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The original Marvel Star Wars series — Page 10

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Shopping Maul said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Does anyone know who did the art on p.28 (see picture below) for SW #47 “Droid World”. The first page only lists Infantino as the artist (which is quite clear from the art itself) and Gene Day as the inker. But p.28 (the second-to-last page) is clearly drawn by someone else with a noticeably different art style. I’ve had the Norwegian version of this issue since I was a kid, and it has always really bugged me.

(PS. This is from the Norwegian version. I have the American version as well but I’d already scanned the Norwegian one recently, plus the art is untouched and the colours are pretty much the same in both versions anyway.)

I don’t have the issue in front of me, but I always assumed that page was Gene Day. I recall a strip he did somewhere amongst the Conan stuff that looked like this. I’m assuming an Infantino page went missing and Gene quickly flew solo for this one. I could be wrong though…

That would make a lot of sense, and having just googled Gene Day’s art it does seem to match the style from the odd page in Droid World. It’s also quite similar to a panel on p.5 which seems kind of like a blend between Infantino’s style and the p.28 style. So you’re probably right about Gene Day having had to either replace a page or cover for Infantino at some point.

(I’m also quite surprised that this art discrepancy is neither explained, or even mentioned, on Wookieepedia, as they’re usually quite thorough about these things.)

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Perhaps someone spilled their coffee all over the original page?

Never realized this before, but Kligson sure looks a lot like Robocop.

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It could have had to do with Infantino leaving Marvel (and returning to DC) the same year as this issue was drawn. I don’t know the whole story in detail, but I remember reading somewhere that he was never too happy working at Marvel. In one interview he refers to a lot of his work there as “mediocre”, though he did speak highly of his collaboration with Archie Goodwin.

He might have simply gotten tired of the jobs that Marvel was giving him at this point. Droid World can be a little bit sloppy at times compared to his SW work the previous couple of years, and the next issue (The Third Law) is simply plain lazy at times. The previous issue was also barely even recognizable as having been drawn by Infantino, implying that he mostly did layouts. Apart from the aliens (incl. Cody Sunn-Childe) it looks more like it was drawn by Tom Palmer, who’s just credited as the inker. So for whatever (specific) reason, it seems like a lot of artists at this time had to cover for him before he was eventually replaced by Walt Simonson / Tom Palmer as the main artist(s) working on SW.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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I have been reading on this other forum that after the Empire Strikes Back adaptation , the new editor Louise Jones started having various inkers like Tom Palmer and Carlos Garzon work on Infantino’s pencils to make the comic look more film accurate .After the Empire adaptation , the artists had to up their game . I know you like the charm of Infantino’s more cartoony art ZkinandBonez , and I can see your view to a degree, but he never drew the ships and hardware correct and I much prefer the Walter Simonson Era .Even in the examples you posted of Archie Goodwin’s layouts , I can see a difference in proportion that Infantino brought to bear on them .Goodwin’s characters are leaner in his layouts , and it’s most noticeable in the proportions of R2-D2 . I think part of the problem is that Infantino was primarily a super hero artist and he drew all of his characters with that aesthetic . I think the best we got from him was the water world issues where Terry Austin did the inks .but this is all subjective .oh , and here is the forum I mentioned …http://classiccomics.org/thread/1039/star-wars-marvel-reviews-confessor

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SilverWook said:

Perhaps someone spilled their coffee all over the original page?

Never realized this before, but Kligson sure looks a lot like Robocop.

^ very true on the Robocop lookalike , I have often wondered if film makers maybe looked at these books for inspiration …the character of Valance The Hunter where they show his half cyborg face is a dead ringer for the Terminator !

