CHAYKIN, Howard V(ictor)

(1950-)

   US writer/illustrator, mainly of COMICS. HC's first professional work (1973) was the art for MARVEL COMICS's War of the Worlds (a sequel to H.G. WELLS's novel!) and DC COMICS's Sword of Sorcery (which featured Fritz LEIBER's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser). Much of his work has been sf. He was writer/artist on Cody Starbuck and Iron Wolf before drawing the bestselling adaptation of STAR WARS for Marvel in 1976. HC teamed up with Samuel R. DELANY to produce the GRAPHIC NOVEL Empire (graph 1978), and the following year he worked with Michael MOORCOCK on The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (graph 1979), a story in Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. The first vol of his graphic-novel version (adaptation by Byron PREISS) of Alfred BESTER's Tiger! Tiger! (1956; vt The Stars My Destination US) appeared as The Stars My Destination Vol 1 (graph 1979); the second vol, though advertised, was not in fact published until it appeared, with the contents of the first, in The Stars My Destination (graph 1992). After working on Marvel's Micronauts, HC painted a number of covers for sf and fantasy paperbacks, returning to comics in 1983 as writer/artist for First Comics's AMERICAN FLAGG! - perhaps his major work - and later on Time(2). He revitalized The Shadow for DC (some critics, such as Harlan ELLISON, disapproving of his innovations) in 1986 and Blackhawk in 1988. After the pornographic Black Kiss (1988-9) HC increasingly concentrated on writing, as in Twilight for DC and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser for Marvel. Moorcock speaks of HC's "considerable intelligence and . . . excellent eye".

   RH

   See also: HEAVY METAL.