Val Mayerik was born in Youngstown, Ohio. Upon college graduation, he met and began working as an assistant to Ohio-based comic-book artist Dan Adkins, alongside fellow assistant P. Craig Russell. Through Adkins, who was primarily an inker for Marvel Comics, Mayerik broke into comics that summer as penciler, over Adkins layouts, of the eight-page story "Spell of the Dragon", starring author John Jakes' sword-and-sorcery hero Brak the Barbarian. Published in the horror-fantasy anthologyChamber of Chills # 2, it appeared a month after his first published comics work, the full-length "The Monster of the Monoliths" in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian # 21, which Mayerik and Russell penciled over Barry Windsor-Smith layouts. Mayerik quickly found more assignments, penciling Marvel's adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, over Adkins layouts, in Supernatural Thrillers # 2 ; and doing his first full penciling, with writer George Alec Effinger's adaptation of Lin Carter's "Thongor! Warrior of Lost Lemuria" story "Thieves of Zangabal", in Creatures on the Loose # 22.
Howard the Duck
Mayerik became the regular artist of the swamp-monster feature "Man-Thing" in Fear #13. Six issues later, he and writer Steve Gerber introduced Howard the Duck. Initially a minorsupporting character intended only for an issue or two, the anthropomorphic waterfowl — wearing a suit and tie as a parody of funny animal ducks, known for his cigar-smoking and his angry, acerbic wit — Howard eventually became the starring character in his own satiric series, penciled first by Frank Brunner and then Gene Colan. The character shortly afterward became a mainstream pop-culture figure. Mayerik continued to pencil both the "Man-Thing" and "Thongor" series until the former received his own title, for which Mayerik drew the premiere issue. While also doing scattered horror/fantasy/science-fiction anthology stories, Mayerik teamed with Gerber on a second series, the Living Mummy, in Supernatural Thrillers, and took over the art on The Frankenstein Monster. With writer Doug Moench, he did a monumental adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles in the black-and-white magazineMarvel Preview # 5-6. He also penciled the final six issues of the 20-issue, 1974 to 1977 jungle-lord series Ka-Zar. Also interested in acting, Mayerik appears in The Demon Lover, a low-budget horrorfilm shot in and around Detroit, Michigan.
In early 1977, Mayerik moved to New York City, where he acted off-off-Broadway and found work with artist Neal Adams' Continuity Associates studio. In Fall 1978, Mayerik, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin formed Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street in New York City. The membership of the studio changed over time. During this time, he drew the first Howard the Duck Annual and Howard the Duck #22-23. He was also an artist on the Howard the Ducknewspaper comic strip in 1977. He co-plotted and co-scripted, in addition to drawing, Howard the Duck #33, the second and last issue of a short-lived series revival coinciding with the release of the movie Howard the Duck. He expanded beyond his prolific Marvel work to draw for Heavy Metal magazine and the Warren Publishing line of black-and-white comics magazines; the latter work included the continuing samurai feature "Young Master", reprints of which appeared as backup stories in Mayerik and writer Larry Hama 1987-1989 Young Master series published by New Comics Group. Mayerik left New York City in 1981, moving first to Cleveland, Ohio, where he did local TV and film work and regional theater in addition to his art, before settling in Oregon in 1993.