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screams in the void said:

I have been reading on this other forum that after the Empire Strikes Back adaptation , the new editor Louise Jones started having various inkers like Tom Palmer and Carlos Garzon work on Infantino’s pencils to make the comic look more film accurate .After the Empire adaptation , the artists had to up their game . I know you like the charm of Infantino’s more cartoony art ZkinandBonez , and I can see your view to a degree, but he never drew the ships and hardware correct and I much prefer the Walter Simonson Era .Even in the examples you posted of Archie Goodwin’s layouts , I can see a difference in proportion that Infantino brought to bear on them .Goodwin’s characters are leaner in his layouts , and it’s most noticeable in the proportions of R2-D2 . I think part of the problem is that Infantino was primarily a super hero artist and he drew all of his characters with that aesthetic . I think the best we got from him was the water world issues where Terry Austin did the inks .but this is all subjective .oh , and here is the forum I mentioned …http://classiccomics.org/thread/1039/star-wars-marvel-reviews-confessor

Thanks for the forum link, I’ve only looked through it for a few minutes and already found a lot of interesting stuff. They even covered the weird panel from “Droid World” I talked about earlier in the thread.

As for the art, it makes sense that there was more of a push for movie-accurate art after Al Williamson. Adding to this Infantino’s growing frustrations with Marvel and his future offer to return to DC, it makes sense that the last two-ish years of his SW art would be a little weird and uneven.

I do like the Walter Simonson era, but, as odd as this may sound, my admiration for Simonson’s art is the main reason why my reaction to his collaboration with Tom Palmer is somewhat lukewarm. I just feel that a lot of what made Simonson’s art unique is lost in Palmer’s inking. I’d much rather have had pure Simonson art (like we got on some of the covers), or pure Tom Palmer art for that matter. Though I do understand that Simonson probably didn’t have time to ink his own stuff due to the slightly tighter schedules that they had on SW comics. Plus, all of this was before Simonson’s famous run on the Thor comics, so I guess he was just a guy for hire at this point.

However, I still think Goodwin had a grasp of the characters and a feel for the SW-universe like none other before or after him. Jo Duffy did a great job overall and invented some really memorable characters (like Kiro & Dani), though I personally feel that she did occasionally slip into Roy Thomas territory with other characters like Minka. And, despite my fascination with Infantino’s stylized art, I do think the best pairing for SW comics was Goodwin and Al Williamson on the newspaper strips, and later on; Classic Star Wars. Williamson’s art do lack some of the dynamic qualities which Simonson had, but his old fashioned style just fits so well with that movie-serial feel of the OT.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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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…

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Found this uncoloured version of the splash page from SW #49 on Walt Simonson’s twitter.

“Star Wars 49; Pg 1. Finishes by Tom Palmer​ on Craftint. 10 x 15. 1981.”

It has that same pattern to it that I mentioned when I previously posted the uncoloured pages from “Riders in the Void”, and Simonson identifies it as “craftint”. It’s a pretty fascinating pre-digital way of achieving doubletone. https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/craiglab/2018/01/03/craftint-doubletone-20th-century-time-saver/

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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And once again, Marvel got ahead of Lucasfilm’s plans. 😉

Are there any original pages with Jaxxon floating around?

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SilverWook said:

And once again, Marvel got ahead of Lucasfilm’s plans. 😉

Are there any original pages with Jaxxon floating around?

I looked for it, but all I could find was this.

I did however come across this clean art from SW #1 p.31 while looking through Chaykin’s art on comicartfans.com.

One little details that I though was interesting is that the Banthas in the second panel have been drawn on a separate piece of pater, then cut out and glued onto this page. I guess Chaykin might not have had any actual set photos of the banthas when he first drew the page, then at some point later on he had to correct it. Makes me wander what he originally drew? Maybe something like this? Or perhaps he only had concept art to work with at first? Of course he might have just drawn it in a way he didn’t like, but considering his version of Jabba later on its not unlikely that he drew them differently based on a lack of proper reference.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Thanks for finding that Jaxxon page, ZkinandBonez. I wouldn’t mind owning a page from the Marvel comic, but I know that sort of thing can get super expensive, just like animation art.

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ZkinandBonez said:

Apparently Al Williamson snuck a George Lucas cameo onto page 11 of SW #43 “Betrayal at Bespin”.

The original picture is of Lucas filming ANH in Tunisia.

Now that’s funny.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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Mona has been corrected. Man, those quotebots™ are getting annoying.

