Alter Ego #145

Roy Thomas’ Star- Crossed Comics Fanzine

LORDIE, LORDIE!

“THE COMIC THAT SAVED MARVEL” TURNS

$

40!

9.95

In the USA

No.145 March 2017

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A

STAR

BE CAREFUL YOU DON’T WIND UP WITH

WARS

NOW!

100

PAGES IN FULL COLOR!

1

"MAKIN' WOOKIEE" with CHAYKIN & THOMAS

82658 00092

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Vol. 3, No. 145 / March 2017 Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor)

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Proofreaders Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

Cover Artist Howard Chaykin

Cover Colorist Unknown

With Special Thanks to: Rob Allen Jim Kealy Heidi Amash Paul King Pedro Angosto Todd Klein Richard J. Arndt Michael Kogge Rodrigo Baeza Paul Kupperberg Bob Bailey Vicki Crites Lane Mike W. Barr Dominique Leonard John Benson Charles Lippincott Al Bigley David Mandel Earl Blair, Jr. Mike’s Amazing Roy Bonario World (website) Christopher Boyko Mike Mikulovsky Robert Brown MinuteMenBernie Bubnis DarthScanner Mike Burkey (website) John Caputo morgangraphix Nick Caputo (website) Howard Chaykin Brian K. Morris Chet Cox Mark Muller Brian Cremins Barry Pearl Katie Delia Stéphan Petit Leonardo de Sá Jay Piscopo Mark Evanier Gene Reed Lance Falk J.W. Rinzler Jean-Michel Steven Rowe Ferragatti Steve Sansweet Shane Foley Tom Sawyer Stephan Friedt Mitchell Senft Martin Gately Tim Stroup Jeff Gelb Jeff Taylor Janet Gilbert Tenth Letter of the Golden Age Comic Alphabet (blog) Book Stories Dann Thomas (website) Steven Thompson Victor Gorelik Jim Van Dore Michael Grabois Jim Van Hise Grand Comics Robert Wiener Database (website) Steven G. Willis Lee Harsfeld William Wray Rick & Aleta Hoberg Mike Zeck Douglas Jones (“Gaff”)

Contents Writer/Editorial: Star Wars—The Comic Book—Turns 40! . . . 2 Makin’ Wookiee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Roy Thomas tells Richard Arndt about the origins and pitfalls of Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars comic.

Howard Chaykin On Star Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The artist/co-adapter of Star Wars #1-10 takes a brief look backward.

Rick Hoberg On Star Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 From helping pencil Star Wars #6—to a career at Lucasfilm.

Bill Wray On Star Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Rick Hoberg dragged him into inking Star Wars #6—and Bill’s glad he did!

The 1978 Star Wars Comic Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Lee Harsfeld takes us on a tour of veteran comics artist Charles Nicholas’ version of Star Wars.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Comics And All That Jazz! . . . . 73 Comics and jazz—two American creations! So what happened when they got together?

Comic Fandom Archive: Earl Blair, Jr., Remembers G.B. Love & Houston Fandom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Bill Schelly concludes A/E’s multi-part look at the fan/entrepreneur behind RBCC.

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 84 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #204 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 P.C. Hamerlinck completes a look at African-Americans in Fawcett’s Golden Age comics.

On Our Cover: So what do you do when (as will be explained in our “writer/editorial” on the very next page) you’re doing a Star Wars issue of Alter Ego and you can’t use an actual Star Wars image on your cover? Well, you consider the fact that the major illustrator of Marvel’s Star Wars #1-10 was none other than future American Flagg! writer/artist Howard Chaykin… then you recall that, just about the time he was really diving into work on Star Wars, his somewhat HanSoloish space-hero “Monark Starstalker” was making his one and only appearance, in Marvel Premiere #32 (Oct. 1976)—and you go with that cover image, which can be seen as originally published on p. 14 of this issue! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: On the Internet, A/E’s editor stumbled upon this lone panel from a German edition of Star Wars #10 (April 1978). Thus, since Jaxxon the “green rabbit” was writer Roy Thomas’ principal creative addition to the Star Wars mythos (even if the Lepi from Coachelle Prime was almost immediately exiled therefrom by George Lucas himself), a panel featuring the space lapine seemed a fitting image to hover above this contents page. Art by Howard Chaykin & Tom Palmer.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] Alter EgoTM is published 6 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices.

