Howard Chaykin
Howard V. Chaykin was born in Newark in 1950. Chaykin started his career in comics as an assistant to Gil Kane. Working in the studio of Wallace Wood, he made his debut with the western 'Shattuck' in Overseas Weekly in cooperation with Nicola Cuti. He also assisted Gray Morrow and Neal Adams.
From the early 1970s, Chaykin worked as a freelancer for publishers like Marvel, DC, Warren and Atlas. He started out drawing stories for publications like Marvel Spotlight and Marvel Premiere, working with characters like 'Solomon Kane' and 'Monark Starstalker'. In 1974, he created 'Cody Starbuck' for the Star Reach review.
In Heavy Metal, he proved himself one of the best authors of science fiction graphic novels. Chaykin pioneered the graphic novel in the USA with 'The Stars my Destination' and 'The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers from Hell'. In 1977, prior to the movies, he drew the first 'Star Wars' comics with scripts by Roy Thomas for Marvel, which were a very big hit.
In 1983, he created the hit series 'American Flagg!' over at First Comics. Among his best known comics are his DC works 'The Shadow' (1986) and 'Blackhawk' (1988), and his post-modern graphic novel 'Time2' at First Comics (1987), in which he could endulge his love for jazz and New York.
In 1988, he created the erotic 'Black Kiss'. Since then his comics output has been limited. He briefly returned to Marvel for a Wolverine/Nick Fury graphic novel and the mini-series 'Power and Glory'. Howard Chaykin also works as an executive script consultant for televsion on such serials as 'The Flash' and 'Viper TV'.
