Customer Reviews

Neal Adams Monsters

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Neal Adams Monsters

Neal Adams was recognised as an instant master when his rendition of Batman smashed his way into mainstream comics in the early 70s. His life- like portrayal of super heroes helped elevate comic art back into a respectable medium bringing passion and drama into charactors not taken seriously before. His influence cannot be overstated,ranking him with Ditco,Kirby,and Frazetta as the best of the best.
"Monsters" was published during the time Universal was resurecting their Classic Monster Series on DVD. It is a totally original work that harkens back to those Gothic glories with Adams adding his personal flare for action and hyper-realizm. The panals flow like a story board. I found myself grinning ear to ear as I turned each page.
I will say nothing of the story but this. This is the movie that "Van Helsing" SHOULD have been. The monsters did not need to be amplified into charicatures of themselves. They were treated with the same respect seen in their original screen versions. It was as if Universal and Hammer teamed up and added ILM to finally do it right. Unlike many recent films,Adams did not chuck out the baby with the bath. He kept each mythos intact without additions or cheats.
The only thing wrong with this book is that it did not last a hundred pages or more. It would have been worth what ever price they asked! "Monsters" is proof that Frankenstien,Dracula,and the Wolf Man are truely immortal. Hopefully we will be gifted with sequals. Or maybe even,More Monsters?! How about it,Neal?

John Fischner

This book came out about the same time as the Van Helsing movie. If only they had adapted THIS story they might have had some hope of a good movie. The best monster mash since the HBO 97 House of Frankenstein mini series. Lots of fun for all us classic monster fans. this was obviously a labor of love for Mr Adams. All I will say is THANK YOU very much.
I leave the critics to stew in their unhappy juices. I had a blast with this book when I used it for Christmas presents last year. Now this one is for ME!!! Happy happy joy joy!
JPF

I've been a huge Neal Adams fan for 30 years. He was the first comic book artist whose comics I actively sought out and collected. Like most of the great artists of the late 60's and 70's, Adams kept his runs on titles short but memorable. His work on the X-Men, Avengers, Green Lantern, and Batman are Silver Age classics. And I remember how happy I was to find Conan the Barbarian #37 with the Adams cover and art. He remains one of my all-time favorites.

"Monsters" collects into one volume for the first time a story that appeared in "Echo of Future Past" from Continuity Comics, Adams' own company. In his introduction, Adams expresses his love for monsters but laments that Dracula, The Wolfman, and The Frankenstein Monster never battled in those old Universal films although he did forget about "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein".

The story opens as a young couple are running for their lives from a pack of ravenous wolves until a stately man upon horseback call the "dogs" off. Their rescuer is overjoyed to find out that the young man is Vincent, the nephew of Victor Frankenstein. Vincent explains that he and his fiancée had to escape from the villagers who killed his uncle after his monster went on a rampage. But they quickly find out their rescuer, Prince Vlad, AKA Count Dracula, is no friend. He kidnaps Vincent's fiancée, Ericka" and forces Vincent to make a new monster. He needs the monster to look after him while he sleeps, and is vulnerable, during the daylight hours. Vincent creates a new monster which immediately breaks free, goes on a rampage, and throws his beloved to her apparent death. But she finds herself bitten by a werewolf and it all climaxes in a battle royal.

If my summary seems simplistic it's because that's exactly what the plot was. Adams' script is just a vehicle to get these three monsters together and at each other's throats. Granted, it's better than the horrendous "Van Helsing" film of 2004, but not by much. At least Neal's art is more pleasing to the eye than two hours of CGI effects. I found Dracula's explanation of why he needed a monster to watch out for him during the day to be a bit silly. I mean, a simple-witted member of the living dead doesn't seem like it would make the best watchdog. That's why vampires have human thralls, such as Renfield, to care for them.

Adams stated in the introduction that he could not depict these monsters looking anything like Universal's copyrighted appearances. I can live with that but I'm not so sure I like my Dracula as a blond, with wavy hair and a Fu-Manchu-style mustache. He looked more like a character from a 1970's cop movie than "The Prince of Darkness". I enjoyed the book as a fan of Neal's art but the story left me a little flat. In addition to the story, there is also a small gallery of monster-related covers than Neal did for Marvel, mostly during the 1970's as well as some of his production sketches from films he worked on.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

We have since the dawn of time had history recounts of knights killing dragons and in mythology heroes killing monsters out of sheer bravery of doing a heroic deed. This however went further than just a knight killing a dragon or a mythical hero hunting and killing a monster, this was an ancestral way of the survival mechanism the food chain that starts from kill or be killed. This is something that went before mythology this is back in prehistoric times where survival predator-prey was essential not only for survival of the species but also for evolutionary development in progression of life getting bigger and larger than ever. Vampires need blood for survival their instinct is to kill; we in turn they need to counter that attack from us for our survival. Relationships between the history of monsters and humans has varied through the centuries it has been a necessity in living for these things for a variety of reasons mythology, folklore, and religion science are for one. It relates mostly to the Food chains and food webs that are representations of the predator-prey relationships between species within an ecosystem or habitat that need each other. A food web is a series of related food chains displaying the movement of energy and matter throughout an ecosystem. The primary consumer is eaten by another animal which is called the secondary consumer which may be eaten by a tertiary consumer and so on. This pathway of energy transfer from one organism to another constitutes a food chain. These animals utilize this energy for their own metabolic activities. Here again some of the energy is released as heat. When primary consumers are eaten by secondary consumers, the same process is repeated at every step of the food chain. We can identify this with vampires and werewolves and other notable monsters such as frankenstein;in that we have simply taken them and dramatized them in a way that is more appealing to understand them more. The medieval saw monsters and giants as mythical creatures sent by God to do his bidding for killing. The Greeks and Romans viewed monsters as prodigies sent to warn of impeding calamities. Bram Stoker's Dracula for example reveals not only a ravenous blood drinking monster but also an erotic characterization of the handsome count himself. Dracula was always depicted as a sexually attractive force giving rise to the fear and mayhem that ensued with all the dramatization and folklore surrounding him as a fabled winged creature. Allowing all the superstitious frightened towns people to take justice in their own hands and kill at will all the flying winged creatures that resembled vampires.In all these well known stories such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the werewolf, we invite these so called monsters to what we are able to then repudiate from them in a manner that's befittingly th necessity. Monsters stand as symbols of human vulnerability especially in times of crisis they play imaginative sureal roles in our society creating the individuals needed to foil these diseaters attempts. Throughout time we have all known that there is a werewolf in all of us and that all is needed is a necessary time for him to exit from us. From the dawn of time we have had heroes to battle these monsters, they have changed, their manner has changed but they are still with us, we feel safe knowing they are there,to protect us.Because we continue with these monsters to better prepare ourselves for facing our enemies. Neil Adams book Monsters is a reimagination of these three powerful sureal forces that we have grown to know so well. He was able to portray each individual with his own strength and weaknesses. We were able to witness that not all monsters are totally barren of compassion and intelligence; we witnessed our own making of monsters by our own expectations and our own desire to control them as individuals. This was a graphic book with artwork that only Neil Adams can produce in which 3 epic horror legends are in one and are explored in a way that was befitting to the characters themselves. This was much more than a graphic novel, this was in essence a true meaning of the predator -prey,relationship between each other it was a portrayal of these legends and how we as people see them and how we survive within their ecosystem and their food chain. The graphic novella is a depiction of survival of the fittest within each species eco-system and their means of survivalfor it.And Its trail is blazingly way ahead of its time in terms of advanced computer digital horror art work which is beautifully rendered in this book!