The "King" at the Skirball

RIP Jim Shooter

I was sorry to hear about the passing of comics writer, creator and editor Jim Shooter. Though I never met him personally, he loomed large in comics during a period I became serious about entering the industry. To say that he was polarizing would be an understatement. His tenure and influence as editor in chief of Marvel Comics from 1978–87 was both legendary and notorious. He got the company back on track and oversaw some great series and ushered in new talent (encompassing Chris Claremont's run on X-Men, John Byrne on the Fantastic Four, and Frank Miller's Daredevil) and implemented a royalty program. Shooter would occasionally go on to found and/or start several other companies, such as Valiant and Defiant, neither of which lasted long.

But during this time, Shooter also emerged as a "villain" in the industry. These included defending Marvel's indefensible position of not returning Jack Kirby's artwork in order to leverage a promise that he not ever attempt to claim ownership of the characters he had a big hand in creating for the company (they didn't call it "The House that Jack Built" for nothing), and issuing edicts on the creator side that people chafed under so much that many left.

Starting around that time, I became as interested in the business of comics as much as the comics themselves and, during these days before the Internet, much of this was covered breathlessly in the weekly and monthly comics media press. So though much of my impression of Shooter was shaped by comics industry media coverage (particularly that of the Comics Journal), since I had no real skin in the game—and given the insular nature of the industry—I tended to read such reports with a grain of salt and almost solely for the entertainment value in a soapy sort of way. (There's an old adage about academia that probably applies to comics at this time—the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low.) 

In any case, I have to admit it's been touching to read so many fascinating stories and personal anecdotes at his passing, which provide a warmer and more rounded view of the man. Despite some of his notoriety, he clearly could be warm and generous, and clearly did much to benefit and protect creators, and it's good to know that he was nevertheless respected and appreciated by many of his peers, many of whom found opportunities to share their sentiments with him over the years. At the end of the day, he leaves behind a solid legacy, so it's nice to hear so many remembering him fondly.

For a nice overview of some of these stories, see the Comics Beat coverage. 

In Remembrance of Jules Feiffer

CAPS Farewell

Back in September, I mentioned that CAPS (the Comic Art Professional Society, founded in 1977) had announced that it was calling it a day. 

Earlier this week, as promised, the outgoing Board organized a farewell meeting and gathering at the Animation Guild in Burbank, CA, where the group had held its monthly meeting for many years. In truth, given the low participation of recent years, I wasn’t sure what the turnout would be like. Due to the pandemic, in-person meetings had disappeared and Zoom meetings gradually attracted less and less participants—I attended one Zoom CAPS meeting where it was literally just me and another member (though we had a great time!). I also volunteered in an effort to create an in-person component of the meeting where some members could gather together at a site to Zoom in on the meeting with others, but this also didn't gain any traction.

But happily, people turned out in fulil force. In fact, it reminded me of a CAPS meeting from the old days! It was the first time the group had gathered together in person since before the pandemic, with longtime and more recent members in attendance. I saw people I hadn’t seen in years and, in at least one case, more than a decade. Some new members told me that, having recently joined, this was the first time they had ever attended a meeting and seen so many other members!

The centerpiece of the evening’s program included the participation of two of the three founding members via Zoom—Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier (the third founding member, Don Rico, passed away in 1985). There was lots of reminiscing, expressions of appreciation and laughter. 

In its later years, a highlight of the group’s activities was an annual banquet that featured the presentation of the Sergio Award, named for founding member Sergio Aragones. Since there were several statues left, the award’s namesake was given the honor to present the remaining trophies to deserving members of the group—in this case, he made the awards to members who were there at or near CAP's founding and played key roles in raising the group's profiles, often serving as early presidents: Mark Evanier, Scott Shaw, Bill Stout and an honorary one to Stan Sakai. (Though I'd seen the award statuette at banquets in the past, I'd never held one. As show in the photo below, after the meeting, I took the opportunity to inspect it up close. I also picked it up and found that it was surprisingly heavy!)

While everyone expressed regret for the group’s demise, people were clear eyed and philosophical about its passing. Pandemic aside, the industry has changed greatly in recent years and the group's demands made it difficult for working professionals to commit the time and effort needed to sustain the group and its activities. And with so many opportunities like multiple comics conventions, shows and other activities that give people a chance to see each other, perhaps CAPS’ time had passed. 

The event also reminded me of another reason I found CAPS so beneficial—after socializing with other pros, talking shop and sharing work, I always left meetings feeling incredibly energized. That feeling was there when I drove home afterwards as well. It was the perfect send off for CAPS. 

