SW9 should carry a PG rating - because of this page alone. It's from c.1977/78. 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

It's a very shocking image. The rebel soldier has literally been shredded. Like he's been fed through a meat-rendering machine.

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 actually it 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. Based on Eric Van Daniken's nonsensical 'Chariots of the Gods?' books it does look like an exciting story. You can see how I drew over the Man Gods art to transfer the image to my own comic!
Read about the strip - and Alex Nino.

"...his head a mass of melted bone and metal. "

I did jokingly write on the old site, that this is "yet more stuff that Lucas should have put in... He just didn't have my vision and courage. You know, the sort of gore and splattered brains that 9 year olds instinctively appreciate." 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?

On Friday: A little breather from the horror...

Comments  

 

0 # RE: MRR: Mechanically Recovered Rebel (11) — Blue Milk 2010-06-24 13:06

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.

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0 # RE: MRR: Mechanically Recovered Rebel (11) — John I. White 2010-06-24 13:55

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.

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+1 # RE: RE: RE: MRR: Mechanically Recovered Rebel (11) — Blue Milk 2010-06-24 16:08

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.

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