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What Would Josh Do? by Josh Adams #2: Cup O' Josh

Comic book artist Josh Adams talks about the world he finds himself in – the industry, the family, the personality traits…

So I looked at the responses and at the emails and one thing became blatantly clear and I want to address it upfront. This is important to me so please don't overlook my feelings about this:

THANK YOU! Thank you all for the warm response and the emails and all the kindness and contribution. It was such a great feeling to see you respond and to know that you took the time out of your day to read what I wrote. I am honored to know that you have donated your time to my words. Also, thanks to whoever took my Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern and put it on Twitter. I encourage everyone to push my stuff on anyone you know.

Alright, now, on the meat an potatoes, I'm gonna answer some questions for all y'all before I get into my rant.

Multiple people ask me: So what do you think of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern?

My response: I hated it. Thought it was stupid. Green Lantern is a character that means a lot to me so I acted irrationally defensive, and I've held on to that defensive feeling for quite a while, that is until I decided to draw him…last week. I was looking for decent reference and google was more than happy to provide me with shot after that showed his impressive build, and how serious and heroic he can look in his photoshoots and so on, and so on and I though to myself, "God, I mean this, yea, this guy is pretty fit and looks like he can mean business if put in the right position but he seems a little cocky…" and there is was, that distant feeling again; that moment where one part of my brain decides to tell the other part of my brain how stupid I was for passing judgement so quickly.

This guy can do it. I'm not saying he will, but he can. Watch him in Smoking Aces, he doesn't always play the wise ass that he usually plays and this is the chance for him to live up to the title of actor. All the most acclaimed Oscar winning performances are by people who go completely outside of themselves to play a part. Why couldn't it be the case for Ryan Reynolds? We just gotta give him a chance. That aside, he looks the part, so let's see what happens. I'm optimistic.

Next Question, not cause it was next on the list but mainly because it was pretty general, comes from good ol' PJP who has much to say about comics on the Bleeding Cool forums: You have fifty dollars a week to spend at your local comic shop what would you buy and why?

My response: US dollars? Not much if that's the case. If I could make it to my local comic shop, which is MidTown Comics, I tend to be a very very picky comic buyer. There are very few writers that I will buy comics specifically for, and there are very few titles that I will buy regardless of who is working on it. The truth is that the years of growing up in the comic business and being the son of my father, I have some pretty high standards for comic book art and the same can be said for the treatment comic characters in stories.

The short list of needs from a comic: top notch art is a must (Stuart Immonen is a personal favorite,) well defined characters and a story that doesn't cause me to sacrifice the common sense of reality beyond the exceptions set from the beginning of the story. My real question is, "why isn't that in every comic?" Maybe you guys can answer that for me cause I know if I was drawing, say, Batman, I'd want that to be the case and I'd be busting my ass to make that happen.

Speaking of what I like in comics. I had been spending some time recently with some editors at DC, pitching some ideas, most of which would get flat out rejected by way of them either being too controversial or a more important person had called "dibs" on that character or team. In the course of doing some these pitches, I would inevitably do some artwork or studies for them and seeing as most of these projects have fallen and the work remains unpublished, I thought it would be appropriate that I give them an audience simply so they don't go unseen in a drawer somewhere for years.

The story I pitched that meant most to me and had been an itch I wanted to get scratched for many months now was for "Challengers of the Unknown." It was a great book with some intense characters in the original series and was too good of a book not to take advantage of. Of course, the challenge of using the Challengers is reintroducing the original group and their history without completely alienating the reader. To do this I sought out my friend Matt Bergin who of course took all the jumbled ideas I had for the story and focussed them into a great narrative. After figuring out how we were going to reintroduce the new Challengers it cam down to redefining them visually. That job was left up to me, so what I'm showing you is a number of studies on real life people whom I believed adequately represented the classic characters in the Challengers of the Unknown.

I will emphasize these are done from photos of real people, I'm sure some of you can figure out who they are. I won't tell you though cause that's no fun. Some elements are visually changed so I'll give you the answers next week if you can't get them all.

Before I cut this short I want to mention a unique opportunity. Most of you know that I am doing commissions through my website and because of the large amount of interest I am getting I spoke with my father Neal and as a semi cross promotion, I am offering the opportunity to get a commission from Neal Adams. He is only doing a limited number so act now, though I warn you they are very expensive. The offer applies to those who contact me through my website so hurry while the offer is still on the table. If you're not keen on his stuff you can still get a commission from me.

While I am looking for the general questions as always I thought I'd like to know what your responses are to the same questions I answered here. Once again, thank you guys for reading and keep asking questions and I will keep telling you what Josh would do.

Josh Adams work can be found at whatwouldjoshdo.com. He will answer questions sent to josh@whatwouldjoshdo.com in subsequent columns. Lawyers willing. His opinions are, naturally, his own.

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