Neal Adams
Encyclopedia
Neal Adams is an American
comic book
and commercial
artist
known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics
characters Superman
, Batman
, and Green Arrow
; as the co-founder of the graphic design
studio Continuity Associates
; and as a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Superman
creators Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
.
Adams was inducted into the Eisner Award
's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Harvey Award
s' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.
, New York City
, New York
, and attended the School of Industrial Art
high school in Manhattan
. After graduation in 1959, he unsuccessfully attempted to find freelance work at DC Comics
, and turned then to Archie Comics
, where he wanted to work on the publisher's fledgling superhero
line, edited by Joe Simon
. At the suggestion of staffers, Adams drew "three or four pages of [the superhero] the Fly", but did not receive encouragement from Simon. Sympathetic staffers nonetheless asked Adams to draw samples for the Archie teen-humor comics themselves. While he did so, Adams said in a 2000s interview, he unknowingly broke into comics:
That panel ran in Adventures of the Fly #4 (Jan. 1960). Afterward, Adams began writing, penciling, inking
, and lettering
humorous full-page and half-page gag fillers for Archie's Joke Book Magazine. In a 1976 interview, he recalled earning "[a]bout $16.00 per half page and $32.00 for a full page. That may not seem like a great deal of money, but at the time it meant a great deal to myself as well as my mothers ... as we were not in a wealthy state. It was manna from heaven, so to speak". A recommendation led him to artist Howard Nostrand
, who was beginning the Bat Masterson
syndicated newspaper comic strip
, and worked as Nostrand's assistant for three months, primarily drawing backgrounds at what Adams recalled as $9 a week and "a great experience".
Having "not left Archie Comics under the best of circumstances", Adams turned to commercial art
for the advertising
industry. After a rocky start freelancing, he began landing regular work at the Johnstone and Cushing
agency, which specialized in comic-book styled advertising. Helped by artist Elmer Wexler
, who critiqued the young Adams' samples, Adams brought his portfolio to the agency, which initially "didn't believe I had done those particular samples since they looked so much like Elmer Wexler's work. But they gave me a chance and ... I stayed there for about a year".
newspaper
syndicated
. From a recommendation, writer Jerry Caplin, a.k.a. Jerry Capp, brother of Li'l Abner
creator Al Capp
, invited Adams to draw samples for Capp's proposed Ben Casey
comic strip
, based on the popular television medical-drama series. On the strength of his samples and of his "Chip Martin, College Reporter" AT&T
advertising comic-strip pages in Boys' Life
magazine, and of his similar Goodyear Tire
ads, Adams landed the assignment. The first daily strip, which carried Adams' signature, appeared November 26, 1962; a color Sunday strip was added September 20, 1964. Adams continued to do Johnston & Cushing assignments during Ben Casey' s 3 1/2-year run.
Comics historian Maurice Horn said the strip "did not shrink from tackling controversial problems, such as heroin addiction, illegitimate pregnancy
, and attempted suicide
. These were usually treated in soap opera
fashion ... but there was also a touch of toughness to the proceedings, well rendered by Adams in a forceful, direct style that exuded realism and tension and accorded well with the overall tone of the strip".
In addition to Capp, Jerry Brondfield also wrote for the strip, with Adams stepping in occasionally.
The ABC
series, which ran five seasons, ended March 21, 1966, with the final comic strip appearing Sunday, July 31, 1966. Despite the end of the series, Adams has said the strip, which he claimed at different points to have appeared in 365 newspapers, 265 newspapers, and 165 newspapers, ended "for no other reason that it was an unhappy situation":
Adams' goal at this point was to be a commercial illustrator. While drawing Ben Casey, he had continued to do storyboards and other work for ad agencies, and said in 1976 that after leaving the strip he had shopped around a portfolio for agencies and for men's magazines, "but my material was a little too realistic and not exactly right for most. I left my portolio in an an advertising agency promising they were going to hold on to it. In the meantime I needed to make some money ... and I thought, 'Why don't I do some comics?'" In a 2000s interview, he remembered the events slightly differently, saying "I took [my portfolio] to various advertising people. I left it at one place overnight and when I came back to get it the next morning it was gone. So six months worth of work down the drain...."
He worked as a ghost artist for a few weeks in 1966 on the comic strip Peter Scratch (1965–1967), a hardboiled detective serial created by writer Elliot Caplin
and artist Lou Fine
. Comics historians also credit Adams with ghosting two weeks of dailies for Stan Drake
's The Heart of Juliet Jones
, but are uncertain on dates; some sources give 1966, another 1968, and Adams himself 1963. As well, Adams drew 18 sample dailies (three weeks' continuity) of a proposed dramatic serial, Tangent, about construction engineer Barnaby Peake, his college-student brother Jeff, and their teenaged sibling Chad, in 1965, but it was not syndicated. Adams later said that writer Elliot Caplin, brother of Al Capp and Jerry Capp, offered Adams the job of drawing a comic strip based on author Robin Moore
's The Green Berets
, but that Adams, who opposed the war, suggested longtime DC Comics
war-comics artist Joe Kubert
, who landed that assignment.
Turning to comic books, Adams found work at Warren Publishing
's black-and-white horror
-comics magazines, under editor Archie Goodwin
. Adams debuted there as penciler and inker
of writer Goodwin's eight-page anthological story "Curse of the Vampire" in Creepy
#14 (April 1967). He and Goodwin quickly collaborated on two more stories, in Eerie
#9 (May 1967) and Creepy #15 (June 1967), and Adams as well reapproached DC Comics
.
With DC war comics
stalwart Joe Kubert
now concentrating on the comic strip The Green Berets, Adams saw an opening:
Adams made his DC debut as penciler-inker of the 8½-page story "It's My Turn to Die", written by Howard Liss, in the anthology series Our Army at War
#182 (July 1967). He did a smattering of additional horror and war stories, respectively, for the two publishers, and then, after being turned down by DC's Batman
editor Julius Schwartz
, approached fellow DC editor Murray Boltinoff in the hopes of drawing for Boltinoff's Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold
. Boltinoff instead assigned him the cover of The Adventures of Bob Hope
#106 (Sept. 1967) and its 23-page story "Badgers [sic] Baby Brother — Beastley", written by Arnold Drake
. It became the first of a slew of stories and covers Adams would draw for that series and The Adventures of Jerry Lewis
, two licensed titles starring fictional versions of the TV, film and nightclub
comics
.
