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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Marvel's popular 1970's talking waterfowl from another planet commented on the absurdities of human society while parodying the fantasy, sci-fi and super-hero genre.

Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Get OMNIBUS version, this is not complete... November 1, 2008
I grew up reading Howard The Duck. I still have all the copies in near mint. I didn't want to read these collectibles, so I decided to order The Essential Howard The Duck. This collection is Black and White inside, and the story is not complete. In fact it left me hanging. Dr. Bong still has Beverly at the end of this... I mean you can't leave Beverly in such danger. So I ordered the Howard The Duck Omnibus version, which is all color, and exactly what I had hoped for. The OMNIBUS takes a while to deliver, but it's worth the wait if you want the complete story, and all color. Waaaaghhhh!

3 out of 5 stars

Not the best way to experience HtD, but it works. January 17, 2008
If your experience with Howard the Duck begins and ends with Willard Huyck's 1986 cinematic stinkbomb, then you really don't know Howard. There's a lot to like about this comic. If for no other reason, it should pop up on your comic-history radar for its sheer audacity. For myself, I see it primarily as a cultural document, showing some of the hot-button issues in politics and pop culture in the middle 1970s. It's also a great showcase for the art of Gene Colan and Val Mayerik, as well as the magnificent inks of Steve Leialoha. And yes, admittedly, it has sentimental importance for those of us who survived the 70s by burying our heads in comic books.

Sadly, it's also a testament to the difficulty of sustaining an episodic satire in the comics world. Over the course of the issues contained in this volume, you will watch Steve Gerber's writing implode on itself. He seems to be trying to maintain a relatively high level of intellectual content (for a comic), but he too often stoops to explaining his jokes and beating us about the face and ears with his social messages, dragging his satire down to the level of the cheap parody, or forcing his jokes to rely on pop-cultural phenomena with ridiculously short shelf-lives (An ad jingle for "Charlie" cologne?). Eventually, whatever goodwill was evident in the early going just collapses into angry cynicism. He slides from decent (if high-handed) satire to abysmal spoof -- The two-part "Star Waaugh" arc is among the worst spoofs ever written. And then there's the justly-maligned "essay" issue -- as strong a cautionary tale about the importance of the deadline in comics as any you'll find. Still, if you're interested in a cultural document of the time when comics found its social consciousness, you'll find that here.

Apart from the writing, I will say that the black-and-white format of the Marvel Essentials line does a disservice to Howard the Duck. One of the most attractive features of the original monthly comics was the way Jan Cohen's colors seemed perfectly to complement Colan's pencils and Leialoha's inks. In color, the book was lush, saturated with deep hues and deeper shadows, artistically gorgeous. Colan has always played with shadows and cinematic effects, and Leialoha has done some of the best inking in all of comics, but when Cohen stepped up to add the colors, the finished work was far more than the sum of its parts. That's missing here.

Don't let all this dissuade you from buying the book. Unless you're looking to hunt down the original monthly comics, or unless you want to drop a huge chunk of cash on the Howard the Duck Omnibus, this Essential is still your best option. It's not as good as the originals, but it's cheap, and it covers the best and worst of HtD. And anyway, if you're old enough to remember the 70s, this book will certainly bring back some memories -- of the Moonies, of Patty Hearst, of Anita Bryant's moral crusades, of when "gerrymandering" was a controversial issue instead of just business as usual.

As a reproduction of the original comics, this volume is sub-par, but as a cultural archive and a piece of comics history, it's worth the twelve bucks Amazon is charging for it. Twelve bucks, but not much more than that.

5 out of 5 stars

"Life's too far in the future to think about. Right now, I could use a good cigar." May 11, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

In a strange and very perverse sense, it might just be appropriate that the appallingly awful HTD movie is Howard's predominant image in the public eye. Why, you ask? Well, I reply, because Howard himself was never really understood or appreciated by the world around him; that's the entire point. (And yeah, I wish the movie had been better, too. I'm just choosing to enjoy the irony.)

