|
A couple of years ago I did a sit down interview with Neal Adams. We had
a great hour long interview regarding his role in getting Siegel's and
Shuster's 1970's settlement with Time Warner and a few other topics.
Sadly, I discovered my MP3 player was set up wrong and it didn't record
the interview. While at San Diego I saw Neal and he agreed to do the
interview again. I also asked him questions regarding the Batman: The
Dark Knight movie that had just come out just prior to the convention.
Coville:
When did you first learn about Siegel's and Shuster's plight?
Adams:
When Jerry Siegel sent a letter to various newspapers and
organizations including the Academy of Comic Book Arts. I was the
president of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and got the letter and read
it. It was about 9 pages long and outlined everything that was happening
to Jerry and Joe.
Coville:
I understand you took time off to be their representative to
help them out?
Adams:
Well, obviously I could not be their legal representative, but it
seemed like their legal representative was not getting the job done.
Whatever they perceived the job to be or whatever Jerry and Joe
perceived the job to be because they wrote this letter. Or Jerry wrote
this letter. Clearly he was crying for help. And in crying for help he
was saying they were not being helped by their lawyers who had promised
they would intercede for them after a 15 year period where they were to
remain silent and to depend on the legal system to return their rights
to them. So the had stayed silent for those 15 years between the ages of
45 to 60 years old and now their lawyers weren't answering their phones,
according to them. They really had no answer to their question of how
they would get what was promised to them.
So they called out for help. I realized that somebody had to do
something about it and thought about who that somebody might be. It
seemed to me that even if the newspapers responded, they would just
write stories and for certain DC or Marvel wasn't going to do anything about
it. The people that owned DC weren't going to do anything about it, I
mean they might, but that was pretty much a long shot.
So really the question came down to who was going to help them? I felt I
was in a better position than most people because while I was dependent
on the companies for a certain portion of my income, I wasn't fully
dependent. I had a reasonable understanding of the situation finally and
I could become involved. So I resolved myself the fact that this thing
would not end this way and it had to end in a favorable situation. And
that DC and their owners would be reluctant to deal with it that way so
I had to somehow represent Jerry and Joe publicly to make the issue
important. So I volunteered to do that. The boys had accepted my help,
not my legal help, but my vocal help in the media and anywhere else I
could get it. For the next 4 months I dedicated myself and my studio to
undoing this tragedy. At the end, we did.
Coville:
I understand you got them on the Tom Snyder show?
Adams:
Yeah I had to go on the show myself because Tom was concerned
that Jerry was too vehement and perhaps angry and Joe who was legally
blind was too mellow and wonderfully pleasant. That created a kind of
dichotomy between the two characters. He felt that I would be able to
modify that to present a straight up story. So I appeared on the show, the
boys appeared on the show and we did, I don't know an hour or a half
hour, I guess it was a half hour and discussed this. The boys appeared
on a number of other shows. That sportscaster, Howard Cosell had a show
at the time and they appeared on there. What I did was convince Jerry
to come to New York. I hosted Joe to come in from Queens to be in these
various interviews. I managed to convince the news stations that perhaps
simply with petty cash they might convince the boys to stay in town long
enough to get some kind of resolution to this. They cooperated to the
extent that they could, they couldn't pay them but they helped out as
much as they could, so they kept the story alive. We worked pretty hard
on that and like I said, we turned it around.
It took the help of the cartoonist society, it took I guess some people
in the studio of good will, who helped out. In the end it turned out
favourable for everybody. I told the Warner's people from the beginning
that it wasn't necessary for this to become a controversy. They could
have paid the creators of Superman the same amount of money they pay a
good assistant or associate and they would be happy and there would be
no problem. It wasn't necessary to prolong this torture and make a blot
on the face of the industry. And so in the end, perhaps because of
pressure, perhaps because reason prevailed, they saw the wisdom of being
reasonable and they agreed they would in fact not only pay the boys and
give them medical insurance and give them benefits that one has when
they work for a company. But they would also make them a part of their
presentation of Superman, because now with the boys being taken care of
they can introduce them at openings at where the movie was appearing and
have them as guests at conventions. So in the end their reluctance to
deal with the situation, when it turned around to being co-operative and
being positive turned into a benefit to Warner's and DC Comics. As I told
them in the beginning that is what it would be.
Coville:
I remember you said before that the Tom Snyders show has never
been rerun.
Adams:
Well, it's a various odd thing. I don't want to cast aspirations
on anybody but I talked to Tom Snyder subsequently and he told me that
they looked to run the show again and couldn't find the tape. Which
is... kinda odd.
Coville:
I know Jerry Robinson says he got involved after seeing them on
one of the shows, thinks it was the Tom Snyder show.
Adams:
I think he got involved after I called him. (laughter)
Coville:
Adams:
Jerry Robinson was the President of the Cartoonists Society. And
I decided I would enlist the aid of the Cartoonists Society and the
logical thing would be to call Jerry Robinson. So I did, and asked if we
could have some kind of meeting to see what the cartoonists society could do
to help this situation. We had taken it quite a far distance, we had
appeared on all these shows and had all these conversations and
interviews. We were sort of getting to the end of the rope because Jerry
had a heart condition and it really wasn't good for him to stay away
from his job and to endanger his health by staying in New York and
staying under this tremendous pressure. Joe, on his part, because he was
legally blind, was constantly banging his head on taxi cab doors as I
was taking him from one place to another.
Coville:
Before when we talked you mentioned the Cartoonists Society got
other organizations together and wrote a letter?
Adams:
Well, they proposed writing a letter. They had a meeting at what
was called the Allied Chemical Building at the time. It was very nice.
One big room with a big old table in it, a spotlight above the table,
lots of space and they were having their meeting in this building and at
the end of the meeting they proposed that they write a letter decrying
the situation. Then they asked me if that was fine, if that was a really
good idea. I kinda made a speech at that point. It was perhaps an angry
speech. And I implied I suppose, that people in this room that I was
speaking to, owed their living to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. And that
the comic book business certainly wouldn't be what it is without Jerry
and Joe. The concept of just writing a letter was not exactly what I
considered to be the right amount of energy. Perhaps I said it in a
little more angry way. Anyway, I got up and left. It was as I said, a
rather long speech, about 15 minutes. So I said you guys do what you
want to do, I'm leaving.
So on my way out there was a fellow by the door, reasonably well dressed,
the place had a coat room. I was going to get my coat and there was a
guy standing there. An Irish guy, or he seemed Irish to me. He stopped
me and he said, "You know, that was a pretty good speech." I said "Well,
thank you but I don't think it's going to do any good." He said "Well,
it was a good speech anyways." He says, "You know what you ought to do?"
I said "I'm trying to do everything I can do, what you do think?" He
Says, "Well you ought to hold a press conference." I said, "Well, that
would probably be a good idea but I have no idea on how to hold a press
conference." He said, "You know what building this is here?" I said, "The
Allied Chemical Building on Times Square" (but it's not the Allied
Chemical Building anymore.) He said, "This is the headquarters of the
International Press Corp." I said, "Really? That's very interesting." And
then he said, "Do you know who I am?" I said, "I have no idea." He said,
"I'm the president of the International Press Corps and if you want a
press conference, you just say the word and you got it." Whoa! So I
took him by the arm gently and took him over to the Cartoonist Society
and said Gentlemen this is the President of the International Press Corps
and he's offering to have a press conference for us. Within a reasonable
period of time, in a few days we had a press conference. And it was.. a
press conference tends to attract a lot of attention. And it did.
Artists from around the country presented their point of view, some in
anger, some in sympathy, and it received a lot of attention. At that
point Warner's seemed to feel that perhaps they be willing to make a
deal. Not that they were reluctant to make a deal before but they seemed
to be perhaps a little bit more anxious to make a deal. So we managed to
put together a deal for Jerry and Joe. Maybe not the greatest deal in
the world, but it certainly made it possible for Jerry and Joe to live
out the rest of their lives in reasonable comfort. Which I considered to
be my job.
Coville:
Do you remember what day that press conference happened?
Adams:
No, but you can probably look it up.
Coville:
You also told a story about putting more pressure on DC
management and you going to Florida for a convention.
Adams:
Well, when we finally got down to negotiations and in the lawyers
office there seemed to be problems on whether Jerry and Joe were going
to get their names back on the strip. I had been very quiet about it
because negotiations were going on between lawyers and business men. I
noted that people were overlooking certain things. The representative
for Warner's asked me if there was a problem? I said, "No, but I think
Jerry and Joe's name ought to go back on the strip." They said, "No,
that's not going to happen." I said, "Well, I think it ought to." So the
question came up if that was a deal breaker. I agreed that in fact, it
wasn't a deal breaker. Jerry and Joe were too exhausted from this
process that they had gone through to stop it, so I wasn't going to make
this a big deal.
I had a plan. Because I realized this whole thing was going to go south,
the idea of putting their names back on. So I went back to my studio. I
had been invited to go to Florida for a convention. So I talked to Jerry
Robinson. I told Jerry, "Look Jerry, tomorrow you're going to get some phone
calls from the newspapers and probably from Warner's." He said, "Why are
they going to call me?" I said "Well, because I'm going to be gone." He
said "What do you mean gone?" I said "Well I'm going to disappear." He
said "What do you mean?" I said, "Well I'm just going to go to Florida
for a convention but I'm not going to tell anybody where I'm going. I'm
just going to be... gone." And I said, "And you're going to get some
phone calls." [Jerry says] "What about?" [Adams says] "Well, you'll see."
So what I did then was, the newspapers were calling me to find out what
was going on. I announced to them that the deal had been made, we're
fine. They said, "You're happy, everything is fine?" I said, "Well, just
about." [Reporters] "What do you mean just about?" [Adams] "Well, In the
end DC Comics and Warner's have not agreed to allow Jerry's and Joe's names
to go back on to the comic book character they created." The newspaper
guys would say, "Well how do you feel about that?" I'd say, "Well, how
could I be happy about that? It's their strip, they created it. It's not
going to cost the publishers anything to have their name on it, it's
just recognition that they created it. I don't understand what the
problem is." They said, "Why are you letting it happen?" I said, "Well
Jerry and Joe are in ill health and I can't make it an issue, but I
think it's a damn shame." After about 4 or 5 phone calls like that I
went home, got on a plane and flew down to Florida.
So about mid-morning I'm with Jack Kirby with my family and his family
and we're in the lobby of the hotel and somebody comes running over with
a phone. Said it was Jerry Robinson on the phone. So I got on the phone
with Jerry and said, "So Jerry, what's happening?" He said, "Go sit down."
[Adams] "Why?" He [Jerry] said, "Go sit down." Fine, I go and sit down in
a chair. He says, "Let me tell you about my morning." He says, "Turns out
all the reporters in town have been calling him and apparently Warner's
asking what's this idea about their names not being on the strip." I
said, "Well I don't know, I said the deal can go ahead. I just mentioned
it along the way." Well, he had just got a call from the Warner's guy,
who told him Neal Adams had disappeared from the face of the earth. And
he's been calling all morning because reporters keep calling and asking
him about what's going on about Jerry and Joe not having their name on
the strip? And it's not going to cost anybody anything? Why is it
important? Why are they doing this? Why are they making them sign this
contract? So he's [Jerry] talking to the guy [Warner's] saying "What's
going on? Where's Neal?" [Jerry] "I don't know, I don't know what to
tell you, I don't know where he is." [Warner's] "Well, maybe you can
help us. Maybe we can work something out and help settle the newspaper
guys." Jerry said, "I think you're talking to the wrong guy. You've got
to remember, I'm the President of the Cartoonist Society. We have
syndicated comic strip artists all of which sign their name to their
work. So I don't think there is anybody I know that wouldn't be in
sympathy with the idea of Jerry and Joe getting their name on their
strip again. I really think you're talking to the wrong person, I can't
help you there. If anything, we are totally against this idea." So the
guy at Warner's said, "Okay. Their names are on the strip again. Are you
happy now?" Jerry said, "Well, we're almost happy." [Warner's] "What do
you mean, almost happy?" He [Jerry] said "You know, the guys have been
through a lot. Wouldn't it be nice, before they started receiving their
money they got a little bonus to pay for their expenses, for the trouble
they've been through the last several months." [Warner's] "What number
were you thinking of Jerry?" Jerry named a number. The guy at Warner's
said "Fine. Anything else?" [Jerry] "No, I think that about covers it."
So Jerry managed to put the icing on the cake. Me, I was in Florida
having breakfast with Jack Kirby and got to tell him the whole story.
Coville:
I know that you were involved with the Academy of Comic Book
Artists. How did that start?
Adams:
I think there was a lot of rumbling going on in the field. There
was union talk and other talk and the truth is, it was Jim Warren who
came up with the idea. He thought there ought to be a group, an academy.
Maybe he did it to stop the complaints going on, maybe it did it to show
he was a good guy, I don't know why. So it was really Jim Warren who
started the whole idea and everybody agreed. Unfortunately or
fortunately the publisher sorta tried to make themselves a part of it.
In fact Stan Lee was the first President involved. Which seemed a little
strange to everybody. It put a lot of pressure everybody. But Stan
insisted he was a freelancer like everybody else. Nobody quite agreed
with that, but after all he was in charge of hiring and firing 50% of
the people in the business so one could hardly argue with Stan Lee.
After he was no longer president, Dick Giordano became President and I
was the 3rd President. All through that time we got things going. I did
an awful lot of the work because I'm kinda a work horse. And I can't say
that Stan did anything. Stan was a figurehead, and a good figurehead in
my opinion. The work, as usual, was rested on me.
Coville:
What were the things that was accomplished through the
organization?
