Howard Miller

Stepping out of the sun-drenched, emotionally rich world of Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets, Howard Miller made his debut in issue #13 back in 1985 — right in the heart of the Bronze Age, and part of one of the most celebrated alternative comics runs Fantagraphics ever published. He's a compact presence in the catalog with just five appearances, but one of those carries key-issue weight, which tells you something about the significance of the stories he inhabits. Sharing pages with the likes of Maggie Chascarillo, Chelo, and Diana Villaseñor, Howard moves through Hernandez's vividly rendered world of complex, deeply human characters — the kind of company that makes even a supporting figure worth tracking down.