During this period near the end of the industry revival historians call the Silver Age of comic books
, Adams was soon assigned his first superhero
covers, illustrating that of the Superman
flagship Action Comics
#356 (Nov. 1967) and the same month's Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane
#79 (Nov. 1967), featuring Superman and a mysterious new costumed character, Titanman. Also that month, Adams drew his first superhero story, teaming with writer Gardner Fox
on the lighthearted backup feature "The Elongated Man
" in Detective Comics
#369, the flagship Batman title. Shortly afterward, he drew Batman himself, along with the supernatural superhero the Spectre
, on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #75 (Jan. 1968) — the first published instance of Adams' work on what would become two of his signature comics characters.
Another, his breakout character, was the supernatural hero Deadman
, who had debuted in DC's Strange Adventures
#205 (Nov. 1967). Adams succeeded co-creator artist Carmine Infantino
with the following issue's 17-page story "An Eye for an Eye", written by Arnold Drake, with George Roussos
inking Adams' pencils. Adams went on to draw both the covers and stories for issues 207-216 (Dec. 1967 - Feb. 1969), and taking over the scripting with #212 (June 1968). The series became a fan sensation, winning many awards and being almost immediately inducted into the Alley Award
Hall of Fame, with Adams himself receiving a special award "for the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art".
Adams concurrently drew covers and stories for The Spectre #2-5 (Feb.-Aug. 1968), also writing the latter two issues, and became DC's primary cover artist well into the 1970s. Adams recalled that Infantino "was appointed art director, and decided I was going to be his spark plug. I also thought it was a good idea, and was promised a number of things which were never fulfilled. But I thought it would be an adventure anyway, so I knuckled down to things like "Deadman", The Spectre and whatever odd things would come my way. I was also doing large amounts of covers".
Adams' art style, honed in advertising and in the photorealistic school of dramatic-serial comics strips, marked a signal change from most comics art to that time. Comics writer and columnist Steve Grant
wrote in 2009 that,
While continuing to freelance for DC, Adams in 1969 also began freelancing for Marvel Comics
, where he penciled several issues of the mutant
-superhero
team title X-Men
and one story for a horror
anthology title. Such freelancing across the two leading companies was rare at the time; most DC creators who did so worked pseudonym
ously. Adams recalled in 1976:
He teamed with writer Roy Thomas
on X-Men, then on the verge of cancellation, starting with issue #56 (May 1969). Adams penciled and colored
, paired for the first time with inker
Tom Palmer
, with whom he would collaborate on several acclaimed Marvel comics; the duo's work here netted them 1969 Alley Award
s for Best Pencil Artist and Best Inking Artist, respectively. (Thomas won that year for Best Writer.) Though the team failed to save the title, which ended its initial run with #66 (March 1970), the collaboration here and on the "Kree-Skrull War
" arc of The Avengers
#93-97 (Nov. 1971 - May 1972) produced what comics historians regard as some of Marvel's creative highlights of the era. Adams also wrote and penciled the horror story "One Hungers" in Tower of Shadows
#2 (Dec. 1969), and co-wrote with Thomas, but did not draw, another in Chamber of Darkness
#2 (Dec. 1969).
during this sojourn, while also contributing the occasional story to Warren Publishing
's black-and-white horror-comics magazines (including the Don Glut-scripted "Goddess from the Sea" in Vampirella
#1, Sept. 1969), Adams had his first collaboration on Batman
with writer Dennis O'Neil
. The duo would later revitalize the character with a series of noteworthy stories reestablishing Batman's dark, brooding nature and taking the books away from the campy
look and feel of the 1966-68 ABC
TV series. For now, however, they would do only two stories, "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" in Detective Comics
#395 (Jan. 1970) and "Paint a Picture of Peril" in issue #397 (March 1970), with a short Batman backup story, written by Mike Friedrich
, coming in-between, in Batman #219 (Feb. 1970). Batman's enduring makeover would come later, after Adams and O'Neil's celebrated and, for the time, controversial revamping of the longstanding DC characters Green Lantern
and Green Arrow
.
Rechristening Green Lantern vol. 2 as Green Lantern/Green Arrow with issue #76 (April 1970), O'Neil and Adams teamed these two very different superheroes in a long story arc in which the characters undertook a social-commentary journey across America. A major exemplar of what the industry and the public at the time called "relevant comics", the landmark run began with the 23-page story "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" and continued to " ...And through Him Save a World" in the series' finale, #89 (May 1972). Wrote historian Ron Goulart
,
After Green Lantern was cancelled, the adventures of both super-heroes continued on the pages of The Flash
#217-219 and #226 (1972-74)
, were sporadic, limiting to draw a Clark Kent
back-up story in Superman
#254 (1972) and sharing credits with Jim Aparo
pencilling the Teen Titans in Brave and the Bold #102 (1972). Adams also drew a few stories for Weird Western Tales
and House of Mystery
and covers for Action Comics
and Justice League of America titles as well.
The last complete story that Adams drew at DC before opening his own company, Continuity Associates
, was the oversize Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
, released in 1978. After this, Adams' production for DC and Marvel was limited to new covers for reprint editions of some of his work, such as Green Lantern/Green Arrow, The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War, X-Men: Visionaries, Deadman Collection and The Saga of Ra's al Ghul, which were variously published as reprint miniseries
or trade paperback
collections.
Magazine) to draw a 8-page story for the Giant-Size X-Men
#3. The following year Adams (among other artists) provided art to Young Avengers
Special #1.
In 2010, DC Comics announced that Adams would return as writer and artist on the new miniseries Batman: Odyssey . Originally conceived as a 12-issue story, the series ran only to issue #6 (Feb. 2011), and was relaunched with vol. 2, #1 in October 2011. Adams penciled New Avengers vol. 2, #16.1 (Nov. 2011), teaming again with inker Tom Palmer
, nearly 40 years since both artists had worked together on The Avengers #96 (Feb. 1972)..
by Dick Giordano
, with whom Adams formed Continuity Associates
, a company that primarily supplied storyboard
s for motion pictures. In the early 1970s, Adams was the art director, costume designer, as well as the poster/Playbill
illustrator for Warp!
, a science fiction
stage play by director Stuart Gordon
and playwright Lenny Kleinfeld under the pseudonym
Bury St. Edmund.