(That said, no doubt due to the positive energy at the event, people raised the possibility of the group getting together again in the future in some form in more informal ways—so we’ll see!)

Batman in Hollywood

Attending the L.A. Comic-Con

I’m finally getting around to posting photos from the L.A. Comic-Con from the beginning of the month. I attended the last day, opting to take the Metro into downtown L.A., only a 35 minute ride. The L.A. Convention Center is next door to the Crypto.com arena, home to the L.A. Lakers, Clippers and the L.A. Kings. (Crypto.com is also a concert arena—we saw the Go-Gos there in March.)

Though I didn’t exhibit, I got a pro badge—however, in an amusing switch, my daughter was at a booth at the show! For the past two years or so, actually, she has regularly attended comics, anime and art shows in support of her college roommate and fellow art major, Aki Lin, who sells prints (they have known each other since high school!). He always does great business, and I’ve been encouraging my daughter to perhaps dip her toes into commissioned work as well. You can find Aki’s art on Instagram at handle @pyrofennec.

I was glad to see plenty of comics dealers at the show and there’s a vibrant Artist’s Alley, where I saw many comics pals (see photos). Perhaps I’ll give it a shot as an exhibitor next year—a few years back, I exhibited at WonderCon, when it was held at the same venue, so I have experience at the site.

A confession: I wanted to attend because Elijah Wood and Sean Aston were appearing on a panel presumably for the 20th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings films—but I somehow got the date wrong and missed it the day before. D’OH! Oh, well, I still had a great time at the show (and even got to provide lunch to my daughter and her roommate!).

Below are additional photos, or see the full gallery.

Lonnie Millsap

Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS) table.

Eddie DeAngelini

Funky Dinner

In my roundup of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I mentioned that one of the highlights was having dinner with Funky Winkerbean cartoonist Tom Batiuk and his lovely wife. I first became acquainted with Tom around 2014 or ‘15 at the San Diego Comic-Con, where I discovered he was aware of my work and enjoyed the series. In fact, that morphed into a commission to produce a faux-comic book cover featuring characters he had created as a budding kid cartoonist that appeared in the February 14, 2016 Funky Winkerbean Sunday strip, fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a newspaper cartoonist (albeit in a one-off)! Shots of that commissioned piece are included in the attached photos.

Prior to this year’s Comic-Con, Tom reached out to me and said he had been invited as a special guest to this year’s show and asked if I’d be up for having dinner one night. He came by my table the first day of the show and we confirmed it for that evening. We ended up taking a cab up to Little Italy where we had a lovely dinner. We talked shop, about the strip business (and contracts!), old comics, the comic book industry, family, and much more. It was truly an evening I’ll remember with great fondness (regrettably, my wife couldn’t join us since there was a panel she wanted to attend). Tom has a real love of comic books as well as comic strips, having initially looked for work at Marvel and DC when he was starting out—in fact, he has commissioned a number of comic book artists (with far more greater name recognition than me!) to do similar kinds of work in his strip. Tom has always been generous in telling me that he loved the piece I did for him, as I had clearly understood what he was aiming for and that I then ran with it; he kindly mentioned that again during dinner!

When we met, I was able to tell Tom I grew up reading Funky Winkerbean in my local newspaper in New York City, the Staten Island Advance. I lost touch with it when my family moved to California since it was not carried in any of my local newspapers in California. For those who are not familiar, it's a gag strip launched in 1973 centered on the students and teachers of a high school. (By the way, Comic-Con recognized Tom’s work with an Inkpot in 1999.)

Shortly after hearing from Tom before Comic-Con, I decided to re-visit the strip and discovered that it is currently being collected in its entirety by the university press of Tom’s alma mater, Kent State. I picked up the first volume and, upon learning that the strip decades later had “time jumped” several years so that Tom could age the characters and tackle new kinds of stories, I picked up a later volume as well (as a surprise, Tom kindly also sent me another volume!). I have greatly enjoyed the strips and am still in awe of the skill to come up with fresh gags every day and the "world building" needed to keep them coming! Tom, of course, succeeds in doing so by tapping into the memories most people share of their high school years, particularly the awkwardness of trying to fit in.

Anyway, our get-together made this year’s San Diego Comic-Con especially memorable and fun.