Six-issue subscriptions: $65 US, $102 Elsewhere, $29.70 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890.

FIRST PRINTING.

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writer/editorial

Star Wars —The Comic Book—Turns 40!

T

en years ago, back in Alter Ego #68, I wrote what I thought was my “final word” about my personal connection to George Lucas’ 1977 filmic fantasy, on the 30th anniversary of both movie and comic.

However, as the comic’s 40th anniversary loomed (I didn’t worry about the movie’s birthday—there’d be plenty of folks eager to celebrate that), I decided I should expand on that earlier piece, and try to bring everything I could remember about my Star Wars experience between 1975-78 together in one place, so that anytime in the future I was asked about it, I’d be able to hand the person a copy of that issue of A/E and tell him/her: “Just read this!”

Richard Arndt was amenable to interviewing me on the subject, and added supplementary information on his own.

cover art for this issue (though you can see that illustration on p.

23). But, as explained on the preceding page, Chaykin’s cover for his 1976 “Monark Starstalker” story for Marvel served as an excellent stand-in. The one-shot hero even has a metallic “millennium falcon” all his own. Too bad HC didn’t continue that potential series!

A very special thanks to artists Howard Chaykin, Rick Hoberg, and Bill Wray, all of whom labored on the six-issue adaptation of the film, for providing brief interviews to augment ones printed in #68.

Now, on to the coverage that, as much as possible, will deal with events related to the Star Wars comic in chronological order, from 1975 through 1977 or so—along with necessarily discussing a couple of controversies of more recent vintage.

One factor in the re-examination was that, in late 2014, I was surprised to be contacted by Charles Lippincott, Lucas’ latter-’70s media projects director—the gent who in early ’76 convinced me to talk Stan Lee into having Marvel adapt the upcoming movie in comics form. The e-mails between Charley and me quickly veered off into directions I wouldn’t have anticipated… as you’ll see in this issue. As a result, my interview wound up a bit longer than originally envisioned.

This issue of Alter Ego may amount to “more about the genesis of Marvel’s Star Wars comic than you could possibly want to know.” If so, you’re welcome to simply look at the pictures, where I suspect you may find a few surprises, as well.

I’m glad that circumstances, including the outreach from Charley, pushed me to delve more deeply than ever before into my memories of that time, and of the comic book that former editorin-chief Jim Shooter and publisher Jim Galton have each proclaimed as being of great importance to Marvel’s financial health, and perhaps even survival, in the late 1970s.

P.S.: Before I forget—you won’t find any reference anywhere in this issue to “Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope.” The name of the 1977 movie was Star Wars, period… and I for one will never refer to it as anything else. Thanks for letting me get that rant off my chest, before the magazine proper begins.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get official permission in time to utilize Howard Chaykin’s exciting 1976 Star Wars poster as the

Bestest,

P.P.S.: This is the first issue of our switch to a 100-page bi-monthly magazine, and you know what? We still didn’t have room to squeeze everything in!

COMING IN APRIL EACH ISSUE NOW 100 PAGES!

146

#

DOUG MOENCH IN THE 1970s!

Plus THE CLOCK & A Never-Before-Seen GOLDEN AGE SUPER-HERO!

s, Inc. Art TM & © Marvel Character

• Cataclysmic, color-splashed cover by peerless PAUL GULACY! • DOUG MOENCH tells RICHARD ARNDT—and us, of course—about his early career in the 1970s: horror and The Spook for Warren Publishing—and, for Marvel, Master of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, Deathlok, Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, Moon Knight, Ka-Zar, Weirdworld, etc.! Art by GULACY, PLOOG, BUSCEMA, BUCKLER, ZECK, DAY, PERLIN, GRAHAM, HEATH, TRINIDAD, TUSKA, et al.!

