I remember first seeing SW comics on the rack as a little kid and being appalled at the depictions of the characters (the square chins, Luke’s hair etc etc). Then throughout '78-'79 (a short few months later but an eternity in ‘kid time’) I actually got into comics properly, and suddenly the SW comics looked great to me. Ironically the very thing that had put me off became the thing that I was drawn to - namely the fact that Infantino drew the characters like super heroes.

Putting the TESB adaptation aside, it was issue #49 (the Last Jedi) that changed my ‘head canon’. This was the first issue that felt - to me at least - like it was in the same universe as the movie saga. From then on (with a couple of exceptions ie the John Carter/Leia story) the comics became interwoven with the canon for me, as opposed to just being ‘Marvel Star Wars’.

Simonson was awesome. He was great on Battlestar Galactica too, and I also loved the Close Encounters adaptation he did with Klaus Jansen and Archie Goodwin. While I agree with Zkin that Tom Palmer diluted Simonson somewhat, I think it worked for me in this instance because it made the images more ‘movie accurate’ and also eased the transition from Walt to Ron Frenz. Either way the dude was great! Good times…