A Comics Creator Who Needs More Publicity

Matt Howarth is the most prolific unknown cartoonist around. His work has been published by such companies as Fantagraphics, Heavy Metal, Vortex, Rip Off Press, Aeon, DC, and his own Howski Studios, among many others. He has written and drawn thousands of comics pages over the last thirty-odd years yet few people know about his creations. Howarth works mostly in black and white, and favours science fiction and horror as backdrops for his violently funny stories. The majority of his comics fit into the reality he has created called Bugtown, a city whose inhabitants can shift from one reality level to another and are reborn if they die in Bugtown. This sets the stage for much havoc and bloodshed. How can this work remain so unrecognized? Matt Howarth also has a passion for electronic music. He has a weekly strip called Sonic Curiosity that has run for many years, and which often stars his creations such as The Post Bros and Savage Henry. Howarth also integrates real musicians in many works, folks like Nash the Slash, Conrad Schnitzler, an original member of Tangerine Dream, and even Moby. He has self-published comics since the 1970s, and in the last decade has foregone print to instead make all his new material available in digital format. Matt Howarth is a true independent spirit. Here are some covers from a few of my favourite Howarth series:

Check out Matt's work. His comics cover so many themes that there must be something you'd enjoy!

A fave Batman story

I have been a Batman fan since early childhood. I think it was the Adam West tv series that originally got me hooked. I can remember watching it in colour at the twins' house across the street in Chomedey, and boy did the show look even better than on our black and white set! Since I moved away from that house when I was 5 years old, Batman has been part of my life for a long time. In fact, when I was four I was hospitalized to have my tonsils removed, and my parents gave me a Corgi Batmobile, just like the one in the tv show. I still have it, and it is a prized possession.

The comics also came early. Here is the cover from what I think was my first Bat comic, "A Vow From The Grave", from Detective Comics #410, April 1971. I was five at the time it appeared, and I loved this comic so much. Sadly all my early comics were thrown out by my mother in 1975 because I did not clean my room. The version that I own is from a 1978 treasury-size reprint called "Batman's Strangest Cases" (aka Limited Collectors' Edition Vol. 7, #C-59). I pulled the cover from the Grand comics Database at www.comics.org.

"A Vow From The Grave" is a 15-pager from the great team of Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, and Dick Giordano. It starts with Batman chasing a small-time criminal out in the boonies, during a rainstorm. He runs across some out-of-work carnies who live in an abandoned house nearby. A murder ensues, and Batman solves the whodunit and comes to the rescue of a little boy names Timmy who has flippers instead of arms and legs. And Bats does this in grand style, by stepping off a tower, and swinging around and grabbing Timmy when he is thrown off the tower by the bad guy. While the art is nothing particularly special, any Adams/Giordano looks great to my eye. Here's a photo of that page:

Track this one down. It's worth it!

My mini-comic

Here is my one and (pretty much) only attempt at comics. It was done back in the mid-90s but only printed in 1999 when I was a member of a short-lived APA. Now you can see why I am a teacher not an artist.