Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

mid-late 1978? | age 9/10? I love this page! It was a nice surprise when I rediscovered it in 2009. Do you notice that Han originally said “Cover yore eyes folks!” —before I added a ‘U’, to er, correct it—which is even sillier! I can only presume it was intended to sound American. Cowboyish. And do you notice that he warns everyone after the fact, even though he’s probably done this a thousand times before?

The Risks of light-speed Travel

Another interesting thing is that I’m pretty sure the depiction of hyperspace places its creation after April 1978, because that’s when Star Wars Weekly comic hit the shops in Ireland, and I would have seen their treatment of hyperspace.

“Cover youre eyes folks!”

G L A R E

I’m pretty sure these are seventies sunglasses

Yep, that’s right, unless you know what yore doing – hyperspace can give you very hurty eyes. Thankfully, Han Solo’s in the driving seat folks! – and offers helpful advice to his passengers. First he swivels away from the glare—see the speed-lines?—then swings back toward it, with his hand up over his poor little eyes. That highlight marker packs some punch! Don’t you think they should be well used to, and prepared for it at this stage? What with all the high-tech space ship thingies, and weapons, and anti-gravity-this and tractor-beam-that, and generally just being super-advanced even though they’re a long time ago… haven’t they invented 1970s sunglasses yet? It’d be funny if Ben had also told Luke to hold his hand over his eyes while he practiced with his lightsaber against the remote—instead of using the helmet, with the blast-shield down.

Art Notes

That wild multi-coloured, positive-negative thing is lifted once again from Howard Chaykin’s Marvel adaptation. He hadn’t seen that part of the film when he illustrated it, so he got creative. I had. Hey! – d’you remember «this earlier page?

H. Chaykin’s Hyperspace

Now this confuses me. Because that other page is so childish and crudely done, that I’d placed it at late 1977, but then where did the weird hyperspace effect come from, if I hadn’t seen Star Wars Weekly comic which didn’t come out until April 1978? Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually clutching at straws when I say that I started making this comic in late 1977. I mean, given the above evidence, and the fact that I probably didn’t see the film until the end of December 1977it doesn’t quite add up, does it?

Anyway, about the hyperspace effect: I suppose I liked the weirdness of it! And it’s a fun thing to try to do.

Film Notes: Make & Do

Apparently this was another of those bits of the film that—much to George’s surprise—wowed audiences. The streaking stars effect drew much positive comment says George, and it was one of the simplest to achieve. The other ‘traveling through hyperspace’ effect—reminiscent of the Dr.Who opening title—was achieved with a toilet roll tube and aluminium foil!

The Hyperpsace-Aluminium-Foil effect!

See the second image on the right? It worked remarkably well. George was—and perhaps the BBC were also inspired by the Stargate of 2001—a truly breath-taking experience. I don’t know how Kubrick and Co. created the Stargate (it’s  kaleidoscopic at times) but an early Dr.Who opener technique was a video feedback loop, created by pointing a television camera at a monitor.

Incidentally, SW visual effects wizard John Dykstra worked on 2001.

I still can’t get used to saying Dyke-stra. When I was a kid I thought it was Dye-kas-tra.

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