hrd03 hardball #3
hrd03 hardball #3
Aircel early August 1991
Chuck Austen, the popular and prolific writer/artist produced Hardball for Aircel. This black-and-white title is built around the sport of baseball and deals with the private life of a player, Jan, and his girlfriend, Mitzi. They have an active sex life – which is gratuitously illustrated for anyone who might have questions about what they do and how they do it – but Mitzi wants more. Is Jan more committed to America’s pastime than he is to his gal? Find out in this adults-only title that is a strange combination of lowbrow humor and keen insight.
He was present at Eclipse Comics with the artwork of Alien Encounters and Miracleman in the mid-1980s. Around the same time, he also did a number of pornographic comics, such as Strips, WorldWatch and Hardball. He was art director at Slave Labor between 1986 and 1989. He was present at DC with Phantom Lady and ‘Green Flame’.
He drew for Disney’s The Little Mermaid limited series, but became best known for his scriptwriting for Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men and artwork on Elektra. Austen was fired from Marvel in 2004 after numerous fan-outcry’s that asked for him to quit writing. After his firing from Marvel, Chuck took a job in writing stories for DC comics’ series; Action Comics but was soon fired there too. Austen was the director of Film Roman’s ‘King of the Hill’ (1997).