The original Marvel Star Wars series — Page 13

SilverWook said:

Interesting that none of those guys look like any of Jabba’s henchmen we know. The guy shooting Luke’s hand would make for a cool action figure though.

I’ve noticed that Al Williamson had a tendency to draw the same aliens over and over again regardless of which sci-fi/fantasy series he was working on. He’d draw recognizable SW aliens or creatures if they were relevant to the plot, but the background characters seemed to always be from his mental catalog of aliens and creatures. For example; these spotted lizards tended to show up quite often if the plot required some kind of mount that wasn’t specified as either a Tauntaun or a Dewback. Not to mention, mushrooms, giant, spotted mushrooms. Those seem to almost be a calling card for him.

Some of these guys has a very Flash Gordon feel to them (which makes sense with Williamson). I especially like the big toad-like creature lurking in the background.

Non-SW aliens appearing in the comics is one of my favourite “quirks” of Marvel’s SW. Infantino also had a mental catalog of aliens that he kept reusing, some of which I think could have worked really well in the movies.

SilverWook said:

Interesting that Williamson and Infantino had their stock company of aliens. I wonder how many other artists do that?

Considering how fast artists had to draw comics it wasn’t unusual that they found shortcuts. Though I can’t remember having read anywhere that they actually kept stock background characters, though it would make sense.

And from what I’ve been able to find out about Al Williamson, he simply enjoyed drawing lizards and mushrooms:

RINGGENBERG: “What do you like to draw the most, given a choice?”
WILLIAMSON: “Lizards. Mushrooms? Rocks.”
-Al Williamson Interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg in 1984

In Infantino’s case however, I’d say scaly humanoids with pointy noses and fin-ears (like this guy) was just how he drew generic aliens when he didn’t have time to think up anything too specific. A sort of mental “shorthand” I suppose.

SilverWook said:

I would expect the regular run to have to invent some aliens. Otherwise, we’d be seeing the same Cantina fellows every time and everyplace! And I was thinking of The Wheel storyline in particular before I clicked on that link. 😉

Infantino did actually re-purpose some Cantina aliens during the Wheel story-line. And once more in “Return of the Hunter”. The only other time he did this, as far as I can remember, was when they actually returned to Tatooine.

ZkinandBonez said:

Thought this was quite funny;

This was an advertisement for the regular SW series in Return of the Jedi #2. It re-purposed Tom Palmer’s cover for SW #70 (“The Stenax Shuffle”) with some added speech bubbles.

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I also just found out that the ROTJ miniseries was coloured differently for the TPB. Does anyone know why this was done?
Source

Here ya go ! scroll down a bit and you will see some info on the coloring of the various Jedi adaptations …seems it had something to do with the paper stock…http://classiccomics.org/thread/1039/star-wars-marvel-reviews-confessor?page=57&scrollTo=153630 oops ! saw that was the source you posted as well , still , interesting question /topic .

screams in the void said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Thought this was quite funny;

This was an advertisement for the regular SW series in Return of the Jedi #2. It re-purposed Tom Palmer’s cover for SW #70 (“The Stenax Shuffle”) with some added speech bubbles.

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I also just found out that the ROTJ miniseries was coloured differently for the TPB. Does anyone know why this was done?
Source

Here ya go ! scroll down a bit and you will see some info on the coloring of the various Jedi adaptations …seems it had something to do with the paper stock…http://classiccomics.org/thread/1039/star-wars-marvel-reviews-confessor?page=57&scrollTo=153630

Actually, that’s where I got the pictures from in the first place, but the guy who wrote the post only seems to assume it had to do with the paper stock. It’s not a bad explanation, but it does seem odd to me. Judging by the two pictures, the TPB seems to have more yellow paper which could explain the need for more exaggerated colours. It just seems strange to me that the TPB would have an inferior paper stock compared to the regular comic. Unless the TPB is the one shown on the left? I don’t actually own any original copies of ROTJ so I don’t know which is which.

SilverWook said:

ZkinandBonez said:

SilverWook said:

Interesting that Williamson and Infantino had their stock company of aliens. I wonder how many other artists do that?

Considering how fast artists had to draw comics it wasn’t unusual that they found shortcuts. Though I can’t remember having read anywhere that they actually kept stock background characters, though it would make sense.

And from what I’ve been able to find out about Al Williamson, he simply enjoyed drawing lizards and mushrooms:

RINGGENBERG: “What do you like to draw the most, given a choice?”
WILLIAMSON: “Lizards. Mushrooms? Rocks.”
-Al Williamson Interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg in 1984

In Infantino’s case however, I’d say scaly humanoids with pointy noses and fin-ears (like this guy) was just how he drew generic aliens when he didn’t have time to think up anything too specific. A sort of mental “shorthand” I suppose.

SilverWook said:

I would expect the regular run to have to invent some aliens. Otherwise, we’d be seeing the same Cantina fellows every time and everyplace! And I was thinking of The Wheel storyline in particular before I clicked on that link. 😉

Infantino did actually re-purpose some Cantina aliens during the Wheel story-line. And once more in “Return of the Hunter”. The only other time he did this, as far as I can remember, was when they actually returned to Tatooine.

I forgot about that one. Mufftak’s buff cousin?

The one’s in ROTH slipped by me, probably because there weren’t too many photos of the far background cantina guys in public circulation back then. The band and the aliens who made it into the early Kenner line had better agents I guess. 😉

The guy next to the Talz (/“Mufftak’s buff cousin”) seems to be a somewhat incorrectly drawn Bith. I’m guessing they didn’t have the best sources to work-off back then. The bald guy from “Return of the Hunter” is probably based off a photo of Djas Puhr, but the colorist decided to make him a greyish blue instead of black. Regardless, Wookieepedia does identify him as a Sakiyan.