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ZkinandBonez said:

Apparently Al Williamson snuck a George Lucas cameo onto page 11 of SW #43 “Betrayal at Bespin”.

The original picture is of Lucas filming ANH in Tunisia.

And beat George’s Episode III cameo by 25 years. 😃

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On a side note, I finally read the new Jaxxon story, and I hate what they did with Amaiza. It seemed totally out of character for her based on their relationship in the Marvel comics.
Bad enough they changed her outfit to be Disney friendly™.

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I have been disappointed with the new era of Marvel Star Wars overall so far . I think the first Vader comic storyline was ok and the artwork is ok and mostly movie accurate , but seems kind of stiff and I can read an issue of any of their lineup in ten minutes . I miss when comics were equally about WORDS and pictures and were narrated with caption boxes with beautiful prose .It took me about half an hour to read an issue of the old comic series and I felt like I was getting my moneys worth . a four issue story arc felt like I was watching a movie and took just as long . Now , I just check the new stuff out online in places where it is posted to be freely seen .Five bucks for a comic I can read in ten minutes is way too much ! And comics now are all close to five bucks . who the hell can afford to collect multiple issues anymore ?!

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New Marvel SW has been quite a mixed bag I think. A lot of the miniseries have been quite good. Nothing spectacular, but there’s some good stories there. The new content had a somewhat rough start, and the ongoing series, with the exception of Charles Soule’s Darth Vader series, have been pretty mediocre story-wise, and, in my opinion, borderline amateurishly drawn. I personally find the “movie accurate” ones from the first Vader series to be the worst of the bunch. It genuinely annoys me as artist literally just traced photos from the movies and the result is this kind of uncanny feeling. This article explain what I’m referring to.

I’ve really enjoyed Soule’s Vader series. The art may not be realistic, but it is “Marvel” in the sense that its dynamic and colourful. The Han Solo miniseries is a good example of art that is both movie accurate and dynamic.

But I think the biggest problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is that modern SW is just a completely different thing than classic SW. It’s nearly impossible nowadays, after 10 movies and 40 years of lore to go back to the simplicity in the old comics. The world itself adheres to more rules now, and even the characters aren’t as flexible ad simple as they used to be.

In the end I think a lot boils down to what your personal perception of what SW is supposed to be like. What “Star Wars” refers to has expanded and changed quite a lot in the past 40+ years, and new content is always going to mostly conform to the latest “baseline”.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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I get what you are saying , I use photographic resources from the movies in my own art but try to approach them with a painterly aesthetic and hone them to an illustrative quality , they aren’t one click solutions . I do agree about the new comics from the first year though and that is some of the stiffness I was talking about . If that is the approach , I would rather see something akin to Drew Struzan who traced photographic sources on a projector but understood how to draw and integrate the photographic sources to look natural in their environment and have texture .The examples in the uncanny valley article you posted look very unnatural . Part of that is that they are trying to combine two separate techniques , part pen and ink traditional comic art with digitally rendered photo realistic faces . As for going back to simplicity , I find these new comics far more simplistic and lacking depth whereas the old series was chock full of complex stories and depth , issue 76 being a prime example …the genocide of an entire aquatic and sentient alien species , save a few members , who cut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy and isolate themselves where they were once free and open . Or issue 86 which deals with a stormtrooper who is also a survivor of Alderaan who Leia convinces to switch allegiances only to have him be shot in the back by his C.O. at the end and die . deep stuff man ! I can watch a marathon of all the Star Wars movies and slot the Marvel comics in and not be bothered by 40 years of lore and they still work for me . There may be a few continuity hiccups but they are far and few between and a lot less than reconciling 90’s EU with the current canon . I don’t put much stock in canon anyway . I kind of pick and choose from all of it that works for me personally . I still think prose captions should be a part of modern comics though . Comics for the past few decades have been trying too hard to be movies . If I want to watch the movies , I now have unlimited access to them and will pop in a blu ray , vhs or dvd . I think the recent film adaptations are a prime example of this . There is no substance to them and the Last Jedi adaptation was atrocious and looked like a 12 year old drew it . I liked the movie though .

