Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

Look at the SIZE of that thing!

c.Early 1978/age 9 or 10 Is Han referring to the size of the Death Star or Luke’s huge 3D chin? And observe dear reader, if you will: the importance of the arrangement of your speech balloons. I get confused myself, looking at this page. You see, in the west, we read left to right. But why worry about that? The first balloon which you see is actually the second one you should read. It’s Luke replying to Han.

But on this page? Well let’s just say that this precocious child-artist,  having learned—and mastered—all of the rules and theory of comic creation at an mere 9 years old—such a child prodigy—felt it was only right that he should calculatedly break them. And then there are lines that are half-copied from Marvel’s Roy Thomas:

“Yeah we’ve had it unless!”

Oh I don’t know… Dear oh dear oh dear. I weep for my teachers. These non-sequiturs are a bit like the “I repeat!” bit «seen in Part 1. Obviously it should be:
“Yeah, we’ve had it, unless…” Which is then interrupted by Han in panel 2.

Well, at least I put a bloody question mark after Han’s question. Top marks for that!

But you know, if I’d ever given more than a second’s thought to how each page would be done—in advance, it’d be a pretty dull comic.

Here’s a question for you:

When you were in school and your English teacher advised you to “work out the essay in rough outline first, on paper”—did you ever actually do that? Be honest now. Or, did you, like me, just plough-in, making it up as you went along? Yep, and I even ploughed-straight-in for my Leaving Certificate examination English Essay. The Leaving Certificate exams in Ireland are the ones at the end of secondary school. The ones that pretty much decide the rest of your life.

Twit.

Art Notes: 3D?

The bottom panel is based hook, line and sinker on Howard Chaykin’s full-page panel in the Marvel adaptation which worked incredibly well. So Marvel’s rippingly ripper page was ripe for ripping-off. Also, check out the panel gutter scrawled from left to right. As always: no ruler – and in this case I seem to have commenced the scrawl without anticipating Luke’s «hugely heroic big dimply chin getting in the way. Or—was it intentional? Could it be that I wanted Luke to sort of jump-out at the reader? Cor, like 3D! Like have his dimply chin poke us right in the eye? The only trouble is, he ends up looking a bit like John the Baptist’s head on a tray.

(Side Note: See the funny symbol thingy on the Death Star there? Almost like an arrow? Marvel sprinkled those around one issue of Star Wars Weekly as a competition challenge. Count how many there were and you could win a prize.)