy. Ahhhh... [chuckles] you can say it but it's not really true. So usually if I get upset by something it's because it's clearly wrong. I mean we're pumping fumes from our cars into the atmosphere and yet we could be driving cars that are filled by hydrogen and oxygen and that's ought to be what we're doing. I don't think there's a question there. So... anyways... I got into art school and it was an art high school. The School of Industrial Art it was called. Now it's called The School of Art and Design because now, I guess, it's not financed by the federal government anymore as a vocational school.

Sam: This is in New York?

Neal: Yeah. It was probably the only Art high school that existed. I mean, some people might tell me there were others but it was an art vocational high school so I guess it was originally sponsored by the government during FDR's administration who was sponsoring all types of work programs and schools that taught wood working and how to fix a car and the government would help finance it. So somebody made an excuse to somebody to say, "Y'know, art is important. We decorate all kinds of buildings and stuff with it. Why don't we sponsor a school that teaches art?" Now none of that had anything to do with me because I was just looking for a school that taught art and I found the School of Industrial Art and I was amazed that they called it the School of Industrial Art because what the hell is that? But they did and I didn't care because they had courses in art. And they had a course in cartooning. It wasn't comic books or comic strips but they called it cartooning and they didn't like a bunch of us that got in there that were rat-assed teenagers from around New York who really wanted to learn to draw comic books and comic strips because they told us very early on that there was no future in it and we ought not to do it. Cartooning isn't so bad because you can be an animator or do gag cartoons but that was pretty much the end of it and, of course, I wasn't there for that. I was there to draw comic books. So I was interested in that, but I was also interested in science courses which they had, but they weren't very good. I was hoping that I could go to Brooklyn Tech and the reason for that was because it was something I really loved and as much as I loved art. I could pretty much draw but I could have had a future doing that. But I knew, early on, that I wasn't going to be able to go to college. My family was of a financial nature that pretty much excluded me from going to college. So to go to some place like Brooklyn Tech and knowing that to you could never do the things that you had to do get the degree and go on and do that I took my second choice which was delightful. I mean I was quite happy to do art and I threw myself into it. I didn't lose my interest in science but I definitely got more of a grounding in art and the worst thing in the world happened, of course - they told me that comic books were on their way out and were a dying thing and forget about it. So learn something else while you're here. Well...

Sam: Did you lean towards anything else?

Neal: Yeah. Well... no... My first class... they put me in a fashion class and that was pretty good but I got out of that as fast as I could because the people in it were strange. The guys, in particular, were very strange. But I learned a lot. I learned a lot about fashion. I'm actually a pretty good fashion artist.

Sam: Really?

Neal: Yup!

Sam: Well that doesn't surprise me.

Neal: Well, anyways, I really learned about comics and nothing much else really... I'm kind of a difficult person when it comes to something like that. I'm a very quietly stubborn person. I don't yell at anybody or anything. I just go about and do what I want to do and generally everybody disagrees with me which, for me, proves that I am making the right choice.

Sam: Well it's funny - a lot of the stories I've read about you, sir, are usually about people disagreeing with you.

Neal: Yeah... it's funny about that... and nine times out of ten they're wrong [laughs]. And me, well I take a hint. I go, "Wow this guy's right so much of the time I don't know why I'm arguing with him. Maybe it's just because he's a pain in the ass."

Sam: So when you first applied to DC Comics they turned you down?

Neal: Well they didn't even let me in. I wish I could call it a turn down.

Sam: They wouldn't even look at you.

Neal: Well they looked at me but they looked at me in the lobby. This guy, Bill Perry, came out. An old fella and he looked at my portfolio kind of half heartedly and he goes, "Ah, y'know, this is really nice." He says, "Look kid - I can't take you inside. I mean your stuff is actually really nice but I can't take you inside," and I said, "Can I just meet one of the editors and just talk to them?" And he says, "No, I can't do that." Now obviously he was being paid. Part of his job was to send people away. That's what he did. So he basically sent me away. He was very nice about it. Apparently he had done it many many times before and so he sent me away. That was it. I do my portfolio, I do all those pages and do all that work. Go to DC Comics and I don't get past the receptionist. So that wasn't so good.

Sam: But what I am really surprised about is that you went over to Archie Comics.

Neal: Yeah. Well you shouldn't be surprised at that because Archie Comics, at that time, had embarked on doing a series of realistic comic books. Superhero comic books.

Sam: Oh. Like The Fly and The Shield and The Hangman.

Neal: What we call "little foot comics". Little foot comics aren't "big foot comics". Big foot comics are cartoons because the little cartoon characters have big feet. Superheroes have little feet. So they were doing come little foot comics like The Fly and The Shield and The Hangman... I don't even remember the Hangman...

Sam: The Jaguar.

Neal: Yeah, for a while.

Sam: And The Comet and then there was that really bad Shadow strip they were doing.

Neal: Yeahhhh... you're talking about later. Some of those were from later. Anyways they had The Fly. The Fly was a pretty good character. This kid rubs a ring or something. Anyways, that's what I wanted to do so I asked if I could show my samples to whoever was available to look at my samples. Maybe Jack Kirby. Maybe Joe Simon. They were co-producing for Archie Comics. I was not interested in Archie Comics of course. Archie Comics were... well... Archie Comics.

Sam: So you never drew Archie or Jughead or Reggie or...

Neal: Yes I did.

Sam: Oh! Did you?

Neal: Well because I tried to show my samples to Joe Simon who was the only one looking at portfolios and he wasn't there. Apparently they worked at home and they just sent their stuff in even though they were the editors or whatever you would call it. I don't know. Suppliers of the pages. And I guess Archie was taking a fly at this superhero thing to see if there was any life in it which, of course, there wasn't and it failed but while it was failing they were working there. So I came in with samples of the Fly and other things and I was sent away and I did some more samples and I came in again and they promised to show them to Joe Simon but Joe Simon was not there any time I went in. So they said... well, they felt sorry for me. So they said, "Look, we'll get Joe Simon on the phone for you and you can talk to him directly." So I said, "Terrific!" And they called Joe Simon at home and they said, "We got this kid here." So I got on the phone with Joe Simon and he said, "You know, I saw your stuff while I was in Archie last time." He said, "It's pretty good. Under other circumstances I'd use you but I'm going to do you the biggest favor anybody's ever done you or I could do you and you're not going to think it's a favor but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm not going to use you because you're in a dead business kid. You don't want to be in this business. There's nothing going on. You want to go get a job somewhere else. You want to do something with your art somewhere else. You're a talented young man. You should be doing something worthwhile." So I said, "Thank you Mr. Simon...*gulp*" and hung up the phone and of course the Archie guy can see the disappointment etched on my face. I didn't cry, but I felt like it because here he was, trying to do a good thing, but dashing my dream... which wouldn't have stopped me. It didn't really matter but the Archie guy said, "Would you like to do Archie comics?" I said, "Sure." They said, "Well, if you want to, make some samples and show them to us." So I said, "You bet." So I started the process of doing samples for Archie. Took me three weeks. I did three sets of samples and finally they gave in and had me do Archie pages and they were for the Archie joke book. They wouldn't let me do them for the regular book.

Sam: So you mean the little four panel gag stuff?

Neal: Yeah. The little gag strips. I wrote them, I penciled them, I inked them and I coloured them. It was pretty good. I had a good time. I got a paycheck. I made a living. $32.50 a page.