' creator-friendly policies and other factors, helped lead to the modern industry's standard practice of returning original artwork to the artist, who can earn additional income from art sales to collectors. He won his battle in 1987, when Marvel returned original artwork to him and industry legend Jack Kirby, among others. Adams notably and vocally helped lead the lobbying efforts that resulted in Superman
creators Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
receiving decades-overdue credit and some financial remuneration from DC.
Inker Bob McLeod recalled in the 2000s the unique place Adams held in the industry when McLeod broke into comics in 1973:
In 1978, Adams helped form the Comics Creators Guild, which over three dozen comic-book writers and artists joined.
Also during the 1970s, Adams illustrated paperback novels in the Tarzan
series and did some film work. With the independent-comic publishing boom of the early 1980s, he began working for Pacific Comics
(where he produced the poorly-received Skateman
) and other publishers, and founded his own Continuity Comics
as an off-shoot of Continuity Associates. His comic-book company's characters include Megalith, Bucky O'Hare
, Skeleton Warriors, CyberRad, and Ms. Mystic
.
In collaboration with Rafael Medoff
, director of the David S. Wyman
Institute for Holocaust Studies, Adams has championed an effort to get the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Memorial and Museum, which is operated by the government of Poland
, to return the original artwork of Dina Babbitt
. In exchange for his sparing her mother and herself from the gas chambers, Babbitt worked as an illustrator for Nazi death camp doctor Josef Mengele
who wanted detailed paintings to demonstrate his pseudoscientific theories about Gypsy racial inferiority. Using text from Medoff, Adams illustrated a six-page graphic documentary about Babbitt that was inked by Joe Kubert
and contains an introduction by Stan Lee
. However, Adams deemphasizes any comparison between the Babbitt case and his struggle for creator rights, saying that her situation was "tragic" and "an atrocity."
In 2010, Adams and Medoff teamed with Disney Educational Productions to produce They Spoke Out: American Voices Against the Holocaust, an online educational motion comics series that tells stories of Americans who protested Nazis or helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Each standalone episode, which runs from five to ten minutes, utilizes a combination of archival film footage and animatics drawn by Adams (who also narrates), and focus on a different person. The first episode, "La Guardia's War Against Hitler" was screened in April 2010 at a festival sponsored by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
, and tells the story of the forceful stand New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia took against Nazi Germany. La Guardia's actions stood in contrast to the relative passivity of President Franklin Roosevelt, who most historians feel did not do as much as he could have to save European Jewry, a point underlined in the episode "Messenger from Hell". Other episodes include "Voyage of the Doomed", which focuses on the S.S. St. Louis, the ship that carried more than 900 German-Jewish refugees but was turned away by Cuban authorities and later the Roosevelt administration, and "Rescue Over the Mountains", which depicts Vivian Fry, the young journalist who led an underground rescue network that smuggled Jewish refugees out of Vichy, France.
for Best Cover. A Batman/Deadman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #79 (Sept. 1968), by Adams and writer Bob Haney
, tied with another comic for the 1968 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story; and in 1969, Adams won the Alley Award for Best Pencil Artist, the feature "Deadman" was elected to the Alley Award Hall of Fame, and Adams received a special award "for the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art".
He also won Shazam Awards in 1970 for Best Individual Story ("No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" in Green Lantern
vol. 2, #76, with writer Dennis O'Neil
), and Best Pencil Artist (Dramatic Division); and in 1971 for Best Individual Story ("Snowbirds Don't Fly
" in Green Lantern
vol. 2, #85, with O'Neil).
He won an Inkpot Award
in 1976, and was voted the "Favourite Comicbook Artist" at the 1977 and the 1978 Eagle Awards.
In 1985, DC Comics named Adams as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
.
Adams was inducted into the Eisner Award
's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Harvey Award
s' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.
. While Carey did advocate an expanding Earth model in the mid-20th century, that model has been rejected following the recognition of plate tectonics
. Adams rejects tectonics, particularly the theory of subduction
, which he says has only been shown to exist in one place on earth and that geologists have grabbed onto it to make their model work. He claims that the Earth is not merely expanding by increasing its volume, but rather growing by manufacturing new atomic mass in its core. Adams advocates his ideas in a DVD documentary he wrote and produced, clips of which he displays on his YouTube
channel.
Adams appeared on the radio show Coast to Coast AM
several times to discuss his claims. He was also interviewed by Dr. Steven Novella
on a Skeptics Guide podcast in 2006, and afterward continued the debate on Novella's blog. His work led to a 3-part magazine feature on Growing Earth and history of Earth sciences in the Japan Times in 2009.
, who are also artists. Jason works in toy and fantasy sculpture, while Joel and Josh illustrate comics and do design work on TV shows. Josh illustrated a pinup of Batman in the first issue of the 2010 miniseries Batman: Odyssey, which Neal wrote and illustrated.
(1) featuring Deadman
stories
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
and commercial
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
characters Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
, and Green Arrow
Green Arrow
Green Arrow is a fictional superhero that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, billionaire and former mayor of fictional Star City...
; as the co-founder of the graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
studio Continuity Associates
Continuity Associates
Continuity Studios is a New York City- and Los Angeles-based art and illustration studio formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano...
; and as a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
creators Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
.
Adams was inducted into the Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Harvey Award
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
s' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.
Education and art career
Neal Adams was born on Governors IslandGovernors Island
Governors Island is a island in Upper New York Bay, approximately one-half mile from the southern tip of Manhattan Island and separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel. It is legally part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and attended the School of Industrial Art
High School of Art and Design
The High School of Art and Design is a Career and Technical Education high school located at 1075 Second Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets in Manhattan, New York City, New York.It is operated by the New York City Department of Education...
high school in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. After graduation in 1959, he unsuccessfully attempted to find freelance work at DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, and turned then to Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...
, where he wanted to work on the publisher's fledgling superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
line, edited by Joe Simon
Joe Simon
Joseph Henry "Joe" Simon is an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.With his...
