011: Mechanically Recovered Rebel
SWa9 should carry a PG rating – because of this page alone which was partly inspired by the great work of comic artist Alex Nino. I think it’s from 1978, when I was 9 or 10. And it just goes to show that children – who really shouldn’t be allowed to watch slasher films – are nonetheless the best-qualified people to make them. Bless their little hearts.
Art Notes
See Alex Nino’s original artwork super-imposed? That was what I traced with carbon-paper
It’s a very shocking image. The rebel soldier has literally been shredded. Like he’s been fed through a meat-rendering machine. You can see how I drew over the Man Gods art to transfer the image to my own comic!
The Great Alex Nino
A beautifully crafted strip
I’d initially thought that the top panel was carbon-paper transferred from a Werewolf by Night comic – due to the extreme gore and mutilation but it actually came from the Man Gods from Beyond the Stars strip serialised in Star Wars weekly comic! A comic bought by children of all ages: like my 9 year old self! Would you like to see the original? Compare mine with it.
Alex Nino: Superb artist
Based on Erich Von Daniken’s silly but exciting‘Chariots of the Gods?’ books, it was a good story, but very badly printed. The UK printings tended to be pretty basic quality anyway. But I even bought the originally published 1975 version of it – in MARVEL Preview magazine, when PROMETHEUS was headed for cinema release – but the print quality still doesn’t do Alex Nino’s spectacularly good art justice – and can’t sufficiently capture his halftones and subtle line-work. Read about artist Alex Nino
Unhealthy Influences
I did jokingly write on the old site, that this is “yet more stuff that George should have put in… but he just didn’t have the vision of this 9 year old…You know, the sort of gore and splattered brains that 9 year olds instinctively appreciate!”
“The trooper who had been unlucky enough to find her (Leia) fell first, his head a mass of melted bone and metal.”
– 1977 Novelisation
But to be fair, Lucas and Alan Dean Foster themselves are partially to blame because of their vivid descriptions of violence in the 1977 novelisation. He even describes plastic and bone melting. Can bone melt?
Star Wars Rebel, mauled by a Sabre-tooth Tiger
Funny how I turned out to be quite a peace-loving pacifist – rather than a serial killer… « Read more about the bloody violence in Star Wars in the previous page.
Next: A little breather from the horror…
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We see a rebel soldier's stressed face in a close-up of the eyes
(The rebels fought on in fear)
Panel 2
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A gruesome picture in lurid full colour of a shredded, dead rebel soldier who has been almost turned inside-out after blast impacts. There is a big pool of blood around his body.
(The Imperial troops blasted them one by one)
Panel3
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In the foreground, C-3PO and R2-D2 are almost destroyed by a shot from a Stormtrooper—the shot explodes against the wall, beside them.
"Ooaagh—I think something is melting."
A dead rebel's face is in the foreground in extreme close-up, covered in blood.
"Following you down here was madness."
I love it how the rebels fought on in fear. Usually fear has the opposite affect on the resolve to continue fighting. 🙂
All joking aside, that gore is pretty extreme. I welcome this sort of unexpected surprise in your 9 year old self’s interpretation of the film, John. There’s always something to take you by surprise or prompt a laugh or discussion.
What did you think of Nino’s original? Horrific!
It’s interesting how youngsters like violence and horror. The child who did this actually turned out ok. Anti-violence, never went ‘postal’ and I doesn’t enjoy gory films or books at all.
Yes, and it’s this comic of yours that reminds me how much I liked to see a bit of violence and the occasional gore. I think it’s because most kids are restricted in the sort of content they get in their entertainment outlets. Seeing a bit of blood and violence is something special because its not easy for a lot of kids to see that sort of thing. At least it wasn’t in my household. However, I certainly never craved it, but illustrating violence, sometimes comically, is just a way of expressing the imagination and fairly harmless on paper. If my child drew a picture of himself chopping of an adults head, with an annotation point to the adult that read “daddy” then I would be worried.