Sam: How long were you with them?

Neal: It actually wasn't very long. It was a couple of months because I got other work. So some fella, I'm not sure who it was, told me about this fella who was looking for an assistant on a comic strip called Bat Masterson.

Sam: That's the old western TV show.

Neal: Yeah. Rather old western TV show. Black and white TV show with Gene Barry who, for all I know, is dead now. Anyway, I applied for the job, if you could call it a job, and sure enough he needed an assistant and it was a great opportunity because it was in a studio that had a bunch of artists that could teach me things without them knowing it. I mean I sucked them dry like one of those vampire wasps. I just drained them of everything they knew and everything they could possibly teach me and I worked for... it seemed like an eternity... but I think it was only like three and a half months.

Sam: Oh really?

Neal: Yeah. I did a lot of work. I not only did work on Bat Masterson but I'd do whole towns of cowboys and stuff but also, the guy that I worked for, Howard Nostrand, also did commercial art so he would teach me, or have me do, some of the commercial art. Calendars with cars... and he was an innovator and tried different experiments, like he did one project which he drew on sand paper. Kind of ground the tips off of the pencils pretty fast. You'd draw three lines and you wouldn't have a pencil tip anymore but it was a really nice technique and it worked great, and he taught me that and he taught me other things and the other people in the studio taught me other different things without really knowing what they were doing. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot about commercial art and that it paid more than comics or comic strips and in the end, instead of taking fifty dollars a week pay that he wanted to pay me he gave me a choice. He said do you want to be paid fifty dollars a week or do you want to be paid a percentage of the strip. I said, "I'll take a percentage of the strip sir," and he said, "I can give you ten percent." I said, "Oh, well, I guess that sounds okay." So they didn't calculate how much that would be until three months later. It turned out to be nine dollars a week. So he stopped doing the strip. Handed it over to somebody else who did it for another couple of weeks and then it went belly up and that was one of my lessons in life. And then I did commercial art and I did comics for advertising. I worked at a place called Johnson and Cushing which was another whole story in itself. And so I got to work at Johnson and Cushing and there I was paid more than comic book artists were paid even though, in fact, I was doing comic books. I was doing advertising comic books but whereas comic book artists were getting paid fifty dollars a page for pencils I was getting paid two hundred dollars a page. So I had leapfrogged over these comic book artists pretty darn quickly. And there I was at nineteen years old doing comic book stuff for the National Guard, for NERCO razors, for the Bell telephone company, for various products and getting paid very well. I actually had a life.

Sam: Okay. So why did you leave that gig then?

Neal: Because I got a syndicated comic strip. I didn't actually leave the gig for a very long time. Not even when I had the syndicated comic strip - because they paid good money. I went and did a syndicated strip based on the Ben Casey TV series. It got into a 165 papers. It was very successful and other people were glad to make more money than I did off of it. So I did it for three and a half years, got married, had a kid, and lived like a human being almost and was actually quite successful. Asked to join the cartoonist society. After about three and a half years I got into some conflicts with the syndicate because they were trying to have me work with another writer other than the writer I was working with and then they went and proved to me that the writer I was working with wasn't very good so I had some problems with that because it's hard to work under those conditions. So, in the end, I basically quit the strip and then I was sort of out there but I had started a portfolio of illustration work and it was a pretty good portfolio. It had some nice stuff. I don't know if I would have picked up much work, I guess I would have picked up something but I left it at an advertising agency and when I went back to get it a week later it was gone. So I had worked on six months on it and it was gone. Disappeared. Couldn't find it and now I had to figure out what the hell to do with myself. I'd sort of given up the Johnson and Cushing stuff even though I was doing some. I had my own commercial clients who would call every now and then and give me nice juicy jobs but I didn't have a regular steady flow of income so I thought, "Boy... this isn't good. It's a slow period. Ya know... I'm not liking this very much. What am I gonna do? How about comic books? Try those damn comic books again. Forget the commercial comic books. I'll do regular comic books." So I thought that it'd be a fill in. I'll do it for a little while to fill me in. I'll be happy. Have fun drawing comic books and then I'll get back to the commercial stuff.

Sam: Around what year was this?

Neal: This was '63 or '64 or something like that... '65. I'm not very good at keeping track of that stuff. Basically at that point I had been through a couple careers. I did cartooning stuff for Archie, I did the backgrounds, I did Johnson and Cushing stuff. So anyways, I went over to DC Comics and I had helped Joe Kubert get a comic strip and I knew that the war stories editor must have been a little short on artists because they lost Joe Kubert who was now doing "The Green Beret" which I had helped him get. So I knew that that spot was available so I went over there and I started doing war stories which was really my first really big thrust for working for DC Comics.

Sam: What strips were you doing? Sgt. Rock? Or Enemy Ace?

Neal: No. I didn't do Sgt. Rock. I did regular war stories: "Star Spangled War Stories". I didn't do them for very long. I did two or three of them but I fell into doing some superhero stuff. I did an Elongated Man story and then I did the Specter. Then I did Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope comics. They were my favourite because I got paid very well on those.

Sam: Did you ever meet Jerry Lewis or Bob Hope?

Neal: No. No. I don't think Jerry Lewis or Bob Hope ever came near DC comics. They just sold the license but that was my best money in comic books. I could pencil ten pages in a day. I could ink ten pages in a day. And when I did the realistic stuff I only did two pages a day so there was no comparison. It was the best money I could make but that wasn't really what I wanted to do.

Sam: What did you want to do?

Neal: I don't know. Actually... I did know what I wanted to do. I knew that I didn't want to do comic books. I was very sure about that and then I did comic books and I then I discovered, "Wow, I really like doing this! This is really great! I think I want to do this," and I kind of fell in love with comic books. It didn't happen because I wanted it to happen. I had drawn comics and I had a good time and I had really had quite a good career of it, and I thought I would come back to becoming an illustrator or get another comic strip but I really, really, really fell in love with comic books. It was like working in a disaster situation because it was the worst time in the world for comics but I really liked to do it. So I went around with a big Pollyanna grin on my face asking other people, "Boy, isn't this great doing comic books?" And everybody would go, "I call myself a line illustrator. Y'know, I don't really talk about it very much," And I thought, "God. Is it that bad?" Then I remembered back. I remembered back to Bill Perry coming out and turning me away and I thought, "Yeah... it's bad. Screw it. I'm going to have a good time," and I had a good time.

Sam: So do you think that had a lot of success in revolutionizing comic books?

Neal: Well first of all I wouldn't call it a success. I think everybody else calls it a success. I can't imagine why anybody who worked as hard as I did for the kind of crappy money I got paid would ever call it a success. It just turned out that the way that things are marked down in the history of things that somehow people think it's cool. Me, I think it was hard work. I always made more money in advertising. I did advertising when I was doing comic books, and I do it now and I have more fun doing comic books but I get paid way better doing advertising. Now a days people are getting paid a living wage. It's hard to believe and good comic books are being done but back then fifty bucks a page if you were lucky. Forty bucks a page for the most part. I get more money in royalties in a given year than I got paid by DC Comics and I don't get great royalties. Nobody does. But I get paid more in royalties than I did for doing the pages.

Sam: So they teamed you up with Denny O'Neil. I always think of O'Neil and Adams as one of the great creative teams in the history of comics.

Neal: I guess that's the way people think about it.

Sam: And you guys worked on Green Lantern/Green Arrow...