. At the suggestion of staffers, Adams drew "three or four pages of [the superhero] the Fly", but did not receive encouragement from Simon. Sympathetic staffers nonetheless asked Adams to draw samples for the Archie teen-humor comics themselves. While he did so, Adams said in a 2000s interview, he unknowingly broke into comics:
That panel ran in Adventures of the Fly #4 (Jan. 1960). Afterward, Adams began writing, penciling, inking
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
, and lettering
Letterer
A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...
humorous full-page and half-page gag fillers for Archie's Joke Book Magazine. In a 1976 interview, he recalled earning "[a]bout $16.00 per half page and $32.00 for a full page. That may not seem like a great deal of money, but at the time it meant a great deal to myself as well as my mothers ... as we were not in a wealthy state. It was manna from heaven, so to speak". A recommendation led him to artist Howard Nostrand
Howard Nostrand
Howard Nostrand was an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for his 1950s comic book stories and his 1959-60 syndicated comic strip Bat Masterson, based on the television series.-Early life:...
, who was beginning the Bat Masterson
Bat Masterson
William Barclay "Bat" Masterson was a figure of the American Old West known as a buffalo hunter, U.S. Marshal and Army scout, avid fisherman, gambler, frontier lawman, and sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph...
syndicated newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
, and worked as Nostrand's assistant for three months, primarily drawing backgrounds at what Adams recalled as $9 a week and "a great experience".
Having "not left Archie Comics under the best of circumstances", Adams turned to commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
for the advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
industry. After a rocky start freelancing, he began landing regular work at the Johnstone and Cushing
Johnstone and Cushing
Johnstone and Cushing was an American advertising agency that specialized in comic strip-style advertisements that used many prominent cartoonists and commercial artists of the time...
agency, which specialized in comic-book styled advertising. Helped by artist Elmer Wexler
Elmer Wexler
Elmer Wexler is an illustrator and cartoonist. He is most famous for his work on comic strips and comic books in the 1940s, including being the inventor of the DC comic hero Miss America in 1941. He is credited with being the first artist to draw a soap-opera style comic strip - Vic Jordan from...
, who critiqued the young Adams' samples, Adams brought his portfolio to the agency, which initially "didn't believe I had done those particular samples since they looked so much like Elmer Wexler's work. But they gave me a chance and ... I stayed there for about a year".
Ben Casey
In 1962, Adams began his comics career in earnest at the NEAUnited Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
syndicated
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
. From a recommendation, writer Jerry Caplin, a.k.a. Jerry Capp, brother of Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
creator Al Capp
Al Capp
Alfred Gerald Caplin , better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner. He also wrote the comic strips Abbie an' Slats and Long Sam...
, invited Adams to draw samples for Capp's proposed Ben Casey
Ben Casey
Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph...
comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
, based on the popular television medical-drama series. On the strength of his samples and of his "Chip Martin, College Reporter" AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
advertising comic-strip pages in Boys' Life
Boys' Life
Boys' Life is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America . Its targeted readership is young American males between the ages of 6 and 18.Boys' Life is published in two demographic editions...
magazine, and of his similar Goodyear Tire
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....
ads, Adams landed the assignment. The first daily strip, which carried Adams' signature, appeared November 26, 1962; a color Sunday strip was added September 20, 1964. Adams continued to do Johnston & Cushing assignments during Ben Casey
Comics historian Maurice Horn said the strip "did not shrink from tackling controversial problems, such as heroin addiction, illegitimate pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, and attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. These were usually treated in soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
fashion ... but there was also a touch of toughness to the proceedings, well rendered by Adams in a forceful, direct style that exuded realism and tension and accorded well with the overall tone of the strip".
In addition to Capp, Jerry Brondfield also wrote for the strip, with Adams stepping in occasionally.
The ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
series, which ran five seasons, ended March 21, 1966, with the final comic strip appearing Sunday, July 31, 1966. Despite the end of the series, Adams has said the strip, which he claimed at different points to have appeared in 365 newspapers, 265 newspapers, and 165 newspapers, ended "for no other reason that it was an unhappy situation":
Adams' goal at this point was to be a commercial illustrator. While drawing Ben Casey, he had continued to do storyboards and other work for ad agencies, and said in 1976 that after leaving the strip he had shopped around a portfolio for agencies and for men's magazines, "but my material was a little too realistic and not exactly right for most. I left my portolio in an an advertising agency promising they were going to hold on to it. In the meantime I needed to make some money ... and I thought, 'Why don't I do some comics?'" In a 2000s interview, he remembered the events slightly differently, saying "I took [my portfolio] to various advertising people. I left it at one place overnight and when I came back to get it the next morning it was gone. So six months worth of work down the drain...."
He worked as a ghost artist for a few weeks in 1966 on the comic strip Peter Scratch (1965–1967), a hardboiled detective serial created by writer Elliot Caplin
Elliot Caplin
Elliott A. Caplin was a comic strip writer best known as the co-creator of The Heart of Juliet Jones. He was the younger brother of Al Capp, creator of Li'l Abner....
and artist Lou Fine
Lou Fine
Louis Kenneth Fine was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, where his quality draftsmanship became an influential model to a generation of fellow comics artists....
. Comics historians also credit Adams with ghosting two weeks of dailies for Stan Drake
Stan Drake
Stanley Albert Drake was an American cartoonist best known as the founding artist of the comic strip The Heart of Juliet Jones....
's The Heart of Juliet Jones
The Heart of Juliet Jones
The Heart of Juliet Jones was a comic strip created by Stan Drake in 1953.The strip was a soap opera, following the prototype set by Mary Worth but elevated by Drake's exceptional artwork...
, but are uncertain on dates; some sources give 1966, another 1968, and Adams himself 1963. As well, Adams drew 18 sample dailies (three weeks' continuity) of a proposed dramatic serial, Tangent, about construction engineer Barnaby Peake, his college-student brother Jeff, and their teenaged sibling Chad, in 1965, but it was not syndicated. Adams later said that writer Elliot Caplin, brother of Al Capp and Jerry Capp, offered Adams the job of drawing a comic strip based on author Robin Moore
Robin Moore
Robert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an American writer who is most known for his books The Green Berets, The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Moore also co-authored...
's The Green Berets
The Green Berets (book)
The Green Berets is a book written by Robin Moore about the Green Berets during the Vietnam War. First published in 1965, it became a best-selling paperback in 1966. The latest edition was published in 2007.-Background:...
, but that Adams, who opposed the war, suggested longtime DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
war-comics artist Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman...
, who landed that assignment.
Silver Age splash
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...
's black-and-white horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
-comics magazines, under editor Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
. Adams debuted there as penciler and inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
of writer Goodwin's eight-page anthological story "Curse of the Vampire" in Creepy
Creepy
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...
