Matt Howarth has been active in the field of comics since the mid-1970s. Matt has created numerous comics, all the while continuing his self-publishing and commercial art works. He started his life in the publishing industry when he co-founded Howski Studios in 1969. He contributed to several fanzines until he started self-publishing in 1976, beginning with his graphic novel 'Afternoon in the Sun'.
Howarth is influenced both by science fiction authors like Philip K. Dick, and comic artists like Ditko, Wrightson, Moebius and Druillet. He also finds much of his inspiration in listening to progressive music.
He earned his first big success with the experimental comics 'Changes', that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine in 1980/1981. He has produced comics for numerous publishers, such as Aeon, Antarctic Press, Dark Horse Comics, Fantagraphics Books and DC Comics. Howarth continued creating comics with the main 'Changes' characters in his 'Those Annoying Post Brothers' serial from 1985. He also took on the 'Savage Henry' and 'Bugtown' series.
In 1990 the U.S. avant-garde band The Residents released the album 'Freak Show' (1990), which spawned a 1992 comic book adaptation, 'The Residents' Freak Show' (Dark Horse Comics), in which Kyle Baker, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Charles Burns, Dave McKean, Pore No Graphics, Edwin "Savage Pencil" Pouncey and Richard Sala all visualized one of the songs into a comic strip. Les Dorscheid provided colouring. Burns illustrated the book cover. Howarth illustrated the song 'Jello Jack'. A limited hard-cover special was made too, sold with a 13-minute CD titled 'Blowoff', inspired by songs from 'Freak Show'. Two years later a 'Freak Show' CD-rom followed, with a cover illustrated by Richard Sala. In 1995 The Residents released another CD-rom, 'Bad Day on the Midway' (1995). The project was originally proposed as a TV series script in collaboration with David Lynch, but eventually these plans fell through. The CD-rom features visual designs by cartoonists like Leigh Barbier, Steve Cerio, Ronald M. Davis, Georganne Deen, Poe Dismuke, Bill Domonokos, Doug Fraser, Peter Kuper, Dave McKean, Pore No Graphics, Jonathon Rosen and Richard Sala - who visualized the song 'Oscar's Story'. A companion book was released the same year, followed by a soundtrack album the next year and a novel in 2012. Another cartoonist who once made a comic book about the Residents is Adam Weller.