Neal: Yup.

Sam: And the Batman strip. I know you drew it but was that with Denny?

Neal: Yup.

Sam: Okay. So how much input did you have in the storytelling?

Neal: You have to remember that if you talk the way your talking you get no where. You really got to understand what it's about - and what it's about is a director makes a movie and the writer writes a movie. Okay. If you give a director your script and he's not a good director you're going to get shit. If you give your script to a good director and he really is a capital director there is a good likelihood that you're going to get a good movie out of it. Now, if you translate that back to comic books, my input was that I took the script and I turned it into a good comic book. That was my job. Now, this is not to slight the writer. I don't think the writer needs to be slighted if he does his job correctly and the artist does his job correctly you're going to have a good comic book. If you don't have a good artist no matter how good your script is you're not going to have a good comic book. So what contribution did I make? I did the other half but I did it, and continued to do it, very well. I did my job.

Sam: Now my favourite series you did was Green Lantern/Green Arrow and the reason is because I'm a huge Black Canary freak. I've been collecting the Canary since I was about nine years old. I have the Black Canary tattooed on my leg.

Neal: Oh my god.

Sam: Yeah. I'm pretty hard core.

Neal: You ever seen an old comic strip called "The Heart of Juliet Jones" by Stan Drake.

Sam: Sure. I've heard of it.

Neal: Oh well. Isn't that the origin of the Black Canary?

Sam: "The Heart of Juliet Jones?"

Neal: Eve Jones.

Sam: I've never really thought about that.

Neal: Yeah, well you think about that. That's where my Black Canary came from and I drew the one people like.

Sam: You do draw the one I like.

Neal: That's right. There were more Black Canaries in boys' bathrooms that I drew than anyone else.

Sam: The illustration of the Black Canary I have tattooed is by Kalinger.

Neal: That's so sad... [laughs]

Sam: Anyways, up until you started drawing her in the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series she was pretty much an obscure heroine.

Neal: No kidding.

Sam: Where did the decision to put her in the strip come from?

Neal: I think it was an accident. I think Denny wanted to throw a girl in there and she was the only one lying around and I'm trying to think if I drew her anywhere. I don't think I ever drew her before but if you're working with me you pretty much know that I know how to draw women.

Sam: You definitely do.

Neal: So, to be perfectly honest, I think that anybody that Denny put in there probably would be pretty good. It just turned out to be Black Canary who was this, oh, weird kind of fan favourite, "isn't she just too damn sexy to be a heroine" type "but I don't care, just put her in her tights and let her go out there." If you think about it, she was nothing. She didn't really have any real good powers or abilities but you have to remember that a lot of my work was a syndicated strip. I was not a superhero artist. People think of me as a superhero artist but I did Ben Casey for three and a half years. I did comic books for advertising. I'm really, more or less, a soap opera gritty kind of detective comic book type guy if you think of the characters I've done. We did Green Lantern and Green Arrow but they became very real and, in fact, the super heroics they did... and only one of them did super heroics, the other one shot arrows... the super heroics they did was only really "by the way". Incidental. It was important that they were there if you wanted to see them happen but it was the interplay between the characters. It was the soap opera that happened there. Their responses to each other was really what was interesting. That's what somebody like me can do. And when a pretty girl shows up and they both look at her... well one of them looks at her... I know, as an artist, that she's got to look like someone that you want to look at. So that's what it's going to be. If you look at Batman you pretty much have to say, "Well, what is the one character in the superhero genre that is, in fact, not a superhero? Or not a superhero more than he is anything?" and that is Batman. He just wears a costume. Nothing super about him. He is the opposite of Superman because Superman is the ultimate alien superhero who can do just about anything. Batman is a man. He has no abilities whatsoever. Which would be the better one for me to do? Well, to be perfectly honest I think I could have done both of them just fine but Batman is more my type of character because he's a real guy. He may be in a costume, but he's still a real guy. So what's the tendency for a girl character to come along and I'm going to do it? For me it's to do a character that you take into the bathroom and don't show your mom. [laughs] That would be me. That's the Black Canary. I mean... Jesus! Net stockings. Blonde hair. Farrah Fawcett hair for Christsakes. Well... you know.

Sam: Oh I know.

Neal: Yeah. You know all about that.

Sam: Now you had a lot to do with making characters like the Green Arrow, who was one of the most uninteresting characters that DC had at the time, and Batman, who was just coming out of the Adam West "Zap Bang Boom" phase... well you had a lot to do with revolutionizing them and making them a lot more interesting and human and fan favourites, especially Green Arrow. Can you tell us anything about that process?

Neal: Well I was doing "The Brave and the Bold" at the time and the writer, who essentially knew that the Green Arrow was not a worthwhile character, had to have an excuse that somehow he was in retirement because why haven't we seen him? So we sort of brought him out of retirement and I said that I wanted to do a new costume for him. So he sort of entered it into the dialogue and he just did him as an incidental character... because his job was to do Batman plus another character and the well can run dry fairly quickly over at DC comics finding interesting characters... reasonable characters... to hook Batman up with. He basically said, "Can we use Green Arrow?" Sure. What the hell. So when it was presented to me I thought, "Green Arrow. Great. It's like Tommy Tomorrow. What am I gonna do with him?" So I thought, "Robin Hood. A blonde Robin Hood. Cool." So basically that's what I turned him into. A blonde Robin Hood with a big sparkling smile and I turned him into a character and basically I did for him what I would do for any character I was given that wasn't really developed very well. I try to develop them into a human being and so you get Green Arrow. I saw that it was a reasonably good character but after all there are so many characters in comic books that have no personality and then they try to jam personality into them and it's too much personality. Rarely do they turn them into people that you can like or find interesting. So, after that comic book, everybody started saying, "Oh, did you see Green Arrow in 'Brave and the Bold'?" So when it came time, I had gone to Julie Schwartz and I said, "Look, Julie..." What happened was Gil Kane was no longer doing Green Lantern and Gil Kane was the best Green Lantern artist ever and then they were giving the book to whoever happened to come in... Jack Sparling and whoever.

Sam: And this is when Green Lantern started to drop in sales.

Neal: Yeah. Well it couldn't help but drop in sales because who the hell could draw Green Lantern? Nobody. So I went to Julie Schwartz and I said, "Before you cancel the book can I do a few issues? I'd really like to do that." And he grumbled and griped at me and did what he always does but you could tell in the back of his head he was thinking because here he had got Neal and Neal had been doing this Deadman stuff for other people and what was he going to do? So he called in Denny O'Neil who was the new shining light amongst writers over there who had come from Charlton and he said, "Look, I'll put you together with Denny O'Neil," and I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Fine, does he write a good story?" and he said, "Yeah, he used to do crime reporting." Okay. Sounds fine and then he said, "Look. I want to put him together with another character and I don't know who came up with this idea to but him together with Green Arrow. If you think about it it's a stupid idea. Totally preposterous. Oh... they both have "green" in their name? There's a reason NOT to put them together! Let's not. What's it going to be next? Green Bobbin and Green Kerosene? What are you talking about? It's ridiculous! It was a stupid idea!" And it WAS a stupid idea but, on the other hand...

Sam: Somehow you guys made it work though.

