Bill Hillman's

Issue 847
Presents
A BURROUGHS BIBLIO-PRO-PHILE
DUANE ADAMS

Duane J. Adams was born and raised in the upper Midwest of the United States in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. He displayed a talent for art at an early age but was never a serious art student until college. Duane pursued art in college and earned a master’s degree in painting and drawing. With a family on the way, teaching seemed like a good way to make a living. He soon found that teaching was something that was enjoyable and that he was very good at it. He has been teaching art courses at the high school and junior college level for thirty-three years. Duane has found modest success in regional and national art contests. He has been a main stay of the Omaha art scene and has helped to build and found several artist cooperative galleries in the big O. Currently, the Adam Whitney Gallery in Omaha represents Duane. Since the great flood of 1998, which destroyed ninety per cent of his collection, Duane has concentrated on handbuilt ceramics. Plans for an online gallery are in the works. He lives and works in Griswold, Iowa and Lake Waconda, Nebraska. Julie, his wife of thirty-six years, is very tolerant of his obsession with Edgar Rice Burroughs.

THE DUANE ADAMS COMIC OBSESSION

Bill asked me to make some comments about my comic “obsession.” At first I thought this was a bit over the top. Obsession? I am not obsessed with comics. I purchased comics when I was child and had an extensive, impressive collection. When I grew up, I gave my collection to my little brother. (I did not realize that little brother still had all the comics. He sold the Tarzan Dells about ten years ago at a garage sale for a quarter each. I envy the lucky stiff who must have thought he was in a dream world when he bought them all.) As my search for Burroughs hard bounds and paperbacks approached complete editions, I started to purchase a few comics here and there. George McWhorter had some really cheap copies for sale, which fueled my interest in buying more. The coup d’ tat was a chance to buy the entire run of Dell Koraks, all in very nice condition, all at a very reasonable price. This was before the days of E-bay. With such a tremendous ahead start on Burroughs comics, I decided to go for the entire collection. Over the years it has been easy search and with the addition of E-bay I have been able to put together almost everything available from American publishers. Along the way I have picked up foreign language editions just as examples, French, German, Belgium, Great Britain, Norwegian, etc. I have never actively sought to obtain a complete run of any foreign edition until last year when Wally Blackburn from Australia offered me an almost complete run of Tarzans produced by Murray Comics. It was missing two issues. Barry Stubberfield of Australia is looking for the missing copies for me. I became a member of ERB-apa about three years ago and seven out of my eleven articles have dealt with comics in some fashion. My twelfth ERB-apa article will also be about comics. My Dell Tarzan comic project has taken countless hours of work to bring it as far as it is. I project that it will take at least three more years before it is completed. To say I am obsessed with comics goes too far... I am not obsessed with comics. I am ... I... Well maybe I am.

PHOTO GALLERY
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featuring larger images and captions

THE DUANE ADAMS BIBLIO-PRO-PHILE