Remembering Neal Adams

The many posts about the passing of the great Neal Adams is a tribute to his influence and impact on the field of comics. He was a bridge between the Golden and Silver Ages of comics to the modern age, bringing in a breath of fresh air into the field with a slick commercial art style that was new in comic books. Along the way, he drew tons of comics for the major publishers, and many small ones and, along with writer Denny O’Neil and others, helped Batman shed the “campy” image from the ‘60s TV show, building the modern foundation of the character as it stands today. (Even today, my own efforts at drawing the character is heavily influenced by Adams’ take on the character.)

Just as importantly, he was a significant activist and champion for social issues as well as artist’s rights: he helped bring “relevance” to comics (also often with O’Neil) and tried to create a union for comics professionals. He also successfully fought for the return of artist’s work (including that of Jack Kirby’s) and, along with cartoonist Jerry Robinson and others, on the eve of the release of the 1978 Superman film, persuaded (or, rather, shamed) DC Comics/Warner Brothers into providing Superman’s impoverished creators—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—a pension and modicum of financial security, as well as creator credit, by using the attention to the movie as leverage.

Adam’s did so much work that is fondly remembered and admired—my personal favorite is 1978’s Muhammad Ali vs. Superman (with O’Neil again). At first glance, it might seem like a cheesy idea, but Adams and O’Neil took the job seriously and produced what I often consider (as I know others do) the greatest single Superman story ever—an epic space opera of Superman cleverly teaming with Ali to save the world against invading aliens.

Adams also provided work and mentorship to many cartoonists, especially through his comics and illustration studio, Continuity Studios.

Though I’d often go by his table at comics conventions, I had the opportunity to meet him back in 2019 at an event organized by local cartoonists that he kindly hosted at his L.A. Continuity office. After his talk, he invited me to sit with him and was delighted to learn that I was Filipino (he asked)—he spoke about how much he admired the great Philippine-based cartoonists who broke into the industry in the 1970s.

I had intended to also bring my copy of Muhammad Ali vs. Superman for his autograph (pictured above), but told him that I had forgotten it. He laughed, slapped my back and said, “Next time!”

Being on the eve of the pandemic, I didn’t find the right time to follow up, but regardless it was a thrill to get these memorable few moments with him and this photo. He always seemed so hale and active, so the news was a bit of a surprise to me. My condolences to his wife and widow; the news of his passing is giving his legacy and influence the attention it deserves.

See the original post on Facebook (with additional photos).

Read my 2019 post about meeting Neal Adams.

Read my 2008 look back at Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.

More Capsule Reviews in the Time of Coronavirus (4)

Batman and Bill

When I went to see the film Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, I remember gasping in surprise (and excitement) when I saw Bill Finger—a comics writer widely acknowledged but never officially credited as instrumental in developing the character of Batman—receive screen credit in the film’s opening title sequence. I was aware that Bob Kane, who came up with the initial idea of Batman, had contractually been given sole official credit as the character’s creator from the very beginning and that Finger, a prolific writer who primarily worked as a ghostwriter in comics for most of his career, had died penniless and in obscurity.

The Hulu documentary Batman and Bill tells the full story that led to the credit Finger received on the film and now on all subsequent Batman productions. Much of the film focuses on the relentless detective work of Marc Tyler Nobleman, a writer who became obsessed with uncovering the story of Finger, his involvement with the creation of Batman, and his crusade to get Finger credit.

Finger’s involvement with Batman has always been an open secret in the industry—though Kane came up with the initial idea of the character, Finger wrote most if not all of the earliest stories and reportedly suggested many of the elements that became a signature of the character, such as the cowl, dark colors, scalloped cape, the batcave, batmobile, and many of the villains. Finger was essentially considered an early member of Kane’s shop—a ghost who also did other work for DC—and died in obscurity in 1974.

Unlike the more naive Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created Superman and notoriously gave away the rights to the character for $130, Kane shrewdly leveraged a sweetheart deal with DC Comics that gave him sole creator credit and a share of the licensing and profits. As far as I know, the contract has never been made public, which the documentary seems to confirm.

Adding to the mystery was the fact that Finger had no known direct heirs or descendants, who would be the only people with any standing to make a claim. His line seemed to end with Finger’s son, who died in the 1990s of AIDS. However, in a quirk of fate, Nobleman discovered that Finger’s son actually had been briefly married and produced a daughter. After Nobleman connected with the family, he learned that Finger’s involvement in the creation of Batman was part of family lore and had hung over the family like a dark cloud. Both Finger and Finger’s son made occasional attempts to get DC Comics to make amends with little luck. While DC never denied Finger’s claim outright, they never, of course, made any concessions. (Throughout, the family made clear their main goal was simply getting Finger credit).