Neal: Somehow. I mean the greens... I don't know. What is that? Didn't matter because people loved that interpretation I did of Green Arrow in "Brave and the Bold" and they got me coming on Green Lantern. We got Denny O'Neil deciding that he's going to change the world and was on his crusade. You know, he was going to do "going across America". He found a way to go across America. He was going to be the next great "name your writer". Going across America. He was going to bring a little alien along with him. So he was going to do this kind of reporting kind of comic book. Hey. That's not bad. Let's do it! I like it. It's not so far away from what I would like to see in a comic book that I'm gonna say, "No, I don't wanna see that. Just give me the guy with the red skin." Who the hell needs that? So Denny started turning out these scripts and he was turning out some really juicy stuff and we just went gangbusters and after a while Denny's attitude was that he could just give a brief description and Neal can do it so you don't have to go into a lot of detail. So what it did was it allowed him to focus on dialogue and incidents instead of worry if the artist was going to screw it up. So I never screwed it up and he always got more out of it than he thought I was going to get and the more he got, the more he did and after a while it started to challenge him because here we were suddenly these revolutionaries in comic books and now what was he going to start a revolution about? Oh... the Chicago seven trial. Let's do that! Let's go nuts! And that's what we did. We just went nuts. We had an overpopulation issue I didn't much like. I mean, what the hell was that?

Sam: Yeah. I think it was one of the weaker ones.

Neal: And worse than that, I had to draw all these people, so I pushed for doing the drug book.

Sam: I just reread the drug books a few nights ago and what I find interesting about them is the fact that... well... I'm thirty years old and I've read a lot of anti-drug comics over the years. Most of them are cheesy. Most of them are preachy and so bad.

Neal: Yeah. They're bad. Yeah.

Sam: And somehow you do this thing and you do a good job of it and its real... not to mention able to maintain its impact and power over thirty years later!

Neal: Now I'll tell you something. First of all, Denny and I had had some experience at that point because Denny always lived on the fringe anyways. Up in my neighborhood in the Bronx we had a nunnery that was turned into a drug rehabilitation centre and the whole place blew up because the whole neighborhood said, "We don't want to have that here. We're going to lobby against it." So the community had meetings and I went to these meetings and I realized that what had to be done was to establish a neighborhood committee that would police the drug centre and the neighborhood had to become involved in it. So I became the president of the citizens group of the drug centre and I spent evenings walking junkies home and there was a kind of a program to get us to do a drug book because we were new and we were young. So they got us appointments at the Phoenix house to sit down with some of these junkies and have chats so we did. We learned a lot. And both of us came in knowing a lot, and then we learned a lot more. The stuff you learn isn't a list of facts. It's stuff like, people say that marijuana leads to heroin. That's crap. Marijuana goes right to heroin. What the hell you going to do? You going to meet somebody and stick a needle in your arm? You're gonna become a screw up first. And where you going to screw up first? You're going to screw up with marijuana, and then you're going to play around and play around and then your going to do heroin and you say, "But everybody says that's not true! That's not true! That's crap. You're just lying." No. Ask anybody here! Ask anybody in Phoenix house. What did they do first? Marijuana. Of course. Of course it doesn't lead to it. Doesn't have the same effect but everybody does marijuana first. So you learn stuff. Which of those three guys are high? Oh, the one who's nose is running. So anyway, they wanted us to write a book on drug addiction. A comic book. They offered it to Denny and myself and said to put in a synopsis for it. Well Denny and I both put in synopsis for it and they turned them down immediately. I know why they turned mine down. I never read Denny's but I know why they turned mine down, it's because I didn't blame the drug addiction on the addict, I blamed it on society.

Sam: That's what you guys blamed in the Green Lantern/Green Arrow issue.

Neal: We did. I think we pretty much agreed that almost anything people say is crap anyways about almost anything. Y'know, it's a real problem and once that stuff gets in it's really hard to get it out and you got to get it out 'cause if you don't bad stuff's going to happen. Some people survive as addicts all their lives, but most don't. I knew people who said, "Me and my friends lived in an apartment. There were six of us in the apartment. I'm the only one alive." You hear stuff like that boy, you gotta step back. So what happened was that it became kind of a frustration. It was the comics code. The comics code said you couldn't talk about it. So I went home and I did a cover. That cover that you see. I didn't talk to Denny. I didn't talk to Julie. I didn't talk to anybody.

Sam: What made you decide to turn Speedy into a heroin addict?

Neal: It's Speedy!

Sam: Was it just the name?

Neal: No. Not at all. It didn't even occur to me. It just seemed like the right thing to do. The kid was being ignored. His guardian was in the poorhouse but he still ignored him. And what have I learned about drug addiction? Ignore a kid and he gets high. It's pretty much going to happen that way. It doesn't mean all kids are going to become addicts, but there's a path. So what can be more obvious? The question is - do you have the balls to do it? Well, since I didn't care I went ahead and did it and it seemed like a good idea.

Sam: Well it definitely worked.

Neal: The drama of that whole thing is right on that cover. You don't even need to know what's in the book.

Sam: Roy Harper seems so real in that book. Even reading it today, and even with a more cynical eye, the emotion is still real.

Neal: Sure. Of course it is. Because we played it real. In fact, that was the only book where I disagreed with Denny on the writing. We had a little bit of a disagreement.

Sam: What was the disagreement?

Neal: Because Denny had written it to have the kid die. They're at the graveyard. Green Arrow turns to Roy Harper and says, "What's going on with you?" and he says, "I'm over it," and that's it.

Sam: Oh! Well it's much better when Roy punches Green Arrow out!

Neal: So anyways I read the script and I went to Denny and I said, "Denny, we've got to do more than this. There's no payoff here." Denny says, "No, it's got the right rhythm. Feels good. The rhythm's right." So I wasn't getting through to him and I wrote two extra pages and I took them to Julie Schwartz and I said, "Look Julie. You know I've never done this. I've never changed anything that Denny's written and I'm not changing it. I'm giving it to you because you're the editor and I'm saying can we do this, or get Denny to do this? I don't care how you change it but I'm on my second book. At the beginning of the book Green Arrow belts this kid across the kitchen. It's miserable what he does and we're going to go two books and there's no payoff? We gotta have a payoff." I said, "Look. Here's what I think it ought to be. Take it. Please talk it over with Denny." He reads it. He says, "Go ahead and do it." I said, "Julie, you can't just say go ahead and do it. You gotta call Denny and you gotta tell him." He says, "Don't worry, I'll take care of Denny." Well of course he didn't. But anyways the last two pages are in there. I rewrote the third last page and wrote the last two pages and to me, and maybe it's because I'm a dad and Denny's not, but, you know, to me those pages have to be there.

Sam: I mean they're beautiful, they're emotional and they turned Roy Harper into a fan favourite.

Neal: Yes! Exactly! I honestly think in a weird way Denny wasn't thinking about that. Denny was thinking about Green Lantern and Green Arrow and I was thinking about Roy Harper. Y'know, this kid has got grit and you got to show it. You can't just let that kid quietly walk away. You gotta hammer it, and I did. Anyways, that's the only thing I ever changed on Denny's stuff and I did it with the editor's approval except somehow he forgot to tell Denny.

Sam: Did he react bad to that?

Neal: He didn't react really well. Time has smoothed it out and I think if Julie had taken the time to discuss it with him it would have gone a lot easier. And I think it was just a weakness on Denny's part at that point because when you read it you think, "Of course Denny wrote this." It has the same flavor. Maybe it's a bit heightened but, by golly, it's right on.

