Howard the Duck Ongoing Series Announced
Greg
Posts: 1,946
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=57254
"Marvel Comics has announced via Entertainment Weekly that a new ongoing "Howard the Duck" series is on its way. The comic, Howard's first starring role since a 2007 miniseries, will be written by "Sex Criminals" artist Chip Zdarsky and illustrated by Joe Quinones ("Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell") and feature the titular duck jumpstarting his career as a private investigator. In an interview with EW, Zdarsky says that he considers Howard to be an everyman who happens to be a duck."
"Marvel Comics has announced via Entertainment Weekly that a new ongoing "Howard the Duck" series is on its way. The comic, Howard's first starring role since a 2007 miniseries, will be written by "Sex Criminals" artist Chip Zdarsky and illustrated by Joe Quinones ("Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell") and feature the titular duck jumpstarting his career as a private investigator. In an interview with EW, Zdarsky says that he considers Howard to be an everyman who happens to be a duck."
Comments
Howard WAS Steve Gerber.
The Van Lente Marvel Zombies series (3,4,5) were a whole different kettle of fish to Kirkman's. Much more along the lines of 70s Marvel output, and under-rated due to the perceived over exposure of the franchise.
Anyway, back to the new Howard the Duck. If we must have a new Howard the Duck series (and it is a constant inevitability), then Chip Zdarsky is a fine choice of writer.
M
I'm of two minds on this. I do agree with what I quoted above but would love to see new, good Howard material. Of course It's been a while since I read the Essential so I can always go back to reread that.
Let me repeat that first part for everyone firing up their counter arguments because I just seemingly pissed on a comic sacred cow: With all respect to the man and what he created, and the legacy he left behind...
I'm in the camp of Melville and bats00...I would like to see new Howard material, if done correctly. We have seen what happens when it isn't. We get a movie that shall not be named. We get one-shots that miss the point completely. We get near-misses a la the magazine (which I liked, but I'm a big Mantlo-fanboy, so take that with a grain of salt).
The real question here is will the new creative team grasp what Gerber was trying to do with it?
Howard or not, this statement applies to ALL comic characters. We've all read many awesome Captain America stories, along with plenty of terrible ones. Yeah, yeah... we can all agree, Gerber's Howard is untouchable. But the reality is Marvel owns the Duck, and they are going to use him (especially after his cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy). I truly believe there is another storyteller somewhere out there that has an awesome yarn to share about the Duck and the "world he never made".
Let's try to keep an open mind (and fingers crossed) that this latest attempt will be a good one. This interview with Chip Zdarsky from Newsarama reads as promising.
Maybe now that Disney owns Marvel, Howard will be free of the pants.
(uh... that sounds weirder than I intended).
Howard was a RICHLY personal creation, and in many ways was the first time in my life I saw an “author avatar” type of story. Howard voiced what Gerber was thinking and going through as he wrote the character (to the point when Gerber brought the character back for the MAX line, he had a security job much like Gerber’s before he worked in comics). It wasn’t like Kirby’s work, in that Kirby didn’t pour himself into the character to that degree.
Some characters can be continued by others…but the 70’s was a time when comics creators, especially young creators at marvel, were echoing the style and creativity of the undergrounds, and while it gave us some great books, it also gave us books that weren’t suited for the shared ongoing universe as well as others.
So, yes, Marvel can do it. I won’t read it, nor do I care about it. It would be like if Frank Cho did a continuation of Calvin and Hobbes, Jim Davis won the contract to continue Peanuts, Fabian Nicieza could be asked by DC to continue Sandman (Neil Gaiman is the only creator to work on that series because DC has a policy on it, not because of any rights) and a bunch of people could do prequels and sequels to Watchmen, but I won’t read them. I couldn’t care less if they exist.
Seeing how they used Howard in the Marvel Zombies stuff (on in Generation X, or in the 80’s, or in the gawdawful magazine that contradicted Gerber’s stuff right and left) I have no faith at all in what Marvel will do with the character. And that’s fine. They own it, they can do what they want with it. I don’t care if people like it, other than I hope it leads them to the originals and they read those.
I have recently been enlightened to the comparison of Gerber's Howard the Duck to Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark. These two talking animals, surrounded by humans, who, despite different milieus, weirdly echo each other. Ripe for satire and deeper meaning.
(My first exposure was back in the 90's, with Spider-Man's webcomic on Marvel's site. Remember that?)