The tag-line for Steve Gerber's magnum opus was "Trapped in a world he never made!" and that pretty much sums it up. Howard is the epitome of anyone from one world mistakenly tranplanted into another. Visually, imagine if one of the myriad cartoon characters from the kiddie reels somehow got injected into a Martin Scorcese film. How would D***** Duck (pick your fave) react to a world of junkies, street thugs, dehumanizing media figures and stupid, indifferent politicians? Granted, there are assorted super-villain types and the occasional super-hero guest star here and there (it's a Marvel comic, after all), but they're not really the point, any more than the predictable parodies of at-the-time crazes like Kung Fu, Star Wars or the Exorcist. Underneath the slapstick, the thankfully abbreviated battles and the wry wisequacks -- er, wiseCRACKs, that is -- there's a substantial amount of insightful social commentary and genuine angst.

Of the assorted artists involved, Gene "the Dean" Colan remains the definitive HTD artist; who else could so convincingly merge the gothic banality of Cleveland streets and New York alleyways with the evolution-defying cartooniness of Howard's anatomy? WHo else could portray despair, madness, cynicism and just plain rage writ large across the face of a feathered critter who goes "BOOOIIINNNGGG!!" when he charges (reluctantly) into the fray? Let alone make a giant sea serpent wearing a top hat look scary?

But even Colan's excellent work takes a back seat (if only just barely) to Steve Gerber. Val Mayerik and other artists also turned in fine work on the series, but Gerber's writing could not be replaced. Possibly no other comic series of the '70's could have afforded this opportunity to break out of the genre's formulaic conventions, and possibly no other writer of the time could have made the most of such an opportunity anyway. If it helps, recall what Quentin Tarantino did for movies in the '90's, and then imagine the same sort of thing in comics, twenty years earlier. Then again, if that's too weird a notion to wrap your head around, don't sweat it; you'll still find a lot of humor to enjoy. Where else will you find a hero who flies across the world to his abducted girlfriend's rescue by winning a radio contest? ("I dunno...Grant, I guess.")

4 out of 5 stars

But, y-you're a duck! March 19, 2006
I began collecting horror comics in the early 1970's "boom" that included "The Tomb of Dracula," and gradually began to sample super-hero books like "The Amazing Spider-Man." Somewhere along the way, in walked "Howard the Duck."
In a world of super-heroes, Howard was something different. As an outsider, he could comment on the many absurdities of the society he had become trapped in. An alternate interpretation of what most people had not stopped to question is a very valuable thing.
I remember the book having a big influence on how I looked at the world. It gave me a somewhat skeptical outlook on what the mainstream judged acceptable.
Monty Python's Flying Circus had already shown me how to poke fun at authority, and the Warren Commission had shown why this was necessary.
Howard tackled a broad range of issues, giving food for thought on the issues of government, religion, media, and personal relationships. I remember the stories where Howard suffered a breakdown as particularly disturbing, and at the same time enlightening. An adolescent grows up in "a world he/she never made," and sometimes wonders not just where the line is, but which side is the correct one.
When Steve Gerber left the book (or was fired?), I don't rememeber being particularly upset, but a re-reading of the series showed a definite vision and progress brutally interrupted in mid-stream.
It is too bad that the story wasn't completed, but what we have is still good reading, and still as relevant as it was then. Highly recommended.

4 out of 5 stars

A great collection August 17, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I've loved some of the choices Marvel has made with their Essentials line. Instead of just sticking with the Marvel main-stays, Spider-man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, etc., they've been dipping into the pool of what many consider 2nd or 3rd tier characters whose adventures are not as well known. Howard the Duck has always been a favorite of mine, one of the more creative books to come out of the 70's in my opinion. Unfortunately a lot of people only know the character through the horrible Hollywood version of the character brought to us in the 80's. As with all the Essentials I wish the reprints were done in color. The paper quality doesn't bother me, I understand the need to keep product costs low.