• GEORGE BRENNER, artist/writer/creator of The Clock, comic books’ first masked hero—as remembered by his son RICHARD BRENNER! Plenty of rare, unseen art!

• “BILL OF RIGHTS!” A never-before-published 1942 super-hero tale written & drawn

by MARV LEVY, presented in full color by LARRY GUIDRY! • FCA presents “The Marvel Family’s South American Adventures”—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on EC’s oddball “variant covers”—BILL SCHELLY on early comics fan (& SF writer & editor) TED WHITE, Part 1—& MORE!!

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

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“ The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40!

Makin’ Wookiee

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Part One

ROY THOMAS Tells All—& We Do Mean All— About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

I

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: After co-founding the original fanzine edition of Alter Ego with Jerry G. Bails in 1961, Roy Thomas labored briefly for Charlton Comics and DC Comics in 1965, then segued to a 15-year role as a writer and editor at Marvel Comics.

During that time, he scribed numerous titles there, including The X-Men, Dr. Strange, The Avengers, The Invaders, and Conan the Barbarian. The latter title is considered by many fans to signal the end of the Silver Age of Comics and the beginning of the Bronze Age. Roy became Stan Lee’s first successor as Marvel editor-in-chief (from 1972-1974), then served under contract as a writer/editor at Marvel through 1980. In 1977 he scripted and edited the first ten issues of Marvel’s Star Wars comic. In 1980 he Roy Thomas & Howard Chaykin moved to DC, for whom, during that decade, (left to right) onstage in July 1976 at the San Diego Comic-Con, in a program/panel that clued many young he developed such titles as Arak, Son of attendees in for the first time that a film called Star Wars would open in theatres the following spring.

Thunder; All-Star Squadron; Infinity, Inc.; Projected behind the lads is Chaykin’s poster for the film, which will be seen a bit more clearly on p. 23.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Also on the stage was ringmaster Charley Lippincott. Thanks to Steve Sansweet.

Crew!, Young All-Stars, and a new series of At right is Chaykin’s cover for Marvel’s Star Wars #1 (July 1977), which despite the usual dated-ahead Secret Origins. Over the years, he’s been look actually went on sale circa March 8th of that year. There were later variants of that cover with a 35¢ price tag. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] noted for his adaptations of literary properties to comics, including Robert E. Howard, than me, and a former film student, who had a grant to make a Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bram Stoker, and various science-fiction and film about some major comics creators—Kirby, Barks, and Eisner fantasy authors. In 1998-99, he revived Alter Ego for TwoMorrows were on that short list. We became good friends for a time. He also Publishing. His comics-history magazine has done yeoman service in had a lot to do with the fact that there was a Conan the Barbarian providing oral histories of 1930s-70s comic book writers, artists, editors, movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the early ’80s, and he and publishers. It has also made this writer both richer (spiritually) and and I even worked poorer (financially) while he tracked down great stories and titles I’d together on that overlooked or simply never even heard of. This interview was conducted one in its earliest by phone in June 2016, with follow-ups in September. stages.

RICHARD ARNDT: When did you first become aware that there was Ed had told me going to be a movie called Star Wars? that George Lucas ROY THOMAS: It happened while I was having dinner, sometime was his silent in the winter or early spring of 1975, with George Lucas, my friend partner in his Ed Summer, and probably a third person. For a long time, I Supersnipe Comic mistakenly thought that other person must’ve been George’s Art Emporium— merchandising man, Charley Lippincott; but Charley himself not in Ed’s recently made me aware that it couldn’t possibly have been him, Supersnipe comic and was probably Gary Kurtz, the [eventual] producer of Star book store, but in a Wars. separate business that sold original I’d gotten to know Ed Summer earlier. He’d opened a comics art. At that time, I Gary Kurtz & George Lucas store, called Supersnipe, only a couple of blocks south of [thenknew of George (left to right). Kurtz would produce Star Wars, wife] Jeanie’s and my apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “only” as the while Lucas, of course, was the creator, director, and He was a knowledgeable comics fan, a half-dozen years younger director of what writer of the screenplay. Pic found on the Internet.

