The Art of Howard Chaykin

As it stands, I am happy to see a retrospective of Howard Chaykin's career. I'm a child of the Bronze Age of comics, when Chaykin was one of the young turks trying to make a name for himself. He's one of the more innovative members of his generation and I had high hopes for a book that reflects that. What this book is reflects some of that; but, I still felt a bit disappointed. It's chocked full of Chaykin imagery, though it could use some better organization. The testimonials are a bit of a mixed bag, some insightful and fun, some just "okay." The biographical piece does give some insight into Chaykin and his mindset; but, at some parts I couldn't help but wish Robert Greenberger had delved more deeply. For the casual fan, it's a fine piece and documents Chaykin's career well. For the more experienced fan, you want far more than it delivers. One wishes that it had the deeper scope that IDW brings to their subjects, like the volume they delivered on Chaykin's contemporary George Perez. You aren't going to get every single page of art that Chaykin created, as the volume would be massive and the rights probably unattainable. However, it would have been nice to see more of some of the material that Chaykin owns outright, like the Cody Starbuck stories. They underwent quite an evolution between the first issue of Star *Reach, the color one-shot, and the serialized story in Heavy Metal. We don't get to really see that. I would have liked to have seen more depth on some of Chaykin's projects, particularly some of his work in the early days of graphic novels, like The Stars My Destination, Empire and The Swords of Heaven and the Flowers of Hell. The one person, aside from David Tischman, I would have loved to have heard from is Leslie Zahler, Chaykin's colorist on American Flagg! and ex-wife. However, I can understand how that might have been a bit troublesome to include. As I say, this is from the point of view of a longtime fan, not a casual reader. If that is you, this is a fine overview of Chaykin's work, including a checklist of his individual works if you are looking to sample his stories and art.

Howard Chaykin is a great artist but this is not a great book about him. I can still remember as a kid getting a Star Reach package from Krupp with Cody Starbuck as part of it (good thing mom didn't find that section with the bull-man boffing the woman and getting its head cut-off). Looking back, in its anti-heroic stance, sci-fi punk stance, graphicy style and brutally condensed narrative structure that book revolutionized comics -- just from CS and American Flagg alone Chaykin is clearly a historic innovator in his field.But this Art of HC book -- the illustrations seem haphazardly chosen and there's not much feel in the few story selections for his radical story-telling. The testimonials are generally fannish and the writing dull and uninsightful. How come there's nothing serious about the David Tishman phase or an interview with him? What was going on with Chaykin when he was making that crazy Black Kiss series? How about some old DC or Red Circle unreprinted stories published in full?To be fair the Ken Bruzenak interview was pretty informative and the biographical piece by Chaykin is also quite good, his comparisons of the 70's comics greats with there EC forebearers is rich food for thought. And there are some rare illustrations and prep sketches that were good to get a hold of. But in general I found the book to be most useful for learning about obscure Chaykin projects that might be worth hunting down. For the casual reader I'd suggest buying a copy of American Flagg, Black Kiss or the first Bite Club and skipping this book.

This item is a great buy. I received as advertised and on time. The history and progress of Chaykin's art is fully detailed and beautifully illustrated. I highly recommend for all Howard Chaykin collectors.

well worth every penny, color is great. buy it you will not be sorry, the art some of which I have never seen before

Exzcellant overview, well laid out page design, & great & representiv selection of images from through out his careeer to date.

The media could not be loaded.  The book is a 256-page hardcover published by Dynamite Entertainment. For the price it's selling at, and the amount of content it has, it's great value for the money. Some places incorrectly listed it to have only 200 pages.Howard Chaykin's story and career is told in a chronologically from the 1950s. It's a biography sort of, mixed with essays from such as Joe Jusko, Dave Johnson, and even Joe Quesada. There's a lot of text but the most interesting are the back stories of each title he works on, those are famous such as American Flagg!, Black Kiss, and those not that successful. That would things like things like story conceptualization, drawing of the pages and art, competing with other titles, etc. Howard Chaykin has plenty of war stories in the comic industry that makes this book an insightful read.Accompanying the text are many illustrations and comic panels reproduced in high quality.Also included is a checklist of all the titles he has worked on. And a gallery follows that with uninterrupted full page illustrations, sketches and selected comic pages.It's a great book for any fans who has followed his work.(See more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

This is one of those reviews where I'm not sure where to begin. I can't start by saying that Chaykin is one of the greatest comics artists ever because he isn't -though he's pretty damn good. What he did do, however, is to write and draw American Flagg which is the greatest science fiction comic ever -I've reviewed the two-volume compilation elsewhere on Amazon. He did this back in the early 80's before Alan Moore (who wrote a backup strip for it) became ALAN (PRAISE HIS NAME) MOORE! and before Frank Miller released The Dark Knight Returns which cough borrowed cough the narrative/satirical info-dump technique from AF and then got widely praised for this 'innovation'. Perhaps not surprisingly, Chaykin doesn't have much time for Miller. I could write a lot about American Flagg but I've already done that so I'll just say that if Chaykin had done nothing else he'd have earned an honoured place in the history of comics. Fortunately he did and this book explores all of it.As an account of the work of a comic writer and artist, this is an excellent book. It's physically large, on glossy paper, with a vast amount of illustrations and an equally substantial amount of text. Structured chronologically, most of the written content derives from long conversations with Chaykin conducted over the course of a year. (This text is interspersed with comments from various peers which range from insightful and informative to 'my buddy Howie, wisecrack, wisecrack)'. This is followed by a checklist of everything Chaykin has had published, split into categories including comic books, strips, collected editions, etc. After this comes an eclectic forty page gallery of artwork. Anyone wanting to create their own The Art Of My Favourite Artist wouldn't go wrong using this as a template.Chaykin started back in the early 70's as an assistant to people like Gil Kane. It's a comic business tradition of artists using assistants to do background work on panels and learn the trade that way and Chaykin continued this tradition. It's a form of payback and Chaykin always pays his debts. The impression gleaned from the book is that he's the sort of person that if you like you like a lot and if you don't you cross the street to avoid but that's probably your loss. While admitting he might be an acquired taste, his peers are unstinting in their praise for his professionalism, the honesty and insight of his criticism, and how he goes out of his way to be helpful. When it comes to his work, he's meticulous. If he agrees to write and draw a 28 page comic every month then that's the editor will receive and it will be the best he can do.By the early 80's Chaykin had established his style (see samples below) and it hasn't changed much; refined perhaps, also partly altered by the improvement in the technological changes in the use of colour. While his own work for independent comics companies can include the near pornographic Black Kiss (sexy shemale vampires no less), his tendency is to write the roguish hero, as good with a quip/gun/sword/blaster as he is in bed, he's also created comics for both DC and Marvel and drawn/written their characters.While an intelligent writer and a skilled artist, his prime skill is as a designer. The way he lays out a page that blends text and art is outstanding -check out Google images for numerous examples. Not everything he does works -the same can be said for Alan Moore- but it's always interesting and he deserves this lavish and currently, on Amazon, modestly priced book.

There could have been a more varied selection of artwork.Editing had several simple mistakes.

Always loved Chaykin's work, the wit, flair and swagger was there from the start and carries on today. Some remarkable pieces here that I've never seen, and representations of work I know obsessively well. A fine volume.