Sam: Now another revolutionary idea that you came up with was John Stewart as the new Green Lantern. Now was he the first black superhero?

Neal: Awww... no. I don't think so. I doubt it, but I don't know.

Sam: It was the first one for DC anyway.

Neal: Maybe.

Sam: Well I reread John Stewart's first story the other night and, once again, it had the potential to be really cheesy but, again, putting the subtle bigotry into Hal Jordan was really realistic.

Neal: Yeah, well I didn't much like the way that the black Green Lantern, John Stewart, spoke to Hal Jordan at times but I really liked Hal Jordan's surprise that somebody had suddenly nailed him for being subtly bigoted. It's like, "Screw you. How about that?" "Oh? What? I didn't do anything?" "Yes you did!" "I didn't notice it!" "Well you did you jerk." It's one of those shocking things that in those days white people needed to hear that whatever you think you're doing and you think is okay isn't. Don't do it anymore. Stop it. "Oh no! I'm not..." "Yes you are a bigot. You just don't know it." And it's not just this bigotry where people have this outlandish bigotry. It's this quiet learned bigotry. It doesn't almost have anything to do with your feelings. It has to do with the reaction of society around you. You've been trained to act this way so therefore you do it. And so for John Stewart, who to me was a very advanced human being, y'know, he's living in the year two thousand and everybody is living back then, he sees it immediately and he says it. He doesn't hold back. That's probably why he couldn't get a job, but when we did it I went to Julie Schwartz and I said, "Y'know, Julie... we really oughta... well if something happened to Green Lantern you'd need somebody else. How about we have another Green Lantern?" And Julie says, "What are you driving at? We already have one." I said, "What? We have one?" Julie says, "Yeah, Guy Gardner." I say, "Oh. Really? I didn't know that." He said, "Yeah. We did a story. Don't you read these books?" I said, "Oh sorry. I guess not. Tell me about him." Julie says, "Well, he's a gym teacher." I said, "Is he white?" "Yeah." It was like - what kind of stupid question is that? And he pulled out a comic book and he was white and blonde and I said, "Well let's say something happened to him and Green Lantern needed another guy. Kind of a runner up. Y'know, I'd kind of like to do something like that." I didn't want to lose this idea. I kind of liked the idea and Julie had ruined it for me. He said, "What are you driving at?" I said, "I'd kinda like a black Green Lantern." Julie said, "Why? No!" I said, "Why not?" He said, "Well... no! I mean, why? I mean, you don't think of Green Lantern as being black!" I said, "Now wait a second Julie. Let's try this line of reasoning. Guy comes to Earth. He's going to die. He sends out his ring or his lantern or whatever to find the most worthy person on Earth. Okay? Turns out to be a white Anglo-Saxon test pilot. I could buy that. Y'know, it's possible. It's possible. I buy it. Ring goes out again to find the next guy. It turns out to be a white blonde Anglo-Saxon gym teacher. I don't think so. You know how many Chinese people there are in the world? You ever watch the Olympics? I mean, you rarely ever see three white guys lined up there. You see some once in a while. You know, maybe it happens. Maybe in archery. But you got black guys, you got oriental. I mean, I don't mind if he's oriental but I'd kinda like to have a black guy."

Sam: Well with the race problems at that time it would have made good storytelling.

Neal: Yes! Of course! What am I thinking of? Julie says, "Nawwww." I say, "Julie. C'mon." He says, "Alright. Denny writes it. You gotta draw it." "Okay. You got it. No problem." So Denny hands in the strip and on the first page it says, "Lincoln Washington is walking down the street," and I run into Julie and I go, "Julie. I think we oughta change his name."

Sam: Lincoln Washington?

Neal: Lincoln Washington. [chuckles] Julie says, "Why? I've heard a lot of black names. Lincoln Washington is a good black name!"

Sam: Well you might as well have him eating fried chicken and watermelon in the panel with that name.

Neal: I say, "Well Julie. That's what you call a slave name. You call that a slave name and even if you're called Lincoln Washington that's a name you want to change." "There's nothing wrong with that name," he says, "It's a proud name." I say, "I don't think that's what we want to do with our character. I think you want to call him by a regular name like John Stewart." "John Stewart?" "Yeah. It's a regular name." Julie says, "Fine. Okay. No problem. You got it. Anything else?" I said, "No, that'll be fine." And so we did it. Now in a way, Denny was right. Lincoln Washington is truly a black name because it is a slave name and at that time we still hadn't come up with the Muhammad Ali's and that stuff which would have been even better, but nobody had done it yet so that wasn't the time. But John Stewart, I thought that was pretty good. Who knew that it would end up being a good comedian from a late night television show? So anyways, that was it.

Sam: Now was John Stewart originally supposed to be a one shot deal, or are you surprised of the popularity of the character?

Neal: Oh no. No! Not at all! Ask me if I'm surprised if any of the characters I have done have become popular? No, I did what I consider to be a really good character. I just think it's great that a good character can have a life beyond Neal's pencil.

Sam: Well I know a lot of small kids today, their first connection with Green Lantern is through the Justice League cartoon and to them the Green Lantern is black. They don't know who Hal Jordan is.

Neal: Right! Who's that black guy? That's Green Lantern. And does it seem to bother anybody?

Sam: No.

Neal: No. [laughs]

Sam: Now you brought up Muhammad Ali...

Neal: Best comic book I've ever done.

Sam: Yes. "Muhammad Ali vs. Superman"

Neal: Don't laugh. It's the best comic book I've ever done.

Sam: How the heck did that come about?

Neal: They were trying to commercialize the comic book business and I think Julie Schwartz came up with that and everybody laughed. But Julie thought it was a pretty good idea and he presented it and he talked about it and he insisted it was a good idea and while everybody was laughing we went ahead and did it. We got the license. I mean, if it wasn't for Ali giving us the license it would have never been done.

Sam: Now did Ali have anything to do with it? Did he get involved? Did you get to meet him?

Neal: Well he was in it. Yeah. I got to meet him in the end. Solid guy. Slapped the man on the back and my hand stopped right on the surface of his skin.

Sam: Wow. Now I want to know is if Lois Lane couldn't figure out that Clark Kent was Superman, how did Muhammad Alien figure it out?

Neal: How did he figure it out? Wait a minute. You gotta tell me how he figured it out in the comic book. I don't memorize this stuff.

Sam: Well I don't have a copy in front of me at the moment. It's buried somewhere in the depths of my collection.

Neal: Then you can't ask me that question.

Sam: All I remember is that at the end Ali figured out that Superman and Clark Kent was the same guy.

Neal: Well I don't know how he did it. Well that was a left over from Denny's script and what I think he was saying is that Ali was smart.

Sam: Is Ali smart?

Neal: He's pretty smart.

Sam: Is he?

Neal: Well he's the smartest boxer I ever saw. I don't know how smart you have to be but, first of all, he can put rhymes together. He had balls. He stood up for the right things. I did a cover for ESPN magazine. I got a call from a woman editor at ESPN magazine and she wanted me to do a cover and I said, "Why do you want me to do the cover?" And she wanted it for the end of the century. For the millennium. And she said we're going to do the hundred greatest athletes of this century and instead of having a cover that has a hundred photographs on it in little postage stamps I thought we would recreate your old "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" cover and have Ali boxing Michael Jordan. So, I thought about it and I thought, "Awwww man. You know how hard it'll be working a cover like that? You know how many people are in the background?" Well she said, "In the background of this one you'll have to put ninety eight people because it's the other hundred best athletes of the century and so, long story short, I did it and it went out to three million people. I figure only five of them were comic book fans because they were all sports fans. They got to get it in their mail but the comic book fans couldn't get it. But it was Ali vs. Jordan. You got to look for it on my website. It's really nice.

