Posted by Joey Peters on Mar 13, 2025
Neal Adams is remembered as the classic artist who created Ra’s Al Ghul and drew the fan favorite Green Lantern/Green Arrow social commentary comics of the 70’s. Neal Adams is remembered as a deranged crank who believed the center of the Earth was a portal to some unknown source of energy that causes it to grow, and that explained the shapes of the continents much more reasonably than plate tectonics. If you’re particularly comic book creator pilled you may remember Neal Adams as the guy who shamed Warner Bros into giving the creators of Superman a meager stipend so they didn’t have to end their lives in abject poverty after creating one of the most profitable artistic creations in human history.
He was all these things. He also the last great hope to provide worker’s right in the comic book industry, and it’s a tragedy that he failed.
Pretty much from the beginning there were attempts to organize the comic book industry.
Comic books started with shady characters obtaining the printing plates for newspaper comics and producing cheap reprint books for a mass market. These were popular. Publishers experimented with new original publications until National Publications produced Superman #1. That proved even more popular than the comic strips they were reprinting, and so a comics gold rush emerged as dozens of companies tried to pump out comics and find the next Superman.
The actual content for many of these comics were produced by packagers, studios that would have a few different types of artists working for them: writers to come up with the frame work, pencilers to render the art, inkers to give depth to the penciled art, letterers to add word balloons and dialog, and colorists to figure out what colors needed to be used. Editors were the bosses who kept the machine working. They sold the content to publishers to print.
From the beginning comics creators were paid too little and not given enough time to do anything but crank out mediocre work.
In the early 1940’s, the American Communist movement made an effort to infiltrate and organize the comic industry into a union, just as they had done with theatre and film guilds. [Plastic Man creator Jack] Cole heard about it and, with the help of artist George Brenner, attended the first meeting and success fully broke it up. He enjoyed being a one hundred percent American.
History of Comics, Jim Steranko
This tantalizing quote hints at the earliest reference to a comic book artist’s union. Unfortunately, Jim Steranko is a loudmouth and a crank. I want more details about this, but this is an aside in a story about how cool and awesome the guy that created Plastic Man was, not a serious investigation into how a comic book union could be organized.
The industry settled into a situation where creative workers were hired to do work-for-hire as freelancers. Labor law is such that this means in America at least in the current legal context freelancers do not “work” for their employer and as such don’t deserve a union. As a consolation prize they can have a guild. At least in theory. If you’re not SAG or with the WGA good luck with that.
After the initial boom of interest in comics during the 1940’s the industry came under siege from moral panic. Most of the minor publishers folded, leaving the companies that would go on to become DC Comics and Marvel Comics not the only publishers left standing but just about.
By the late 60’s the working conditions at National Comics (which went on to become DC Comics and was later bought out by Warner Bros) were unbearable. Many of the writers working for National at the time came together to negotiate collectively, most notably Bob Haney (co-creator of the Teen Titans renowned for his “How do you do fellow lads” comics), Gardner Fox (co-creator of The Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Sandman[no, not that one], Zatanna and the concept of a comic book multiverse), Bill Finger (contrary to popular belief, the solo creator of Batman, with Robin and The Joker co-created with Jerry Robinson), Otto Binder (a writer who worked a lot of Superman adjacent books during this period) as well as a bunch of jobber writers from the 40’s and 50’s who came to work for National because there were slim few other options. They were bullied and ignored by the National editors.
This bring us to the central problem with organizing the comic book industry. Many people who grew up reading comic books in the 1940’s grew up to want to work on comics when they were adults. Being a creative person of any type is a highly desirable job and there are scarce few actual jobs to work. These aging out of touch writers were gradually replaced with young guys that just wanted to write for Superman or Batman.
Neal Adams broke into the industry in 1960 working for the surviving minor publishers until he got a job drawing newspaper comics. Eventually he came to work for National Comics in the mid 60’s. National Comics at the time had a reputation for a certain kind of stiff and stodgy art, and while Adams roughly fit into the National house style, he injected dynamic panel layouts and improved attention to anatomy into it. He was a favorite of fellow creators working generally on minor books, especially the horror themed superheroes such as The Spectre (the Archangel of Vengeance who only wears a green speedo and hood) or Deadman (the ghost of a stuntman who borrows bodies). These characters remained obscure until catapulted into cult favorite status by Alan Moore’s legendary Saga of the Swamp-Thing run in the 80’s.
The real thing that put Neal Adams on the map, however, was his Batman. He didn’t do a run on Batman, instead he illustrated a few issues here and there, working with writer Dennis O’Neil. In this era National Comics were trying to distance Batman from the kitsch Batman ‘66 television show and Neal Adams art made you believe a man could not skip leg day. It didn’t come for a while but this was the beginning of the end for National’s house style and it would begin it’s evolution into the DC Comics house style perfected by artists such as George Perez.
