31 Facts About Howard Chaykin

Howard Victor Chaykin is an American comic book artist and writer.

Howard Chaykin was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Rosalind Pave and Norman Drucker, who soon separated.

Howard Chaykin was initially raised by his grandparents in Staten Island, New York City, until his mother married Leon Howard Chaykin in 1953 and the family moved to East Flatbush and later to 370 Saratoga Avenue, Brownsville, Brooklyn.

At 14, Howard Chaykin moved with his divorced mother to the Kew Gardens section of Queens.

Howard Chaykin said in 2000 he was raised on welfare after his parents separated and that his absent biological father eventually was declared dead, although Chaykin, as an adult, located him alive.

Howard Chaykin was introduced to comics by his cousin, who gave him a refrigerator box filled with them.

Howard Chaykin graduated from Jamaica High School at 16, in 1967, and in mid-1968 worked at Zenith Press.

Howard Chaykin attended Columbia College in Chicago that fall, but left school and returned to New York the following year.

Howard Chaykin said that after high school, "I hitchhiked around the country" before becoming, at 19, a "gofer" for the New York City-based comic book artist Gil Kane, whom he would name as his greatest influence.

Howard Chaykin was doing [the early graphic novel] Blackmark, and I did a really bad job pasting up the dialog and putting in [Zip-a-Tone].

Howard Chaykin worked there for a "couple of months", and in 1971 published his first professional comics work, for the adult-theme Western feature Shattuck in the military newspaper the Overseas Weekly, one of Wood's clients.

At one point Howard Chaykin lived in the same Queens apartment building as artists Allen Milgrom, Walter Simonson, and Bernie Wrightson.

In 1976, Howard Chaykin landed the job of drawing the Marvel Comics adaptation of the first Star Wars film, written by Roy Thomas.

Howard Chaykin left after 10 issues to work in more adult and experimental comics, and to do paperback book covers.

Howard Chaykin penciled DC Comics' first miniseries, World of Krypton.

Howard Chaykin went back to Cody Starbuck with a story in Heavy Metal between May and September 1981, in the same painted art style he'd used for the Moorcock graphic novel.

Howard Chaykin made wide use of Craftint Duoshade illustration boards, which in the period before computers allowed him to add a shaded texture to the finished art.

Rather than setting the series in its traditional 1930s milieu, Howard Chaykin updated it to a contemporary setting and included his own style of extreme violence.

Howard Chaykin returned to DC to write the three-issue miniseries Twilight, drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and revamping some of DC's science-fiction heroes of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Tommy Tomorrow and Space Cabby.

Howard Chaykin then wrote and illustrated Midnight Men for Marvel's Epic imprint in 1993.

Howard Chaykin created the four-issue miniseries Power and Glory in 1994, a superhero-themed public relations satire.

In 1996, DC's Helix imprint published Cyberella, a cyberpunk dystopia written by Howard Chaykin and drawn by Don Cameron.

Howard Chaykin began to drift out of comics by the mid-1990s.

Howard Chaykin began co-writing American Century with David Tischmann for Vertigo.

That year, Howard Chaykin became part of the creative team on Mutant X, a television series inspired by the Marvel Comics series of mutant titles.

Howard Chaykin illustrated the 2008 Marvel MAX comic War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle, scripted by Garth Ennis.

Marvel in June 2010 published a Rawhide Kid miniseries drawn by Howard Chaykin and written by Ron Zimmerman.

Howard Chaykin wrote and drew the Avengers 1959 five-issue miniseries, a spinoff of a storyline introduced in The New Avengers.

Howard Chaykin helmed a reboot of the science-fiction character Buck Rogers beginning in August 2013, again in the capacity of both artist and writer.

That marriage ended in 1986, and in 1989, in Los Angeles, Howard Chaykin married Jeni Munn, a union that lasted through 1992.

In November 2002, in Ventura, Howard Chaykin married Laurel Beth Rice.