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

The main reason I’ve always believed there was a fourth person present is that I remember someone—either at that dinner or at some other meal related to Star Wars—and not George or Ed— telling an anecdote about having dinner at a restaurant in a group that included Alfred Hitchcock. He related how Hitchcock, whom he’d never met before, ordered the precise dinners for everyone at the table without bothering to consult them. I found that fascinating, and very much in keeping with the Hitchcock mythos. Charley had worked for Hitchcock before working for Lucas, so I figured he’s the one who told me that story— only if he did so, it must’ve been on another occasion.

Ed Summer, Frank Frazetta, & George Lucas (left to right) in 1970. Summer had arranged for Lucas to meet Frazetta. Pic found on the Internet.

(Right:) This ad for Summer’s Supersnipe comics store (and the original-art business in which Lucas was a silent partner) made up the inside front cover of the program book of the 1974 Creation Con in NYC. Artist unknown. Supersnipe was a humorous comics character from the 1940s… a kid with a huge comic book collection who dreamed of being a costumed super-hero. Thanks to John Benson. [Art © the respective copyright holders.]

was then one of the top-grossing films of all time, American Graffiti, which had come out a couple of years earlier.

So this one day, Ed asked if I’d like to have dinner with him and George Lucas that evening, and naturally I said yes. The three or probably four of us dined in some bistro not too many blocks from my apartment—and from Ed’s store, though he lived on the West Side—and that’s when I first heard of what was then called The Star Wars. It was a major topic of conversation that evening, and it was already being discussed as the first of a series of movies.

George himself was soft-spoken and didn’t demand any special obeisance just because he was now a rich and famous director.

Anyway, Ed, George, and probably another guy were discussing The Star Wars as a sort of science-fiction, Flash Gordon type of movie. I could tell that the basic storyline was still very much a work in progress. That night, I learned of two possible names for the main hero—he’d be called either Luke Starkiller or Luke Skywalker. Lucas and the others were just discussing things amongst themselves… I might as well not have been there during that part of the conversation, but I didn’t mind being a fly on the wall.

At some point in the evening, George said some kind things about my writing, on Conan the Barbarian in particular, and naturally I told him how much I liked American Graffiti, but that’s about all I really remember of the night’s talk besides the mention of The Star Wars.

Afterward, George and Ed—and probably the other guy—came back with me to my apartment. Jeanie was there, which is how I know it was no later than the first half of 1975, since the two of us had split up for good by summer of that year.

George wanted to see our Frazetta oil painting—and even more so Jeanie’s and my Uncle Scrooge painting that we’d bought from Carl Barks. I remember her whispering to me, as they walked back into our bedroom where the paintings were hung, something to the effect of “Is that

That Crazy Flash Gordon Stuff

Where Were You In ’62?

It’s well-known nowadays that George Lucas came up with the Star Wars concept only after being turned down by King Features in his attempt to license its long-running comic strip Flash Gordon, created and drawn in 1934 by artist Alex Raymond. Seen above is a panel from the June 7, 1936, Sunday strip. [TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

A poster for the 1973 George Lucas film American Graffiti. It’s the work of Mad’s Mort Drucker. [©the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Makin’ Wookiee

5

him—until he contacted me out of the blue roughly two years ago… but I’ll tell that story later, where it fits chronologically.