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screams in the void said:

I get what you are saying , I use photographic resources from the movies in my own art but try to approach them with a painterly aesthetic and hone them to an illustrative quality , they aren’t one click solutions . I do agree about the new comics from the first year though and that is some of the stiffness I was talking about . If that is the approach , I would rather see something akin to Drew Struzan who traced photographic sources on a projector but understood how to draw and integrate the photographic sources to look natural in their environment and have texture .The examples in the uncanny valley article you posted look very unnatural . Part of that is that they are trying to combine two separate techniques , part pen and ink traditional comic art with digitally rendered photo realistic faces .

Yeah, Drew Struzan is a great example of how to do it right. And even Al Williamson used some photo-reference for his ESB and ROTJ adaptations, but artists like Larroca rely too much on photos and 3D models and it ends up looking lazy. Williamson used photos to guide his drawings, while Larroca basically cheats to save hismelf having to actually draw at all.

screams in the void said:

As for going back to simplicity , I find these new comics far more simplistic and lacking depth whereas the old series was chock full of complex stories and depth , issue 76 being a prime example …the genocide of an entire aquatic and sentient alien species , save a few members , who cut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy and isolate themselves where they were once free and open . Or issue 86 which deals with a stormtrooper who is also a survivor of Alderaan who Leia convinces to switch allegiances only to have him be shot in the back by his C.O. at the end and die . deep stuff man !

Oh, I didn’t mean to say that classic SW didn’t have depth to it, there was plenty of it. Stories like Day After the Death Star is a great example of giving Luke some character development, and there were plenty like it. But I still feel that they were “simpler” stories in that they were more focused on being adventurous before anything else. Old SW is not comparable to something like Soule’s Vader where the plot in its entirety is one long character exploration (and a pretty dark one at that). What I meant by “simple” is that you could pick up almost any issue of the old SW comics and not feel lost. Trying to do that with modern comics is just going to be confusing. I do however think the old comics focused a little bit more on character depth than character growth though. Not that they didn’t change at all, but you could always rely on the main characters behaving in a fairly predictable manner. Though you’re right that thus doesn’t alway apply to the new stuff, and I might have thought more about the EU as a whole in my previous post.

screams in the void said:

I can watch a marathon of all the Star Wars movies and slot the Marvel comics in and not be bothered by 40 years of lore and they still work for me . There may be a few continuity hiccups but they are far and few between and a lot less than reconciling 90’s EU with the current canon . I don’t put much stock in canon anyway . I kind of pick and choose from all of it that works for me personally . I still think prose captions should be a part of modern comics though . Comics for the past few decades have been trying too hard to be movies . If I want to watch the movies , I now have unlimited access to them and will pop in a blu ray , vhs or dvd .

It might be a generational thing? (Partially, at least.) A lot of people nowadays seem quite obsessed with continuity, and will outright dismiss or complain about any little detail that doesn’t fit properly. And considering how movies and TV series works now compared to 25+ years ago, its not that strange really. Most TV shows nowadays are continuous stories where each episode is a new chapter in one long plot, as opposed to before where each episode was (for the most part) it’s own story with a beginning, middle and end. There was of course continuity, but if you missed an episode it wasn’t usually a big deal.

I’m personally a bit of both worlds. I enjoy the EU, and the elaborate connectivity is part of the fun, but I couldn’t care less if a comic from 1979 contradicts something established in a comic or novel from 1999.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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I get what you are saying about some people being obsessed with continuity nowadays , what gets me is that a lot of comic companies , especially DC , reboot their continuity just about every ten years , so to me , it’s kinda pointless to bitch about these things .While the early Star Wars material is what I favor , I do like some 90’s Eu and beyond and some of the connectivity like Tales Of The Jedi linking up with Dark Empire and later material etc . and I love the Heir To The Empire trilogy and Thrawn Duology . I think it got overblown after the New Jedi Order though and the cast of characters got too large and hard to keep up with , so I lost interest . Now that I think of it , this is kind of the same thing that some diehard old EU fans are upset about with the sequel trilogy …

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