Discussing Mayerik on the Never Iron Anything podcast
The good, bad and ugly of Howard the Duck's creator
My good friend Tony Esmond has invited me and stellar up-and-coming U.K. artist Ian Ashcroft onto his Never Iron Anything podcast for an interview today to discuss the works of Val Mayerik, a comic-book artist and illustrator. The episode will go live soon.
Mayerik is best known as the creator of Howard the Duck, the infamous Marvel character. However, he’s produced much more in the realms of sword and sorcery, and horror.
We’ve each picked one run by Mayerick to talk about — not an easy thing to do, because he’s been more of a filler artist1, rather than taking on series, and rarely does comics anymore, preferring work as a fantasy illustrator for the gaming industry. I guess the pay’s better.
I’ve picked “Bruce Lee,” a six-issue series that ran in 1994 (yes, that’s how far back I had to go to find a Mayerik run). Written by Mike Baron, the series updates legendary martial artist Lee’s life to the “modern day” of the mid-’90s, with significant liberties taken to allow as much action as possible. (Lee ultimately deposes a South American warlord. Seriously.) It’s epic, almost stupid fun, which is not surprising from a Baron-authored book.
Anyhow, if you’d like to learn more about Mayerik, who really should be more well known from his formative years the industry, you can read about him on Wikipedia or hear from the man himself in this interesting PBS interview.
“filler artist” is someone who steps in to pencil maybe an issue or two while to allow the regular artist time off or, more frequently, play catch up.
Great stuff Cliff