Stan Lee was a nepo baby hired by his uncle to work at Timely Comics(progenitor to Marvel Comics), ultimately failing upward to writing backup stories in Captain America. In truth, the company that became Marvel Comics remained extremely marginal during the 40’s and 50’s, but rose to prominence as Marvel comics when the Prince of Preferential Treatment, Stan Lee came to work together with Jolly Jack Kirby, the King of Comics. I really want to shit talk and downplay the importance of Stan Lee but his collaborations with Kirby are some of the first times comics were truly great. When compared to comics of the 40’s and 50’s the original Marvel Comics completely outclass them. In general, Jack Kirby’s role in their creation is understated because of Stan Lee’s huge personality, but if you look at Kirby’s later output when no longer working with Sordid Stan, it is clear that Stan Lee was an important part of the formula. But ultimately Stan Lee is boss coded, so fuck him.
By 1970 Stan Lee had moved away from the day to day work of writing and editing most of Marvel’s output, and he wanted to create an industry organization to add artistic legitimacy to the medium. Thus was born the Academy of Comic Book Arts. As conceived by it’s first president, Self-Aggrandizing Stan, it would put on awards ceremonies and rake in respect from other forms of media.
Neal Adams joined the ACBA and agitated for improved conditions for creative workers and worker control of the comics they created. A makework foundation that exists to give your industry good press is something easy to justify pouring some of your corporate money into. When it gets taken over by a labor agitator it’s much easier to cut the purse strings. The ACBA slowly dried up and crumbled to dust as the 70’s wore on.
Increasingly, Neal Adams made his money outside of the comic book industry. He founded Continuity Studios (it went through several names… I’m just going with Continuity Studios for simplicity’s sake) which was an art studio that provided illustration services, concept design, storyboarding, and occasionally comic packaging. A number of industry greats worked there at various times. With an income apart from the pitiful page rates paid by comic book publishers he could finally live a comfortable life.
As the 70’s wore on the situation in the greater industry didn’t improve. DC Comics cut a deal for a Superman movie. Meanwhile Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, Superman’s creators, were living in destitution. Siegel literally cursed the movie as part of a campaign to drum up publicity about their plight. This caught the attention of Adams who aided the duo in eking a meager stipend out of DC Comics for the rest of their lives.
Around this time the copyright act of 1978 came into effect with subtly different provisions made for requirements in the registration of artwork made for hire. To be very quick, the way ownership of intellectual property works varies based on whether or not it was a work made for the artist’s sake, or work made at someone else’s direction for hire. Editors at Marvel maintained that somebody else made the decision, but an unnamed lawyer hastily scrawled a contract for artists codifying their relationship and demanding it be signed before checks be issued. I’m not entirely clear on what the artists thought was happening here. This wasn’t a fundamental difference in how they were being treated. But regardless, the artists were incensed and they went to the first person they could think of who would care about this: Neal Adams.
Neal created a flyer out of the contract by scrawling the words, “Don’t sign this contract!! You will be signing your life away!!” He convened a meeting of some of the most popular artists working in comic books at the time to figure out what comics creators demands were. The initial meeting had an insane range of talent represented: Frank Miller (who was just starting out, well before Daredevil and the Dark Knight Returns, and 9/11 drove him insane), Chris Claremont (the pervert [supportive] writer who made the X-Men one of the most beloved lines of comics), Walt Simonson (a fan favorite writer most well known for his Thor) and Jim Shooter, the editor-in-chief for Marvel at the time. The write ups I read tend to gloss over Jim Shooter’s role in this, which makes me super curious what is actually in The Comics Journal #42, an issue that contained a large write up of the event written by the rag’s editor, Gary Groth. By the way, TCJ #42 has a cover featuring Shameful Stan himself, and advertising an interview with him inside.
From all accounts it sounds like the meeting was a mess, but a few important things were decided, base page rates and payment for reprints. The horrifying thing is that the page rates set down in 1978 are about the same, not adjusted for inflation, as one might expect from one of the major publishers today: Artists getting $300, writers getting $100, letterers $40 and colorists $70. That is me assuming that the $300 for line art is split between a penciler and inker. And anyone who isn’t Marvel or DC will pay much, much less. And in general a letterer will make vastly less money today because modern tools allow for faster and easier lettering.
This Comic Book Creator’s Guild didn’t end up having much of an effect, ultimately.
By the end of the 70’s the battle for creator’s rights was fought and mostly lost. Adams continued to work at his studio and only dabbled briefly in comics. The most famous comic he worked on in this time (indeed, probably the most famous comic of his career) is Superman vs Muhammad Ali. It is exactly what it sounds like. Aliens want Earth to pick it’s greatest fighter, and well, it’s definitely either Superman or Muhammad Ali, so they have to fight for it. But come on, you know The Greatest is going to beat Superman’s ass. And then the aliens make him fight their champion, who he also beats the shit out of. It is exactly what you want out of a comic with that title. It’s sublimely stupid. It’s great.
