Before I saw Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest box office dreadnought from Marvel Entertainment, I read in the Huffington Post about a post-credit sequence featuring Howard the Duck. “As fans might remember,” the article pronounced, “”Howard the Duck” was first released in 1987, and would become a giant bust for Marvel and producer George Lucas.” But that’s not what I remember. What I remember is that Howard the Duck was an incredible comic book written by Steve Gerber, one of the only comics outside of Mad and Cracked magazines that I read as a boy.

I also remember that the Howard the Duck of the movie, the Howard the Duck who came from “Duckworld,” a dreadful place where no duck-themed pun was too low, the Howard the Duck who romped through second-rate science fiction in the name of anemic political satire, was the Howard the Duck of writer…