Val Mayerik

Val Mayerik (born March 29, 1950) is an American comic book and commercial artist, best known as co-creator of the satiric character Howard the Duck for Marvel Comics. In early 1977, Mayerik moved to New York City, where he acted off-off-Broadway and found work with artist Neal Adams' Continuity Associates studio. In Fall 1978, Mayerik, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin formed Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street in New York City. The membership of the studio changed over time. During this time, he drew the first Howard the Duck Annual (May 1977) and Howard the Duck #22-23 (March–April 1978). He was also an artist on the Howard the Duck newspaper comic strip in 1977. He co-plotted and co-scripted, in addition to drawing, Howard the Duck #33 (Sept. 1986), the second and last issue of a short-lived series revival coinciding with the release of the movie Howard the Duck. He expanded beyond his prolific Marvel work to draw for Heavy Metal magazine and the Warren Publishing line of black-and-white comics magazines; the latter work included the continuing samurai feature "Young Master", reprints of which appeared as backup stories in Mayerik and writer Larry Hama 1987-1989 Young Master series published by New Comics Group. Mayerik left New York City in 1981, moving first to Cleveland, Ohio, where he did local TV and film work and regional theater in addition to his art, before settling in Oregon in 1993. Mayerik continued to draw for comics through the 1980s and early 1990s, working on series for Eclipse Comics, First Comics, Now Comics, Pacific Comics, and Harvey Pekar's self-published American Splendor, in addition to Marvel, but was seguing toward more of a career in advertising art and in illustration for the games industry, including the roleplaying game companies TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. As a spin-off of this, he drew the four-issue Acclaim Comics miniseries Magic: The Gathering — The Shadow Mage (July-Oct. 1995). As of at least 2010, artist Mayerik and writer James Hudnall produce the comic strip Useful Idiots for the political site BigJournalism.com, later a section of Breitbart. Mayerik has done storyboards and other art for clients ranging from Coca-Cola and Microsoft to the American Indian College Fund and the Oregon Historical Society.