Back Issue Annual # 1 2026 (magazine review).

In the second introduction to this annual, publisher John Morrow points out that he once had plans for a ‘Neal Adams Collector’ or a ‘Will Eisner Collector’, based on the success he had with the ‘Jack Kirby Collector’. Unlike Kirby, though, both artists were still alive at the time, so he chose the more general ‘Comic Book Artist’ instead. A ‘Back Issue Annual’ reprinting the Adams material from four issues of ‘Back Issue’ therefore seems appropriate, especially as those issues are amongst the hardest to get hold of. It is also the third time in print for two of the interviews, as both appeared in abridged form in ‘The Batman Companion’ and ‘The Superman Companion’. The focus here is on Adams’ work at DC Comics and on his own Continuity titles. I hope there is a successor volume covering his work at Marvel, as it seems crazy to leave that out, not least because Marvel is where I discovered him in the first place.

I thought I’d re-read the interviews to see how much I remembered from the first time around and whether I had picked up the various magazines back then. Oddly, it was Back Issue # 143, where Michael Kronenberg interviewed Adams, together with its look at Ra’s al Ghul, that struck me as forcibly now as it did then.

If you haven’t got Back Issue # 45, 143, 18 & 94 in your collection, then this is probably the cheapest way to get their Adams material and art.

GF Willmetts

September 2026

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $10.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6904. Direct from them, you can get it for a sale price of $6.48 (US))

Check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_54&products_id=1916