DARK HORSE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON ART Arthur ADAMS & TERRY AUSTIN HALF SPLASH 1993 CLASSIC UNIVERSAL MONSTERS with GILLMAN and JULIE ADAMS! MAYAN TEMPLE - TWICE UP!

Hands down my favorite monster book has to be 1993 Dark Horse’s adaptation of "CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON” by Art Adams and Terry Austin. I remember pre-ordering that book through my cousin’s shop back in ’93. When it finally arrived I must have had tears in my eyes – the pages were simply breathtaking! Austin has quite a reputation of turning anything he touches into gold and a super nice guy to boot. His team-ups with Michael Golden, Marshall Rogers and John Byrne are legendary and often remembered as the high point of each title.

I have often commented actually owning ANY page from this issue would make most mortals weak in the knees, NEVER in my wildest dreams did I ever expect one day I’d end up with a half splash featuring the creature’s Mayan-esque sacrificial altar and three appearances of the gillman himself!!! Plus - having so many shots of luscious Julie Adams means "GRAIL" in my book.

For years I always wanted to have a couple of commissions from Adams - Headshots of Monkeyman & Obrien and one of the Creature but with this latest addition to my collection, I can finally cross those out. As a bonus - I was surprised to find two head shots of an ape at the bottom right hand side. Tom pointed out to me the original price is written on the back (waaaay before he ever got it) - $350 - can you imagine?

Being such a HUGE fan of the creature and only 48 pages out there, it doesn’t really give a guy much of a chance so just as soon as I saw this one had hit the market – I knew I had to hock some stuff quickly. I cannot thank Ray Cuthbert AND Tom Benham enough for making this dream a reality for me - IT HAS BEEN QUITE A SPECIAL WEEK! I can’t wait to get Adams and Austin to sign this one so I can get it professionally framed for my wall. GUYS - I have a NEW FAVORITE; )

Forgot to mention these pages are TWICE-UP - all art should be done this size!

Excerpt taken from COMIC BOOK ARTIST #17 TWOMORROWS Jan. 2002 concerning the Creature from the Black Lagoon book:

Arthur: ..."I just wanted to get as much into it as I could, and I wanted to make it clear - hence, what I think of as the Dark Knight panel design, so it's possible for there to be 16 panels on a page - and as I recall, I drew those pages twice-up, not the regular comic book page size, but really big, so I had to make it a little simpler just so people would be able to see it. Terry Austin did a great job on inking that one!"

Editor's note: Ye Ed found Arthur Adams' rendering on the comics adaptation of the Universal monster flick, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, to be a revelation and in our humble opinion, Arthur's best work to date (well, before "Jonni Future," anyway!)