Except that I may as well mention right here that, in late 2014, Charley e-mailed me the rough draft of an article he was in the process of writing about his connection to Star Wars. Since then, he’s firmed up the prose into several online articles—or maybe they’re from his Facebook page, and they’ve gotten out onto the Internet from there. In both versions of the article, he states that it was his idea “from the very beginning”—which means the fall of 1975, at the earliest, which is when he formally got his job with Lucas—to use a comic book adaptation to help market Star Wars, because he felt adventure movies and comics had very much the same audience. That was a very prescient action on Charley’s part, since such things weren’t being done much in the mid-’70s. Dell and a few other comics companies had done film adaptations through at least the early ’60s, though Marvel had recently done two (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Planet of the Apes) and would soon begin another (Logan's Run).

Masters Of The (Pop Art) Universe (Above:) Frank Frazetta’s 1960s painting now titled “Thor’s Flight”—and owned in 1975 by Roy & Jean Thomas—was originally done as the cover of the Lancer paperback Thongor of Lemuria, written by Lin Carter. In the early ’70s the couple had purchased it for $4000. [TM & © Estate of Frank Frazetta.]

Charley and Ed have somewhat different takes on how and why Charley came to Marvel to do the adaptation. Since Charley was more intimately involved in that than Ed was, I suspect his version may be the more accurate one. They’re not really that much at variance… but there are differences.

In the course of an interview that was spread over three issues of the Lucasfilm magazine The Star Wars Insider in 2013, Ed

(Top center:) Roy & Jean in July 1972, in the home of Carl & Garé Barks in Goleta, California. They had dropped by to pick up (and pay a whole $250 for) the Duck painting that Carl had done especially for them. Photo probably taken by Garé Barks.

George Lucas?” I wasn’t that much less starstruck myself, I’ve got to admit. Anyway, they didn’t stay long, and the dinner with George became a dimming but pleasant memory.

RA: An online article states that Charley Lippincott, who at that stage was in charge of merchandising and publicity for the movie, approached Marvel Comics at some date in 1975 to get a comic book adaptation of the movie going and that he talked to Stan Lee, but was turned down.

THOMAS: I’ve heard that account, but it’s wrong. It was in early ’76, not ’75, that Charley started trying to arrange a comic book adaptation of the upcoming Star Wars movie. Over the past Charles Lippincott couple of decades, I tried at various times to contact him to In 1976 his official title, as he told check out details about the genesis Roy Thomas, was “media projects director”—but he had others. of Marvel’s Star Wars comic, Photo by Bob Seidmann. Thanks especially after I revived Alter Ego. to Michael Grabois. [Photo © But I was never able to get hold of

the respective copyright holders.]

Read A Good Movie Lately?

The then-new films The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Logan’s Run were adapted in the pages of Marvel Comics not long before Star Wars made its debut. Worlds Unknown #7 (June 1974) saw the first of two issues adapting the Sinbad movie, with cover art by George Tuska, John Romita, & Vince Colletta—while the first five (of a total of 7) issues of Logan’s Run told the story of that MGM flick. LR #1, with its cover by George Pérez & Al Milgrom, was dated Jan. 1977—six months before the debut issue of Star Wars. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database.

[Cover art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc., or successors in interest.]

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

6

And In This Corner…

According to Ed Summer in The Star Wars Insider, two other comics companies were considered to become the official adapter of Star Wars before the approach was made to Marvel. Lippincott's version of the story differs somewhat.

(Left:) Warren Publishing’s black-&-white comics magazines were noted for their fine artwork, as exemplified by Frank Frazetta’s 1965 cover for Creepy #5. [TM & © New Comic Company.]

(Right:) DC Comics, then presided over by Jenette Kahn, was the publishing house of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman—and Weird Worlds #8 (Nov.-Dec. 1973), which had introduced Howard Chaykin’s swordand-space hero “Iron-Wolf” (later spelled “Ironwolf”).

[TM & © DC Comics.]

