392 pages; soft cover; illustrated prose

In the 1980s, Howard Chaykin broke new ground in American comic books with a series of formally innovative, iconoclastic works that turned the traditional action-adventure tales of mainstream comics into a platform for personal expression, political engagement, and aesthetic experimentation. His original creations American Flagg!, Time², and the notorious Black Kiss, along with his reshaping of familiar titles like The Shadow and Blackhawk, generated acclaim and often controversy as they challenged expectations of the visual design and subject matter permissible in popular comics. In Neon Visions, Brannon Costello offers the first book-length critical evaluation of Chaykin's work and confronts the blind spots in comics scholarship that consign this seminal artist to the margins.