When news spread earlier today that Neal Adams lost his art portfolio by leaving it in a NYC Yellow Cab, it all seemed very familiar. Then I remembered … no, Neal Adams had never lost his art portfolio before by leaving it in a NYC Yellow Cab … he’d lost his art portfolio by having it stolen while he slept on a NYC subway car. History doth (almost) repeat itself!

But don’t just take my word for it. Have a look at this snarky entry from the two-page ad Warren Publishing took out in the 1972 New York Comic Art Convention program book.

For further winners of the “1972 Awards for Dubious Achievement to the Comics Industry,” check out the complete spread below. (more…)

Have you seen the cover to the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly? It features a huge image of Superman zooming at the reader, above two other smaller Superman drawings plus photos of five actors who’ve played the part in movies and on TV.

Does the main drawing look familiar to you? It did to me.

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Of all the original comic book art auctioned recently by my wife and sister-in-law, this page is the jewel in the crown—a classic Deadman splash page by Neal Adams from Strange Adventures #208 (1968). Ellen has owned it for four decades, but now it’s time to let it go.

I don’t expect it to go cheap, but hey, you’re not cheap, right?

The bidding begins Feb. 7 over at Heritage Auction Galleries, so head on over there and check it out—and remember to return Feb. 7 to place that bid!

Long before I worked with or beside either of these guys as a comics professional, I interacted with them both in the role of annoying fan with a sketchbook. So to annoy them even further, I present two sketches I got from today’s birthday boys long ago and far away.

First up, a drawing by Neal Adams done at a July 4th Seuling con during those much more innocent days before he started charging $10.00 per sketch in ’72 or so. (And who knows what he’s charging now!)

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I woke at 4:30 in the morning from a dream in which I was attending some convention so large it could have been the San Diego Comic-Con, only it wasn’t exactly the San Diego Comic-Con. I enter an auditorium in which a film is about to be played and find the room half full. I see Neal Adams in the audience, only not the Neal Adams of today, but rather the Neal Adams of the 1970s, even though it was today in the dream. He has a huge bucket of popcorn in his lap, as if he’s about to watch a blockbuster in his local theater instead of the documentary about Harlan Ellison which is about to begin.

I step outside for a moment—to get my own bucket of popcorn perhaps?—and when I return the theater is more populated, and I can no longer sit next to Neal the way I’d planned to. So I sit somewhere else. And then the film begins, but I can remember none of it. Not because I’ve forgotten what was playing out onscreen, but because the dream jump cuts to after the lights come back on.

And guess what? Someone has been murdered. I think. My memory is vague on that now. But I do remember that some horrible crime has been committed, which could have been murder, but it also could have been something else equally heinous, whatever that might be. (more…)