Howard Chaykin

Conversations

Brannon Costello

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781626744264
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Comics & Graphic Novels Literaturkritik

One of the most distinctive voices in mainstream comics since the 1970s, Howard Chaykin (b. 1950) has earned a reputation as a visionary formal innovator and a compelling storyteller whose comics offer both pulp-adventure thrills and thoughtful engagement with real-world politics and culture. His body of work is defined by the belief that comics can be a vehicle for sophisticated adult entertainment and for narratives that utilize the medium's unique properties to explore serious themes with intelligence and wit. Beginning with early interviews in fanzines and concluding with a new interview conducted in 2010 with the volume's editor, Howard Chaykin: Conversations collects widely ranging discussions from Chaykin's earliest days as an assistant for such legends as Gil Kane and Wallace Wood to his recent work on titles including Dominic Fortune, Challengers of the Unknown, and American Century. The book includes thirty-five line illustrations selected from Chaykin, as well. As a writer/artist for outlets such as DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Heavy Metal, he has participated in and influenced many of the major developments in mainstream comics over the past four decades. He was an early pioneer in the graphic novel format in the 1970s, and his groundbreaking sci-fi satire American Flagg! was an essential contribution to the maturation of the comic book as a vehicle for social commentary in the 1980s.

Still Chaykin After All These Years: A Life in American Comics

JON B. COOKE / 2004

From Comic Book Artist vol. 2 #5, December 2004, pp. 34–37, 72–102. Reprinted by permission of Jon B. Cooke.

“A man in the middle.” That’s one way to look at veteran comic-book writer/artist Howard V. Chaykin’s position in the field. On the one hand, he’s an accomplished mainstream chronicler of boffo superhero yarns and, on the other, the man is also a cutting-edge, smart storyteller, able to weave sophisticated tales that can appeal to the most adult and urbane tastes. Science fiction, crime, Western, romance, war, mystery, and—yes—costumed heroes are genres the Brooklyn-raised raconteur has mastered over his three and a half decades in the business, but often a Chaykin story blurs categorical labels. (You try shoe-horning his American Flagg! exploits, for instance!) Though his dialogue and characters are witty and intelligent, Howard’s work is rarely pretentious and always entertaining, revealing perhaps that at the heart of it all, HVC is a showman. Plus, like the best double-threats in American comic books, Howard (at one’s dire peril, unless he is Neal Adams or Walter Simonson, does anyone call Mr. Chaykin “Howie”) has a completely individualistic style, both as writer and artist, difficult to imitate with an approach so uniquely his own it would be folly to even attempt. Another laudable and obvious talent in HVC’s arsenal is the creator’s masterful design sense, undoubtedly honed from a lifelong appreciation—and now full-blown obsession, judging from his extraordinary collection of vintage original art—for the supreme artists who reigned during the Golden Age of American magazine illustration, as well as a deep appreciation for the art of typography, another “real world” influence clearly evident in Howard’s work (especially his innumerable collaborations with one of comics’ greatest letterers, Ken Bruzenak). Come to think of it, perhaps Howard’s greatest achievement in funny-books (besides paving the way for creator-owned, independent comics with his breakaway 1980s hit, American Flagg!) has been to help usher in a profound and professional appreciation for the greater world of illustration and graphic design. Still, I’m betting, in the end, it will be HVC’s outrageous excess of personality that just might be remembered best. Loud, scatological, abrasive, biting, acidic, sarcastic, droll, opinionated, and—above all—hilariously truthful, HVC is simply fearless in telling it like he sees it. And, again in this humble editor’s mind, the comics world is exceptionally lucky to have had the likes of this feisty, short, angry, smart New York Jewish kid bless its ranks with his oh-so-necessary and vital presence. Now, on with our chat! — Y.E.

The following interview took place at Mr. Chaykin’s Los Angeles home on January 21, 2004, and was transcribed by Steven Tice. HVC copyedited the final transcript.

Comic Book Artist: How old are you, Howard?

Howard Chaykin: I’m fifty-three years old, and that means I lie about my age in show business, but not in comic books, because it’s easy to track it down in this field. I can be Googled up the ass.

CBA: “Chaykin,” what does the name mean?

Howard: It means “seagull” in Russian. I found out about six years ago that my name isn’t really Chaykin, because I learned the man I thought was my father was actually my adoptive father. My real father’s name was Norman Drucker, no relation to Mort Drucker. I found this out due to a series of weird events that took place.

