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GROTH: You drew the Ben Casey newspaper strip for quite a while. What's the difference in approaching a daily strip and a 17-page comic book story?
ADAMS: For one thing you have to retell your story every three panels, which is really ridiculous. You also have to create enough interest in three panels to sustain an audience, which is very hard to do. Most of the strips that come from comic books don't do that, and that's why most of the strips that come from comic books are destined for failure. I consider myself a partial expert in the field because I took a strip that was not destined to do well and took it up to 265 papers and kept it at that level until the strip ended. There are all kinds of other standards that have to be in comic strips. The one thing that's most important about comic strips is that they're dead, and they should remain dead as much as possible.
GROTH: How do you mean?
ADAMS: Comic strips are waste of time. Who needs a three panel story? A joke, maybe, a three panel joke, but not a story. Not when you can watch Star Wars, or watch television shows or read comic books. They're a big waste of time.
GROTH: You're saying the newspaper strip is totally...
ADAMS: ...Out of date. When things die they should be left to die. They just ought to die. All things ought to die. Just die! Goodbye! They died ten years ago, maybe longer ago than that. I don't why I did mine. The Marvel magazines is a lot more the direction that comic books should be going in. Is The Hulk in color or in black and white?
GROTH: In color.
ADAMS: That's where it's gonna be at. A change in format [to full-color magazine comics] will happen because it is economically feasible and marketable. It is economically feasible from a distribution and retail point of view. With one drop of the cash register you've made 35¢. Beyond that, it's a package that will last longer. It's a package that people are used to handling.