Sam: Now in the 1970s you helped Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster their royalties?

Neal: Royalties. Something. Not royalties. That fight had been lost. The fight to get royalties was lost but not only lost, but surrendered by their lawyers because they didn't take it to court when the time came. That means that they're called motherfuckers.

Sam: The lawyers?

Neal: Yeah. Oh, I don't know. These lawyers were making them wait around for fifteen years telling them not to talk to anybody and then when it came time to take it to court they sort of disappeared. I'd call that a motherfucker. In fact, I don't know if there's another word to suit that particular action so well. Let me think about it. Let's seeee... No. What a terrible thing to do to the creators of Superman! On the hook for fifteen years, tell them not to talk to anybody, which is why I never got to talk about them, and then desert them. Not even answer their phone when it came time to put their lives back together again and claim their own character.

Sam: How bad was their situation at that time?

Neal: Well Jerry was a clerk at some... I don't know what the organization was... and he earned $7,500 dollars a year. Joe, who was legally blind at the time...

Sam: Oh... really?

Neal: When your eyesight is so bad that you can barely get around and you have to put your nose about four to five inches from the surface of the paper to draw something then you're basically legally blind, and he worked as a messenger, the creator of Superman, in Manhattan. Then he couldn't work as a messenger anymore so he basically lived at his brother's apartment in Queens. Slept on a cot next to a window that was broken and taped.

Sam: Ah. That's awful!

Neal: Yes it is. It's awful. That's why I don't like to talk about it too much. I'll talk about it a little bit though.

Sam: Okay. So how did they lose the rights to Superman in the first place?

Neal: Well they just signed a piece of paper.

Sam: That's all it took? Well why would DC Comics screw them out of that?

Neal: Well DC didn't screw them. There was no entity such as DC Comics at the time. There was an accountant who was one of three partners who ran a printing company who was printing comic books as a way to keep their presses moving and that was all they were really interested in doing. Of course it became a pain in the ass and they had to pay attention to it and they did pay attention to it and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who had been working for them, brought into them this comic idea that they had been trying to sell to the syndicated strips for several years and they thought that they were never going to sell it, so why not sell it to the publisher that was publishing their detective stories and their cowboy stories? And so the publisher gave them a piece of paper to sign and said, "We'll buy it, but everything we publish, we own so you have to sign this piece of paper. I don't think it was even a fully typed out piece of paper. I think it was about three quarters of a page and they signed away their rights just like that.

Sam: Now were you able to help better their quality of life? Did they get enough money?

Neal: They got enough money to live like human beings. Well it doesn't sound like a lot these days but they got $25,000 a year. But it escalated and it was up from nothing. But it was more than that. They got their names back on the strip and they also got setted. What you call "setted" is when somebody goes, "Oh, the creators of Superman are here tonight during this benefit performance of the Superman movie. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry and Joe will you take a bow?" And they were treated well, and treated well at conventions because they finally came out of their hole. They had their way paid. They earned what was at that time a living wage so they could fly places and do things. Joe got married for the first time in his life. Jerry got to live a reasonable life. He put his daughter through school. And their income went up. They had medical insurance and they had lots of benefits you have at a bigger corporation. For the first time in their lives they lived a reasonable life.

Sam: So they did okay.

Neal: They did okay at the end of their lives. At the end! At the end after they had been fucked. I don't like to use the word 'fuck' so much but when it comes to this story the word just comes to my mouth.

Sam: Now did they maintain a love for their character or was there a bitterness towards it?

Neal: Well, I'll tell you a story. Tom Snyder. You know who Tom Snyder is?

Sam: The TV interviewer? He used to be on after Letterman but used to have a show before that too.

Neal: This was before. Now we had been getting people to interview Jerry and Joe and get them to talk about the process and it was a very big and hard thing to do because you had to twist peoples' arms and then you had to pretend you didn't twist peoples arms to get them to publicize it. That's what happened. And one of the things we did was we contacted a couple of different television shows and one of the television shows we got invited to was Tom Snyder's and was going to be a nice long talk and so I brought Jerry and Joe up there and I had been kind of conning different new agencies to pay the rent for Jerry to stay in town because Jerry couldn't afford to stay out of town. So I got the different news channels to pay the rent out of their petty cash. They said, "We can't pay for a story." I said, "No, we aren't getting you to pay for a story. Just go into your petty cash drawer and pay for this guy to have a couple of nights in a hotel. What's the big deal?" "Well I guess we can do that." So anyway, Jerry was staying in town. He lived in California. Snyder called and I brought Jerry and Joe up and Snyder said, "We'll do a little pre-interview because I want to know what this will be like." So he talks to Jerry and Joe for a little while and he comes to me and he says, "I talk to Jerry and all he does is spit bile about what happened. It's awful!" And he says, "I know he's right and it's awful but he's just so angry and he's so upset." And then he says, "And then I talk to Joe and I ask Joe how does he feel about being taken advantage of like this and he says, 'Well I just think of it as this character that I created is everywhere in the world and all the children in the world are reading my character and it makes me feel great.'" And Snyder goes, "You gotta come on because there's no way that anybody's going to believe that Joe's like Santa Claus and then they hear Jerry. Somebody's got to come on and be in the middle and explain this." So I had to go on just to be able to modify the both ends of the spectrum and so we did the show and it was a good show. We moved on from there and want to know one of the interesting things about that show? I talked to Tom Snyder a few years after that and I said, "You know Tom, I noticed that you haven't replayed that show. I just wondered why." He said, "Neal, c'mere. I'll tell you a story. I wanted to replay that show two years ago and we went back into our archives and guess what's the only show that is missing?"

Sam: Ah. Somebody swiped it!

Neal: I didn't say that. You're just speculating. What do you know? Yeah, it was missing. Interesting, huh?

Sam: It is interesting.

Neal: Funny thing about that.

Sam: Well I think it's absolutely wonderful that you did that for those guys.

Neal: Well so do I. I think it's a different thing. I got a gold star on my notebook. I'm doing fine. Well somebody had to do it! If you think about it, who was in a position to do anything?

Sam: Well were there any other guys lobbying with you?

Neal: Not really. Well it's a cold, cruel world out there. You have to be somebody who can. You understand? Who could do it? I'm not saying I did it because I'm a special person or that I deserve a pat on the back, but who was in a position to do anything about it? Really? First of all, who had a reasonable amount of knowledge about the world and what was going on? I mean those guys who are in comic books are cranking out the pages as fast as they can so that they can get their next paycheck. I have a studio in the middle of Manhattan and I'm doing fine and I'm doing advertising and I can stop doing comic books anytime I wanted to. Who could threaten me? I mean who's gonna come and beat me up? I'll kick their ass! I'm just kidding. All I'm saying is I was a harder person to touch than anybody and somebody had to do it.

Sam: How did you become aware of their situation?