Its quite interesting to search through Wookieepedia and see what they’ve identified the Marvel background aliens as. Some times Infantino, Williamson, etc. gwts credited as having invented their own species, and other times they’ve been retroactively identified as whatever established species the fans assumed they were trying to draw.

I’ve always wondered if using the Kenner toys (or at least catalog photos of them) as reference while making these comcis is the reason why so many of the TIEs and X-Wings look so bulky, or why Luke’s lightsaber was yellow for a while, etc.

DominicCobb said:

Somehow I missed the announcement but Valance the Hunter is getting his own canon comic miniseries starting this July.

I knew they’d recently re-canonized the character in the “Han Solo: Imperial Cadet” series, but I assumed it was in name only.

Makes me wonder if SW #108 is intended as a cross-promotion for this miniseries, or the other way around. Either way, it’s neat to see more classic Marvel SW characters get brought back.

^good question , and yeah , that sure looks like a female Tusken . I dig the art on that cover though and I have always wondered if James Cameron borrowed the look of the Terminator from Valance ,especially in T2 . Valance predates the Terminator by many years and Cameron has been known to lift elements from other sources , such as Harlan Ellison and Roger Dean , the artist behind the albums for prog rock band Yes even tried to sue him for the uncanny similarities between his own work and Avatar .

Maybe this is old news to some of you, and I guess this doesn’t technically count as “original Marvel”, but I just found out that at some point Al Williamson was commissioned to adapt ANH into a comic strip and just had to post it here. Williamson only did twelve strips before Russ Manning was hired to make original stories instead.

First three strips (not counting the crawl):

Source & remaining twelve strips

Although this version is quite rushed compared to Chaykin’s adaptation, it would still have been interesting to have seen how this had turned out had he been given the chance to do the whole movie. At least it gives an insight into what a proper AH adaptation by Williamson might have looked like.

(Also, if anyone know where I can find these in better quality, please let me know.)

Really neat to see something clearly made after filming but before all the effects work was finalized (note the Tantive’s pre-hammerhead bow)

timdiggerm said:

Really neat to see something clearly made after filming but before all the effects work was finalized (note the Tantive’s pre-hammerhead bow)

I haven’t actually been able to find out exactly when this comic strip was made. It looks more movie accurate than what Chaykin managed to do with the reference materia he was provided, but that could just be a matter of style. This version has its oddities as well, the Tantinve’s bow as you mentioned, and the Dewbacks looks more like regular lizards. But then again, they seem to be part of Williamson’s set of stock aliens. Tatooine also has several of Williamson’s trademark rock-formations.

It seems odd to me that Lucas wold have hired both Chaykin at Marvel, and Williamson for some newspaper, to do two separate adaptations at the same time. I can see how Marvel was talked into making the comic, but I don’t see how a newspaper would have commissioned a comic strip before SW had already become a hit. The Russ Manning comic strip started in 1979, so I would guess Williamson’s version would have been made somewhere between late 1977 and 1978.

SilverWook said:

When did Marvel begin to do newspaper strips? I remember one for Spidey and even Howard the Duck. It seems unusual in retrospect they didn’t do the SW strip.

As far as I know Marvel had nothing to do with it. However, both Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson did work on the strips while also working on Marvel comics.

According to Wookieepedia; the SW strips were distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and the Watertown Daily Times.

There might have been some kind of license deal though. Since Marvel held the comic rights, maybe the newspapers had to go via them?

according to this source , Al Williamson drew the 12 strips in 1978 and they were first published in The Art Of Al williamson book in 1983 . If you follow the link to the facebook page there is more info. I also seem to remember reading that Al had some commitments to his Secret Agent X9 strip that he was doing with Archie Goodwin that prevented him from doing the original adaptation, as he was George’s first choice, and he did not feel like he could give his all to the project . When x9 ended , he was freed up to come on board for Empire . anyway , here is the link I mentioned…http://www.battlegrip.com/spotted-online-unpublished-star-wars-comic-strips-by-al-williamson/

screams in the void said:

according to this source , Al Williamson drew the 12 strips in 1978 and they were first published in The Art Of Al williamson book in 1983 . If you follow the link to the facebook page there is more info. I also seem to remember reading that Al had some commitments to his Secret Agent X9 strip that he was doing with Archie Goodwin that prevented him from doing the original adaptation, as he was George’s first choice, and he did not feel like he could give his all to the project . When x9 ended , he was freed up to come on board for Empire . anyway , here is the link I mentioned…http://www.battlegrip.com/spotted-online-unpublished-star-wars-comic-strips-by-al-williamson/

Thanks. It’s interesting to see just how many different things Goodwin was working at this time. He was a busy man.

It’s also nice to see that I’m not the only one who’s favourite SW comic artist is Carmine Infantino;

http://www.battlegrip.com/my-favorite-star-wars-artist/

Also, according to an interview with Infantino, he was told that he was requested by Lucas. First time I’ve heard about this.

http://www.battlegrip.com/carmine-infantino-penciler-publisher-provocateur-in-pdf/

Makes me wonder just how much control Lucas actually had over the comics and their creative teams. I know he disapproved of certain ideas, but I had no idea he chose the artists after the ANH adaptation.

Anchorhead said:

Does anyone here have any experience with Marvel digital?

https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/53791/star_wars_1977_1

I read a lot of digital versions of comic books, but they’re all DC via ComiXology. Super easy to download and read. I only see the post-2014 Star Wars on there, so Marvel will have to be a second purchase/app (or however they deliver).

I haven’t used Marvel Digital, but all the classic SW comics are on comixology as well.

Anchorhead said:

Man, I thought I might not be doing a thorough search. Thanks, back to it…

Yeah, you have to search a bit before you find it buried under all the new Marvel and Dark Horse stuff.