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Wizard Philly 2016: Howard Chaykin

Artist with attitude to hold 2-day comics seminar Wednesday and Thursday

THE ALWAYS BUSY and eminently quotable comics artist Howard Chaykin is happy to be coming to town.

"I love Philadelphia," he said in a recent phone interview. "I love the architecture. I love the food - it's got some of the best Mexican food I've tasted outside of Arizona, Texas, and Southern California. Plus, I know how it sounds, but I'm a serious Philly cheesesteak fan."

After spending a huge part of his life in New York, Chaykin appreciates the famous Philly attitude as well.

"Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, all of us are brutal," he said laughing. "The only difference is you purse your mouths a little, and we talk out of the corners of our mouth."

Chaykin said he developed a love for comics at a very young age.

"When I was 4 years old, my cousins gave me a refrigerator box full of comics, of various kinds, and I fell in love with them," he said. "Within a year, I undertood that someone made these things, that they didn't just happen organically. I became obsessed with who did these things, and I wanted to be one of those guys that did them. So, my adoptive father, who otherwise was a complete asshole, encouraged me to draw."

When he was learning his craft, he says, the legendary Gil Kane was his greatest influence.

"Even though I did the least actual hands-on work with him, I learned more about the life of a cartoonist working with and watching him than anyone else," Chaykin said. As Chaykin's career progressed, he was noticed for Cody Starbuck, the independent-comics character he created - whom he described as "Conan in Space."

Chaykin said he went the indie route with Starbuck because he wanted to explore more adult themes that would not have fit in a market dominated by kid-friendly superhero books - a situation that he said has changed to make very few mainstream titles accessible or appropriate for kids.

"I think that is [the result of] a bunch of 45- and 50-year-old men reading the same thing they were reading when they were 15," he said. "I like the medium more than the genre. I still like drawing superhero comics, and I still like writing them, but I don't really read them much. Because, for the most part, they're making grim avengers out of superheroes that have always been Boy Scouts."

Which is why he does a lot of creator-owned books.

"My approach to a comic-book story, be it a superhero book, erotica, or historical . . . is to make the story clear, sensible, and interesting for an audience."

Chaykin's work reached a huge new audience when he did the art for the comic-book adaptation of a little, then-unknown film called Star Wars. Sales on the adaptation were so astronomical that there are those who say they made comic-book shops viable, saving a then-slumping Marvel and possibly the industry as a whole.

Chaykin often jokes that if today's royalty rates had been in place then, he would have retired and bought a private island.

"I would be dead," he said laughing. "Considering the life I was living in the 1970s, that kind of money would have killed me. Especially because I considered myself immortal.

"I always said that if I had known Star Wars was going to be such a big deal, I'd like to think I would have done a better job. I don't think that work reflects who or what I am. I didn't really come into my own until the early '80s."

Chaykin said the work he was most proud of is the title Time2, "which is a fantasy distillation of my distaste for my family."

Perhaps the most controversial comic Chaykin ever did was Black Kiss, which contained explicit depictions of sex and violence, was shipped in an "Adults Only" plastic bag, and drew criticism.

"What I was trying to do with Black Kiss was push the boundaries of comics and see how many [fans] I could antagonize or bring in," he said laughing.

When asked whether any of his creations could ever hit the big screen in the Age of the Comic Book Movie, he gives a Chaykin-esque response.

"Who knows? I mean, I've had options taken on material, and I consider myself a comics guy. At this stage, I don't know. I'm not that desperate or hungry for attention."

One thing Chaykin does hope Wizard Con goers give attention to is his two-day seminar Wednesday and Thursday, a total of eight hours .

"So many writers today are talented, but have no grasp of the real estate of the page, which is how much space you need to tell a story," he said. "So I encourage everyone to come see me at the seminar. You'll walk away well informed, entertained, and best of all, you'll be able to lord it over all the asshole friends of yours who didn't bother showing up."