| Birth Name: | Howard Victor Chaykin |
| Birth Date: | 7 October 1950 |
| Birth Place: | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Write: | y |
| Pencil: | y |
| Ink: | y |
| Alias: | Eric Pave |
| Notable Works: | Dominic Fortune Cody Starbuck American Flagg! |
| Awards: | Inkpot Award, 1977 7 Eagle Awards, 1984 Eagle Award, 2006 |
Howard Victor Chaykin (; born October 7, 1950)[1] is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker. His career, which started out as a gofer for Gil Kane at the age of 19, spanned working for various comic book artists and writers, ultimately arriving at developing and drawing his own characters alone and in collaborations during the course of 50 years. He worked for nearly all the biggest publishers, including DC Comics, Marvel Comics, First Comics, and Epic Comics. Beyond the realm of comics, his work can be found in graphic books and television animated shows.
Howard Chaykin was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Rosalind Pave and Norman Drucker, who soon separated.[2] Chaykin was initially raised by his grandparents in Staten Island, New York City, until his mother married Leon Chaykin in 1953 and the family moved to East Flatbush and later to 370 Saratoga Avenue, Brownsville, Brooklyn. At 14,[3] Chaykin moved with his now divorced mother to the Kew Gardens section of Queens. He said in 2000 he was raised on welfare after his parents separated and that his absent biological father eventually was declared dead, although Chaykin, as an adult, located him alive. Chaykin's "nutty and cruel" adoptive father, whom Chaykin until the 1990s believed was his biological father,[2] encouraged Chaykin's interest in drawing and bought him sketchbooks.[3]
Chaykin was introduced to comics by his cousin, who gave him a refrigerator box filled with them.[4] He graduated from Jamaica High School at 16, in 1967; in mid-1968, Chaykin worked at Zenith Press. He attended Columbia College in Chicago that fall, but left school and returned to New York the following year. Chaykin said that after high school, "I hitchhiked around the country" before becoming, at 19, a "gofer" for the New York City–based comic book artist Gil Kane,[5] whom he would name as his greatest influence.[4]
Chaykin's earliest work with comic books was under the tutelage of Gil Kane, whom he would later call his mentor.[6]
In 1970, he began publishing his art in comics and science-fiction fanzines, sometimes under the pseudonym Eric Pave. Leaving Kane, he began working as an assistant to comics artist Wally Wood[7] in the studio he shared with Syd Shores and Jack Abel in Valley Stream, Long Island. He worked there for a "couple of months", and in 1971 published his first professional comics work, for the adult-theme Western feature Shattuck in the military newspaper the Overseas Weekly, one of Wood's clients. He also "ghosted some stuff" for Gray Morrow: "I penciled a Man-Thing story he did [for [[Marvel Comics]]' Fear #10 (cover-dated Oct. 1972)], and I penciled a thing for [the magazine] National Lampoon called "Michael Rockefeller and the Jungles of New Guinea."[8] He then apprenticed under Neal Adams, working with the artist at Adams' home in The Bronx. This led to his first work at DC Comics, one of the two largest comics companies:
