Adam Hughes (born May 3, 1967) is an American comic book artist and illustrator who has worked for companies such as DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Pictures, Playboy magazine, Joss Whedon's Mutant Enemy Productions and Sideshow Collectibles.
He is best known to American comic book readers for his renderings of pinup-style female characters, and his cover work on titles such as Wonder Woman and Catwoman.
Early life
Adam Hughes was born in 1967 in Riverside Township, New Jersey and grew up in Florence Township, New Jersey, staying there until he was 24.
Career
Hughes, who had no formal training in art, began his career in 1987. His first comic book work was a pinup in Eagle #6. He penciled two short stories and the first issue of Death Hawk, created by Mark Ellis. In 1988 Hughes' work appeared in Comico's Maze Agency with co-creator/writer Mike W. Barr. Hughes produced his first color work for the book, and because he aspired to ink his own work one day, took Wagner's suggestion that he produce pinups on each issue's back cover as an advertisement for the next issue in order to practice inking his own pencils. Hughes stayed on the series for a year. In 1989, he did his first work for DC Comics, doing both covers and interior art on Justice League America for two years, before switching to providing covers only.
At the age of 24, Hughes moved to Atlanta, Georgia to join Gaijin Studios, believing that working more closely alongside fellow artists would improve his own skills. Hughes stayed with Gaijin Studios for 12 years. That same year, he penciled Comics' Greatest World: Arcadia #3 for Dark Horse Comics, which featured the first appearance of the supernatural character Ghost. He draw that character subsequently in the 1994 one-shot Ghost Special. When that character was given her own series in 1995, Hughes penciled the first three-issue storyline, "Arcadia Nocturne".
From 1994 to 1995, Hughes drew the satirical storyline "Young Captain Adventure", which appeared in the first several issues of the adult comics anthology magazine Penthouse Comix. Hughes also provided a painted cover for issue #2, and a pinup in issue #26 in 1997.
Hughes wrote and illustrated the interiors of the 1996 two-issue miniseries, Gen¹³: Ordinary Heroes from Wildstorm. In late 1998 he began a four-year run as cover artist on DC Comics Wonder Woman. He also provided cover art on Tomb Raider from Top Cow Comics.
When Wizards of the Coast created their d20-based Star Wars RPG, he created designs for both the original and revised core rulebooks, as well as the Star Wars: Invasion of Theed adventure game mini-RPG. When he reused his portrait of the Jedi guardian, Sia-Lan Wezz (his favorite character), for the cover of the 2005 one-shot Star Wars: Purge as a gag, there was such editorial interest that she was written into the story as one of Darth Vader's early victims.
In May 2007, a month after the release of the feature film Spider-Man 3, Sideshow Collectibles debuted a miniature statuette of Mary Jane Watson, a perennial love interest of Spider-Man's, based on artwork by Hughes. The statue, which depicts Mary Jane wearing a cleavage-revealing T-shirt and low-cut jeans that expose the top of a pink thong while bending over a metal tub holding Spider-Man's costume, generated controversy among some fans who felt that the statue was sexist. Marvel addressed the matter by stating, "The Mary Jane statuette is the latest release in a limited edition collectibles line. The item is aimed at adults that have been long-time fans of the Marvel Universe. It is intended only for mature collectors and sold in specialty, trend, collectible and comic shops â€" not mass retail." Sideshow Collectibles stated, "Our product is not produced to make a political or social statement but is fashioned after entertainment properties currently in the market place (sic). We suggest that if you do find the Mary Jane product offensive that you refrain from viewing that web page." Elizabeth McDonald of girl-wonder.org, an organization dedicated to "high-quality character depiction" in the comics industry, was incredulous at the statue's design, though she stated, "Honestly, the difficulty with this statuette is that if you're a woman who likes comics, it's not even noteworthy. Many male comic fans can't understand the outrage it's generated, since this is fairly tame within the industry. This portrayal of Mary Jane could be considered superior to some in the industry, since her clothes don't seem to be actively falling off her". The Toronto Star's Malene Arpe echoed this, pointing to female characters with even more revealing appearances, such as Black Cat and Witchblade. Gary Susman of Entertainment Weekly lamented that the statuette was not issued some weeks earlier, so that it could have been included in the website 10 Zen Monkeys' list of "Ten Worst Spiderman Tie-Ins".
In 2007, comics writer Louise Simonson praised Hughes, calling him "the quintessential comic book covergirl pinup artist".
For an article by Hal Niedzviecki on the impact of blogs, social networks and reality television in the February 2009 Playboy magazine, Hughes illustrated a double-page spread depicting a group of voyeurs observing a topless woman in front of a computer.
