Howard the Duck is a character from the Marvel Comics who first appeared in 1973. He got his own movie in 1986 (which is famously awful) and recently featured sparingly in
Guardians of the Galaxy and
Avengers: Endgame. Back in February,
Marvel announced that they're collaborating with Hulu to bring a plethora of animated shows to the platform — one of those being
Howard the Duck.
This was an official synopsis released for the animated series at the time:
"Howard the Duck is trapped in a world he never made, but America’s favorite fighting fowl hopes to return home with the help of his unstoppable gal pal Beverly before the evil Dr. Bong can turn him the crispiest dish on the menu. Writers Kevin Smith and Dave Willis will also executive produce."
During a recent panel at San Diego Comic-Con (via
Comicbook.com), Kevin Smith was asked for an update on the
Howard the Duck series. Smith admitted that work on the series hasn't begun just yet and that it will likely be a couple of months before the writers' room assembles. According to the popular director, we shouldn't expect to see the animated series grace our screens until at least a year from now.
You can read Smith's full statment below — in which he states that the MODOK animated series is currently Marvel and Hulu's priority whereas Howard the Duck is on the backburner.
In terms of the order of the shows, right now, our show goes last. Right now it’s MODOK, then Hit-Monkey, then Dazzler & Tigra, then Howard the Duck. My partner on that show is the brilliant Dave Willis who created Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He’s the sensibility that you want to go along with Howard. I’m there, I’ll give it my all, but Steve Gerber’s Howard was genre-bending. We need a genre-bender to come in and work on the show, so Dave is putting together a writers room that I’ll add some people to, too, and then we’re going to be moving forward within the next 2 months our writers’ room opens up. We’re a year away from the cartoon, to be honest with you, but I’m sure it will be good, because Marvel doesn’t do anything bad.