Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

early–mid 1978 | age 9–10 Han Luke and are cunningly disguised as Stormtroopers, but Chewie has no disguise. Anxious that they’re about to be rumbled—he takes the initiative and pretends to be a Pirate. The big furry spoofer!

“ARR!”
—Copyright: Star Wars age 9, 1978 😀

I think I heard years ago that “Let’s go” is the most frequently used line in movies. Amazing, when you consider how unnecessary it usually is. Sometimes I think scriptwriters are paid by the word.

(Quick) Art Note

I’m not sure I’ve noticed it so much before, but I think my earliest stuff sometimes tended to use less text and dialogue and communicated more visually. You can see it here. In panel 2, drawn in black biro, the trio originally walked off to the Detention Block, in silence. Sometime later, the rest of the page was drawn in blue biro–though the drawing doesn’t look any more advanced. Some dialogue was retrospectively added to panel 2 in blue biro. “This ‘ain’t gonna work kid!”— “Why didn’t you say so?” — “I think I did!” Which is somewhat similar to the movie dialogue.

More Spoofery: Overdubs

Malcolm Tierney – did they overdub him?

I love that “Where are you taking this… (eh) thing” line: so well delivered! I just found out who the actor was. He’s Malcolm Tierney. A Brit! He’s been in loads of British Television dramas over the years including Dr.Who. I might have recognised him if George Lucas hadn’t overdubbed his voice with an American one. Could it be that George was spot on that time? I don’t know what Tierney’s delivery was like but the one in the film is classic. (George intended to dub C-3PO as an American used-car salesman—but was made to see sense by one of the voice-over actors).

Hats off to Tierney. His attitude of nose-wrinkling disgust on seeing Chewie is pure racist Nazi–But funny.

My friend Rod Hannah, over at the—I’ll say it again—excellent Blue Milk Special Star Wars webcomic is a great fellow for highlighting the contributions of secondary actors and even extras. Recently he and I discussed the bartender in the cantina scene who, it turns out was an English actor. Rod said that like many of the British actors in the film, he was overdubbed in American. “Trust me… his acting was no where near as effective as it was with the American voice actor dubbed over.”

Don Henderson as Tagge (Nice rug, Don)

I’m glad that Don Henderson’s General Tagge wasn’t overdubbed, I love his guttural—almost Harold Wilson tones. A pipe would have perfected the character. It brings back fond memories of many 1970’s TV programmes!

Oh, bugger. I just found out that he passed away in 1997. That’s yet another one of the original cast—gone.