#14 (April 1967). He and Goodwin quickly collaborated on two more stories, in Eerie
Eerie
Eerie was an American magazine of horror comics introduced in 1966 by Warren Publishing. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. Each issue's stories were introduced by the host...
#9 (May 1967) and Creepy #15 (June 1967), and Adams as well reapproached DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
.
With DC war comics
War comics
War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following World War II.-American war comics:Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began including stories of wartime adventures in the multi-genre...
stalwart Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman...
now concentrating on the comic strip The Green Berets, Adams saw an opening:
Adams made his DC debut as penciler-inker of the 8½-page story "It's My Turn to Die", written by Howard Liss, in the anthology series Our Army at War
Our Army at War
Our Army at War was the title for a comic book published by DC Comics that featured war themed stories and was the first appearance for popular heroes such like Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace. The series started in August 1952 and ended in February 1977....
#182 (July 1967). He did a smattering of additional horror and war stories, respectively, for the two publishers, and then, after being turned down by DC's Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
editor Julius Schwartz
Julius Schwartz
Julius "Julie" Schwartz was a comic book and pulp magazine editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in the Bronx, New York...
, approached fellow DC editor Murray Boltinoff in the hopes of drawing for Boltinoff's Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold
The Brave and the Bold
The Brave and the Bold is the title shared by many comic book series published by DC Comics. The first of these was published as an ongoing series from 1955 to 1983...
. Boltinoff instead assigned him the cover of The Adventures of Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
#106 (Sept. 1967) and its 23-page story "Badgers [sic] Baby Brother — Beastley", written by Arnold Drake
Arnold Drake
Arnold Drake was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others....
. It became the first of a slew of stories and covers Adams would draw for that series and The Adventures of Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, two licensed titles starring fictional versions of the TV, film and nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
comics
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
.
During this period near the end of the industry revival historians call the Silver Age of comic books
Silver Age of Comic Books
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those in the superhero genre. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the...
, Adams was soon assigned his first superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
covers, illustrating that of the Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
flagship Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
#356 (Nov. 1967) and the same month's Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane
Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane
Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane was a comic book series published monthly by DC Comics focusing on the adventures of supporting character Lois Lane. The series began publication March/April 1958 and ended its run September/October 1974 with 137 regular issues and 2 80-page Annuals...
#79 (Nov. 1967), featuring Superman and a mysterious new costumed character, Titanman. Also that month, Adams drew his first superhero story, teaming with writer Gardner Fox
Gardner Fox
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic-book historians estimate that he wrote over 4,000 comics stories....
on the lighthearted backup feature "The Elongated Man
Elongated Man
The Elongated Man is a fictional comic book superhero in the DC universe. He is a reserve member of the Justice League. His first appearance was in The Flash vol. 1, #112...
" in Detective Comics
Detective Comics
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
#369, the flagship Batman title. Shortly afterward, he drew Batman himself, along with the supernatural superhero the Spectre
Spectre (comics)
The Spectre is a fictional character and superhero who has appeared in numerous comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in a next issue ad in More Fun Comics #51 and received his first story the following month, #52...
, on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #75 (Jan. 1968) — the first published instance of Adams' work on what would become two of his signature comics characters.
Another, his breakout character, was the supernatural hero Deadman
Deadman
Deadman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero in the DC Comics universe. He first appeared in Strange Adventures #205 , and was created by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino.-Publication history:...
, who had debuted in DC's Strange Adventures
Strange Adventures
Strange Adventures was the title of several American comic books published by DC Comics, most notably a long-running science fiction anthology that began in 1950.-Original series:...
#205 (Nov. 1967). Adams succeeded co-creator artist Carmine Infantino
Carmine Infantino
Carmine Infantino Carmine Infantino Carmine Infantino (born May 24, 1925, in Brooklyn, New York is an American comic book artist and editor who was a major force in the Silver Age of Comic Books...
with the following issue's 17-page story "An Eye for an Eye", written by Arnold Drake, with George Roussos
George Roussos
George Roussos , also known under the pseudonym George Bell, was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age inkers, including on landmark early issues of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four.-Early life and career:George Roussos was born in Washington, D.C., the son of...
inking Adams' pencils. Adams went on to draw both the covers and stories for issues 207-216 (Dec. 1967 - Feb. 1969), and taking over the scripting with #212 (June 1968). The series became a fan sensation, winning many awards and being almost immediately inducted into the Alley Award
Alley Award
The Alley Award was an American series of comic book fan awards, first presented in 1962 for comics published in 1961. Officially organized under the aegis of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, under executive secretary Jerry Bails, and later Paul Gambaccini and David Kaler, the award...
Hall of Fame, with Adams himself receiving a special award "for the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art".
Adams concurrently drew covers and stories for The Spectre #2-5 (Feb.-Aug. 1968), also writing the latter two issues, and became DC's primary cover artist well into the 1970s. Adams recalled that Infantino "was appointed art director, and decided I was going to be his spark plug. I also thought it was a good idea, and was promised a number of things which were never fulfilled. But I thought it would be an adventure anyway, so I knuckled down to things like "Deadman", The Spectre and whatever odd things would come my way. I was also doing large amounts of covers".
Adams' art style, honed in advertising and in the photorealistic school of dramatic-serial comics strips, marked a signal change from most comics art to that time. Comics writer and columnist Steve Grant
Steve Grant
Stephen Mitchell "Steve" Grant is a former American football linebacker for the West Virginia Mountaineers and Indianapolis Colts in the National Football League. Grant is currently the chaplin for the Texas Tech University football program in Lubbock , Texas.-Freshman season:Steve Grant enrolled...
wrote in 2009 that,
First Marvel Comics work
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, where he penciled several issues of the mutant
Mutant (Marvel Comics)
In comic books published by Marvel Comics, a mutant is an organism who possesses a genetic trait called an X-gene that allows the mutant to naturally develop superhuman powers and abilities...
-superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
team title X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
and one story for a horror
Horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. Horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to...
anthology title. Such freelancing across the two leading companies was rare at the time; most DC creators who did so worked pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
ously. Adams recalled in 1976:
He teamed with writer Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
on X-Men, then on the verge of cancellation, starting with issue #56 (May 1969). Adams penciled and colored
Colorist
In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates...
, paired for the first time with inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
Tom Palmer
Tom Palmer (comics)
-Biography:Although Palmer has done a small amount of pencilling work , the vast majority of his artistic output since the 1960s has been as a comic book inker...
