Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 15, 2025 | 7 comments

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE by his son-in-law Peter Stone…

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The late, great Neal Adams was born 84 years ago, on June 15, 1941, and we have a two-fer birthday salute for you this year: this column about Adams’ Ben Casey strip by his son-in-law Peter Stone, and a piece by Scott Dunbier that highlights the upcoming Neal Adams’ DC Classics Artist’s Edition. The book, with multiple covers, is due July 8, but you can already get special editions from Adams’ family, here. I have mine and it’s extraordinary. Dig it. — Dan

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By PETER STONE

September 20, 1964. the Newspaper Enterprise Association decided to add a Sunday installment to the popular Ben Casey newspaper strip. The daily strip started almost two years earlier, on Nov. 26, 1962, with a storyline featuring a lightweight boxer named Sugar Kayne. It was pencilled and inked by 21-year-old Neal Adams. Of course, Neal would now handle the Sunday strip, which was almost three times the size of the daily.

Sept. 20, 1964

March 6, 1966

Somehow, Neal Adams, now a feisty and still youthful 23-year-old, took on the extra work like it was nothing. Sure, there were late nights with the family, long photo sessions to achieve the right poses, but amazingly, Neal exceeded the daily work. Fans of Neal’s talk about the daily strip as being one of the best things he did because he could lay out, pencil and ink the entire job. Some dailies are genuinely remarkable, especially, for a 21-year-old, but those Sundays were head and shoulders above. There is not a single Sunday that looks rushed. No crowd scenes are hidden or cropped off. The Sundays are packed to the gills with details that artists three times Neal’s age knew how to draw.

Dec. 13, 1964

A particular storyline features a jockey with a brain injury. So, Neal has to draw horses. Not just one or two… entire professional horse races. There are only a handful of talented artists who can accurately depict horses, racetracks, and jockeys, especially when they’re only 23.

March 7, 1965

May 16, 1965

Then there are the women. Maggie Graham, Ben Casey’s loyal girl Friday, appears in the daily strip as a beautiful woman, but Neal drew other female characters with different hair styles and sometimes downright stunning figures. The Sundays, however, were populated by easily Neal’s most beautiful female faces.

One storyline features a younger woman and Ben Casey on (what?!) vacation in bathing suits. Ben’s masculine chest and the woman’s modern (for 1965) bikini is an exercise in drawing beautiful people frolicking in a pool with all the subverted sexual tension allowed at the time. Even the woman struggling with alcohol is a stunning beauty. Their hair is exceptional, as Neal learned from studying the great Stan Drake (in The Heart of Juliet Jones). Neal may be best known for his version of Talia al Ghul, but his Ben Casey Sunday women are undoubtedly the finest representation of their gender.

Oct. 31, 1965

Nov. 14, 1965

Jan. 3, 1965

Feb. 6, 1966

June 5, 1966

Oct. 10, 1965

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the famous “hidden face” Sunday, a precursor to the equally well-known “hidden face” Deadman page years later. The young Neal Adams had no fear of trying new storytelling techniques in his Sunday strips. Striking down-shots, long, thin panels, crowd scenes, and the start of his experimentation with forced perspective.

Dec. 20, 1964

Did I forget to mention the cars? Oh, my! The very first Sunday has a beautiful young woman rocketing down the street in a classic speedster, wind blowing in her hair, with the cops right behind her. Neal’s cars throughout the entire run of Ben Casey were stunningly cool and slick. It’s no wonder that when he had to redesign the Batmobile, he made it a fast-looking muscle car… not a tank or a car with a big bat face on the front. Neal always said, “How could Batman sneak up on someone with a cartoon car? No, Batman should drive something super-cool that could fade into traffic.” In Ben Casey, a realistic strip, the cars are well-researched and carefully drawn. They are a Bullitt car, or a slick Gran Torino, or a 1965 Pontiac GTO: badass, 1960s muscle cars.

June 19, 1966

Ben Casey Sundays remain some of Neal’s best work. Even years later, when Neal was drawing Batman and the material was more popular and commercial, there was something magical about his Ben Casey. I have spent several months gathering good copies of all the strips and Sundays for the possibility of printing a collection of the best.  If I can get copies of the last eight Sundays, I think we’re in business! It’ll be a belated birthday present for one of the greatest to have ever drawn comic strips or comic books or painted covers or… a thousand, thousand other things.

Happy birthday, big guy!

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MORE

— 13 Magnificent NEAL ADAMS COVERS — Compared With the Original Art. Click here.

— NEAL ADAMS: The Most Intimidating Nice Guy You’d Ever Meet, by FRANCO. 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 online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com.