(Kane himself does not come off well—while in moments of guilt he acknowledged Finger’s work, including in his memoir, at the end he seemed to double-down on the myth that he was Batman’s sole creator.)

Though the family by then felt they no longer had the energy or resources to pursue the claim further, with the encouragement and support of Nobleman and others, including family and friends who were attorneys, they again approached DC. To their credit, again due to Finger’s well known involvement in the creation of the character, DC treated the family amicably and with a degree of understanding, inviting them to premieres and other events celebrating the character; his granddaughter also was invited to comics conventions where she got the opportunity to speak about her grandfather and their cause. After some legal back and forth, an agreement was soon reached—the family prudently came to an agreement rather than pursue a protracted legal fight, though they used the threat of potential litigation as leverage. The outcome was the credit given to Finger on the film and in other media where creative credit is given: “Created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.”

I found the documentary moving—after Siegel and Shuster (and, over at Marvel Comics, Jack Kirby), Finger’s story ranks among the great injustices in the comics industry. Fittingly, an award presented annually at the San Diego Comic-Con that recognizes comics writers—one deceased and one still living each year—who have not been adequate recognition during their lifetimes for their work was named the Bill Finger Award.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women tells the fascinating and salacious story of William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, and the women with whom he appeared to have lived with in a polyamorous relationship, Sarah Elizabeth Holloway and Olive Byrne. (Marston was legally married to Holloway, had children with Byrne, and the two women continued to live with each other after Marston’s early death at age 53).

Though the family has dismissed the details of the story—which the filmmakers acknowledge is based on conjecture—it is nevertheless, at times, a moving account of their complex relationship and arrangement. The story is less successful when portraying their sexual life—though rated R due to subject matter, the film nevertheless keeps the portrayals relatively tame and in good taste; however, given that their relationship may have involved BDSM (which is partly relevant because the early Wonder Woman comics notoriously featured such acts explicitly in the comic book), these scenes sometimes unintentionally come off as humorous. While all the actors are fine, including Luke Evans as Marston and Bella Heathcote as Olive, Rebecca Hall particularly shines as Elizabeth.

Nevertheless, by the end of the film, I felt sufficiently moved by the story and their love for each other that I could get past these scenes. 

Rebel in the Rye

Actor Nicholas Hoult, who has been on a roll lately (and who I’ve followed since his film debut in About a Boy when he was about 13), has become the recent go-to actor of portraying writers: he recently played J.R.R. Tolkien in Tolkien (2019) and also appeared as J.D. Salinger in 2017’s Rebel in the Rye. I actually saw Tolkien in the theaters on its release earlier this year and was not aware of Rebel in the Rye until I came across it recently on Hulu.

What’s striking about the film is that they are similarly about two writers who were deeply scarred psychology by war, which manifested itself in their writing: Tolkien was gassed in World War I whereas Salinger saw combat on D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and other skirmishes in World War II (which included liberating the Dachau Nazi concentration camp).

Of the two, I found Rebel in the Rye to be the slightly better film, though it only lightly touches on Salinger’s questionable behavior related to pursuing (and perhaps grooming) much younger women. (The film came out about the time the #metoo movement was born.) In contrast, Tolkien focuses more on his relationship with the woman who would become his wife. Nevertheless, both are fine movies that provide some insight into the writers and the experiences that informed their writing.

Margin Call
I want to give a shout out to the outstanding film Margin Call, a perennial favorite of mine which I have watched several times over the years (meaning it’s shown up more than once in my end of year Entertainment Roundups!)

Set at a fictional Wall Street investment bank over a 24-hour period during the start of the 2007–08 financial crisis, the film’s events are set in motion by the discovery of an investment bubble that threatens to bring down the firm by a low-level risk management officer (Zachary Quinto), who is given a head’s up by his boss who has just been laid off (Stanley Tucci). The discovery prompts a late-night/early-morning emergency meeting that leads to the fateful decision to save the firm by essentially selling back and unloading all their investments and positions back onto their unwitting customers and clients before the meltdown occurs and they’re found out. (Investment bank Goldman Sachs similarly moved early to reduce its position in mortgage-backed securities, which triggered the great recession of 2008.)

The film itself feels like a taut suspenseful thriller. At first, this might sound like hyperbole since the movie itself consists of talking heads (in fact, the film feels like it could be produced as a stage play), until one remembers that ordinary people’s very livelihoods and futures throughout the country and around the world were very much impacted by the over-exposure to risky investments and their collapse.