, with whom he would collaborate on several acclaimed Marvel comics; the duo's work here netted them 1969 Alley Award
Alley Award
The Alley Award was an American series of comic book fan awards, first presented in 1962 for comics published in 1961. Officially organized under the aegis of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, under executive secretary Jerry Bails, and later Paul Gambaccini and David Kaler, the award...
s for Best Pencil Artist and Best Inking Artist, respectively. (Thomas won that year for Best Writer.) Though the team failed to save the title, which ended its initial run with #66 (March 1970), the collaboration here and on the "Kree-Skrull War
Kree-Skrull War
The "Kree-Skrull War" is a story arc that was written by Roy Thomas, and drawn by Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, and John Buscema. The story was originally published in the Marvel Comics comic book title Avengers #89 - 97 ....
" arc of The Avengers
Avengers (comics)
The Avengers is a fictional team of superheroes, appearing in magazines published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 The Avengers is a fictional team of superheroes, appearing in magazines published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 The Avengers...
#93-97 (Nov. 1971 - May 1972) produced what comics historians regard as some of Marvel's creative highlights of the era. Adams also wrote and penciled the horror story "One Hungers" in Tower of Shadows
Tower of Shadows
Tower of Shadows was a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by Marvel Comics under this and a subsequent name from 1969-1975. It featured work by such notable creators as writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Johnny Craig, and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee, and artists including...
#2 (Dec. 1969), and co-wrote with Thomas, but did not draw, another in Chamber of Darkness
Chamber of Darkness
Chamber of Darkness was a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published bi-monthly by Marvel Comics that under this and a subsequent name ran from 1969-1974...
#2 (Dec. 1969).
Green Lantern/Green Arrow and "relevant comics"
Continuing to work for DC ComicsDC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
during this sojourn, while also contributing the occasional story to Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...
's black-and-white horror-comics magazines (including the Don Glut-scripted "Goddess from the Sea" in Vampirella
Vampirella
Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...
#1, Sept. 1969), Adams had his first collaboration on Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
with writer Dennis O'Neil
Dennis O'Neil
Dennis J. "Denny" O'Neil is an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of books until his retirement....
. The duo would later revitalize the character with a series of noteworthy stories reestablishing Batman's dark, brooding nature and taking the books away from the campy
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
look and feel of the 1966-68 ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
TV series. For now, however, they would do only two stories, "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" in Detective Comics
Detective Comics
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
#395 (Jan. 1970) and "Paint a Picture of Peril" in issue #397 (March 1970), with a short Batman backup story, written by Mike Friedrich
Mike Friedrich
Mike Friedrich is an American comic book writer and publisher best known for his work at Marvel and DC Comics, and for publishing the anthology series Star*Reach, one of the first independent comics...
, coming in-between, in Batman #219 (Feb. 1970). Batman's enduring makeover would come later, after Adams and O'Neil's celebrated and, for the time, controversial revamping of the longstanding DC characters Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
and Green Arrow
Green Arrow
Green Arrow is a fictional superhero that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, billionaire and former mayor of fictional Star City...
.
Rechristening Green Lantern vol. 2 as Green Lantern/Green Arrow with issue #76 (April 1970), O'Neil and Adams teamed these two very different superheroes in a long story arc in which the characters undertook a social-commentary journey across America. A major exemplar of what the industry and the public at the time called "relevant comics", the landmark run began with the 23-page story "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" and continued to " ...And through Him Save a World" in the series' finale, #89 (May 1972). Wrote historian Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart is an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson , Con Steffanson , Chad Calhoun, R.T...
,
The Flash (comic book)
The Flash is an ongoing comic book series featuring the DC Comics superhero of the same name. The character's first incarnation, Jay Garrick, first appeared in Flash Comics #1...
#217-219 and #226 (1972-74)
Other work for DC
After Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Adams' contributions to DC, apart from his work on BatmanBatman (comic book)
Batman is an ongoing comic book series featuring the DC Comics hero of the same name. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27, published in May 1939. Batman proved to be so popular that a self-titled ongoing comic book series began publication in the spring of 1940...
, were sporadic, limiting to draw a Clark Kent
Clark Kent
Clark Kent is a fictional character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Appearing regularly in stories published by DC Comics, he debuted in Action Comics #1 and serves as the civilian and secret identity of the superhero Superman....
back-up story in Superman
Superman (comic book)
Superman is an ongoing comic book series featuring the DC Comics hero of the same name. The character Superman began as one of several anthology features in the National Periodical Publications comic book Action Comics #1 in June 1938...
#254 (1972) and sharing credits with Jim Aparo
Jim Aparo
James N. "Jim" Aparo was an American comic book artist best known for his 1960s and 1970s DC Comics work, including on the characters Batman, Aquaman and the Spectre....
pencilling the Teen Titans in Brave and the Bold #102 (1972). Adams also drew a few stories for Weird Western Tales
Weird Western Tales
Weird Western Tales is a Western genre comic book title published by DC Comics which ran from June-July 1972 to August 1980. It is perhaps best known for featuring the adventures of Jonah Hex until #38 when the character was promoted to his own eponymous series...
and House of Mystery
House of Mystery
The House of Mystery is the name of several horror-mystery-suspense anthology comic book series. It had a companion series, House of Secrets.-Genesis:...
and covers for Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
and Justice League of America titles as well.
The last complete story that Adams drew at DC before opening his own company, Continuity Associates
Continuity Associates
Continuity Studios is a New York City- and Los Angeles-based art and illustration studio formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano...
, was the oversize Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
Superman vs. Muhammad Ali is an oversize comic book published by DC Comics in 1978. The 72-page book features Superman teaming up with the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali to defeat an alien invasion of Earth...
, released in 1978. After this, Adams' production for DC and Marvel was limited to new covers for reprint editions of some of his work, such as Green Lantern/Green Arrow, The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War, X-Men: Visionaries, Deadman Collection and The Saga of Ra's al Ghul, which were variously published as reprint miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
or trade paperback
Trade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
collections.
Return to DC and Marvel
In 2005 Adams returned to Marvel (his last collaboration for this publisher had been in 1981 drawing some pages for the Epic IllustratedEpic Illustrated
Epic Illustrated was a comics anthology in magazine format published in the United States by Marvel Comics. The series lasted for 34 issues, from Spring 1980 to February 1986....
