Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

c.1978/1979? | age 10/11? Here it is, readers: the very last page of this Star Wars comic adaptation. But, I’m pleased that it’s ending on one of the earliest pages. It’s been a big project. Do I get a medal too?

Art Notes: Parting is such sweet sorrow

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

But, aw, look at the trio. Standing there, proud as punch, ‘spit and polished’, bright as new pins. Radiating lines and all. Ta-daaaa!

*Zinggggg!*

Gabby saw this page the other night and laughed. “What’s so funny?” I asked, excitedly. She replied, “Is she offering them pizza?”

“So who ordered the Pepperoni, and who ordered the Funghi?”

LOST PAGES: In the image above, you can see the left-edge of a red Star Wars logo. So that’s all that remains of one version of the comic’s cover. I wonder what it was like? («only 2 others exist) What was on it? We’ll never know. Long ago, in a bedroom far far away—I would have cut that side of the page off and thrown it in the bin. All that exists of it now is that fragment (above), and deep in the ground somewhere in county Kildare, where a landfill site once existed, dispersed by earthworms and the passage of time, the rest of it looks something like this:

Where are those lost pages now?

Luke’s leaning against Chewie and appears to be either affectionately rubbing his shoulder up and down against the big furball, or scratching an itch like a bear against a tree (ironically). Or, is he just being coy and self-conscious?

That heroic Kirk Douglas look!

There’s a nice lack of text in panel 2. Up to this panel, the text has been lifted from Alan Dean Fosters novelisation. Luke stands so proudly to receive his award. Chin up—with a big dimply Kirk Douglas smile.

Han smiles—but looks embarrassed; and Leia (beautiful as ever) understands him perfectly. Maybe she’s afraid he’ll bite that gold medal, but she knows that he’s a changed man now. The image to the right, is a nice out-take shot, never seen in the film. I bet Harrison Ford came up with that on the spot. It fits Solo’s character perfectly! If he bit the medal, it’d be in self-mocking jest. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “He knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.” But, he’s come a long way since he shot Greedo in cold blood—and then returned to help the Rebels!

Happy, but sort of embarrassed. “Aw shucks…”

Happy Luke, among friends. From farmboy, to the greatest hero in the Galaxy

The Last Hurrah

Super give-away deluxe bonus pin-up! Larger

The final roar goes, not to the assembled rebels, or Han but to big loveable Chewie. Only the 10 or 11 year old in me would choose to do this. Did I ever see Lassie bark excitedly, before the end-credits in all those afternoon movies? Her human companions looking on. All smiles. Probably.

This almost laughably simplistic scene in Star Wars still affects me emotionally. A mixture of excitement, nostalgia, resolution and… loss. When they turn to face the audience—that’s the rebel troops and us—we know we’ve reached that bittersweet moment. Again. It’s a mix of emotions, that I feel at any rate. Elation at their success, and sadness that it’s over.

Postscript

What a thrill! Just as I was thinking of giving the project up, I got a call from a journalist! Read the feature article

This 2 year project to bring the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic to the internet masses has been the most enjoyable creative project of my life. How sad is that?

I didn’t expect it to cause a global sensation or anything (despite all of my mock-sense-of-cultural-signifcance commentary!) So when it got only around 30 visits a day, when I wasn’t pushing it hard, I wasn’t especially gutted. Usually. I’ll admit, there were times when I considered throwing in the towel. What kept me going was when the comments would come in—and when I got a call from a magazine about a feature article. That was so exciting. But there have been 20,396 visits since January 2010 and 104,187 page views. I wonder how many were mine? (Update, 2017: Written some years ago)

Most of you were from the USA, then Canada.

(Update, 2017: Ireland, Russia, USA, UK, Canada. I wonder how many of the Russian ones were spam? Do I really have fans in Russia?)

I have more projects coming very soon. ALIEN age 11/Sight Unseen will be with you this December—possibly launching on Christmas Day. How festive and sweet. And I also SERIOUSLY need to turn this Moleskine notebook of sketches into a brand new, original (and disturbing) webcomic. That’ll happen in January I hope! (Update: here it is, I stopped after a while because it was too depressing! Then I made the award-nominated Between * Wars comic instead)

(Update, 2017: See that  ‘Alien age 11’ webcomic)

A Printed Edition?

I’ve been asked about this a few times over the years, and it’s something I’ve thought about myself. It’d be really nice to get some high-quality books made from this and send them to various Star Wars people and supporters of this webcomic. Mark Hamill and George Lucas would be No.1 recipients on my list. For obvious reasons! But also, they love comics. I know Mark does, «and he loves this one too. And Steve Sansweet—who should also get a copy, especially as he loves fan-made stuff more than anything these days—told me in person, at a show a few years ago that “George is really getting back into comics now” too. And I’d send one the Gary Kurtz, and some others top folk. Lorne Petersen? Carrie would have got one too, but sadly, she’s left us. Howard Chaykin and Roy Thomas perhaps. Ooer… I wonder what they’d make of it all :O

The list goes on.

So why not?

Well, for one thing—the most important thing: there’s an issue with copyright and intellectual property. I’m probably lucky to have got this far, publishing SWa9 online for the past several years, without getting a Cease & Desist letter. Perhaps because it’s neither for profit, nor does it actually compete with any official Star Wars merchandise? And when George Lucas owned Star Wars, he actually had a great positive attitude towards ‘Fan Art’ and even gave annual awards to Fan Works. (This one has never been nominated). However, I don’t know what the situation might be with Disney, the new owners. Are they even even aware of this comic? No one in Star Wars or LucasFilm or Disney has never actually contacted me about it, not even Bonnie Burton who loves this comic and blog, and who instructed the Star Wars Twitter Droid to follow SWa9.

If I did do it myself, it’d be strictly non-profit. Anyone who paid for the book, would pay an amount that would only cover the cost of production, post & packaging. Any accidental profit would either go to charity or back into making more books. Still, I don’t know if that would be enough to stay within the law and avoid treading on Disney’s toes.

I could always approach Disney themselves and see if they’d like to publish it, but I doubt very much that they would. I mean, why would they bother? And an approach to them might put me on their radar, so to speak. Which makes me a little apprehensive.

Funding it?

It’d probably be via the Crowd-funding route such as Kickstarter. So I did some research last week to see how much it’d cost.

A ‘premium’, full-colour, ‘perfect-bound’, A5, 200 page (sides) one would cost €21.34 per copy to make—if I order 120 copies.
Of course, I might be missing something, or inputting the wrong details. But it looks like €2,500 in total. And then there’s possibly tax on top of that and the cost of shipping it all to me. Reader and pal, Neil Baker said of it, “that looks about right.”

But, I’ll think about it some more. I know that there are some of you out there who would actually like to have a copy. Please let me know if you have any advice, thoughts or tips!

Final Thanks!

Thanks again to everyone who read, supported, promoted, commented, and spread the word about SWa9. You know who you are! You don’t? «See here

I’ll leave you with this stunning bonus poster for you to print, stick on your wall (with this amazing new 1970s BluTack stuff)—and amaze your friends!!! Enjoy.

So… this is John White, signing off. Nanu nanu!

Super give-away deluxe bonus poster! See the tray of glinting medals? Larger

(detail) Sparkly gold medals!

My son Johnny, and I did this together when he was 4!

. . .