Favourite comics: Howard the Duck issue 1

Howard the Duck first appeared in “Adventures Into Fear” issue 19 in a “Man-Thing” story written by his creator Steve Gerber and illustrated by Val Mayerik in December 1973. After that appearance Howard graduated to a backup series in “Giant size Man-Thing” issues 4 and 5 in 1975 written by Steve Gerber where he faced the terror of “Garko the Man-Frog” and “Bessie the Hellcow”. As fun as these stories were it was the introduction of artist Frank Brunner that took the character to new hights and was instrumental in getting Howard his own comic in 1976. Sadly Brunner left the strip after issue 2 to be replaced by the equally excellent Gene Colan from issue 4 (after an excellent one- off tale in issue 3 by John Buscema). The history of the Howard the Duck character has had its fair share of issues including the production of one of Hollywood’s most maligned movies, an enforced redesign of the character by Disney, a short lived newspaper strip, and a bitter copyright infringement lawsuit made against Marvel by Steve Gerber for sole rights to the character. Despite all this Howard the Duck was a fun comic and those early issues by Gerber and Brunner have remained some of my favourite comics.

Above: The first appearance of Howard the Duck from "Adventures Into Fear” issue 19