Nevertheless, while the film gives enough information to viewers to understand what is happening, it focuses on the people and their varying degree of culpability and sense of responsibility/conscience of what is occurring. It does seem to suggest that the higher up you are in the chain, the more entitled and less responsible you feel—but make no mistake, these are indeed the so-called “Masters of the Universe,” as portrayed in Tom Wolfe’s book about Wall Street, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It helps to have a topnotch cast; in addition to Quinto and Tucci, the film also features Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore.

The cast is equally excellent all around, but Irons as the somewhat amoral head of the company is particularly delicious in a relatively small role—underscoring how complex and inscrutable high finance can be even to the people running the companies, at one point asking that the problem be explained to him as simply as possible: “Speak to me as you would a two-year old or a golden retriever.”

I always enjoy such these financial drama, though they vary widely in quality. I count Margin Call and 2015’s the Big Short among the very best of these (one could also include the influential Glengarry Glen Ross here, though the financial shenanigans there are more incidental to the plot rather than the centerpiece). Wall Street, the Boiler Room, and Too Big to Fail are additional films in this category that are less successful. Wall Street certainly hit the zeitgeist of the time, and while it's a great time capsule of the ‘80s financial world, I don’t feel it’s aged well.

Comics Distribution War

While I’m no longer beholden to the mainstream comics distribution system, the business side of the comics industry still fascinates me and is something I occasionally cover at this blog.

It’s for this reason I thought I’d weigh in on the momentous announcement by DC Comics to sever its ties with Diamond Comics Distribution and partner with two other distributors.

This move has potential serious consequences for Diamond, for comics retailers, as well as the stability of the market as a whole.

First, DC—home to the “granddaddy” of comics superheroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—commands just under less than a third of the share comics market. That essentially means Diamond will lose that percentage of their sales income, at least in new comics.

For comics retailers, this means having to sign up with new distributors if they are going to sell DC’s comics. Many retailers are upset and concerned that this will increase their shipping costs for products that already have razor thing profit margins. It’s important to note that most if not nearly all comic-book retailers (usually referred to as the “direct market”) are essentially mom-and-pop operations. Overseas retailers are also concerned because the new distributors do not appear yet to have the same system in place as Diamond to affordably ship comics overseas.

Regarding the stability of the market—DC made this announcement in the middle of a pandemic, with some stores already currently shuttered; on top of that, Diamond temporarily had suspended shipments due to the pandemic, which disrupted flow of both comics and income. Indeed, Diamond suspended payments during this time. During the closure, DC temporarily sought new distribution channels, which may have partly led to this decision.

The flip side of this issue is the feeling by many that Diamond was a “monopoly” and perhaps had stagnated the system.

While I’m not enough of an expert to comment on this, I will say that making such a surprise announcement, in the middle of a pandemic and with virtually no leadtime doesn’t seem very prudent or fair. (The announcement, which was a surprise to Diamond as well, is effective the end of this month.)

As a bit of background, the last time there was this much of a seismic shift in the distribution system was in 1994. At the time, there were several competing and regional distribution systems that served the direct market. However, under new ownership, Marvel Comics similarly made the decision to distribute exclusively with a company called Heroes World. This led to the subsequent realignment of the distribution system—anxious to ensure its financial viability, Diamond signed DC to an exclusive contract. In an effort to ensure continued competition in the direct market distribution system, many of the remaining alternative publishers signed exclusive deals with a rival, Capital City Distribution. However, these alternatives did not have enough market share to keep Capital City viable, leading to that company’s eventual collapse and the alternatives flocking to Diamond. Marvel’s experiment with Heroes World failed for similar reasons and ended up with Diamond, making the distributor the sole surviving company. While the federal government did look into whether Diamond was a monopoly it ultimately took no action—I have always thought it was because the market was relatively too small to merit such action.

So here we are, in the middle of a pandemic and a seismic change in the comics industries. It’s anyone’s guess how it will play out, but there is understandably a lot of concern, given that it’s on top of a devastating pandemic that has led to store shutdowns and curtailed sales—when the economy tanks, it is usually “luxury” non-necessity items like comics that are the first to go.

For ongoing coverage of this, see Bleeding Cool here, here and here. A good history of the distribution market to 2011 can be found at the Delusional Honesty website.

