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Topic: Neal Adams ’80s X-Men: Wha’ppen? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
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Posted: 18 July 2018 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
Does anyone know what happened to two X-Men related projects Mr. Adams was announced as doing in the early '80s. I know he started working on an X-Men 'graphic novel' getting a few pages into pencilling it before something stopped him going further. Brent Anderson did do one not long after but unclear if the story was the same?

The other project was an X-Men portfolio though all I've ever seen of it is this one 'plate' which is pretty amazing all on it's own. I'd love to have a nice high quality copy of it. It was advertised as for Sal Quartuccio who did an earlier full color X-Men set with Faster & Larsen over JB for two 'plates' and on their own for two more.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 19 July 2018 at 12:01am | IP Logged | 2 post reply
According to Adams (in an interview from Comic Book Artist #3 which is viewable on google books here) he was approached by Shooter to draw the graphic novel.  Adams says he told Shooter up front that he would only agree to a contract that was not work-for-hire.  Shooter said that was no problem, so Adams began work on the pencils.  Then a couple weeks later, Shooter called and said it turned out they could not give him a non-WFH contract after all.  So Adams quit the project, and was not paid for the six pages he'd already done.  This was indeed the God Loves Man Kills project that Brent Anderson wound up drawing.


Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 19 July 2018 at 12:05am
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John Byrne
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Posted: 19 July 2018 at 4:56am | IP Logged | 3 post reply
There had for many years been a habit at the Publishers of telling freelancers what they wanted to hear, then pulling the ol' switcheroo on the assumption that said freelancers, having begun the work, would continue and finish the job.

Same thing happened to me with X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT. Fortunately, unlike Neal, I had not yet put pencil to paper when I found out I'd been lied to.

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 19 July 2018 at 10:17am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
Thanks for this information! Neal Adams was so often ahead of the curve (had experience from other areas), and someone lying and then not paying is the epitome of unprofessional. Also interfering in anyone's work without their consent (re-writing, re-drawing) those things just shouldn't go on without consequences, and payment for any re-purposing, in a proper business environment. Seems all that became some kind of standard operating procedure in comics along with the work-for-hire thing that really wasn't suitable for any kind of art form I don't think. I  do remember some story about publishers having lawyers at meetings but insisting creators couldn't. Perhaps that was part of another Neal Adams interview. Something about an editor or publisher saying "if you're going to hold me to my promises I'm going to stop making them." Craziness! :^(
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Eric White
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Posted: 19 July 2018 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
The portfolio never happened because Marvel decided to pull the license to produce Marvel portfolios from Sal Quartuccio and produce portfolios themselves. Which they did....once. 

Sal told this to me when I asked about the Neal Adams portfolio a few months ago.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 19 July 2018 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply
Cool, thanks for that too! Knowledge is good, but might've beens are some of the saddest things. :^(
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