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Crusty Bunker, or the Crusty Bunkers, was the collective pseudonym of a group of comic book clustered around Neal Adams' and Dick Giordano's New York City-based art and design agency Continuity Studios from 1972 to 1977. The group was also occasionally credited as Ilya Hunch, Chuck Bunker, or The Goon Squad.Greg Theakston and Kevin Nowlan, et al., at Many Crusty Bunkers team members went on to successful individual careers in the comics industry.
Around 2020, Adams opened a Burbank, California, comics retailer called Neal Adams Crusty Bunkers Comics and Toys. The store is managed by Adams' son Joel Adams. On occasion, Neal Adams would create and sell items such as variant covers, called "Crusty Bunker" editions, which were offered exclusively at the store or from Adams himself.
There were over 60 artists who at one time or another were Crusty Bunker members. The core group consisted of artists who rented space at Continuity or worked up front in the advertising studio itself. Continuity would get the assignment, someone with experience (usually Adams or Giordano) would ink the faces and main figures, then pass it around for everyone to work on it, until the whole thing was completed. Comic book titles that the collective worked on included Marvel's Red Sonja and Marvel Premiere, the Marvel black-and-white magazine titles Dracula Lives!, Tales of the Zombie, and Monsters Unleashed; and DC's Sword of Sorcery.
Former Crusty Bunker Larry Hama recounted: "If a job was incredibly late, then the Crusty Bunkers would gather together half-a-dozen to a dozen inkers and... turn out a whole book in a day or two, all under the supervision of Neal Adams. It was a whirl. Guys would be passing pages back and forth. Guys would be standing over boards filling in blacks upside down while somebody was rendering a face at the bottom of the page".
This period was one of transition in the comics industry, as DC Comics had been toppled from comics dominance by Marvel Comics. In an attempt to revitalize its brand, DC made a concerted effort to entice young artists, including from this talent pool. As many of the Crusty Bunkers began getting regular comics work, they discontinued working in the group's collaborative fashion. The collective was effectively disbanded in 1977, although Adams resurrected the name for some of the comics put out by his own publishing company, Continuity Comics, from 1985 to 1993.
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