Although Hughes had been announced as the writer and artist on All Star Wonder Woman in 2006, he explained at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International that that project was "in the freezer" for the time being, due to the difficulty involved in both writing and illustrating himself. His website indicates that after the current Catwoman series ended with issue #82, he would cease his DC cover work, and would focus on producing the six-issue All Star Wonder Woman series, though he stated in an October 2010 interview with NJ.com, after the Catwoman assignment had concluded earlier that year, that All Star Wonder Woman was still on hold. At the 2010 Chicago Comicon, editor Mark Chiarello offered him the art duties on the four-issue miniseries Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan, one of eight tie-in prequels to the seminal 1986-1987 miniseries Watchmen, which would be written by J. Michael Straczynski, and which would require Hughes to delay finishing All-Star Wonder Woman. Hughes accepted the job of drawing that miniseries, which was announced in February 2012, and premiered August 22, 2012. Hughes commented, "I love Alan Moore's canon of work, with special affection for Miracleman, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and most definitely Watchmen. I hope to do some sort of justice to Dave Gibbons' brilliant art: he's one of the all time great illustrators ever to work in the field of comics...I'm fairly stoked to be working with the fabulous J. Michael Straczynski [sic] I loved his Thor run, especially. The man knows how to craft amazing tales, so I feel like you & I are in good hands."
Influences, approach and materials
Hughes' artistic influences include comics artists such as Dave Stevens, Steve Rude, Mike Mignola and Kevin Nowlan, classic American illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, Drew Struzan and Dean Cornwell and notable pin-up artists like Alberto Vargas and George Petty. Hughes also keeps collections of works by Alphonse Mucha near his drawing table.
When asked in a 2004 interview why he does not do more sequential work, Hughes explained:
"Storytelling is a lot of work, and to be a good storyteller is a lot of work because you have to pay attention to it. I think anybody with enough time under their belt can hack out a story. I think anybody can tell a safe story, or tell a story safely. You know, six panels, one head shot per page, that kind of thing. But to do it with any sort of style or creativity requires you to be on the ball all day long, and it's hard work. Whatever niche I occupy in comics right now, it's the goldfish filling the bowl that it's in. I can't do good storytelling and do it in a timely fashion, which is why nobody offers me stories any more. Any artist who does put out regular comics with interior stuff is a better man than me."
Because of the time-consuming nature of his style of illustration, Hughes does not often do monthly series work, and as an example, points to the 1996 miniseries he wrote and illustrated, Gen¹³: Ordinary Heroes, which took him ten months to complete. Hughes varies his style between projects, sometimes exhibiting a "cartoony" look in his drawings, and at other times employing reference to achieve a photorealistic work in his art, as in his work for Playboy magazine, in order to produce more varied works for his portfolio, should his prospects in the comic book industry ever fade.
The penciling process Hughes employs for his cover work is the same he uses when doing sketches for fans at conventions, with the main difference being that he does cover work in his sketchbook, before transferring the drawing to virgin art board with a lightbox, whereas he does convention drawings on 11 x 14 Strathmore bristol, as he prefers penciling on the rougher, vellum surface rather than smooth paper, though he does enjoy brush inking on smoother paper. He does preliminary undersketches with a lead holder, because he feels regular pencils get worn down to the nub too quickly. As he explained during a sketch demonstration at a comic book convention, during this process he uses a Sanford Turquoise 4B lead, a soft lead, though when working at home in Atlanta, where the humid weather tends to dampen the paper, he sometimes uses a B lead or 2B lead, which acts like a 4B in that environment. However, his website explains that he uses 6B lead, with some variation. For pieces rendered entirely in pencil, he employs a variety of pencil leads of varying degrees of hardness. After darkening in the construction lines that he wishes to keep, he erases the lighter ones with a kneaded eraser before rendering greater detail. For more detailed erasures, he uses a pencil-shaped white eraser, and to erase large areas, he uses a larger, hand-held white eraser, which he calls a "thermonuclear eraser", because it "takes care of everything".
For inking, Hughes uses a size three Scharff brush and Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star Hi-Carb ink. Hughes also favors Faber-Castell PITT artist pens, which come in a variety of points, including fine, medium, bold and brush tips, which Hughes uses for brush work on convention sketches, though not for cover work. He occasionally will use Copic markers in both warm and cool gray tones to render covers in gray scale. In a similar manner to his penciling, Hughes tends to ink different portions of the sketch at random. He uses Sharpie markers to fill in larger areas, which he feels would be too tedious to render in pencil, such as the costumes of characters like Batman, which he believes should be rendered in black rather than blue. He uses Photoshop to color his cover work.
Hughes will sometimes use colored markers to embellish parts of a convention sketch, as when he uses red for female characters' lips, or a silver pen to render scenes set in outer space. When rendering an entire sketch in grey tones or full color, Hughes, who once used Prismacolor or Design 2 markers, explained at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International that for the past four years, he had been using Copic markers, a set of which a fan gave him as a gift, because Copic markers are refillable, and because he found that they produce longer-lasting colors, and can be used several times longer than other brands, as he was still using the same package of nibs as of August 2010 that came with the first set of Copics he was given four years previously. When using Copics, he takes care to erase his pencils, and to not work dark-to-light, because of the mottled effects that result from doing so. He has conducted demonstrations of Copic markers at conventions on a number of occasions.
Personal life
Hughes and his wife, Allison Sohn, who designs his published sketchbooks and administrates his website, live in Atlanta.