I was raised in Brooklyn, and my mother and adoptive father split up when I was a kid, so I hadn’t seen him since I was a little boy. I sought him out, expecting to find his grave. Instead I found this seventy-eight-year-old guy, alive and well, living in Phoenix.

My mother never knew I had found my father, and my brothers never knew either. But a couple of months after my mother died, and as I started to make peace with this situation, I get a phone call from a woman, a cousin of mine on my father’s side. When my mother split with my dad, she divorced herself entirely from his side of the family.

This woman, in the course of the conversation, remarks about my adoption, and tells me something she assumed I knew, that this guy wasn’t my father. It turns out I was born out of wedlock and adopted by him when I was two. All the women in my mother’s family knew about this, and all of them had assumed I had known.

I had a lot of resentment about not having been told. Now I only have half of my own health history. My mother died of malignant lymphoma, so there you go. I called my brother—now my half-brother—and his reaction was, “Holy fuck! It’s just like Bonanza!” [laughter]

See, ask a simple question . . . but I’ll be Chaykin for the rest of my life.

CBA: What’s your mother’s maiden name?

Howard: My mother’s name is Russian, Pavonovich or something. The name came through Ellis Island as Pave. Her mother was Austrian and her father Polish. So I’m a classic Eastern European Jew. I have direct antecedents with all the great men of the comic book business, guys like Jack Kirby and Gil Kane. Comics, in those days, were the domain of the Jews and Italians, because they were the only kids who would work for the kind of money they were being paid.

CBA: Have you examined your Drucker lineage?

Howard: No. Chaykin is an unusual enough name that you can actually find the few people who have it, whereas there are a lot of Druckers. I ultimately had to accept the fact that my father’s identity was my mother’s trump card from beyond the grave. On the other hand, it inspired me to find my own daughter, in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve not met her, but we’ve talked on the phone and corresponded through e-mail.

CBA: Did she express any resentment about being put up for adoption?

Howard: No. She’s perfectly happy being the child of her adoptive parents.

CBA: Had she known she was adopted?

Howard: Yes. I don’t necessarily want an on-going relationship with her, but found her just to be sure that she’s alive and to let her know if she needs to call me she can. I gave her all the information about me that I can’t get from my real father.

CBA: So this Drucker was a Jew?

Howard: Oh yes—I’m a Jew-boy from way back. There’s no escaping that reality. [laughter]

CBA: When did your mother’s family come over?

Howard: In 1909. My mother was raised in Staten Island, the one borough of New York not inculcated with Judaism. I spent my earliest childhood there, weekends, because my parents were constantly fighting—so I was always being shipped out to Staten Island. It’s impossible these days to imagine this, but at the age of seven, I was spending an hour and a half on public transportation, all alone, going from Brooklyn to Manhattan to Staten Island. I took a bus, a subway, a ferry, and rode another bus to get out to what was then actually the countryside.

CBA: Was she retired when you were visiting?

Howard: My grandmother was working as a peddler until the day she died. There were no retail stores on Staten Island. The malls didn’t come in until the very late ’50s. She would go to wholesale outlets in lower Manhattan, buy clothing for her customers, make her rounds, and finally deliver the clothing to the black, Italian, and Polish community on Staten Island.

All of my grandmother’s friends were these batty old ladies. I hung out at their houses because my grandmother was my surrogate mother in a lot of ways. So I grew up in the slums of Brooklyn and spent weekends in the rural countryside of Staten Island, getting this weird overlap.

CBA: They put you on the bus and you took the whole trip alone?

Howard: Uh-huh. I took my clothes and some comics. My grandmother was always willing to pay for comics and I just took my stuff.

CBA: So you obviously never had a chance to talk to your mother about your father?

Howard: No.

CBA: Was there creativity on your mother’s side?

Howard: No. My family was archetypally liberal Democrat—Rooseve...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology
• Howie Chaykin Unmasked!
• The Chaykin Tapes
• The Howard Chaykin Interview
• Howard Chaykin
• Howard Chaykin: Heading for Time
• Howard Chaykin Puts It All Back Together Again
• Howard Chaykin: Home on the Plexus Range
• RRRRRRED
• Howard Chaykin
• Writer/Artist: Howard Chaykin
• Real World Bravado
• An Interview with . . . Howard Chaykin
• Sting of the Scorpion
• Still Chaykin After All These Years: A Life in American Comics
• My Lunch with Howard Chaykin
• An Afternoon with Howard Chaykin
• Index