15: “It’s a wampa—we’re doomed!”
Age 13/14/15? | 1981/82/83? There’s something verrrrry Dracula-like about that Wampa.
A very Colan/Palmer-esque looking Vampire Wampa!
My Star Wars Influences
Its quite possible that it was inspired by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer’s amazing artwork on Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula comics. Tomb of Dracula (ToD) was my favourite Marvel comic with Spiderman, Conan and The Hulk as close competition. I got my hands on 2 issues of ToD in 1977 when I was 9 and just loved them. And I still do have the same copies! A few years ago I re-discovered their brilliance and bought most of them on eBay. It’s well nigh on time for a re-read I think! The 2 scans below are form the only two issues I owned when I drew the Empire adaptation. What do you think, look familiar?
From ‘Tomb of Dracula’ comic, 1977, #58. Art by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer
Corrr… that was one that introduced me to the character, Blade at 9 years old.
From ‘Tomb of Dracula’ comic, 1977, #57. Art by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. This was the first one I ever bought.
The Forever Man was an absolutely fantastic, gripping and chilling story. Marv Wolfman was a hell of a talented writer. I still consider Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula run of the 1970s to be the greatest comics that I’ve ever seen and read. They’re quite simply exceptional pieces of work, and very entertaining. Nothing i can write here could ever do them justice. Some day when I have the cash, I’ll buy the glossily reprinted omnibus editions. Even though the publisher stupidly censored some nipples here and there.
More Gruesome Gore and Violence from the Pens of Babes
I clipped a publicity shot of Han and Chewie posing with their guns from someplace—maybe one of my mum’s magazines—and stuck it in here, continuing the comic/scrapbook effect. The shot doesn’t reflect anything that happens in the film, but I didn’t let that stop me.
Bye bye wampa. Mark Hamill will mourn you. Who is the ‘Good lad’ though? Is Han saying it to Chewie? Is Threepio saying it to Han?
Perhaps inspired by Tomb of Dracula—you can see how much I enjoyed showing the wampa’s head being obliterated! It was easy for me to be inspired by that sort of stuff. You may remember this other image that I drew in the ‘Star Wars’ adaptation, when I was a lovely sweet 9 year old? (« WARNING: it’s not for the faint-hearted).
I bet Mark Hamill wouldn’t have approved of this image. You might recall what I wrote last week about his feelings around the « wampa getting its arm sliced off?
I’d love to read your comments below! Did you ever read Tomb of Dracula? Did you love scary stuff as a kid?
Very dynamic Wampa!
I regards Mark Hamill, I wonder if he’s ever expressed regret for killing off the dianoga at the end of Star Wars? It too was just trying to to eat….
You mean when he blew up the Death Star? Good point Robert.
The poor Dianoga!
That’s assuming that Han hadn’t already shot it dead with his blaster.
http://starwarsage9.com/comic/do-as-i-tell-you-136/
or… Chewie hadn’t ripped it apart:
http://starwarsage9.com/comic/chewie-kills-dianoga-130/
I never read ToD, but I’ve heard good things about it. Marvel had a great run in the 70’s outside the standard superhero fare, my favourite from that era was the gritty urban sci-fi thriller Deathlok: The Demolisher, which rn as a back up strip in Star Wars weekly. I recently picked up the glossily reprinted omnibus edition, and it still holds up today. 🙂
Hi Dan
Funny you should mention it, I got one US issue of Deathlok around the time I got my first ToD, in 1977. I really liked it a lot. I don’t remember much about it.
I’m surprised to hear that it ran in Star Wars Weekly! I can’t remember that at all. Strange.
Yeah, the weekly had some great back up strips, although Dethlok always felt like it would be more at home in 2000ad or something, they also ran the original Guardians of the Galxy and some Adam Warlock stuff too.
There WERE great backup strips.
There was the haunting one-off, ‘Threads’. The Tales of the Watcher was I think a clever way of reusing old one-off twist-shockers going back as far as the 50s.
I loved ‘Man Gods from Beyond the Stars’ even if it was difficult to see the gorgeous artwork due to the poor quality printing.
I quite liked ‘The Micronauts’ funnily enough.
Warlock—not sure if that was my thing. Didn’t ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy’ show up in a few episodes of that?
Yeah, those Tales of the Watcher were pretty good too. And I’m pretty sure the Guardians did cross over with Adam Warlock once or twice.
I’d forgotten the Micronauts were in there too, to be honest that seems like a much better fit, I’m fairly sure the writers of he Micronauts took a lot of notes while they were watching Star Wars…
Micronauts—with hindsight—seem like a cynical toy marketing ploy, but I enjoyed them at the time.
There was actually one very disturbing episode in which ‘humans’ were kept in prisons and their new-born babies were eaten by the alien baddies! At least, that’s how I remember it.
I first got Ghost Rider around that time too, and Werewolf by Night. The Comics Code had been relaxed in teh US, more spooky, macabre comics were being published.