James Warren

maintained that Warren Founder and Publishing was seriously editor/publisher of considered to do the Warren Publishing. adaptation, because of the high quality of the art in Creepy and Eerie, but was ultimately decided against—he suggests it was because Warren was “an eccentric person,” though I’d have thought the fact that Warren’s magazines were black-&-white would’ve been a big factor. Ed states in the interview that “we went to Warren and DC first”—and the “we” is clearly meant to mean himself and Charley. Ed says DC was considered because it had “incredible color and production” despite “weak writing”… while Marvel, as he puts it, “would publish anything” and always had “an excitement to it.” Bless his heart, he singled me out for improving the level of Marvel’s writing due to my educational background and vaguely literary bent—although, since the main writer I was following there was Stan Lee, the most important heroic-comics writer since Jerry Siegel in 1938, I can’t fully agree with him. I suppose he was referring to my attempts in the ’70s, working with Stan, to expand Marvel’s horizons into science-fiction and sword-and-sorcery and the like, so that we weren’t entirely dependent on super-heroes.

Now, Charley didn’t mention Warren at all in his various articles, but he did say he met with Jenette Kahn, DC’s publisher, and that he admired one “great historian” on their staff— that was probably E. Nelson Bridwell—but Charley felt that at that stage DC was “not on the cutting edge” of comics. He based that opinion on the fact that Marvel was doing adaptation comics like Conan the Barbarian that were “in line with what we wanted to do with a Star Wars comic series.” He says—bless his heart, too—that, as Marvel’s editor-inchief, I had “done a terrific job of expanding their character lineup by bringing in characters from pulp fiction,” including the Robert E. Howard heroes. He wanted the Star

Jenette Kahn Publisher of DC Comics, 1976-1989.

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). Pulp-magazine writer; creator of Conan the Cimmerian, et al.

Devil-Wings Over Marvel The first and most important Robert E. Howard creation acquired by Marvel Comics (through the combined efforts of Roy Thomas and Stan Lee) made his comic book debut in Conan the Barbarian #1 (Oct. 1970); at right is Barry Smith’s cover for #6 (Aug. 1971). Other REHrelated Marvel titles over the next decade included The Savage Sword of Conan, King Conan, Kull the Conqueror, Kull and the Barbarians, Red Sonja, and even a limited series starring Solomon Kane. [TM & © Conan Properties International, Ltd.]

Makin’ Wookiee

Wars comic done by a company that was “actively building a science fiction base.” Judging by his reference to the Robert E. Howard-related comics, perhaps by that he meant “fantasy” more than “science-fiction”; after all, George himself would soon refer to Star Wars as a “space fantasy” and even, in one early presskit, as “sword-andsorcery.” But, of course, I’d also launched Marvel’s “War of the Worlds” series.

Stan Lee in 1975, mugging for The Los Angeles Times over some Marvel covers. Thanks to Al Bigley & Mike Mikulovsky. [© the respective copyright holders.]

RA: Well, you were also doing numerous adaptations of both fantasy and science-fiction stories, many of them classic tales, in color comics like Supernatural Thrillers and Worlds Unknown. You personally had just done six issues, as editor and occasional writer, of the black-&- white Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, which featured both adapted and original stories. Howard Chaykin had contributed to that title. It’s possible that Lucas or Lippincott saw those. Certainly Summer, since he was running a comic shop, would have known these titles and could easily have passed them along to Lippincott.

THOMAS: It’s possible, though neither Ed nor Charley mentions any specific Marvel “science-fiction” titles.

Charley confirms in the article that it was in February 1976—not ’75, as that article you mentioned had it—when he went to New York City to attend the International Toy Fair, in order to try to line up potential merchandising deals for Star Wars. While he was there, he phoned Marvel to set up a meeting with Stan, but wasn’t able to do so. By his account, he only talked with a secretary. So he called Ed, who he knew was Lucas’ partner in the Supersnipe art business. He knew Ed knew me, and that just a year and a half before, I’d been Marvel’s editorin-chief. He figured I’d know the ins and outs of getting a deal with Marvel. So he had Ed phone me, and, probably the afternoon or evening of the same day, they both came to my apartment. This, evidently, was the first time I met Charley. In a text piece in Star Wars #1, I mentioned our sharing a “spaghetti dinner”—and maybe we did, I don’t recall.

