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.
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.
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 1984In 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.
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.