Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 30, 2024 | 3 comments

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the widely admired, late illustrator, who was born 97 years ago, on May 30, 1927…

By PETER STONE

There are only a few artists whose work can be posted on the internet and still get a great number of likes every day. Frazetta, Dave Stevens, Milo Manara and one the true masters — Bob Peak.

When I stepped into Continuity, I was unfamiliar with the extent of Bob Peak’s work. I had no idea he had spent so long as an advertising artist and that his style then was completely different from what I was aware of. Working with Neal Adams, I immediately got a course on how good Peak really was.

Neal pulled out his file of torn-out Peak material. Men in suits leaning against cars while attractive women drink martinis. Most of those images were drawn in colored pencil, but Neal told me to look carefully at how well he could illustrate. Even if it wasn’t as tight as his movie posters, you could see that Peak could draw something that is very hard for many comic artists… men in suits. At that time, you would see men wearing suits as if they were superhero outfits, but Peak knew how to draw clothes. And any other damn thing he needed to.

Neal’s daughter (now my wife) Kris, who was in the room at the time, told me that she had gone to a client’s office, looking for finished work, the high-end stuff that might end up in a magazine. Neal was painting much more in those days, still thinking he could make good money as an illustrator. Anyway, Kris was seated in the waiting area, when she looked up and saw the art on the wall. The original for the Camelot movie poster. She was stunned — not because it was actually the original, but because it was so VIVID. The audacity, the confidence, the balls, to make Vanessa Redgrave’s face pure white and her hair a brilliant red. Then he made Richard Harris’ face normal. All the images around the main characters were also brilliant, but Redgrave’s face is stunning. So much contrast. Revolutionary work.

What Kris didn’t realize was that I loved Apocalypse Now. When I was in a poster shop across the way from a great Cambridge, Massachusetts, comic shop called The Million Year Picnic, I flipped through the posters and then stopped cold. Here was a framed poster of Apocalypse Now, the one with Marlon Brando’s face dripping with water, Martin Sheen’s face behind him, the boat traveling down the river and the bridge being attacked. It was as if a beam of light shown down from above. I could not leave that store without buying that poster.

It hung in three different apartments. It is easily my favorite movie poster of all time. Then there are the variations on that piece that are amazing as well. I love every single one. And what about his Excalibur series. Those are terrific. Especially the Lady in the Lake piece. I’d love to have an entire room filled with his work.

Then there’s the Superman poster. Not the image I might have made, but after a few decades, it’s kind of amazing. Swirling clouds and a red, yellow and blue comet. You know it’s Superman. Again he did a number of variations of this poster and all of them are unique and different.

Then there was the Christmas of Bob Peak. A massive collection of Peak’s work written and curated by his son Thomas, who happens to be a wonderful and talented photographer. The amount of work in this book is stunning. It’s probably not his entire career, but there’s SO MUCH good work in there. So everyone bought everyone else a copy of the book. There was easily a half an hour of complete silence as all of us flipped through them. Even my daughter Kelly loved it because she was into fashion and Bob, well, he could do that too.

Even Bill Sienkiewicz has admitted his love for Peak, and in certain works, you can tell. Don’t get me wrong, Bill has many different styles, but perhaps in Daredevil: Love and War there seems to be some influence.

Neal used Bob Peak to paint finished pieces from a skating exhibition, for a Barry Manilow concert poster and so many other pieces. He had no problem studying another artist and learning how he did what he did. Heck, he even did it with a composition over a Frank Miller drawing. He came in and showed it to us… throwing it to the table as he always did, and said, “Now I see what Frank is doing. His spotting of blacks is kind of amazing.” Then he laughed and we had to admit, the drawing was a little better than Frank’s, but still Frank.

Bob Peak was one of those brilliant artists from the 20th century and he deserves respect and honor. He has influenced so many artists. When Neal and Bill think someone’s awesome, well… I guess he really is.

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MORE

— 13 MAGNIFICENT MOVIE POSTERS: A BOB PEAK Birthday Celebration. Click here.

— 13 BRILLIANT MOVIE POSTERS: A DREW STRUZAN Birthday Celebration. Click here.

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Peter Stone is a writer and son-in-law of the late Neal Adams. Be sure to check out the family’s twice-weekly online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com, and their Burbank, California, comics shop Crusty Bunkers Comics and Toys.