The 80’s marked a sea change and different context for creator’s rights in comics.
During the 70’s comic book specialty shops began to emerge and collect all the comics one could find at the newsstand, but in a more coherent and organized manner, probably with other nerd accouterment such as polyhedral dice and war games. Newsstands purchased comics on consignment and would destroy unsold comics rather than send them back. Comics stores would buy the comics outright without an ability to return unsold product. This made comic stores more attractive to publishers because they didn't have to produce a ton of books that would inevitably be destroyed and pay to ship them.
As this upheaval was in progress something new and different was in production: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It’s insane popularity caused a mad feeding frenzy as publishers big and small flooded the market with cheap imitations. A comics boom began. This could be a better situation for creators. Eastman and Laird owned TMNT themselves. But likewise, while they controlled the content and IP they also took on the risk of publishing for themselves. Eastman and Laird hit hard, while other creators hit less hard. All told Eastman and Laird held on tight to ownership of their creation and they made mountains of money from it, only selling it off in their dotage.
All the time Continuity Studios had been producing occasional comics. Probably the most notable one is Bucky O’Hare by Larry Hama (creator of what you think of as GI Joe) and Michael Golden (co-creator of Bucky O’Hare) because it picked up a cartoon and video game in the 90’s. In the 80’s anyone who could be pumping out comics to be the next Ninja Turtles was pumping out comics to be the next ninja turtles.
Don’t let the idea that because Neal Adams spent his early career fighting for creator rights make you think that he’s a perfect paragon who would never screw over a fellow creative. He was sued by his collaborator Michael Netzer for continuing to publish their co-creation Ms. Mystic. This is gonna be a hard one to not get side tracked on. Ms. Mystic is a burned Salem witch whose soul escaped to a mystic plane and then she came back as a superhero for some reason. She went on to create an original-character-do-not-steal version of the Fantastic Four—no, not getting sidetracked. The case was ultimately dismissed based on the statue of limitations, not the merits of the case, but I also get the vibe Netzer is a crank. Here’s a quote from his Wikipedia page:
In November 2004, he launched a second web site, "The Comic Book Creator's Party", calling on comics creators to form a political union for participating in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and quoting notable comics creators' references to the socio-political climate in America and abroad.[43] Netzer has since launched several other web sites, including "The Comic Book Creators' Guild", "Growing Earth Consortium" and "Michael Netzer Online", the site-complex portal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Netzer
The websites mentioned are dead. I am sickly curious what the fuck the Growing Earth Consortium is. Was it him making fun of his old friend turned enemy for being a crank? Or is he an Expanding Earth crank too? I can’t find it on the Wayback Machine and I need to know.
Because Neal Adams definitely believed in the Expanding Earth theory himself. Basically, the idea is that we are in a steady state universe, there was no big bang. The universe only gives the appearance of growth, and all cosmology, our understanding of stars, and plate tectonics are all fundamentally wrong. There is some form of matter at the center of many cosmic bodies that naturally grows mass through some process. Planets, asteroids, moons, and stars are all growing, but too slow for it to be obvious and easily measurable. The scientific establishment doesn’t want you to know about it! The real reason that the continents look like they fit together is because the Earth used to be literally smaller and they did fit together, not that they used to be connected long ago and broke apart.
This is all extraordinarily implausible. Were this true then the physical laws underlying how we build technology would not function exactly the way we expect based on consensus scientific understanding. Or is there a conspiracy of engineers too, that have to design products so that they follow the real physics while letting us think physics works in a different way?
Continuity, being a studio that produced animatics and what-have-you, produced some real weird videos about this. That was my attempt to steel man Neal’s arguments. Enjoy.
By my era of involvement with comics Neal Adams was regarded as a respected elder statesman of comics but don’t get caught in an elevator with him unless you want to hear some weird shit. I’ve heard more whisper network stuff than most people who pass for cis-men and I’ve never heard anything genuinely bad about him. My only regret is that he didn’t get to tell me his bizarre theories in person, the closest interaction I ever had with him is the time he nearly ran over me and my ex-wife leaving Albuquerque Comic Con. We stan a legend.
The likelihood of a comic book artist union seems unbearably remote in this late day. The last remaining distributor of comic books to comic book stores just filed for bankruptcy, throwing comic book stores into uncertainty. Comic books are a tiny, withering industry.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. The comic book market is a rump compared to the book store market. Breakthrough success of comics like Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and a myriad of children’s comics cracked open a new market. This is pretty well developed niche at this point and I haven’t looked up the numbers but they kind of have to outclass direct market comic book stores. If they don’t I have no idea what the hell the big book publishers are doing bothering with it.
