Howard the Duck is very dear to my heart. He was my first real non-superhero comics character that lived among superheroes. At around 12 years old or thereabouts, I had been collecting comics for a few years. It was the late 70’s, and my parents decided to take me on a San Diego vacation where they would let me hang out at the Comic Con (yes, the very same Comic Con famous today as a place for Hollywood to whore its sketchy wares). Actually, two years in a row, but I think it was that first one I really loved.
My parents went and soaked up the summer sun for two days while letting the con babysit me until around 9PM or so each night, before picking me up to head to our much cheaper hotel down the street. There were two great highlights of my young self’s odyssey. First (and probably the best) was sitting by the pool with Mel Blanc in the afternoon. Mel had spoken earlier in the day at a panel, so I knew he was the guy who did the voices in my favorite cartoons. For some reason, others did not really approach him, but I went right to his table. I sat for well over a half hour with him (although as memory fades, it could have been an hour, or it could have been ten minutes), and he did voices for me and even sang a song as Speedy Gonzales (it was about a fat Mexican lady “…wanna eat, wanna eat, wanna eat, Juanita”). I did not realize the magnitude of that encounter until years later.
Another encounter I probably took for granted at first (until I saw him on TV on a show called “Wonderama” some time later hawking comics) was with Stan Lee. I listened to a group of a dozen dudes or so in the lobby who surrounded Stan as he kicked back in one of the lounges answering questions (he was really friendly to the fans as I recall). One of the guys there asked “Whatever happened to Howard the Duck?” Stan had no answer and somebody else chimed in “he fell on some rocks and died.”
Well, Howard did not die. He actually fell off of some cosmic steps in the Man Things comics, and fell to our earth to start his own series. This is where I discovered the joys of Howard.
In his first issue, a Conan send-up where Spider-Man also appeared, Howard fought “Pro Rata” the wizard accountant. Here he met Beverly Switzer, his lovely companion (and eventually sometimes girlfriend) who would be his sidekick for most of his run. Most of their adventures would take place in and around Cleveland for the majority of Howard’s 70’s popularity.
Howard was created by Steve Gerber, writer of a number of Man-Thing comics. Man-Things Florida swamp had a major cosmic nexus point in it (in addition to other fantasy goodies such as The Fountain of Youth and a wizard’s tower), and Howard was one of a small number of extra-dimensional secondary characters who encountered Man-Thing and adventured with the mindless hump of muck before getting his own comic. Gerber wrote the majority of the Howard’s first run, and often was at disagreement with others staffers about what exactly Howard was supposed to be. Gerber thought of him not as a cartoon character, but an actual talking duck from an alternate earth. Early Howard artist Frank Brunner actually left the series because he wanted Howard to be a cartoon that, like a Looney Tunes character, could be smashed and crushed and pop back unharmed. “Un uh” said Gerber, this was a living and breathing alien creature who bleeds and feels pain when hurt; by no means immortal.
In the late 70’s Howard ran for president in the comic, and I for sure remember Marvel’s heavy promotion of this, with buttons and everything. Even 7-11 got into the act with commemorative Howard cups. Yeah, he was getting fairly well known for a non-superhero character. Howard even had a newspaper strip for a couple of years. I was an eager Howard collector at the time, owning the first 20 or 30 issues (I Ebayed these a few years ago).
Towards the end of his first color comics run, Howard was plagued with a load of problems of almost biblical proportions. Gerber, who complained nonstop about other people’s approach to his creation, was removed from the series by the Marvel mucketymucks. This was about the time I had moved on from Howard, and had stopped collecting. But Howard continued for a bit longer in black and white magazine format. I do remember buying one of these, and it featured a suicidal Howard bemoaning his loneliness (girlfriend Beverly had apparently left and taken up hooking down at the docks) in a bizarre parody of It’s a Wonderful Life.
In 1978 Gerber sued Marvel over Howard, in the first such case dealing with comic creator rights. He was championed by many comic book luminaries, including Jack “King” Kirby, who along with Gerber created the hilarious Destroyer Duck to help with legal fees. Disney threw their hat into the Howard ring, stirring up shit over Howard’s similarities to Donald Duck, forcing Howard to eventually put on pants to look different from Disney’s asshole-ish foul. This itself was actually parodied in the comics, where decency groups cried out to pants poor Howard (despite his apparent lack of any kind of genitalia).
Howard popped up in the Marvelverse™ here and there, and even had another wack at this own series before the heinous abortion of a film that was thrown together by George Lucas (apparently in the workings since the making of American Graffiti). For this awesomely awful outing, Howards philosophical and existential nature was entirely removed for the sake of making him a nice, likeable guy (spew). As clueless producer Gloria Katz said "It's a film about a duck from outer space... It's not supposed to be an existential experience... We're supposed to have fun with this concept, but for some reason reviewers weren't able to get over that problem." Hollywood threw away its chance to feature a smart, adult wisecracking character in the Groucho Marx mold. Instead of the cool Howard from the comics, we got a tired, out of date Marty McFly type good guy. It did not work, and for me at least, the film was the nail in the coffin as far as Howard goes.
Howard has been fully off my radar since that movie, but like any comic character of worth he has been continued to be milked in one way or another over the years. I heard that at one point Gerber used Howard, the “real Howard,” in Image comic series such as Savage Dragon. Gerber owns this character, who in the Imageverse™ is undercover and goes by the name “Leonard” and dyed his feathers green. He even has gal pal Beverly there under a new moniker as well. Huh. Maybe she just should have kept hooking down at those docks.
Whatever goes down with Howard, nothing will ever come close to the sheer cool that this character exuded in those early days of his existential existence. Howard, you will probably never get another movie, and I think that is a good thing. Sail on, Ducky.