Bibliography
Interior art
DC
- 52 (DC Comics, 2006â€"2007):
- "The Origin of Wonder Woman" (with Mark Waid, co-feature, in #12, 2006)
- "The Origin of Power Girl" (with Mark Waid, co-feature, in #36, 2007)
- Before Watchmen: Doctor Manhattan, miniseries, #1-4 (2012-2013)
- The Dreaming #55 (2 pages) (2000)
- Fables #100: "Celebrity Burning Questions" and #113 "In Those Days" (with Bill Willingham, Vertigo, 2011-2012)
- Fairest in All the Land HC (3 pages) (2014)
- Harley Quinn vol. 2 #0 (1 page) (2014)
- Justice League America #31-35, 37-40, 43-44, 45 (4 pages), #51 (1989â€"91)
- Legionnaires #7, 9 (full art); #10, 12 (along with Chris Sprouse) (1993â€"94)
- New Titans #93 (1992)
- Star Trek: Debt of Honor (1992)
- Superman/Batman #75: "World's End...But Life Goes On" (script and art, DC Comics, 2010)
- Superman Gen¹³ #1-3 (script, with Lee Bermejo, Wildstorm, 2000)
- Team Titans #1 Redwing (1992)
- Titans Sell-out Special (3 pages) (1992)
- Wildstorm Thunderbook: "WHAM! A Tale" (script and art, Wildstorm, one-shot, 2000)
Image
- 24Seven vol.2: "The Sweetest Thing" (with Phil Hester, 2007)
- Gen¹³: Ordinary Heroes #1-2 (script and art, 1996)
- Savage Dragon: Sex & Violence #1-2 (1997, layouts only)
- WildC.A.T.s/X-Men: The Modern Age (1997)
Marvel
- Namor, the Sub-Mariner Annual #3 (1993)
- Sensational She-Hulk #50 (2 pages) (1993)
- X-Men Annual vol. 2 #1 (among other artists) (1992)
Other publishers
- Blood of Dracula #4-5, 7-11 (1988â€"89) (Apple Comics)
- Comics' Greatest World: Ghost (1993)
- Dark Horse Presents #50: "Hip-Deep in the Consciousness Stream" (script and art, Dark Horse Comics, 1991)
- Death Hawk #1 (1988) (Transfuzion Publishing)
- Eagle #9-12 (1987)
- Ghost #1-3 (1995)
- Many Worlds of Tesla Strong (5 pages) (2003) (America's Best Comics)
- Maze Agency #1-5, 8-9, 12; Annual #1 (1988â€"90) (Comico Comics)
- Nexus, Vol. 2, #57 (1989) (First Comics)
- Pat Savage: the Woman of Bronze - Family Blood Special (1992)
- Penthouse Comix #1-5: "Young Captain Adventure" (with George Caragonne, Tom Thornton and Joel Adams, Penthouse, 1994â€"1995)
- Solution #5 (1994)
- Star Rangers #2-3 (1987)
- Warriors #1-3 (1987â€"88)
- Wizard #94 (1999) (Wizard)
Covers only
DC
- Catwoman (vol. 2) #43-82 (2005â€"08), as well as a special one-shot issue numbered #83 in 2010 which served as a "Blackest Night" tie-in.
- DC Comics Presents (Julius Schwartz tribute):
- Batgirl #1-ongoing (2011â€"...)
- Batman (2004)
- Superman (2004)
- Fairest (2012-2014)
- Harley Quinn #1 Variant (2013)
- JSA: Classified #1-2 (2005)
- Just Imagine Stan Lee creating:
- Aquaman (2002)
- Batman (2001)
- Catwoman (2002)
- Flash (2002)
- Green Lantern (2001)
- JLA (2002)
- Rose and Thorn (miniseries) #1-6 (2004)
- Superman #710 (DC Comics, 2011)
- Uncharted #1 (DC Comics, 2012)
- Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #139-146, 150-161, 164-174, 176-178, 184-197 (1998â€"2003)
- Zatanna #13-16 (2011)
Marvel
- X-Men Classic #71-79 (1992)
Other publishers
- Big Trouble in Little China #1 SDCC Variant (2014) (BOOM! Studios)
- Gate Crasher TPB (Wizard Entertainment)
- Ghost one-shot (Dark Horse)
- Life with Archie #36 (2014) (Archie Comics)
- Star Wars: Purge (Dark Horse)
- Star Wars: Legacy #1-7 (Dark Horse)
- Star Wars: Rebel Heist #1-4 (Dark Horse)
- Tomb Raider #18, 32-34,42-50 (Image)
- Vampirella #1-3 (Harris Comics)
- Voodoo #2-4 (Image)
- Wizard #83, 94, 129, 162
Awards and Recognition
- February 2008 Inkwell Awards Ambassador (Feb. 2008-present)
References
External links
- Official website
- Adam Hughes at the Comic Book DB
- Adam Hughes, Deviantart
- Adam Hughes at Mike's Amazing World of Comics
- Adam Hughes at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators