.jpg) ACBA Sketchbook (1975). Cover art byBernie Wrightson. | |
| Formation | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 1977 |
| Type | Comics professionals organization |
| Headquarters | Society of Illustrators |
| Location | |
Region served | United States of America |
| Membership | Comics professionals |
President | Stan Lee (1970) Dick Giordano (c. 1971) Neal Adams |
| Affiliations | Shazam Award ACBA Sketchbook |
TheAcademy of Comic Book Arts (ACBA) was an American professional organization of the 1970s that was designed to be thecomic book industry analog of such groups as theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Composed of comic-book professionals and initially formed as an honorary society focused on discussing the comic-book craft[2] and hosting an annual awards banquet, the ACBA evolved into an advocacy organization focused oncreators' rights.
The ACBA award, theShazam Award, was a statuette in the shape of a lightning bolt. In addition to the creative awards, the ACBA also established the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame award, inductingSuperman creatorsJerry Siegel andJoe Shuster as their initial honorees.
Founded in 1970,[3][4] the ACBA's first president wasStan Lee; its first vice-president wasDick Giordano (presidents initially served one-year terms).[2] The ACBA met monthly at theManhattan headquarters of theSociety of Illustrators.[2]
The Academy's Shazam Award was a successor to the 1960sAlley Award; the ACBA held its first annual awards banquet at theStatler Hilton Hotel's Terrace Ballroom on May 12, 1971.[4]
Aside from its Shazam Awards, the ACBA also published an annual fundraiser sketchbook. Contributing to the 36-page[5]ACBA Sketchbook 1973 wereNeal Adams,Sergio Aragones,Frank Brunner,Howard Chaykin,Dave Cockrum,Reed Crandall,Frank Frazetta,Michael Kaluta,Gil Kane,Gray Morrow,John Romita Sr.,Mike Royer,Syd Shores,Jim Starlin,Jim Steranko,Herb Trimpe, andWally Wood. The 48-pageACBA Sketchbook 1975 included Adams, Aragones, Chaykin, Kaluta, Kane, Romita Sr., Steranko, Wood, andJohn Byrne,Russ Heath,Jeff Jones,Harvey Kurtzman,Walt Simonson,Michael Whelan, andBerni Wrightson. Wood also contributed to the 1976 and 1977 sketchbooks.[6]
Under its later president, artistNeal Adams, the ACBA became anadvocacy organization for creators' rights. The comic-book industry at that time typically did not return artists' physical artwork after shooting the requisite film for printing, and in some cases destroyed the artwork to prevent unauthorized reprints. The industry also did not then offerroyalties orresiduals, common in such creative fields asbook publishing,film andtelevision, and therecording industry.[2]
HistorianJon B. Cooke writes:
While the ACBA was established [as] . . . a self-congratulatory organization focused on banquets and awards . . . it quickly served as a soapbox for the Angry Young Men in the industry, primarily Neal Adams,Archie Goodwin, and their ilk of educated, informed and gutsy artists and writers, self-confident and filled with a strong sense of self-worth, attitudes sadly absent from the field for decades. ... (Jeff Rovin recalled, 'I can't tell you how many timesMartin [Goodman] would listen to some of the things Neal Adams was saying and mutter, "Who the hell does he think he is?"').[7]
Adams wanted to focus on creator rights and pay rates, essentially making the ACBA a labor union. In a 1998 interview, Lee said, "ACBA became divided into two camps, it seemed. I wasn't interested in starting a union, so I walked away from it."[8]
During 1970-1974, the ACBA Newsletter, varying in page count from 4-12 pages, was published by ACBA themselves on a roughly bi-monthly basis, subscriptions available to any interested party. The last known [from this writer] issue was #29, 1974.
Once the ACBA — riding a wave begun by the mid-'70s independent startupAtlas/Seaboard Comics, which instituted royalties and the return of artwork in order to attract creators — helped see those immediate goals achieved, it then gradually disbanded.[7]
As writerSteven Grant notes, by 1977 the ACBA had "... disintegrated into what became Adams' "First Friday" professional get-togethers at his studio or apartment."[1]
Irene Vartanoff was the final ACBAtreasurer.[3] In early 2005, approximately $3,000 in sketchbook sales plus general contributions to the ACBA and accumulated interest was donated from the ACBA'sBill Everett Fund — created in 1975 to help comics professionals in financial need — toThe Hero Initiative (formerly known asA Commitment to Our Roots, or ACTOR), a federally chartered, not-for-profit corporation likewise dedicated.
The ACBA was the first in a string of largely unsuccessful comics-industry organizations that includes the Comic Book Creators Guild (1978–1979), the Comic Book Professionals Association (CBPA, 1992–1994), and Comic Artists, Retailers and Publishers (CARP, 1998).[9] The long-running exception had been the publishers' group theComics Magazine Association of America (CMAA), founded in 1954 and lasting through 2011,[10] as a response to public pressure and a Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency, and which created theself-censorship board theComics Code Authority.
Grant summed up the ABCA's legacy this way:
[The ACBA] had the support of what passed for comics fandom at the time. But that was also its weakness; its members drew their incomes from the same companies ACBA would have had to war on to be effective, and alternative markets were functionally non-existent. Fandom's "support" was also a double-edged sword, since many in fandom, as now, identified with the professionals' goals but wanted the rewards for themselves as the ones who created the comics, providing the companies with potential talent pools should existing professionals get too uppity. (BothMarvel and especiallyDC had already turned to foreign artists as a cost-cutting tool.) Significant changes for talent had to wait until new competition forced Marvel and DC to keep up, and Marvel didn't bother until DC, which had spent most of the '70s and early '80s in potentially fatal decline, and inspired by publicized early '80s creator-rights struggles byJack Kirby andSteve Gerber, adopted many "independent publisher" notions about royalties, artist ownership of original artwork, etc. to woo talent away from Marvel.[1]
| Shazam Awards | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Outstanding achievement in thecomic book field |
| Country | United States of America |
| Presented by | Academy of Comic Book Arts |
| First award | 1970 |
| Final award | 1975 |
TheShazam Awards were a series of awards given between 1970 and 1975 for outstanding achievement in the comic book field. Awards were given in the year following publication of the material (at a dinner ceremony modeled on theNational Cartoonist Society'sReuben Award dinners).[11] The Shazam Awards were based on nominations and were the first comics awards voted upon by industry professionals.[4] The name of the award is that of the magic word used by the originalCaptain Marvel, a popular superhero of the 1940s and early 1950s.
Marvel's comic-bookSecret Wars II #1 (1985) features a fictional scriptwriter, Stewart Cadwall (based on real-life writerSteve Gerber)[12] who has a Shazam Award on his table. When Cadwall becomes a superhuman, his Shazam Award turns into a weapon.[13] Cadwall and his Shazam Award re-appeared inIron Man #197 (1985).[14]
Also nominated:Nick Cuti; Steve Gerber;Joe Gill
Additional credits where not given in cited source:[19]
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