Neal: They wrote a letter... Jerry wrote the letter... on their sixtieth birthday to all the news media and to the academy of comic book artists. It was like a nine page letter describing their fate and it was terrible. It was terrible. And when I got the letter and I read it through I just walked around the studio quiet for about an hour, and I just said, "We're going to do something about it and anybody in the studio that wants to hang with me and help me do this, great, I appreciate it. That's fine. But this is going to turn around. This is going to turn around." And I threw the letter on the desk and I said, "Our studio is going to be dedicated to turning this thing around." That was going to happen.

Sam: And how many years did it take you to turn it around?

Neal: It didn't take me very long. It only took me about four months.

Sam: Really? I was under the impression it was a lot longer battle.

Neal: No. No. We kicked ass.

Sam: So what do you think of the recent development of Joe's daughter and widow going after the Superboy rights?

Neal: Yeah. I think it's good. I think it's fine but if I were them I'd make a deal and I'd take money. I don't know what they're going to get from it if they keep on pushing. I think there's a deal to be made and think they ought to make it. If they were to win it and take the character what would they do with it? It's much better off keeping it in the hands of Warner's and in case they read this, that would be my advice and I'm not saying it because I favor DC Comics. DC Comics has not been the good guy all the time but in this case they're handling this character beautifully and I wouldn't have any complaints if I were them. I would just want money.

Sam: Do you think that's why DC Comics recently killed off the Superboy character?

Neal: If they did that was just stupid. Just stupid and I don't believe that. I don't think so.

Sam: Well DC hasn't said that's why they did it. It's just a popular speculation.

Neal: That's nonsense. We know Superboy is dead. It's ridiculous. I hate the crap that goes on in comics sometimes. I hate the fact that Captain Marvel can't be called Captain Marvel because some idiot over at Marvel Comics wanted to have a Mar-Vel. What is that? Cut it out! Aren't we friends? Jesus! It's annoying.

Sam: Well you were over at Marvel for a little while.

Neal: Yeah. I did some work for them. I didn't mean to connect the two. I mean I don't consider that to be so terrible and offensive that I would not work for them.

Sam: Oh I understand that. Now you were working for them when Stan Lee was at the helm?

Neal: Yes.

Sam: What was working for Stan Lee like?

Neal: Oh it was okay. Stan is not what you'd call a tremendously educated person. I don't know. He's a character. The great icon. The great character to have at the head of a comic book company. He's just so much fun. I mean I don't think anybody presents that side of comic books as much as Stan. I mean we have a reasonably intellectual side of people that are smart and knows things and are good speakers and then we have that kind of character. Kind of..."Yeah. I do comic books..." the Stan Lee part. That's what Stan represents and he does a great job and everybody knows him. So he's great. I really like Stan. Stan, if you're out there and you're reading this I really like you.

Sam: Now you worked on the X-Men right when it was at its lowest point of its sales ever.

Neal: It was being cancelled.

Sam: What made you take X-Men?

Neal: Well I told Stan. I went over to Stan and said that I'd like to do a book for you guys. He said, "Yeah. Cool. Anything you want." I said, "Oh really? Anything?" He said, "Yeah. Anything you want. Fantastic Four. Spiderman. Anything." So I said, "Why do you feel that way Stan?" He said, "Well, guys around here say the only book they read from DC Comics is Deadman." I said, "Oh. Okay." So I said, "Okay Stan. What's your worst selling title?" He said, "Easy. X-Men. We're going to cancel it in two issues." I said, "Really? I'd like to do X-Men." He said, "I told you we're going to cancel it in two issues." I said, "Well, however long you keep it I'd like to do it." He said, "But we're going to cancel it. Why do you want to do it?" I said, "Well Stan, I like the idea of working in this Marvel style. Y'know, I just do the story. The writer puts in the dialogue. I like that. I want to try it." And I said, "What comic book are you really going to pay attention to here? You're going to pay attention to all of your characters except for X-Men. You're going to cancel it in two issues and not even pay any attention to it." He said, "That's true," and I said, "That's why I want to do it." So he said, "Well, okay. I'll make you a deal. You do X-Men. We cancel it and then you do a really important book like the Avengers." That's pretty funny when you think about it. So I said, "Okay, that's a deal." So I did. Except it lasted for about ten or eleven issues. Then they cancelled it and then I did the Avengers.

Sam: How long were you on the Avengers for?

Neal: Like three issues. Something like that. It came to a bit of a longer hit. Roy Thomas and I, but it wasn't a happy relationship after a while. I think it got into some... well. That's not important.

Sam: Now I read that your nine or ten issues of X-Men is what interested Marvel in bringing back the X-Men and turning them into the phenomena that they've become.

Neal: You read that? You don't think that's true?

Sam: Well I'm not a giant X-Men fan.

Neal: Man. Well did you read those issues?

Sam: Your issues? I only have three of them in my collection.

Neal: Oh my god! You've got to read them! How can you be asking me this question if you haven't read them?

Sam: Well, have they been collected?

Neal: Oh sure. It's called "Visionaries: Neal Adams."

Sam: Okay. I'll order a copy on Wednesday.

Neal: I'm telling you. You'll be surprised and delighted. I brought Professor X back to life after they had killed him. In fact when I had talked to Roy about Professor X I said, "Roy. I want to bring Professor X back to life." He said, "Neal, I don't know if you can do that. He's dead." I said, "Well, I think you can do that." He said, "No, but, he didn't just die. We killed him over a year ago. Like he got sick, and then he got worse, and then he got worse, and then he died and we buried him." And I said, "I think I can work on that Roy. I think I can fix that."

Sam: So how did you bring him back?

Neal: Well, first of all, when people say somebody died the first thing they do is they want to know where he was buried. That's the first thing. He's not really in there. But in my opinion you don't do that. That's not the way to go. There's a body in there but the only thing is that it's not Professor X. Cause this is what happened: Professor X discovered that there was a threat to the Earth from outer space and that it was such a terrible threat that he would have to disappear and marshal his forces to overcome this threat and it was going to come in a year. So he was going to have to disappear from the school, from everything, and marshal his forces and build whatever it was that he was going to have to build to defeat this alien force that was coming. And so he was thinking about how exactly he was going to do this and he was working on the problem and the only person he took into his confidence was Jean Grey because she has mental abilities and such, and anyways, so into his space comes the Changeling and talks to him and says, "Look. I know I've been a terrible guy and maybe I am a terrible guy but I'm going to die in a year and I haven't done anything in my life to make my life worthwhile and I need to now that I know I'm going to die. And Professor X thought about it for a while and knew that there was something he could do. He could take Professor X's place for that period of time and die. So he did. He took Professor X's place. His mental abilities were augmented by Jean Grey who was always with him with her mental abilities. He could be sick and not seem to be able to do the things that he could do because he is, in fact, the Changeling and not Professor X. And in the end he could die and then Professor X could later, when the threat was imminent, come back. And that's the comic book Denny O'Neil dialogued. When Professor X came back. And that's why you have a Professor X. The reason you know, if you read the series, is that when the Sentinels capture all the mutants that exist on earth up to that point and they release them into this room and you look at all the mutants that are standing there there's one mutant that's missing. The Changeling.

Sam: So that was the clue.

Neal: That was the clue that I left issues before. So let's see. During that run we created Sauron and those mutants that are in the Savage land. The mutants that Magneto created in the Savage Land. He created four or five mutants that are being used now on a regular basis. And I also brought Magneto back and Roy and I did a dazzling piece of footwork where Magneto is walking around with no helmet on and of course he never appears without his helmet on so you never suspect that he's Magneto. And he doesn't magnetically do things. He's in the Savage Land and he's putting mutants together and forming this cadre of mutants and you never know who he is for a book and a half until the last page when he makes his decision and he puts his hand on the Magneto helmet and says, "And I guess clothes do take the man." That's Roy Thomas' contribution and I think that's pretty good. So anyways, so yeah, I'd have to say... you sort of have to look at the books.

