Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

Art Notes

It’s as if they’re playing ‘hide-and-seek’… or as if Luke really is his master. Artoo excitedly zips over to Luke – speed lines and all. “Get off my leg goddammit!” Well, so much for his former master: Obi Wan… Fickle or what?

“P-WEET P – PLING BLOOP”

But my favourite bit – the bit I just couldn’t make up now, is the super-hi-tech-digital-readout on Luke’s macro binoculars:

RANGE 20 miles AWAY

I love the away bit. There’s also a curious use of upper and lowercase lettering. Notice how he’s looking directly down on the Sand People from above – but he’s 20 miles away! Luke and Threepio seem to have very quickly taken up a good vantage-point – from outer space.

Film & t Notes

Luke’s retrospectively added scars

Above: Mark in the appalling Holiday Special 1978

In the « previous page, I mentioned the scars on Luke’s right cheek. No, they weren’t skin creases or some young artistic mannerism – but scars.

As we know, poor Mark Hamill had a terrible auto accident toward the end of shooting the film. I remember reading about it as a kid, in Star Wars Weekly Comic – or one of my sister’s magazines. And he himself described how the surgeons had to reconstruct a nostril with part of one of his ears.

According to Wookieepedia they were to shoot a final scene of him racing across the desert in the landspeeder – perhaps as they searched for Artoo? – but Hamill was in hospital so they used a double.

Holiday Special

Above: Before the walls were completely obscured!

He looked strange in the (biggest disappointment in history) Holiday Special of 1978 and it seems that the excessive makeup was deemed necessary to cover the facial damage. They also kept his involvement to a minimum and the camera well back. The thing is: in my eagerness to lend authenticity to this mighty work of mine, I retrospectively went back over all of the artwork in the comic – even in the MARVEL comic! – and drew scars onto his face. Two parallel marks. Did he even have two marks like that? I think I based it on a couple of posters on my wall that were liberated from my sister’s My Guy and Blue Jeans magazines. She held onto the Travolta, David Soul and Andy Gibb ones.

Poor Mark

Anyway – the modifications made absolutely no sense, because they happened after he acted in the film! Poor Mark. But it could have been worse for him. Sure, he was rich, but for this to happen to him – especially so early in his acting career. And just think?- there might have been no Empire Strikes Back and no Luke in Episode 7! The only consolation might be that he barely appeared in the Holiday Special. Though, knowing Mark Hamill, he’d probably love to look back upon a bigger appearance in the show and make great fun of himself!