In 1989, while flipping through a magazine, I came across this image (which I immediately clipped to save) with an announcement that a comic adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend was forthcoming from Arcane Comix. I was familiar with the company, as they had done work with others I admired, including Clive Barker. While one approaches any potential adaptation with a certain level of trepidation (particularly a comic adaptation, whose success depends greatly on the quality of the art), I was sold based on this rough sketch of Robert Neville by artist Elman Brown, and couldn't wait to see how it turned out.
But wait I did, as it wouldn't appear until 1991, released through Eclipse Comics.
When I interviewed adapter Steve Niles many years later, I credited him on his decision to faithfully adapt the book almost as an illustrated novel. Nearly all of Matheson's original text is present.
I had Niles sign my copies when he came through San Jose for a comic show. Knowing of his shared fondness for Matheson's novel, I had previously enlisted him to write an afterword for the Gauntlet Publications collection Richard Matheson's Bloodlines (more on that in the future), which included all of Matheson's vampire fiction and screenplays, edited by Mark Dawidziak.
And years earlier, I had gotten Matheson to sign the first issue during one of his appearances at Tom Lesser's annual paperback show in Mission Hills, California.
At the time of the book's release, I was struck pretty quickly that Elman Brown's portrait of Neville from the announcement wasn't truly representative of the style used in the comic. I assume it was done as a study for the character. That said, his cross-hatch style worked really well on some aspects of the book, including these pages of Neville taking the dead vampires to the pit.
The adaptation was four issues in all, at an (expensive for the time) $5.95 price point for a perfect-bound book (as opposed to a saddle-stitched, stapled comic).
Many years ago, I came across a proof copy of the cover to Book 2. I would love to find examples of the other three.
I also liked the overall design of the back covers of each issue, although the color palate used was somewhat random. The green "Come Out, Neville" doesn't pop on the first issue as it does the latter installments. But all in all, I credit Eclipse for doing the book, which was not inexpensive, nor was it a sure thing, even at a time when independent comics were thriving.
Oh, and about that original image that had caught my eye? It does appear in the book, incongruous as it is with the rest of the art. To this reader, it serves as a reminder of what might have been.
Be sure to return next week, for more items from my I Am Legend Archive!