Sam: Well I'll tell you what. I'll make sure I order a copy.

Neal: Well it's up to you.

Sam: Well as I said, I am a fan and I haven't had a great read in a while.

Neal: Well I think you'll find that that's a good read.

Sam: I've read maybe the first twenty issues of X-Men....the Phoenix Saga.

Neal: The Phoenix Saga. What's that? Ha. Horse feathers. I'm just kidding.

Sam: Anyways, I won't take up much more of your time. I just want to ask you a couple of quick final questions.

Neal: Okay.

Sam: Well first of all, we got Joe Kubert back on Sgt. Rock. We got Stan Lee coming back and doing a few special books at Marvel.

Neal: Oh. What a bloody thrill. [Laughs]

Sam: And it's the schmucks like me that are ordering all of them.

Neal: [Laughs louder] Did you buy those books that Stan did for DC Comics?

Sam: I didn't touch those with a ten foot pole.

Neal: Oh boy.

Sam: Actually, the only book at Marvel I'm reading right now is Spiderman Loves Mary Jane.

Neal: Oh. Your too much of a fan.

Sam: I'm a Spidey fan.

Neal: You haven't been reading the Ultimate Spiderman?

Sam: I missed it on the ground floor.

Neal: You got to read it.

Sam: I don't read Spiderman anymore because they screwed it up so bad. Well I saw that you were going to be doing some alternate covers for the new "Mystery in Space" series.

Neal: I've been doing some.

Sam: Any chances of you with collaborating again with Denny O'Neil on something?

Neal: What would I collaborate with him on?

Sam: I don't know.

Neal: How about collaborating with... oh... say... Frank Miller.

Sam: Are you collaborating with Frank Miller?

Neal: Well what do you think of that as an idea?

Sam: I think that would be fantastic! Is it happening?

Neal: Maybe.

Sam: Is that a new item?

Neal: Yeah. I think so.

Sam: Fan-frikkin-tastic! Wow! When can we expect that?

Neal: I don't know.

Sam: Alright. Okay. Fair enough.

Neal: Yeah. I'm just finishing a cover for Mystery in Space with Captain Comet. These alternate covers are coming along very nicely and they sort of remind people that I'm still around.

Sam: Another quick question. How many times do you think you've drawn Green Arrow crying?

Neal: I don't know. How many times have I drawn Green Arrow crying?

Sam: I picked up at least three or four panels.

Neal: Really? Does he cry that much? God.

Sam: Pictures of Green Arrow crying I think are...

Neal: Legendary....

Sam: I think someone should actually do a website of just pictures of Green Arrow crying.

Neal: It would be a short website. One page. Really? More than once?

Sam: Yeah. Well... there was the time he cried after Roy punched him out.

Neal: Yeah. That's the time.

Sam: And there was the time after the little black kid got killed in the riot...

Neal: Oh yeah. That was a beautiful panel.

Sam: Final question. Any dream projects of characters that you want to work on that you never have.

Neal: No. I can't think of anything.

Sam: You've run the gauntlet.

Neal: No. I just don't feel that way about characters. I don't have any real attachment to characters. I think that if I do a character probably they are going to be different. What happens when I do a character is that they tend to become that character plus. They don't change, they just become an upgraded version of that character.

Sam: Kind of like what you did with Batman and Green Arrow.

Neal: Yeah. So you know, its pretty hard to do that with Superman. I tried to do that with Superman in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali and I got a little bit of use out of it. I got him beaten to a pulp. That was pretty good and then he comes back but it's hard to do with that kind of character because he's the ultimate. I guess I'd probably like to mess around with Wolverine but so many people are doing it. It's not that big of deal I think. Maybe some more Batman... with Frank Miller... or something like that. I have a graphic novel that I'm doing and I have a science project. You haven't been to my site, have you.

Sam: I visited it last week quickly.

Neal: Quickly! You can't visit my site quickly! You've got to go look at the science stuff.

Sam: Alright.

Neal: Go see the science stuff. It'll blow your mind. It'll be a whole other interview. You'll be hired by a science magazine so you can interview me again.

Sam: Well I'll be linking your site up to this article.

Neal: Well do that and invite them to visit the science stuff. It's actually quite entertaining. It's videos we did here at the studio about the earth growing and shit like that.

Sam: I read about that, that you do believe that the Earth is growing.

Neal: Well it's not that I believe it. Well look. It's either growing or it's not growing and I connected all the continents together and they all fit together so something's going on.

Sam: You don't think it's the moving of the plates?

Neal: Well they had this theory and its a really nice theory that all the continents were all together on one side of the Earth. They first came up with it about forty years ago and they showed how the contents fit together in the Atlantic and you see pictures of it. And they never show it on a globe. They always show it on one of these flat maps but if so all the continents are on one quarter of the Earth. So you pretty much have to imagine all those continents on one side of the Earth, all hooked together, one giant island. Then you have to get into your Gil Kane space taxi and jink across space, find the solar system, go to the third planet, and on one side there's this big giant island and you travel around the rest of the world and it's all ocean four miles deep. Then you come back and you see this island and you go, "Who put this island together? What the hell happened here?" What guy comes around and piles everything on one side? Piles it all together? What's the deal? Is it kind of lopsided? If that happens isn't that going to throw gravity off and the middle of it sinks and the other side goes above water? That's ridiculous. It's preposterous and it's wrong. Now I could fit all those continents together like they tried to do but I could do it on a smaller planet.

Sam: Then it could work.

Neal: Yeah. But for that to happen all those continents would have to have oceans on them but you know, if you look it up in the book it'll tell you that two thirds of the continents that you live on were covered with shallow seas during the time of the dinosaurs. I wonder what happened to all that water? Anyways...

Sam: Very interesting. And it's all there on your website for us to take a look at?

Neal: Oh yeah, and it's entertaining too. Okay. Well, take it easy man.

Sam: Well thank you. For your time.

Neal: Send me a copy.

Sam: I'll make sure I do. Thanks again Mr. Adams.

Neal: Bye.

Thus ended my visit with the iconic Neal Adams. Later that week I did make it to my local comic book shop and managed to order a copy of "X-Men Visionaries: Neal Adams" just as I had promised. It was available for shipment immediately and arrived very quickly to my comic shop. Despite the fact that I am not a huge X-Men fan I was confronted with not only some great story telling courtesy of Roy Thomas but some of the most imaginative work I've ever seen from Neal Adams. Some panels, especially the ones featuring Jean Grey's mental abilities, slipped into being almost psychedelic. Besides that it had everything you expect from Neal Adam's work - sexy women, heroic heroes and hard hitting emotion. I was instantly aware of exactly why Neal was proud of that particular run of books. A prized addition to my graphic novel collection, alongside DC's two volume Green Lantern/Green Arrow TPB set which, if you have never read, you seriously need to go and order immediately from your local comic book shop. Believe me, they are worth the money for not only the story, but especially Neal Adam's art. Take my advice on this one. You can't even begin to call yourselves comic book fans until you've read these books.

All content copyright Sam Tweedle 2006.