NEAL ADAMS CHRONICLES | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Mar30

TALIA AT 55: NEAL ADAMS’ Daughter of the Demon Has BATMAN Right in the Palm of Her Hand

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 30, 2026

TALIA AT 55: NEAL ADAMS’ Daughter of the Demon Has BATMAN Right in the Palm of Her Hand

An ANNIVERSARY SALUTE to the Masked Manhunter’s (other) great love… Detective Comics #411 — featuring Talia’s first appearance by Denny O’Neil, Bob Brown and Dick Giordano, with a Neal Adams cover — came out 55 years ago, on March 30, 1971. “Into the Den of the Death-Dealers!” is a solid story of international intrigue and Brown/Giordano gave us a beautiful mystery woman straight out of a Bond flick, but readers wouldn’t really know what was in store for them until a few weeks later when we’d first meet her father, Ra’s al Ghul — and Neal Adams got his pencils into Talia. In a bit of a Mandela Effect, readers tend to think Adams was Talia’s first artist — and I suppose technically he was because of that tiny image of her on the ’Tec #411 cover — but it’s really because of this knockout page in April 1971’s Batman #232: Regardless, Adams is her definitive artist — no question — so this piece grabbed me when I saw it posted online (by whom, I don’t recall) not long ago: The resolution is not great but it’s still pretty fab. It’s been on Comic Art Fans for more than 15 years and was purchased in Chicago in the early 1980s. Just something nice to look at on Talia’s 55th anniversary. — MORE — CAROLINE MUNRO — The Greatest TALIA That Never Was. Click here. — DES TAYLOR Draws the Sexiest TALIA Since NEAL ADAMS. Click...

Mar18

NEAL ADAMS’ Respect for DREW STRUZAN Was Endless — and for Excellent Reason

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 18, 2026

NEAL ADAMS’ Respect for DREW STRUZAN Was Endless — and for Excellent Reason

A NEAL ADAMS CHRONICLES birthday tribute to the late movie-poster master… — UPDATED 3/18/26: The late Drew Struzan was born 79 years ago, on March 18, 1947. Perfect time to reprint this birthday tribute from 2024. — Dan — By PETER STONE Think about your favorite most iconic movie posters. Jaws, The Thing, Rocky, Alien, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, Hellboy, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones. I bet half, if not more, were painted by Drew Struzan, who was born 79 years ago, on March 18, 1947. Bob Peak, Richard Amsel and a few exceptional graphic designers probably created the rest. Drew Struzan is an exceptional painter and uses photos to create likenesses of famous actors better than even photographs can. He makes some actors look better than they do in real life. He is one of the best painters in the last 100 years. Struzan is probably the last great movie poster artist of the 20th century. His work will be forever remembered in connection to Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, The Goonies and even Back to the Future. His compositions were unique and brilliant. He captured the heart of the story in a single illustration as he created a tremendously commercial imagr. Before Struzan, movie posters were graphic designs like Jaws. Or photographs. Like The Godfather. Neal Adams loved Drew Struzan’s work to the degree that he would show other artists that Struzan knew how to capture a likeness better than possibly anyone working at the time. He loved the highlights Drew put on the faces, the double-lighting, the fact that he worked with photos better than anyone. (NOTE from Dan: The first time I met Neal many years ago, he asked me if I knew who Drew Struzan was and then went off on a tangent about him.) Neal totally understood what it meant to work with a photo of an actor. I remember him doing a promotional image of a series of actors for a popular TV show. He told me on many occasions that you could not draw the actor as they really were but as they thought they really were. In other words, make them look better than possibly they really were. This time when he was working on this TV promotion was wonderful. Each of the actors were dead on...

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