Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

1978 | age 9–10 Hurrah! It’s an oldie. A second-pass adaptation page, with Chewie in action. And I’m still digging these incomplete sentences. The comic sure wouldn’t be same  without them if.

“You need a trailing dot—dot—dot dammit!”

I sense something… a presence, such as I haven’t felt since!
—Darth Vader, Star Wars age 9

Since what? Since WHEN?!?! Darth Notmakingsense

Art Notes:

The “Now back to the gantry officer” bit was added a couple of years later—I think—in order to maintain some sort of continuity from the newer page that was «added before it. Yep, stick an arrow in too, just to make sure people know who the gantry officer is that we already saw: half a page ago. I wonder sometimes how consciously I was putting in things like that so that my audience—a few select friends—would be able to follow it, or was I just play-acting for my own imaginative fun? Certainly, as I drew my comics I would have been the frame of mind of imagining that they were real professional ones, for sale in the shops. Like kids playing football in the schoolyard, pretending that they’re playing for their favourite team in a huge stadium. But then, I’m assuming that sporty kids do actually use their imaginations in this way. I couldn’t tell you one way or the other whether they do or not, because I was never ever sporty.

The Devil–himself–is in the details

Artistic Mannerism

I seem to have been going through a phase of drawing shapes within shapes, almost arbitrarily. Do you see the stormtrooper’s helmet—and the officer’s glove? It’s very much like on this other page of the «incontinent trooper in the desert.

THWAK – SKAT – POW

Watch out… Chewie is getting ‘exaspére’!

Chewie’s face was probably copied from the big jigsaw photo which we all assembled from the backs of the Star Wars trading cards. Quite similar, or identical to the small one shown above. I’ve absolutely no doubt that the most enjoyable bit of this page to render would have been the blood. Chewie smacks him one. And somehow—he  manages to hit him 3 times with one blow! (or is one of those sounds coming from the slidey-doors?) The guy’s eyeball even goes red! Euww… But look on the bright-side Mr. Death Star Officer: that blow might not have been fatal, and your «arms are still  securely in their sockets.

“ARRR! That’ll teach you to stop picking your nose—you filthy boy!”