The Arthur Adams Virtual Museum Main Menu

Arthur Adams Early Artwork 1980 1981 1982

1980 Nude Woman Riding a Fantasy Beast - Ink & Watercolor (August 19th, 1980)

The earliest known existing artwork by Arthur Adams.

Hero Illustrated #8 Page 77 (February, 1994) "When I realized I wasn't going to be a paleontologist, I then decided I wanted to be Frank Frazetta, so I used to try painting and drawing like Frazetta, and you're bound to learn something looking at somebody that good."

Comic Book Artist #17 Page 25 (January, 2002) "Before I started going to conventions, I was doing drawings for people at school to get money to buy comics. I had a couple of the Frazetta books, and I'd get Xeroxes of the black-&-white drawings, and I'd paint them... I didn't know what I was doing with any of the stuff! I wanted it to look like the oil paintings, but I had no idea how to do that, so I was just using watercolor, putting it on as thick as possible! [laughs] If you bent the pages, the paint would just crack off! [laughter] I ended up using it in really odd ways, but I would sell those for a couple of bucks to kids at lunchtime, and I'd take that money to buy comics. Then, I started going to conventions when I was about 17, and I met Bob Shreck at a Creation Convention, and asked if I could set up at a table, too. I had brought my portfolio and showed it to him, and he said, "Sure! Grab a table!"

This was made when he was only 17 years and 4 months old and then it was sold at one of the first conventions he attended in California. It stayed in one man's original art collection until it was auctioned off decades later in Michigan. A few years after that, 'The Arthur Adams Virtual Museum' acquired it from the auction winner.

His early artwork is especially rare, due to the decision by Arthur Adams to throw away all of it when he moved out of his parents house and into his first apartment. His Dad was upset when he found out they were all gone, because he had been secretly selling some of his son's artwork to co-workers.

The art features many of Arthur's typical qualities - detailed, sexy, has a distinctive style, & light-hearted with that typical Adams smile. It's easy to tell that even back then he was very skilled artistically, having drawn since he was very young.

He was still using the same signature when he began working at Marvel. Check out the cover of Marvel Fanfare #13 and compare.

Joyce Chin had this to say about the artwork after showing it to Arthur Adams - "He says he has no memory of doing this, but that he did do pieces like this when he was around 17 or 18."

1981 Nude Woman Riding a Purple Dinosaur - Ink & Watercolor

1981 Alien Stalking a Showering Nude Woman

1982 Vampirella (March, 1982)

1982 Female Indiana Jones (March 20th, 1982)

1982 Acroyear - Micronauts (April 21st, 1982)

1982 Alley-Kat-Abra (April 29th, 1982)

1982 Marionette - Micronauts (April 30th, 1982)

Arthur Adams’ 1982 Marionette artwork is one of the most historically important pieces from the very start of his career, documenting the precise moment when his ambition to become a professional comic book artist was actively taking shape. Created on April 30, 1982, just a few weeks after his nineteenth birthday, this artwork dates to the same period in which Adams was openly stating his goal of breaking into the comics industry.

As noted in his artist profile in High Energy—which carries a Spring 1982 cover date—Adams specifically named Micronauts as the book he dreamed of drawing professionally. This was not a casual influence: Micronauts was his favorite comic book and the series that made him realize he wanted to become a comic book artist in the first place. The timing is crucial. The High Energy profile and the Marionette artwork were created essentially side-by-side, making this piece a direct visual manifestation of that stated goal.

The subject matter reinforces this importance. Marionette is depicted as the star female character of Micronauts—and Adams’ personal favorite—making this artwork not only an early technical exercise, but a deeply personal tribute to the comic that inspired his entire career. In this drawing, Adams was not imitating trends or chasing commercial appeal; he was drawing the character that represented his aspiration to enter the industry.

The artwork also reflects Adams’ early grassroots efforts to establish himself. At the time, he created the Marionette piece to sell for exactly $15 to anyone willing to buy it at a convention where he personally set up and tabled. This places the drawing firmly within the tradition of early-career convention artwork produced not for publishers or editors, but for direct connection with fans, collectors, and the broader comics community.

Artistically, the piece already displays many of the hallmarks that would later define Adams’ legendary style: refined anatomy, expressive facial detail, confident line work, and a strong sense of motion and narrative energy. Even at this formative stage, the sophistication of the composition foreshadows his later breakout success on titles such as Longshot and X-Men.

Taken together, the 1982 Marionette artwork is far more than an early drawing. It is a foundational artifact—created at the exact moment Arthur Adams was declaring his professional ambitions, inspired by the comic that made him want to become an artist, featuring his favorite character, and sold directly by him at a convention as he worked to break into the industry. For collectors and historians, it represents the birth point of one of the most influential comic artists of the modern era. In a fitting bit of early symbolism, Arthur Adams quite literally took aim at his dreams, fired his shot—and scored a direct hit. Shortly after being hired by Marvel, he inked the cover of Micronauts: The New Voyages #2.