Magazine) to draw a 8-page story for the Giant-Size X-Men
Giant-Size X-Men
Giant-Size X-Men #1 was a special issue of the X-Men comic book series, published by Marvel Comics in 1975. It was written by Len Wein and illustrated by Dave Cockrum. Though not a regular issue, it jump-started the series after a five-year hiatus. The issue serves as a link between the original...
#3. The following year Adams (among other artists) provided art to Young Avengers
Young Avengers
Young Avengers is an American comic book series written by Allan Heinberg and published by Marvel Comics. It follows a group of young superheroes, each of whom patterns themselves after a member of the long-established Marvel superhero team the Avengers....
Special #1.
In 2010, DC Comics announced that Adams would return as writer and artist on the new miniseries Batman: Odyssey . Originally conceived as a 12-issue story, the series ran only to issue #6 (Feb. 2011), and was relaunched with vol. 2, #1 in October 2011. Adams penciled New Avengers vol. 2, #16.1 (Nov. 2011), teaming again with inker Tom Palmer
Tom Palmer (comics)
-Biography:Although Palmer has done a small amount of pencilling work , the vast majority of his artistic output since the 1960s has been as a comic book inker...
, nearly 40 years since both artists had worked together on The Avengers #96 (Feb. 1972)..
Movie and theater work
Adams' pencil drawings on his later Batman stories were frequently inkedInker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
by Dick Giordano
Dick Giordano
Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano was an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then–industry leader DC Comics...
, with whom Adams formed Continuity Associates
Continuity Associates
Continuity Studios is a New York City- and Los Angeles-based art and illustration studio formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano...
, a company that primarily supplied storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s for motion pictures. In the early 1970s, Adams was the art director, costume designer, as well as the poster/Playbill
Playbill
Playbill is a monthly U.S. magazine for theatregoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most Playbills are printed for particular shows to be distributed at the door...
illustrator for Warp!
Warp!
Warp!, also spelled Warp, was an American science-fiction play created at Chicago, Illinois' Organic Theatre Company in 1971 by co-authors Stuart Gordon and Lenny Kleinfeld, the latter under the pseudonym Bury St. Edmund. The play moved to Broadway for a short run in February 1973...
, a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
stage play by director Stuart Gordon
Stuart Gordon
After the University of Wisconsin demanded future theatrical productions by Screw Theater be overseen by a University Professor, Gordon cut his University ties to form Broom Street Theater. Its first production, the new translation of the risque Lysistrata, premiered in May 1969. Gordon is...
and playwright Lenny Kleinfeld under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Bury St. Edmund.
Creator's rights
During the 1970s, Adams was politically active in the industry, and attempted to unionize its creative community. His efforts, along with precedents set by Atlas/Seaboard ComicsAtlas/Seaboard Comics
Atlas/Seaboard is the term comic-book historians and collectors use to refer to the 1970s line of comics published as Atlas Comics by the American company Seaboard Periodicals, to differentiate from the 1950s' Atlas Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics...
' creator-friendly policies and other factors, helped lead to the modern industry's standard practice of returning original artwork to the artist, who can earn additional income from art sales to collectors. He won his battle in 1987, when Marvel returned original artwork to him and industry legend Jack Kirby, among others. Adams notably and vocally helped lead the lobbying efforts that resulted in Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
creators Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
receiving decades-overdue credit and some financial remuneration from DC.
Inker Bob McLeod recalled in the 2000s the unique place Adams held in the industry when McLeod broke into comics in 1973:
In 1978, Adams helped form the Comics Creators Guild, which over three dozen comic-book writers and artists joined.
Also during the 1970s, Adams illustrated paperback novels in the Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
series and did some film work. With the independent-comic publishing boom of the early 1980s, he began working for Pacific Comics
Pacific Comics
Pacific Comics was an independent comic book publisher that flourished from 1981-1984. It was also a chain of comics shops and a distributor. It began out of a San Diego, California, comic book shop owned by brothers Bill and Steve Schanes...
(where he produced the poorly-received Skateman
Skateman
Skateman was a comic book produced by Neal Adams in 1983, and published by Pacific Comics. It is primarily known for its artistic failings; in 1990, Kitchen Sink Press's World's Worst Comics Awards listed Skateman #1 as the worst comic of the past 25 years. .-Plot:Billy Moon is a martial arts...
) and other publishers, and founded his own Continuity Comics
Continuity Comics
Continuity Publishing, also known as Continuity Comics, was an American independent comic book company formed by Neal Adams in 1984, publishing comics until 1994....
as an off-shoot of Continuity Associates. His comic-book company's characters include Megalith, Bucky O'Hare
Bucky O'Hare
Bucky O'Hare is a fictional character and the hero of an eponymous comic book series as well as spin-off media including an animated TV series and various toys and video games...
, Skeleton Warriors, CyberRad, and Ms. Mystic
Ms. Mystic
Ms. Mystic is a fictional comic book superheroine created by popular illustrator Neal Adams. The comic published nine issues between 1982-1994. Her first full appearance was in Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #3 , published by Pacific Comics...
.
In collaboration with Rafael Medoff
Rafael Medoff
Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. and focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust.-Academic career:...
, director of the David S. Wyman
David Wyman
David S. Wyman is the author of several books on the responses of the United States to Nazi Germany's persecution of and programs to exterminate Jews....
Institute for Holocaust Studies, Adams has championed an effort to get the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Brzezinka
Brzezinka is a village in southern Poland, located about from Oświęcim , in the district of Gmina Oświęcim, Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship.- General information :...
Memorial and Museum, which is operated by the government of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, to return the original artwork of Dina Babbitt
Dina Babbitt
Dina Gottliebova-Babbitt was an artist and Holocaust survivor. A U.S. citizen, she resided in Santa Cruz, California....
. In exchange for his sparing her mother and herself from the gas chambers, Babbitt worked as an illustrator for Nazi death camp doctor Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
who wanted detailed paintings to demonstrate his pseudoscientific theories about Gypsy racial inferiority. Using text from Medoff, Adams illustrated a six-page graphic documentary about Babbitt that was inked by Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman...
and contains an introduction by Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
. However, Adams deemphasizes any comparison between the Babbitt case and his struggle for creator rights, saying that her situation was "tragic" and "an atrocity."
