127: “Will you forget it? It’s magnetically sealed!”
c.1982/1983? | age 13–15? I have Leia saying the trash compactor is ‘vacuum sealed’, just as Luke says in the Marvel version; but in the movie, Luke frantically yells, “Will you forget it? I already tried it. It’s magnetically sealed!” So Luke, Leia and Chewie have already gone through that life-threatening experience, and in drops Han who subjects them to it all over again!
No Han, Don’t Wait!
“Don’t wait? Righty-oh…” BRAAP!
It’s very important to be clear—unambiguous—in situations like this. Getting the wrong end of the stick can cost lives! That said, some people will only hear what they want to hear—and shoot, regardless. Especially people like Han Solo, it seems. It’s just a part of his interesting and entertaining character!
Howard Chaykin’s at it again! It’s so similar to my own version.
Art Notes
I really like that onomatopoeic “BRAAP!” from Solo’s blaster; even though it’d probably suit a machine gun better. I’m not at all sure when I drew these. 1983? Surely not 1984. I was a heavy rocker at that stage, and if they knew in school that I still liked Star Wars they would have still been mercilessly ripping the piss out of me like they did in first year. But maybe I did still love drawing it? I wanted to be a professional comics artist after all (in my rose-tinted-spectacle naivete) so this was practice. I didn’t even bother going to see Return of the Jedi in 1983, though, so it’s all a bit confusing. Was I 13 when I did these? They look too good. Or was I secretly doing them at 14 or 15, for practice? Or was I secretly actually still into Star Wars at 14 or 15—but not interested in seeing RotJ because I heard that review on the radio which mentioned Muppets etc.?
Drawing teeny figures is too much of a pain in the arse
Who knows. But these pages are a mix of competent drawing and slap-dash bits. As if, I enjoyed drawing Solo in his armour, shooting; but couldn’t be much bothered drawing the little figures, which were a pain. Speaking of which, I was in awe of how Ron Smith drew his little figures in 2000ad comic’s Judge Dredd strips. So accurate, detailed and convincing with great poses and action!
Star Wars Uncut
Our Neil Baker reminded me of this project in his comment on Monday’s strip. Star Wars Uncut (Star Wars Even More Cut-up would be more apt) is a project in which filmmakers select from hundreds of 15 second segment cuts of the film and recreate them in any way they like. Neil—who’s an animator—did a rotoscope version with his Trash Compactor segment. For those of you not familiar with the term, rotoscoping is (put simply) tracing or painting over photographed movie film footage. You’ll have seen this in the 80’s in Aha and Dire Straits‘ music videos, and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings movie.
But Rotoscoping’s been around for yonks of course. And not just used by arty filmmakers at the National Film Board of Canada and the like. (whisper) Disney did it too—though they’d prefer you didn’t know that. Traditional or Classical animators could be quite up their own bottoms about this sort of thing. Insisting that they did 24 drawings-per-second of screen time and only used live action footage—like Disney’s Prince Charming on his horse in Cinderella for example—as a reference. Yeah, as a reference. God it’s so hard to convey caustic sarcasm in text. Anyhoo, check out Neil’s bit here. He said he spent about 30 hours on the repainting. His colour is spot on and the audio is very funny!
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