With the untimely passing of Neal Adams, a giant in the field, I can’t think of anything more fitting to feature than this largely-forgotten story illustrated by him for Warren publishing’s CREEPY #75. The piece was written by Jim Stenstrum, and while it was of its time in its era, today some 47 years later, it may be more relevant than ever. Because where most CREEPY stories dealt with imaginary horrors and supernatural menaces, what Stenstrum and Adams take on here is all too real. I happen to have scans of all of the original pages for this story, so I’ll post them along with the printed pages–since some of the lettering has fallen off in the intervening years.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
A legendary strip!
And a suitable tribute to a legendary artist.
I ‘ve never seen the original art… what a pleasure. Thanks!
And while I’m familiar with the reversed out lettering being done by the engraver, I’m surprised to see the tints on the artwork apparently being done that way too.
Do we know if Neal did them on an overlay, or what…?
Were they perhaps someone else’s work?
I’m intrigued.
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A very creepy story indeed, all the more so because while fictional it closely echoes too many events that have happened again and again in the world we live in. More chillingly, even if absolutely coincidentally, Adams’ sniper somewhat resembles a man who was a student at a high school in small town in Ohio in 1975 and who had serious psychological issues that no one would take serious note of until decades later, — decades even after he had committed his first murder after graduating from high school in 1979. Referring to Jeffrey Dahmer. Of course, Dahmer’s real story, as it played out, might have been too creepy even for Creepy magazine to deem publishable if someone had imagined and submitted it in 1975. But a story about a sniper? Already a tragic reality of the recent past that year, courtesy of Charles Whitman’s murderous rampage of 1966, murdering his wife and mother, then whoever happened upon his view as he took aim with his rifle from up on a tower. Well-written and great art by Adams, a grand-master of comics artistry.
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Until today, reading your piece, I had no idea that Neal Adams had left us. It was only last night that I was marvelling again at The X-Men vol.1 #56 (from 1969). Very sad news.
I have a vague recollection of reading this issue of Creepy magazine at some point in the mid-seventies – I figure the list of creators on the front cover would have been good reason for me to drop 30p on it – but not having the maturity or the knowledge of US events to understand / appreciate the story (or the references therein).
Reading it this morning, two months before my sixtieth birthday, I recognise the power of the story / art, but somehow wish that I didn’t.
Finally, that last panel, with its bitten apple seems both familiar… and remarkably prescient.
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