Tantive IV Pursued! (2)
Tantive IV Pursued! (2)
I love the 'John White Presents' bit. I really should have put this page up earlier in the sequence.
Art Notes
Our dog Polly preferred Star Wars to Blake's 7 - it seems. Nicely chewed-up back in 1977.
Howard Chaykin's Hyperspace (Marvel Comic)
The childishness of the drawings is charming. The early version art was obviously just based on a single viewing of the film and maybe Star Wars Weekly Comic No#3 - which'd place this in early 1978. Lacking any other visual references, I basically had to try to remember what the ships looked like: hence the peculiar appearance of the rebel craft. Microphonic! - like a Shure SM 58; or a backwards Blake's 7 ship (This one's for you Rod).
The clue that this was done after I saw the comic, is in the positive/negative banded hyperspace effect which came from Marvel. When Howard Chaykin depicted the Millennium Falcon in hyperspace, Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic team still hadn't tackled how the heck they'd depict it themselves! So Chaykin had to get creative and obviously his early take on it was good enough for me. It's funny how quickly you get used to leaving the blackness of space as white isn't it?
Last year, someone on Flickr saw this image and said "The Imperial Empire - I love it!" I stopped and wondered what was so funny about it. When I was in school we called Tie Fighters T.I.E. fighters. My friend Niall - who you'll hear more about - suggested that it stood for "The Imperial Empire" or 'twin ion engine' - you could take your pick. Sounded plausible. Because I was only 9 or 10, I didn't realise that this was a bit like saying "Your High Highness" or "Princely Prince" or "Stinky Stink". And just as I got used to the whiteness of space - it also never occurred to me how silly "The Imperial Empire" is. When Mike McGinnis made his remark about its silliness 30+ years later he gave me a good laugh at myself!
