Like I mentioned in the last post, this week is devoted to the late Neal Adams’ uncanny skills as a cover artist. Today I want to highlight his knack for moody horror.
As you can see below, Neal Adams liked to complement scary figures with panicked, endangered witnesses (alternating between which ones went into the background and which ones went into foreground), although he sometimes settled for illustrating what was at stake and left the shocked reaction to the readers (like in The House of Mystery #189). Adams could get away with this because his mastery of skewed angles, dusky colors, and elegant depictions of malleable fabric or smoke managed to turn the mundane into spooky and make even silliness exciting… Notice, also, the occasional use of strikingly different palettes – and even different coloring styles – to create an eerie sense of depth as well as an unsettling contrast between threats and their impending victims.
