Comics2Film: Words From Here: Howard Chaykin

The first thing that pops into my head when I hear the name Howard Chaykin is Black Kiss.

At the time, 1990, I was about seventeen or so, and was mostly interested in new books coming out. McFarlane and Jim Lee, Dale Keown, Leifeld... all those guys were becoming famous... and I'll admit, I was hooked on their artwork, just like every other comic collecting teen out there.

I had, also, recently been introduced to Faust, and a huge number of independent comics. Plus it was the beginning of the painters period, with Mckean coming out with Arkham Asylum... Muth and Williams came out with Meltdown. Sienkiewicz had come out with Elektra: Assassin with Miller. Then there were the original painters, Jeffrey Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith, Frazetta, Boris and a host of others. I was hooked on them. The number of artists that I knew off the top of my head was nothing compared to the world I was about to find.

A friend of mine handed me two issues of Big Black Kiss, two large books with a guy and a girl kissing. I mean, shit, three issues, this guy hands me issues 1 and 3. I even voiced my dismay. All he said was "Read them."

You know how many times people have come up to me, said "Read this"? Luckily, a lot.

So I read them. Coming from reading books with painted work, it was jarring to read something that was in black and white, but the transition was easy enough. Now, I didn't know how long Chaykin had been in the industry before Black Kiss, but it was obvious from the get-go, the man knew what he was doing.

Recently I read an interview of Chaykin from Dave Sims, where Chaykin had described Steranko as a graphics man rather than a drawer. Well, Chaykin's work is both, meticulously designed (graphically) and beautifully rendered work. But Black Kiss is just the tip of the iceberg in a long line of incredible work.

The next thing of Chaykin's that I found was The Shadow: Blood and Judgment. I was not lucky enough to be around for Mike Kaluta's work in his Shadow days. I've got them now, but sometimes I think I was born too late.

Chaykin's Shadow books came out before Black Kiss, and I was excited as hell to have found something of his that was pre-Kiss. I'd gotten a hold of the individual books and noticed that Chaykin's graphic nature looked like it was at its peak. Issue 4 of the series is still one of my all time favorite covers in comics.

But I needed to go farther. The next book I purchased was his Blackhawk series, which was also pre-Kiss. Published in 1987 and 88, a year after The Shadow series, you could see the progression of Chaykin's artwork. The Shadow, for all of its graphic style and content, looked and felt like a looser work. Blackhawk looked like a personal work. From the fully painted covers to the 30's and 40's feel inside (issue one has these great pieces of a lion and a hawk, really neat). In fact, and I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way, one gets a certain sense of Frank Miller's later work, derived from Chaykin's Blackhawk. But maybe that's just me.

It wasn't until years later that I started taking specific artists seriously, following their careers and such. Chaykin was one of them. Last year I was lucky enough to stumble on my dad's collection of American Flagg! comics (my dad was a huge collector). And it was only recently that I started reading them (unfortunately no one handed me a stack and said "Read these.").

Reading up on Chaykin, I found that before he started American Flagg!, he'd gone on a two year hiatus from the comic industry. This quote is from Ron Goulart's The Great Comic Book Artists.

Chaykin returned to regular comic book work in 1983 with American Flagg!, after a two-year absence... During the years he'd been away from comics, working in paperbacks, he'd become "soured very much on what was being done in American comics." When approached by First Comics to develop a comic book of his own, Chaykin was certain he didn't want to do a Marvel-type book - "I love the idea of comics, but I'm not very interested in superheroes."

Previous to American Flagg!, Chaykin had been working in comics since 1972, working as an inker on numerous projects, but also working on such books as Star Wars, Sword of Sorcery, Scorpion and Cody Starbuck... plus Dominic Fortune and Solomon Kane, Stars Be My Destination and Empire.

That two years seemed to stew for Chaykin, who created one of the greatest comic 'heroes' in, what I would think, a long time. American Flagg!, for First Comics, was obviously a springboard for Chaykin, to experiment, push the boarders and create fine work. This formula has worked well for many other artists... but it seems that Chaykin pioneered the idea of change in comics, creating strange and new panel concepts, creating a multitude of different uses for type as not only type but as an important design element.

