Howard Chaykin

American comic book writer and artist

Howard Chaykin’s influences include the comic book artist Gil Kane and the mid-20th century book illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker.

Chaykin is a longtime veteran of the comic book business, serving as an artist and writer for nearly every publisher of comics in the past four decades … and counting. He took the 1990s off to work mostly on unwatchable television, so he missed the money and dreck that was comics in that execrable decade.

He is responsible – some might say culpable – for introducing a number of previously unexplored themes to comic books. Chaykin generally is better regarded by his colleagues than by the enthusiasts, a reality that serves his ego, but not his wallet. Thanks to the above-mentioned unwatchable television, he’s usually OK with that.

These days, he’s on a tear about the inexplicable alpha position maintained by comic book writers at the expense of comic book artists, working on educating those aforementioned enthusiasts as to just what writing really means in the context of this curious visual medium.