Remembering Tom Spurgeon

Meeting Neal Adams

Absolutely one of the greatest and most respected comic-book artists of all time is Neal Adams. Anyone familiar with comics and its history will know him—if not, a quick introduction…

(I’ve previously written about him on my blog here, regarding 1978’s Superman versus Muhammad Ali comic-book. Though I intended to bring my copy, pictured at right, to the event for him to sign, I forgot it at home! When I first walked in and introduced myself, I mentioned this to him—we both laughed and I told him, “Next time!")

Adams is a pivotal figure in the industry, in that he was one of the artists who pulled comics into the modern era. He came into the industry at the perfect time, when radical change was needed. A shift had already begun in the early 1960s, with the debuts of the Fantastic Four at Marvel Comics and the modern-day version of the Flash at DC. Prior to that, comics had been in a period of doldrums—while remembered fondly by many (some feel it’s time for the pendulum to swing back), with some exceptions, comics generally had become too safe, fantastical and, in some cases, even silly. This was in large part due to the scare the industry had gone through during the early 1950s, following complaints (and Senate hearings) that comics had become too violent and inappropriate for children, and a cause of juvenile delinquency.

With these shifting winds, Adams came in and heralded a more mature, polished, more “photorealistic” style that readers didn’t realize they were yearning for, honed by his experience in advertising and newspaper strips (Ben Casey). While Adams is known for a diverse body of work, his influence is probably best defined by his sophisticated take of the Batman. Up to that time, the character was still in fantasy/children’s comics mode, a stereotype that for better or worse was further cemented in the public mind by the Adam West Batman TV show. Adams (and the writers he worked with) completely redefined Batman for the new age, with more realistic adventures and (for the time) more mature themes. While not quite the completely tortured, dark detective the character’s become in today's comics and films, his Batman was certainly the first step in that more complex direction.

Adams also was an early vocal advocate of artists' rights. He was among the first proponents for a union and was instrumental (along with fellow cartoonist Jerry Robinson) in getting recognition and a pension for the creators of Superman, Jerry Shuster and Jerry Siegel, who were both living in poverty when the Christopher Reeve Superman film hit theaters in 1979. Adams and Robinson shrewdly used the film's release as leverage to shame Warner Brothers, the parent company of DC Comics, into doing the right thing.

So of course you can imagine what a thrill it was to see and meet Adams at an event organized by local L.A. area cartoonists, at Adams’ new comic-book store, the Crusty Bunkers, in a building that also has served as the home office for his Continuity Studios West. Adams’ studio over the years has been involved in comics, advertising and animation; as those activities have wound down in recent years, Adams decided to open a comic book store/boutique in the space.

While I’ve briefly met Adams as a fan at conventions, this is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to meet him in a professional manner or setting. For this evening, Adams was the featured guest, graciously hosting the group at his new store. He talked shop with fellow professionals, fielded questions and regaled us with engaging and often hilarious stories and anecdotes from his career, often involving many well known comics industry giants he’s worked with over his storied career. Some of these stories have been told in interviews, and others are not for me to share, but Adams was always engaging and entertaining, and candid about himself and others.

As alluded above, Adams first tried to break into the industry at a moment of transition in the industry when everyone told him that the business “would be dead in a year.” He talked about wanting to break into comics while even in high school, where even his teachers (one of whom was a professional cartoonist) discouraged him.

Because of these "lost years," as he and others have noted, at one point when he started in the business, everyone was either five years older or five years younger than him, making him a bridge of sorts between the old guard of cartoonists and industry professionals and the new guard.

As a result, Adams had plenty of funny and juicy stories (and opinions) about comics pros who loom large in the history of comics, such as Mort Weisenger, Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Frank Frazetta, and Stan Lee, as well as his contemporaries and some of the cartoonists who have followed, like Archie Goodwin, Murphy Anderson, Wendy Pini, and Dave Sim. He particularly had kind words about Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, acknowledging and talking about their role in revitalizing the industry in the early 1960s.

Above all, Adams is a student of the medium who appreciates those who came before him “on whose shoulders the industry was built.” Here he was not just referring to cartoonists but also great illustrators and artists like Alphonse Mucha and Norman Rockwell, noting that there would always be a section in his store where books about the great artists would always be available to be appreciated and remembered.

Though Adams could have kept going with a willing and captive audience, the evening eventually came to a natural conclusion—ever the gracious host, he invited people to take photos with him. This gave me a few moments to speak a little more with him. He was extremely kind and generous with his time, and clearly enjoyed being among fans and fellow professionals.