My favorite spark of hope, though, is that the internet has opened up new possibilities for what you can do with comics. There’s webcomics, there’s comics reading apps (most of the apps are at best extremely sketchy but, uh, still somehow probably less bad than Marvel and DC, except Comixology. Fuck Bezos). Making comics is still an effort wise net negative for me, so expect these essays for a while yet, but crowdfunding sites like Patreon and Comradery have created a new niche for creating a community around a creative person’s artistic output.
But ultimately I want to end on a real batshit crazy note, so to hell with it, let’s end with Batman: Odyssey.
Batman: Odyssey tells the story of Batman telling a long winding shaggy dog story to the reader while mostly naked. Batman used a gun in his first adventure. There’s a bomb on a train. Batman gets shot hundreds of times and dies in a museum. Batman has a debate with Robin as he has a fight with Man-Bat (one of the characters Adams created along with Dennis O’Neil in the 70’s). Batman gets picked up by Alfred after the museum incident, then he story in a story in a story explains how he played dead to trick the criminals in the museum.
Neal Adams is a legendary artist and an absolutely terrible writer. And it works beautifully.
Everything is framed with the story of naked Batman telling this story in an incoherent manner to the reader, making sure to show off his glistening muscles. Batman is tracking the Riddler. Wait, no it’s someone impersonating the Riddler. The guy impersonating the Riddler shoots a little girl while trying to shoot Batman,which causes Batman to beat the ever loving shit out of him even though the little girl is fine. Batman goes on a mission to Arkham Asylum. Deadman borrows the body of the Joker to help Batman fight a guy in a robot suit. If anything, by telling snippets of this story in single almost coherent sentences I’m doing the storytelling a disservice. It all ties into itself in an incoherent manner. Sometimes these weird fucked up guys dressed like Batman and Robin showed up.
Naked Batman eats a banana and drinks some raw eggs. Ultimately Ra’s al Ghul shows up at the Batcave and Batman takes a nap while Ra’s al Ghul explains the plot. He has some kind of secret war with his previously unmentioned son, Sensei and Sensei has kidnapped his sister, Ra’s’ daughter.
Batman descends into hollow earth. It turns out the fucked up looking Batman and Robin are actually Caveman Batman and Caveman Robin from hollow earth and they were inspired by Batman to become Batman and Robin. There’s “urban thug” dinosaur cavemen. Caveman Batman explains that Expanding Earth theory is correct. Regular Robin gets captured by Sensei so Regular Batman blows him up with bombs.
Naked Batman is still telling this story to the reader. It turns out there’s gray aliens in hollow earth, and wizards and a TV station and the Library of Alexandria, the Egyptian gods are real genetic experiments, and every conspiracy theory is true. Robin is fine because Batman blew him up with shaped charges that only exploded away from him. Batman fights a cyclops. And finally Batman comes to fight Sensei. Batman shoots the absolute hell out of him with a gun, defeating him forever…
Because he turned Sensei into a baby actually. And now he has a chance to not grow up and be evil. And it turns out that Naked Batman has been telling this story in an unbearably sexy manner to his good friend Clark Kent. The reader is Superman!
This is a real comic that was published. This is Neal Adams’ legacy.
I’m a cynical, mean spirited son of a bitch and I have to say this: I like Neal Adams. He wasn’t a perfect man. He wasn’t a perfect hero. He was a genuinely good artist and he tried to make his corner of the world better. He had crazy beliefs about how the world works that made no goddamn sense. What's not to like?
This essay is the second in a series about the Labor History of Comics. The first of them, The Death of Siegel and Shuster tells the story of the entire careers of the creators of Superman and their fight for recognition and money for creating one of the most financially successful artistic creations in history. It intersects briefly with this story. I wrote it years ago with the intention of following it up…. So here we are. I’ll repost the original essay here in a little bit.
Here are some future topics that I have on deck for the LHOC: How Bob Kane didn’t create Batman (a weird and funny palate cleanser), Jack Kirby and his fights for his creations, Steve Gerber’s attempts to steal back Howard the Duck, How Eastman and Laird didn’t let anyone steal Ninja Turtles (a rare happy and affirming story) and then the bleak stories of how the major writers and artists of the 80’s and 90’s are now elderly and impoverished (perhaps a bit bleak, but such is life).
Sources
Source about Stan Lee being a Nepo Baby with a somewhat less cynical analysis:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090623025554/http://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/11fago.html
Source about founding of the comic book creator’s guild:
Analysis about Adams’ career in comics:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/adams_n.htm
Analysis about the page rates demanded by the Comic Book Creator’s Guild:
https://comicsalliance.com/comic-creators-rates-1978/
This covers a lot of the same history albeit in a less stupid way: