EARLY WORK
After graduation in 1959, he unsuccessfully attempted to find freelance work at DC Comics,[8] 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.[9] 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:
- I started to do samples for Archie and I left my Fly samples there. A couple weeks later when I came in to show my Archie samples, I noticed that the pages were still there, but the bottom panel was cut off of one of my pages. I said, 'What happened'. They said, 'One of the artists did this transition where Tommy Troy turns into the Fly and it's not very good. You did this real nice piece so we'll use that, if it's OK.' I said, 'That's great. That's terrific.'[9]
That panel ran in Adventures of the Fly #4 (Jan. 1960).[9] Afterward, Adams began writing, penciling, inking, and lettering[6] humorous full-page and half-page gag fillers for Archie's Joke Book Magazine.[9] 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 he worked as Nostrand's assistant for three months, primarily drawing backgrounds at what Adams recalled as $9 a week and "a great experience".[6]
Having "not left Archie Comics under the best of circumstances",[6] 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.[10] 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".[11]
BEN CASEY
In 1962, Adams began his comics career in earnest at the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate. 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.[9] 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,[12] Adams landed the assignment.[9] The first daily strip, which carried Adams' signature, appeared November 26, 1962; a color Sunday strip was added September 20, 1964.[13] Adams continued to do Johnston & Cushing assignments during Ben Casey's 3 and 1/2-year run.[14]
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".[13]
In addition to Capp, Jerry Brondfield also wrote for the strip, with Adams stepping in occasionally.[15]
The ABC series, which ran five seasons, ended March 21, 1966, with the final comic strip appearing Sunday, July 31, 1966.[13] Despite the end of the series, Adams has said the strip, which he claimed at different points to have appeared in 365 newspapers,[11] 265 newspapers,[16] and 165 newspapers,[17] ended "for no other reason that it was an unhappy situation":
- We ended the strip under mutual agreement. I wasn't happy working on the strip nor was I happy giving up a third of the money to [the TV series' producer,] Bing Crosby Productions. The strip I should have been making twelve hundred [dollars] a week from was making me three hundred to three-fifty a week. On top of that, I was not able to express myself artistically when I wanted to. But we left under very fine conditions. I was even offered a deal in which I would be paid so much a month if I would agree not to do any syndicated strip for anyone else, in order that I might save myself for anything they have for me to do.[11]
Adams' goal at this point was to be a commercial illustrator.[9] While drawing Ben Casey, he had continued to do storyboards and other work for ad agencies,[9] 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 portfolio in 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?'"[18] I
n 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. ... "[9]
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, brother of Al Capp and Jerry Capp, and artist Lou Fine.[19] 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.[15] 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.[20] Adams later said that Elliot Caplin offered Adams the job of drawing a comic strip based on author Robin Moore's The Green Berets, but that Adams, who opposed the Vietnam War, where the series was set, suggested longtime DC Comics war-comics artist Joe Kubert, who landed that assignment.[17]
