There was the film adaptation with a equivalent title inside 1986.

Publication history
Howard a Duck was created within 1973 by Gerber (with creative person Val Mayerik designing Howard's original look) in the comic book Adventure into Fear, as a secondary character in that amusing's "Man-Thing" story. Within his appearances using HuHuman-Tool, Howard confronted off-a-wall horror-parody characters like a Hellcow & the Man-Frog.

He acquired his have comic book title sustaining Howard a Duck #1 inside 1976. Gerber wrote Xxvii issues of the series, illustrated by the kind of creative person, using Gene Colan eventually becoming the regular penciller. the series bit by bit developed a real cult following, possibly amplified by Howard's entry into the 1976 U.S. presidential campaign (an event later immortalized in a brief reference in Stephen King's The Tommyknockers). Wonder attempted the spin-by-product by using the short-passing Howard a Duck newspaper strip from either 1977 to 1978, at first written by Gerber & drawn by Colan & Mayerik, late written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Alan Kupperberg.

Due to Howard a Duck existence one of Wonder's couple non-superhero titles, and Gerber's status when one of Wonder's better-known & virtually all unusual writers from either his earliest act in Human-Tool & The Defenders, Gerber gained a degree of originative autonomy that was unusual for mass-market comedian writers of a period, & the stories became more & more dark and experimental. At one point, unable to meet deadline for his regular script, Gerber substituted an entire issue of text pieces & illustrations satirizing his have difficulties as a writer.

Inside 1978, a writer & publisher clashed all over issues of originative control, & Gerber was dead flushed from either the series. This was a number one extremely-publicized "creator's rights" pack within comedian, & attracted trend lines from either major industry numbers, a few of whom created homage/parody stories by having Gerber to dramatize a out break; these involved Destroyer Duck with Jack Kirby (Kirby himself helped pave the way for owner-owned comedian sustaining his series Captain Victory) & Stewart a Rat using Gene Colan.

A series continued for quartet other issues by using stories by Marv Wolfman, Mary Skrenes, Mark Evanier, and Bill Mantlo (Gerber returned briefly to write, though non plot, #29), however fans of the original series did not respond swell to the loss of Gerber. Wonder so re-launched Howard a Duck inside 1979 as a bimonthly magazine—an unusual format for mass-market comics at a instance—sustaining scripts by Mantlo, art by Colan too when Michael Golden, and unrelated backup features by others; this series was cancelled when nine issues. Issue #32, written by Steven Grant, appeared within early 1986; #33, by Christopher Stager, some nine months late, along by using the 3-issue adaptation of the moving picture.

Howard a Duck #1-27 & more Gerber-written Howard a Duck stories keep close at hand been reprinted by Wonder inside the paperbacked collection, A Essential Howard a Duck (ISBN 0785108319).

Inside 2001, by owning Wonder under freshly management & launching its MAX imprint of "mature readers" comedian, Gerber returned to his previous publisher to write the six-issue Howard a Duck miniseries, illustrated by Phil Winslade and Glenn Fabry. Featuring many familiar Howard a Duck characters &, prefer the original series, parodying a wide range of more comedian & pop culture figures—but by owning well stronger language & intimate content than would use been permissible Twenty-five years sooner—a series (collected within ISBN 0785109315) was usually swell reviewed.

Characters
Howard, when his title suggests, occurs as 3-foot-tall anthropomorphic humanoid duck from another dimension (populated by his have form) world health organization finds himself olympic games due to the shift in "the Cosmic Axis". He wears the tie & shirt, & is nigh universally obtained smoking the cigar. These are implied (across taglines & various information) that, within his have dimension, Howard got been a scholar - the writers, at various days, information Hegel, the Brontë sisters, & more numbers of philosophic and political significance. Inside the parody of the Wonder comical character Shang-Chi, he was trained in the art of Quak-Fu. Originally, prefer numbers of cartoon ducks, he bore there is no pants; fallowing Disney threatened legal action due to Howard's resemblance to Donald Duck, Marvel redesigned a character thus that Howard at present wears pants. Howard was when briefly transformed into the human, & in the 2001 miniseries, as a mocking response to Disney's complaints, he turned into various brute including (ironically) the mouse.

Howard has an irritable & misanthropical attitude to the typically freaky cases all about him; there exists nothing favorite about him except that he occurs as duck, & he has there are no goals however comfort & to become left alone, however he is typically dragged into unsafe escapade just because he is visibly unusual. His series' tagline, "Trapped in a world he never made," match a genre trappings of 1950s science fiction, but as well reflected a feel of alienation that Howard shared sustaining a majority of his readers.

His constant companion is previous art model & Cleveland native Beverly Switzler. Such as Howard, Beverly wants an ordinary life however is often singled out for her appearance, though she occurs as beautiful woman like than the duck. Their simply more friends come Paul Equivalent (the painter world health organization briefly became the sleepwalking crime-fighter) and Windthe Wester (a lisping ingenue with psychic powers).

His antagonists, world health organization unremarkably appeared around l1 one story from each one, come typically parodies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror characters, and every now and again political numbers, however likewise include average humans just making life hard for Howard. the chief recurring villain, Lester Verde a.k.the. Doctor Bong—modelled on Doctor Doom, Bob Greene and Lester Bangs—is a former tabloid reporter who has a power to "reorder reality" by great himself in his bell-shaped helmet; his main goal is to marry Beverly. When many issues, she agrees to marry him to save Howard from either his evil experimentation, & remains married to him for occasionally period.

More Marvel Comics characters stand at times appeared, including Spider-Man, Daimon Hellstrom, and a Ringmaster.

Other Media
Within 1986, Lucasfilm and Universal Pictures produced the motion picture Howard a Duck, starring Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, and Tim Robbins. In the film, Howard was brought to Cleveland by the optical maser experiment never again awry, which as well summoned an evil alien spirit known as a Dark Overlord of the Universe intent on destroying the Globe; besides Howard (world health organization was portrayed by an assortment of stunt actors within a duck lawsuit), a merely character borrowed from either the comedian book was Beverly Switzler, though therein version she became a rock singer. It was widely panned & was the box office bomb, but it renewed plenty attention on the character for Marvel Comics to keep using the character now and then. These are considered by numbers of when one of a top Centred worst films ever manufactured. A character of Beverly was originally offered to so-unheard-of singer Tori Amos, but a offer was retracted after Thompson expressed interest. At the period Amos was a lead singer around a rock group.

Howard a Duck was seen in Beast's shirt on the animated series of X-men a Phoenix saga a portion Two.

Trivia

This film is considered to exist as one of a 1st (& large) box office bombs in cinematic history. Executive producer George Lucas disowned the film shortly fallowing its release.