In 2010, Adams and Medoff teamed with Disney Educational Productions to produce They Spoke Out: American Voices Against the Holocaust, an online educational motion comics series that tells stories of Americans who protested Nazis or helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Each standalone episode, which runs from five to ten minutes, utilizes a combination of archival film footage and animatics drawn by Adams (who also narrates), and focus on a different person. The first episode, "La Guardia's War Against Hitler" was screened in April 2010 at a festival sponsored by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is an American not-for-profit arts organization devoted to the production and history of comic books, comic strips and other forms of cartoon art. Located at 594 Broadway in New York City, MoCCA was founded by Lawrence Klein in October 2001.In 2007, MoCCA hired...
, and tells the story of the forceful stand New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia took against Nazi Germany. La Guardia's actions stood in contrast to the relative passivity of President Franklin Roosevelt, who most historians feel did not do as much as he could have to save European Jewry, a point underlined in the episode "Messenger from Hell". Other episodes include "Voyage of the Doomed", which focuses on the S.S. St. Louis, the ship that carried more than 900 German-Jewish refugees but was turned away by Cuban authorities and later the Roosevelt administration, and "Rescue Over the Mountains", which depicts Vivian Fry, the young journalist who led an underground rescue network that smuggled Jewish refugees out of Vichy, France.
Awards and honors
Adams' first Deadman cover won the 1967 Alley AwardAlley Award
The Alley Award was an American series of comic book fan awards, first presented in 1962 for comics published in 1961. Officially organized under the aegis of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, under executive secretary Jerry Bails, and later Paul Gambaccini and David Kaler, the award...
for Best Cover. A Batman/Deadman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #79 (Sept. 1968), by Adams and writer Bob Haney
Bob Haney
Robert G. "Bob" Haney was a US comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics. He co-created the Teen Titans as well as characters such as Metamorpho, Eclipso, Cain, and the Super-Sons.- Early life and career :...
, tied with another comic for the 1968 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story; and in 1969, Adams won the Alley Award for Best Pencil Artist, the feature "Deadman" was elected to the Alley Award Hall of Fame, and Adams received a special award "for the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art".
He also won Shazam Awards in 1970 for Best Individual Story ("No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" in Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
vol. 2, #76, with writer Dennis O'Neil
Dennis O'Neil
Dennis J. "Denny" O'Neil is an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of books until his retirement....
), and Best Pencil Artist (Dramatic Division); and in 1971 for Best Individual Story ("Snowbirds Don't Fly
Snowbirds Don't Fly
"Snowbirds Don't Fly" is a two-part anti-drug comic book story arc which appeared in Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues 85 and 86, published by DC Comics in 1971. The story was written by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, with latter also providing the art with Dick Giordano...
" in Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
vol. 2, #85, with O'Neil).
He won an Inkpot Award
Inkpot Award
The Inkpot Award, bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International, is given to some of the professionals in comic book, comic strip, animation, science fiction, and related pop-culture fields, who are guests of that organization's yearly multigenre fan convention, commonly known as...
in 1976, and was voted the "Favourite Comicbook Artist" at the 1977 and the 1978 Eagle Awards.
In 1985, DC Comics named Adams as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great is a one shot published by DC Comics to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary in 1985. It was published in comic book format but contained text articles with photographs and background caricatures...
.
Adams was inducted into the Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Harvey Award
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
s' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.
Advocacy of Expanding Earth theory
Adams has put forth ideas on a model of the universe he terms the "Growing Earth Theory", an idea he credits to Samuel Warren CareySamuel Warren Carey
Samuel Warren Carey AO was an Australian geologist who was an early advocate of the theory of continental drift. His work on plate tectonics reconstructions led him to develop the Expanding Earth hypothesis.- Biography :Carey was born in New South Wales and grew up on a farm three miles from...
. While Carey did advocate an expanding Earth model in the mid-20th century, that model has been rejected following the recognition of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
. Adams rejects tectonics, particularly the theory of subduction
Subduction
In geology, subduction is the process that takes place at convergent boundaries by which one tectonic plate moves under another tectonic plate, sinking into the Earth's mantle, as the plates converge. These 3D regions of mantle downwellings are known as "Subduction Zones"...
, which he says has only been shown to exist in one place on earth and that geologists have grabbed onto it to make their model work. He claims that the Earth is not merely expanding by increasing its volume, but rather growing by manufacturing new atomic mass in its core. Adams advocates his ideas in a DVD documentary he wrote and produced, clips of which he displays on his YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
channel.
Adams appeared on the radio show Coast to Coast AM
Coast to Coast AM
Coast to Coast AM is a North American late-night syndicated radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics, but most frequently ones that relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was created by Art Bell and is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. The program currently...
several times to discuss his claims. He was also interviewed by Dr. Steven Novella
Steven Novella
Steven P. Novella is an American clinical neurologist, assistant professor and Director of General Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine...
on a Skeptics Guide podcast in 2006, and afterward continued the debate on Novella's blog. His work led to a 3-part magazine feature on Growing Earth and history of Earth sciences in the Japan Times in 2009.
Personal life
Adams has three sons, Jason, Joel and Josh AdamsJosh Adams
Josh Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist best known for his work on House of Mystery for DC Comics, as well as design work for shows on the Syfy Channel. Josh Adams is also the youngest of comic book veteran Neal Adams's three sons...
, who are also artists. Jason works in toy and fantasy sculpture, while Joel and Josh illustrate comics and do design work on TV shows. Josh illustrated a pinup of Batman in the first issue of the 2010 miniseries Batman: Odyssey, which Neal wrote and illustrated.
External links
- Continuity Studios
- Neal Adams at the Lambiek Comiclopedia
- Internet Broadway Database: Warp
- Podcast Interview with Neal Adams - The Paracast Apr 22, 2007
- "The Greatest: Neal Adams and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" (Neal Adams interview), Comic Book ArtistComic Book ArtistComic Book Artist was an American magazine founded by Jon B. Cooke devoted to anecdotal histories of American comic books, with emphasis on comics published since the 1960s...
Special Edition - "Neal Adams: The Marvel Years" (interview) Comic Book ArtistComic Book ArtistComic Book Artist was an American magazine founded by Jon B. Cooke devoted to anecdotal histories of American comic books, with emphasis on comics published since the 1960s...
#3 (Winter 1999). WebCitation archive.
(1) featuring Deadman
Deadman
Deadman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero in the DC Comics universe. He first appeared in Strange Adventures #205 , and was created by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino.-Publication history:...
stories