CHAYKIN, HOWARD 95
Comics did have in the 1970s came from its mild horror comics and licensed material
such as Flash Gordon, and Th e Phantom. Th e company stopped producing new comic
book content in 1978 and began publishing reprint material from its vast inventory.
In 1983, for about $30,000 plus royalties, DC Executive Vice President Paul Levitz
acquired the action hero titles as a gift for Dick Giordano, then managing editor at DC.
By the time Charlton Publishing closed their comic book publishing operation in 1986,
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had already used the Charlton action heroes as the
templates for their Watchmen series.
Randy Duncan
CHAYKIN, HOWARD (1950–). A distinctive visual stylist, a formal innovator,
and a compelling storyteller, Howard Chaykin has synthesized a diverse array of
infl uences—including pulp adventure, science fi ction, the We s t e r n, and classic
American illustration—to construct an unmistakably original body of work. After
beginning his career as an assistant for Gil Kane, Gray Morrow, Neal Adams, and
Wallace Wood, Chaykin’s fi rst major professional work was as an artist on the fi rst
issue of DC Comics’ Sword of Sorcery (1973). In addition to serving as artist on a
variety of titles for Marvel and DC in the 1970s, Chaykin also created original char-
acters such as pulp-inspired adventurers Th e Scorpion and Dominic Fortune, and
the swash- buckling space pirates Ironwolf and Cody Starbuck. His fl air for outer
space action made him a logical choice for his next major assignment, as penciler for
the Marvel Comics adaptation of Star Wars (1977).
Despite the growing appreciation for his work, Chaykin abandoned traditional comic
books in the later 1970s and early 1980s. Instead, he turned his attention to paperback
cover illustration and to long-form graphic novels, including an adaptation of Alfred
Bester’s Stars My Destination (1978), and collaborations with Samuel R. Delany (Empire
1978) and Michael Moorcock (Th e Swords of Heaven, Th e Flowers of Hell 1979).
Chaykin returned to comics in 1983 with the groundbreaking science fi ction satire
for which he remains best known, American Flagg! Here, many of the interrelated
themes and motifs that characterize Chaykin’s mature work fi rst come into focus: the
search for authenticity in an increasingly virtual world, an ambivalence about the ways
in which mass culture shapes (or warps) the imagination, a deep distrust of political
authority, and an emphasis on sexuality as an essential element of human nature. In order
to convey his vision of a futuristic United States whose citizens had been abandoned
by its elites and numbed into complacency by a relentless barrage of puerile entertain-
ment, Chaykin developed a sophisticated art style that favored dense, multi-tiered page
layouts and that, with the assistance of letterer Ken Bruzenak, made advertisements,
marquees, and sound eff ects an integral part of the page design.
Th e success of American Flagg! allowed Chaykin to pursue personal and experi-
mental projects. Th ese included the Time^2 graphic novels for First Comics (Time^2 :
Th e Epiphany 1986, and Time^2 : Th e Satisfaction of Black Mariah 1987), set in a seedy
retro-futuristic underworld of jazz, gangsters, and the robotically “reincarnamated”
