HOWARD CHAYKIN interview, by the Syndicate

His legacy, his eulogy and his favourite TV shows!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Howard Chaykin
• Interview
• SYNDICATE
• american flagg
• artist
• marvel
• dc
• comic book
• comics
• discussion

[michaelmichalski]

Fantastic video. What a great interview. Well done, Mikey. This is one of the most entertaining interviews I have ever seen on the show.

[ComicBookSyndicate]

@michaelmichalski I hope one day Chaykin can guest on our panel :)

[mittROMNEY666]

I dont get why Chaykin is reluctant to embrace the idea of comics as art - it seems absurd. The reasons he gave - that comics are mass - produced, serial, disposable - certainly dont apply to all comics. In theory, each panel of a comic could have all the qualities of a painting, and the aggregate of all those panels into a narrative could arguably make a comic the most complex and sophisticated art form on earth.

[ComicBookSyndicate]

@mittROMNEY666 I agree 100%. I suppose we would have to get into the difference between an artform and a medium. Music is an artform, radio is a medium. Are comic books both?

[mittROMNEY666]

@GeorgenotSmith Absolutely true. Look at the French industry where artists produce about a page a week - there is some really stunning work.

However, I think that the lack of focus on original, long term, creator owned properties is a bigger problem for American comics than deadlines considering that in Japan, where schedules are considerably more brutal than in the US, artists continually turn out high quality work such as Vagabond and Berserk.

[GeorgenotSmith]

@ComicBookSyndicate:

Ellison is indeed best (& rightly so) known for prose, then for TV & movie scripts, but his comic book work is pretty irregular, as far as frequency goes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't HE's "Dream Corridor" strictly adaptations of pre-existing work?

[GeorgenotSmith]

@GeorgenotSmith:

Successfully woo-ing the Muse on deadline requires CONSTANT invocation.

It is possible to burn the candle at both ends. For a while.

But remember, "The light the burns twice as bright burns half as long".

Why would any (intelligent) person want to get tired of doing something which they loved & at which they were exceptionally capable? Not to mention for only so-so $. Casting your pearls before swine gets old after a while.

[GeorgenotSmith]

@GeorgenotSmith:

The TV deadline comes around every week (although this has changed lately w/ the rise of cable).

The Comic Book deadline comes around every month, mostly.

There's no reason that the Work (either TV or comics or whatever) can't be both *ART* _and_ *commercial art*. Chaykin's "American Flagg" 1-12 was an excellent example of this. And as I recall, they all came out on schedule, too. But the 1st thing he did after was take a month off the drawing chores, after that.

[GeorgenotSmith]

@mittROMNEY666:

Picking up Chaykin's thesis (as I understand it), he has neglected to mention (IMO) how the monthly deadline can work against the development of *ART* (high art), as opposed to *commercial art* (commerce).

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" has a lot to say about this. As have Harlan Ellison's books on TV, "The Glass Teat", & "The Other Glass Teat".

The problem: "I don't need it GOOD, I need it Tuesday". The problem is the deadline. Art & the Muse aren't always on schedule.

[mittROMNEY666]

@ComicBookSyndicate good point, the terms need to be defined. I think a strong case could be made that comics are both medium and art form, considering the way the element of time imposes a host of new requirements on drawing / painting - sequential art as eisner termed it.

[mittROMNEY666]

@jigen08 In general i agree the quality, especially of american comics, is poor. I also take Chaykin's point that comics can be considered a medium of story delivery. However, picking up on another of his points, I think the addition of time and narrative to a sequence of pictures is arguably creating a new art form which goes beyond the simple components of drawing, story etc. So I really think he is selling comics short here...

[jigen08]

@mittROMNEY666: his comments are meant to be taken in general, and in that case he's dead on. The serial quality of some, with their lack of story arc and theme (reason for telling the story) prohibits them from being any more artistic than television. Comic books are more interested in sales than anything else... they are a medium. This isn't to say some art cannot slip through. But he'd damn well right to generalize it as a medium. Magazines are a medium too. So are books. Literature is art.

[acereroycementero]

Such a negative guy