And I cannot go any further without mentioning Ken Bruzenak, Chaykin's letterer for god knows how long, from Flagg to Blackhawk to Time (squared) to Kiss to Power and Glory.

Later on there was The Scorpio Connection and a number of books on Batman, including an Elseworlds issue and Thrillkiller, illustrated by Dan Brereton. He's also written Son of Superman, Superman: Distant Fires, Fires of the Revolution with John Francis Moore and Mike Mignola and a number of other titles, including Heavy Hitters 'Midnight Men', which he also drew.

Something I haven't mentioned yet is Chaykin's writing. Well, to be honest, across the board on the series that I've touched on, Chaykin's writing is smart, funny, sexy, down right dirty in some points and violent. Reading the American Flagg! series now, after having been a victim of a lot of crap that trickled down from the publishing companies of comics in the late 80's and 90's, it's obvious where a lot of writers got their inspiration. American Flagg! is a beautiful science fiction epic which, in 1985 was nominated 3 times for Nebula awards in the short story category. It's obvious why.

The writing stems from different violent utopia stories, from Heinlein to Philip K. Dick, but with its own originality that makes for incredible reading. You can see where writers like Warren Ellis have gotten their inspiration from.

Blackhawk and The Shadow were obviously personal projects of Chaykin's that brought back books from his childhood (or teenage years). Both were taken from original series and transformed into beautifully rendered and frightening tales that stemmed from Chaykin's fascination of science fiction, fantasy, history and sex.

And I can't say a damned thing about Black Kiss except it's one of the staples of the independent comic market, one of the top five independent comic books ever published. It's obvious that Chaykin takes the writing as serious as the artwork, in whichever work you pick up of his.

Chaykin has not limited himself to comic books, especially in the 90's. He was executive story consultant of the television show The Flash. He also helped write seven of the shows 22 episodes, along with a few episodes of Earth: Final Conflict. He was also involved in the TV series Viper, as a supervising producer.

Currently, he is in the works of the up and coming Mutant X show, which you can find out more information by clicking here. I had the opportunity to ask Howard Chaykin some questions about himself, his life and his work.

The vein of the majority of these questions are meant to be fun. I don't think people ask the right questions during interviews. I touched on some industry related topics because, well, people who will see this are interested in the industry. But I also added the other questions because, well, he's human.

John Painz (JP): Could you tell me who or what influenced you the most, to decide to get into comics?

Howard Chaykin (HC): Gil Kane, first and foremost, followed very closely by Alex Toth, Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino.

JP: How would you describe the direction of the industry (comic industry), as of today, and where it might be heading in the future?

HC: Comics are going to hell--and the form as we know it will likely cease to exist in your lifetime, in my opinion.

HC: Ronald Reagan. Richard Nixon. Hey--I'm a lifelong hardline Democrat--what do you expect?

JP: What would you say to a young'un if they were interested in entering this industry?

HC: Find another job--but if you really want to do this, don't be a fucking whore and produce the same puerile shit everybody else is, just to make a short term dollar.

HC: Comic books are a commercial medium, in which occasionally interesting work gets done, frequently despite itself. It's a meaningless question.

HC: Bing Crosby the legendary years, 1931-1957. Dion - King of the New York Streets. Hoagy Carmichael - the Stardust Man. Frank Loesser - I Hear Music. Louis Armstrong - the Complete Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.

JP: Was it easy for you to find help in artists of the late sixties, early seventies? Were their egos not so blown up as they are today?

HC: The men who created American comics--men my father's age--were for the most part, generous to a fault--an attitude that my generation maintained. It wasn't until the generation that followed the bump after mine--particularly the Image boys--that a selfish sliminess became the order of the day.

For those of you interested in a small video clip of Chaykin, go to this link. It's 7 megs, but for those of us who have a T1 or DSL (tee-hee), it's worth it. It's a neat description of Chaykin's idea of his own work.

If you are interested in purchasing any of Howard Chaykin's artwork, visit Graphic Collectibles! They have a whole slew of Chaykin's artwork for sale, from The Scorpio Connection (they even have the cover!), to American Flagg! to Time (Squared).

This interview was conducted early February, 2001.

Click here to learn more about John Painz and to find more Words From Here creator profiles.

Send John e-mail at stilesjp@wordsfromhere.com.

Published by Comics2Film with permission.