Neal Adams’ Thrillkill: Artist’s Edition Portfolio

Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio

Neal Adams redefined the look of comics in the 1970s. His groundbreaking dynamic storytelling, coupled with a sense of realism that was never before seen in mainstream comics, has made Adams one of the most influential artists of the last 50 years. He was responsible for what many consider to be the definitive version of Batman, as well as being the co-creator of one of the Caped Crusader’s greatest villains: Ras Al Ghul. He has produced near legendary runs on Green Lantern, Deadman (in Strange Adventures), the Avengers, the X-Men and many more.

Now IDW is pleased to present one of Neal’s outstanding stories in the Artist’s Edition Portfolio format. Each page scanned from the original art to match in exacting terms the look and feel of his original art.

  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
  • Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
Become a Patreon patron

As with all AE format material (Artist’s Editions, Artifact Editions, Gallery Editions, Art Editions, Studio Editions, etc.), this is a collection of classic comic material and I’ll be reviewing the book and not the story. For a complete list of all current and announced editions, with review links, please visit our Index. Also, see What is an Artist’s Edition and our Artist Index. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio

The second in IDW’s Artist’s Edition Portfolio line, offering another Warren magazine story in its original art format. This one comes from the November 1975 issue of Creepy.

The scans are clear and crisp with no softness. The pages have ages to a yellow with a lot of glue stains. No margin notes from production, but we do get someone’s address in Switzerland. Most of the word balloons are pasted on. Some use of correction fluid. No gradients in the blacks. All in all an excellent example of production artwork.

Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio

The standardized design of the Artist’s Edition Portfolio line continues, this time using burgundy as the primary colour and yellow as the accent and text. Clean, sharp, and very effective. Well done Dahlk.

All plates are a heavy matte paper stock, inserted into the sleeve of the hardcover portfolio. I’m not able to insert all plates at once into the sleeve, it’s just too tight. Splitting them in half works well, and you should have no fear of these slipping out. The portfolio comes in a Mylar sleeve with no additional packaging.

Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio
Neal Adams' Thrillkill: Artist's Edition Portfolio

I do appreciate the text on the back of each page “This is NOT a page of original art”. At first this seemed ridiculous, but have a look at eBay under original art and you’ll see the need.

Also, you may notice the colour differences of the pages from the first and last images with the others. I use GIMP for photo editing and utilize White Balance, which normally works wonderfully. This time it made the burgundy of the portfolio very dark so I didn’t use it on the bookend images.

Speaking of off colours, the portfolio image at the top is from the publisher’s website and appears to be from Dahlk’ digital production. Unfortunately, the portfolio’s printed colour is much darker.