He attended Columbia College in Chicago that fall, but left school and returned to New York the following year.

He graduated from Jamaica High School at 16, in 1967, and in mid-1968 worked at Zenith Press.

He was introduced to comics by his cousin, who gave him a refrigerator box filled with them. Chaykin's 'nutty and cruel' adoptive father, whom Chaykin until the 1990s believed was his natural father, encouraged Chaykin's interest in drawing and bought him sketchbooks. He said in 2000 he was raised on welfare after his parents separated and that his absent biological father eventually was declared dead, although Chaykin, as an adult, located him alive. At 14, Chaykin moved with his now divorced mother to the Kew Gardens section of Queens. Chaykin was initially raised by his grandparents in Staten Island, New York City, until his mother married Leon Chaykin in 1953 and the family moved to East Flatbush and later to 370 Saratoga Avenue, Brownsville, Brooklyn. Howard Chaykin was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Rosalind Pave and Norman Drucker, who soon separated. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker. Howard Victor Chaykin is an American comic book artist and writer.

City of Tomorrow by Howard Chaykin