The Astral Avenger - The Spectre by Neal Adams

Every once and a while, you enjoy one of those days where everything just seems to fall in place as you hoped. Today at the Comic Fest Convention at the Town and Country Hotel in beautiful San Diego was one of those very days. Neal Adams, the living legend, was the guest of honor.

Here, I was fortunate enough to pick up this remarkable commission of one of my all-time favorite superheroes - The Spectre - illustrated no less by one of my all-time favorite artists. This beauty was rendered in pen and india ink with very detailed brush work (not marker like many of his commissions are done in) in the master's unmistakeable realistic and utterly gripping style. Adams' Spectre in the late 1960's was undoubtedly the inspiration and visual model for Jim Aparo's unforgettable version of the grim avenger in Adventure Comics #431-440.

In short, this piece just simply ROCKS! Couldn't be more pleased since I've been waiting to get a GREAT Spectre piece by Neal for many years. And to top it all off, Mr. Adams allowed me to interview him for nearly 3.5 hours for a Spectre article I'm working on. It just doesn't get much better than this.

Special thanks to BUZZ (a supremely talented artist himself) for facilitating the deal.

ENJOY!