^ In Empire Building the chapter context is post-Graffiti, while in Skywalking they are talking about how he spent the SW income. But both are vague and this Supersnipe venture is a drop in.

Everyone alludes to this being a silent partner thing, but articles in People magazine from 1977 show that's not the case. If GL was entrenched in the store in 77, then i'd lean more towards this being a post-Graffiti investment, which was your original thought.

The Rolling Stone article:

http://starwarz.multiply.com/journal/item/10/1977_Rolling_Stone_George_Lucas_Interview

It will be interesting to see how Star Wars does overseas.
Yeah. Star Wars is designed with the international market in mind. The French are very much into this genre. They understand it more than Americans do, and it is the same with the Japanese. I own a comic gallery, an art gallery in New York that sells comic art and stuff; the guy that runs the art gallery also runs a comic store and we do a lot of business in France. They understand Alex Raymond, they understand that he was a great artist, they understand Hal Foster and they understand comic art as real art and as a sort of interesting, goofy thing. And I am very much into comic art, and its place in society as a real art, because it is something that expresses the culture as strongly as any other art.