By a weird coincidence, February 1976 is a landmark month in my life, because that’s when Stan asked me to return to being Marvel’s editor-in-chief and I accepted… only then I immediately flew out to Los Angeles for a week’s R&R, and by the time I came back I’d decided to move to L.A. instead of resuming the job I’d left in ’74. In fact, I’d already rented an apartment out there that would come available that July 1st. So I’ve always wondered: Did this meeting with Charley and Ed happen right before, or right after, my trip to California?

Since February ’76 was a really crowded and eventful month for me, I’d love to know. Oh, well….

“Actively Building A Science Fiction Base” When Charley Lippincott wrote that in the 1970s Marvel Comics was doing the above—and perhaps to some extent it was—he may have been referring in part to the following four comics (clockwise from top right:) Supernatural Thrillers #2 (Feb. 1973), adapting H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man – cover by Jim Steranko.

Amazing Adventures #18 (May ’73), a 21st-century-set sequel to Wells’ The War of the Worlds – cover by John Romita; inker uncertain.

Worlds Unknown #4 (Nov. ’73), adapting Fredric Brown’s short story “Arena” – cover by Dick Giordano.

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1 (Jan. 1975) – cover painting by Kelly Freas & John Romita.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

That Crazy Speed Carter Stuff!

During the 1950s, Marvel Comics—under publisher Martin Goodman and editor Stan Lee—had launched several short-run science-fiction titles. Seen here are the covers to Unknown Worlds #1 (Sept. 1950), Space Squadron #3 (Oct. 1951), and Spaceman #6 (July 1954), the latter by Joe Maneely (other artists unidentified).

The latter two series ran only five or six issues each, while the soon-officially-retitled Journey into Unknown Worlds segued ere long into a straight horror mag. So you can see why Lee, as publisher in 1976, wasn’t looking for an excuse to enlarge Marvel’s alien-carbon-life-form footprint when Charley Lippincott tried to reach him about some upcoming film called Star Wars. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Anyway, when Charley and Ed arrived, Charley was toting this big art briefcase. He told me about his attempt to meet with Stan.

As I’ve said, I somehow got the impression that he’d already met with him, or at least talked to him on the phone, and that Stan had turned him down, so what he was after now was to convince me to get Stan to reconsider. Apparently, that’s not quite what Charley was trying to say… but, either way, I didn’t see the situation as being anything I could do anything about, and I said so… which is one reason I suspect this meeting happened after my L.A. trip. At this point, I planned to continue as simply the writer/editor of my own work at Marvel, so I had no great motivation to pitch Stan a movie adaptation, as I might’ve had if I’d still intended to return to being editor-in-chief.

Unless, of course, I was also going to write and edit the adaptation. And that’s where Charley and I diverge on another aspect of that meeting. I’ve always felt Charley was suggesting, or at least assuming, that I would write any Marvel Star Wars comic because of my Conan work, etc.… while Charley told me in 2015 that he hadn’t really dreamed I’d be interested in writing the adaptation, but was merely hoping I’d champion the project to Stan, though he says he was pleased when I volunteered to write it: “I mean, Roy was a legend!” It’s nice being a legend, whatever that means.

Of course, from my point of view, if I hadn’t decided it might be fun to write the comic, why would I have bothered to try to sell the idea to Stan? That wasn’t what I did anymore, and I had other things on my mind, like the upcoming move west.

RA: Clearly, then, the dates are mixed up in many histories of that sequence, because the TwoMorrows reference book American Comic Book Chronicles: the 1970s by Jason Sacks [pp. 204-207] places your meeting with Lippincott only three months after the dinner where you first met Lucas. By that version, the meeting in your apartment between you, Lippincott, and Summer would’ve had to take place no later than

July 1975. Clearly, that’s in error.

