The Strange History of Howard the Duck

A writer at Cleveland Magazine tells about the history of the late Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck, Marvel’s contribution to the anthropomorphic animal genre, which employed a Cleveland-based setting, and interviewed artist Val Mayerik, who was the first to illustrate the anthropomorphic cartoon bird during the Bronze Age. First though: Working with Marvel comic book writer Steve Gerber, Val Mayerik was the first illustrator to depict the Cleveland-based character when he appeared in a series featuring The Man-Thing in the 1970s. Later, the cigar-smoking, beer-drinking cartoon duck got his own comic book series, which was even developed into a George Lucas-produced film. That film, most unfortunately, was a failure, and not a good start for Marvel’s attempts to enter the live action movie scene. It took until 1998’s Blade to get a serious major adaptation produced, and that was more successful. Now, on the subject of how Howard’s drawn: Val Mayerik: “The writer, Steve Gerber; most of the credit goes to Steve. I mean, that character was Steve’s alter ego, and Steve passed away quite a while ago. I was the first one to draw Howard, so that that’s my pedigree there. Since then, a lot o...