Артур Адамс: Мастер комиксов и его творчество

American comic book artist

Arthur Adams (born April 5, 1963) is an American comic book artist and writer. He first broke into the American comic book industry with the 1985 Marvel Comics miniseries Longshot. His subsequent interior comics work includes a number of Marvel's major books, including The Uncanny X Men, Excalibur, X Factor, Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Ultimate Comics: X, as well as books by various other publishers, such as Action Comics, Vampirella, The Rocketeer, and The Authority. Adams has also illustrated books featuring characters for which he has a personal love, such as Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Gumby, the latter of which garnered him a 1988 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue. In 1994, Adams joined a group of creators that included Frank Miller, John Byrne, and Mike Mignola to form Legend, an imprint of creator owned comics published by Dark Horse Comics, through which Adams published Monkeyman and O'Brien, a science fiction adventure series featuring archetypal sci fi monsters that Adams wrote and illustrated. Although the Legend imprint ceased in 1998, Monkeyman and O'Brien continued to appear in print, sometimes in crossover stories with other comics characters, such as Gen13/Monkeyman and O'Brien (1998), and Savage Dragon #41 (September 1997). Because of his reputedly tight, labor intensive penciling style, which was initially influenced by Michael Golden and Walter Simonson, and his admittedly slow pace, Adams mostly does cover work. When he does do interior art, it is usually for short storylines, one shots, miniseries or contributions to anthologies, such as his 2002–2004 work on "Jonni Future", a pulp science fiction series he co created with Steve Moore for the Wildstorm Productions anthology Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, and his 2008 work on Hulk (Vol 2) #7 9. His other cover work includes books such as Avengers Classic, Wonder Woman, and JLA, as well as pinups and other spot illustrations for books such as Sin City, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and his own published sketchbook series, Arthur Adams Sketchbook. He has done design work for toys and video games, and miniature busts have been produced based on his renditions of notable characters. In the early 2000s he was commissioned to create artwork for the drum kit used by System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan. He is one of the most popular and widely imitated artists in the comics industry, whose drawing style has been credited as an influence upon artists such as Joe Madureira and Ed McGuinness, as well as the artists associated with the founding and early days of Image Comics, such as J. Scott Campbell.

In 2014, Adams illustrated variant covers for each of the eight issues of Marvel Comics miniseries Original Sin, composing them as eight pieces of a single, interlocked image, which depicts all of the major characters of the Marvel Universe. It was the single piece that took the longest for Adams to complete, at 10 weeks. A recreation of Barry Windsor Smith's classic cover to Avengers #100 that Adams drew on a whim was later used by Marvel Comics as a variant cover to an actual issue, and in July 2019, as the image of a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle licensed by Aquarius. On November 30, 2011, Gumby Comics/Wildcard Ink published a single volume collecting Adams' previous two specials featuring Gumby. The book was initially called Gumby's Arthur Adams Specials, but was eventually published with a sticker covering Adams' name on the cover, effectively renaming the book Gumby's Spring Specials. According to Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool, this was done on Adams' request, who wanted nothing to do with the publisher, and took action to keep his name off the book's cover. The book is nonetheless sold by merchants such as Mile High Comics under its originally intended name. In 2016 Adams provided the illustrations for a satirical piece in GQ magazine that imagined a number of controversial public figures as comic book supervillains, including Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Sepp Blatter, Martin Shkreli, and Kris Jenner. Later that year, Dynamite Entertainment announced it that would be producing limited edition poly resin busts of female characters for its Women of Dynamite line, based on Adams' renditions of those characters and sculpted by Jason Smith. The first bust was a Red Sonja bust debuting in November, followed by a Vampirella bust in February 2017. In the late 2010s, Adams illustrated cover runs on Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol 4) and X Men Blue. In April 2022, Adams was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators who contributed to Operation USA's benefit anthology book, Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, a project spearheaded by IDW Publishing Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier, whose profits would be donated to relief efforts for Ukrainian refugees resulting from the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Adams would provide one of the covers to the softcover edition of the book. Though his work for Marvel takes priority for him, he also makes a significant amount of his income from private commissions, which he produces when time permits.

[[File:Jonnifuture. jpg|thumb|left|Adams was heavily influenced by the work of Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, among other sources, in illustrating "Jonni Future", which he considers his best work. Nonetheless, he stated in a 2019 interview that while he had not harbored any strong emotional attachment to the X Men as a child, he had been drawn to that franchise because "I just like the characters and I've worked on them enough that they trust me," and has gone on to name his favorite X Men characters to draw. He said he loves Domino as a character, despite not having had many opportunities to draw her; he enjoyed depicting Wolverine out of costume in a storyline that paired him with Jubilee; has called Kitty Pryde a good character; and enjoys drawing Colossus, X 23, and Jean Grey. He dislikes drawing the Punisher, because he believes that he is not adept at drawing guns. Timothy Callahan of Comic Book Resources points to the use of dynamic action poses, idealized figures, costume designs featuring numerous accessories, a preference for copious crosshatching over brushwork in rendering, and the depiction of cybernetic limbs and other reflective surfaces seen in those artists' styles as being derived from Adams' work, in particular his run on Longshot. Callahan also points out that the detailed webbing for which Todd McFarlane became known during his run on Spider Man had previously been used by Adams on the cover of Longshot #4, although Callahan notes that Adams did not necessarily originate these elements, but was influenced himself by Michael Golden and Micronauts, he states that Adams popularized them. Adams' conception of Spider Man with a large eyed mask, detailed "spaghetti" style webbing, and more contorted poses while web swinging can be seen in Web of Spider Man Annual #2, published in June 1986 (approximately 1½ years before Todd McFarlane's first published Spider Man work, The Amazing Spider Man #298). Noting also that Adams' Longshot pencils were inked by Whilce Portacio and an uncredited Scott Williams, Callahan refers to that book as "early Image, in primal form". J. Scott Campbell, Ed McGuinness, Aaron Kuder, Shelby Robertson, Olivier Coipel, and Nick Bradshaw.

Adams is married to fellow comics artist Joyce Chin, whom he met at the 1996 San Diego Comic Con. Chin has inked Adams' pencils, and Adams has inked Chin's, as on Xena: Warrior Princess #4 (January 2000). As of 1997 they lived in Portland, Oregon.