iFanboy Upstarts: Zach Howard

Zach Howard

Right place, right time. That’s all it takes for a talented comic creator to break through all the noise  and break out from the comic shelves and become a name. While some creators pop out and become over-night successes, the vast majority toil away for years before they get the notice their talent they deserve. Marc Silvestri worked for years in comics before he got his due, and there’s a growing number of potent art stars waiting for the world to take notice. This week in iFanboy Upstarts, we pull back the curtain on artist Zach Howard.

Previous to his life as a comic artist, Colorado-based Zach Howard served in thearmed forces as a United States Marine and was on a decidedly different course in life. It wasn’t until his senior year of college that he changed his focus to comics, and broke into the industry doing RPG game work. His big break was a five page comic inside Steve Jackson Games’ Hellboy Resource Manual, which opened the door to a pair of Image series (Clockmaker and Heaven’s Devils) before he caught the eye of comic publishers paying a page rate for comics. Howard got his first shot at the big time with 2005’s Nightwing #99, and it’s around the same time that he hooked up with then up-and-comer Sean Murphy. The pair ended up partnering up for numerous projects (with Murphy even living with Howard’s family for a time) including their creator-owned miniseries Outer Orbit. Howard continued to pop up in DC and at Marvel, but all the while he was cementing what would become a long-term relationship with IDW on covers and interiors with the Shaun of the Dead licensed comic. In recent months he’s been working hard on IDW”s The Cape limited series, but also did an issue of DC’s Secret Six that never saw print. After several creator-owned projects failed to get off the ground, Howard has plans to jump back into it with a original graphic novel called Wild Blue Yonder he hopes to debut at 2012’s Free Comic Book Day.

Scroll down for some eye-opening examples of Howard’s work, including inked pages from his never-before-seen issue of Secret Six featuring King Shark!