Adams:
We didn't really accomplish much with the organization. The
things we did accomplish were intangibles tangibles. First of all we put
a shock and a scare through all the publishers. Because when people
started organizing and getting together, the nature of doing that does
scare the management. So we gained a certain amount of respect with the
publishers. In fact there was a dispute between Marvel and DC comics and
they called upon us to settle it, and we did. We called a meeting and
settled the dispute. I don't actually remember what the dispute was at
the moment, but that's kind of strange if you can imagine, a freelance
organization being in a position of settling a dispute. Another thing we
did was during our first meeting, one of things I did was I went around
and told everybody what my page rate was. Nobody wanted to talk about
what their page rate was, but once they discovered what my page rate was
they were able to compare page rates, they then made demands on their
editors and publishers that they should be paid at least as much as Neal
Adams. So when you form an organization like that you can't easily make
a super point about a solid thing like we went on strike and we got
this. We couldn't go on strike. But there were things that happened
because people were listening to us. We were making changes within the
group. Everybody was meeting one another that hadn't met before. Jack
Kirby had never met Joe Sinnott. So there's these intangibles that you
can't easily codify but in fact were very, very important.
Coville:
DC contracts. I know DC is has been reprinting a bunch of your
work.
Adams:
What do you want to know?
Coville:
I know when DC published Deadman reprints with your name on it...
Adams:
Well, what happened was DC was nice enough to pay me an additional
royalty for using my names on the books. I say nice enough. Well, yeah,
nice enough to capitulate at the end of a series of discussions. In
which I never got angry. But they were still nice enough to work with
me. And I think that's a new attitude with DC comics. I think DC has
gotten a lot more human, a lot better at doing business with individuals.
And as a result they are now going to a project I call, printing all
the rest of my crap. Which they call, DC Classics. So all the other
stuff that didn't appear in either Deadman, Green Lantern and Batman is
going to appear in these three volumes. It's pretty nice.
Coville:
Before you talked about lawyers and moral rights versus legal
rights.
Adams:
I don't think lawyers know very much about moral rights so I
guess it's not exactly a topic that I strenuously get involved in
discussing. Lawyers seem to be, for whatever reason, they don't seem to
have that switch in their psyche that says even though this may be
legal, it's not right, and I ought to back away from this because it's
wrong. Right and wrong seem to be gray in the law. So a lawyer will more
likely depend on the law rather than what's right. I don't think this is
true, always with all lawyers, but it is a standard of the business of
lawyering. To allow the bending of morality, their judgment of right and
wrong to be satisfied by if it's okay in the law. You see it on
television all the time. You see television shows about legal firms who
think it's okay for somebody to get an award for, and use the word award
as if it was some kind of prize, of an amount of money that is
unrealistically high compared to the offense. So that the law firm may
receive such a large percentage of that. So it's not up to me to make
these kinds of judgments that, when you watch these television shows. If
the goal becomes to make lawyers rich and that's the way it's reflected
on television shows, live in fancy apartments and drive fancy cars and
to smoke cigars on their balconies, if that's the goal of the legal
business, that's hard to believe it is a good system. It's a very, very bad
system. Making lawyers rich and destroying the lives of companies and
individuals in unfair proportion makes no sense. I don't know why.
It's sort of like when I was a kid they made the lottery unlawful and
people were arrested and put in jail and then they made it legal, then
had the state run it, and it paid for the educational system, especially
in New York, and therefore it became okay. So why were all those people
thrown in jail? I don't know how that makes sense. I don't know how
people who spend their families' money on the lottery are justified in
participating in gambling on a regular basis. I just find it very odd
that morality slides around so much under a system that's essentially
run by lawyers. It doesn't make any sense to me.
Coville:
What are you doing with Continuity Studios lately?
Adams:
We're doing a lot of work on the Internet. We're doing CGI
animation. New forms of what we call Animatics for the Internet that's
kind of an animation. We're really busy producing what's called content
for the Internet. I wish we could put our signature on it all the time
so when you are on the Internet and you see an animation of a
refrigerator or interactive game play for selling or involving you in a
new company's product that we could say, "Hey! That's ours." But you really
can't at this point do that. We're all over the place. Very few things
are like comic books where you do your thing, sign your name and
everybody knows you did it. Most everything else is kind of a group effort.
Coville:
Last question here. Did you see the new Batman movie and what
did you think?
Adams:
I did and I loved it. It is based on to a lesser degree than I
might appreciate on, "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" [Originally published
in Batman #251]. Or at least that's what the author of the story says.
So it would be really hard for me not to like it. Also I believe in
stories as stories and not just vehicles for superheroes to knock down
buildings, or to dress up in funny costumes. So I would have to say this
is my kind of Batman, probably, MY Batman.
|