THOMAS: Yeah, it’s way off base, if that’s what it says. That must be something that slipped by me, if TwoMorrows sent me that part of the book to peruse before it went to press. Jeanie and I were still together when I met George, and we’d break up for good by early summer of ’75. When we did, I kept the Barks painting and she got custody of the Frazetta. Not long afterward, though, she sold it back to me on the installment plan. She’d been keeping it in a closet at her new apartment, ’cause she said it gave her nightmares.

Naturally, I was happy to relieve her of that burden. [laughs] A year or so later, when she decided, in her words, that I was “not as much of an ogre” as she’d thought when we split up, she ended up letting me have the Frazetta for half of what we'd originally agreed, which was very nice of her. Another thing that helps pin down some approximate dates is that, during the summer of ’75, my father passed away back in Missouri, and Jeanie and I had gone our separate ways weeks before that happened.

Anyway, when he and Ed arrived for that [February 1976] meeting, Charley told me that George was currently over in Morocco filming the movie. I’m not sure why I mistyped “Algeria” back in A/E #68; I guess, far as I was concerned, North Africa was North Africa. I could see that Charley really wanted to tell me the plot of the movie, and I figured that, as long as he was there, I should be polite and listen. After all, if nothing else, sooner or later I’d want to go see the movie, right?

RA: If George Lucas was in Morocco at that time, he was filming the Tatooine scenes. The info I have says that filming started in March of 1976 and continued until autumn, with the bulk of the filming taking place in Great Britain. He might not have even started filming yet. He might have been in Morocco for pre-production just before filming was to begin.

THOMAS: Could be. Anyway, at this point Charley began to relate

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the film’s plot in some detail. Ed probably chimed in from time to time, but Charley did most of the talking, with an occasional query from me. And all the time he’s giving his spiel, he’s showing me these beautiful color Photostats from his briefcase—I know now that they’re the paintings Ralph McQuarrie did to represent key scenes in the movie. Technically, they’re called “production sketches,” but they’re actually full paintings... about a dozen of them. They’re quite famous now, and have even been marketed and Ralph McQuarrie sold as a portfolio—but, at the time, only a handful of people had seen them. They served as a visual accompaniment to the story Charley was narrating to me. He’d turn over a new drawing as he got to a new point in the storyline.

He started off, I think, with McQuarrie’s painting of the planet Tatooine with its two moons. Apparently, Luke’s last name still hadn’t been decided on; I’m pretty sure Charley told me it might still either be “Starwalker” or “Starkiller.” No matter… he mostly just referred to the hero as “Luke.” Funny thing is, it never occurred to me at the time that “Luke” is short for—Lucas!

RA: My research indicates that the Starkiller name was finally dropped the first day of shooting the film, in March of 1976. After that, it was always Skywalker. Which doesn’t contradict your memories of your first meeting with Lippincott. The Starkiller name would still have been in play at that time.

THOMAS: So anyway, Charley charges ahead with his narration, doing a good job of spinning the story—only I had a bit of trouble following it, because I’m hearing all these names I’d never heard before. R2D2 and C3PO I naturally saw in my head in numeral form, not spelled out as they often are now. When he mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi, that instantly conjured up in my mind a Japanese guy… though I’m pretty sure Charley told me at this point that he’d be played by Alec Guinness. I definitely remember that, when I first heard the name Chewbacca the Wookiee, I did a mental double-take. I immediately wondered—and I still do—if the name derived somehow from “chewing tobacco,” which some people pronounce “chew-t’bacca.” It would make sense, with all that hair all over his body looking like some old-timer’s chewing-tobacco-stained beard… although at that time,

Ralph McQuarrie & Friend McQuarrie’s were some of the first artistic visions, if not the first, of the universe of the film Star Wars.

Seen above is his 1989 letter to fan Lance Falk about a space-alien design that didn’t quite make the cut—though whether McQuarrie seriously meant to indicate that the design had been suggested for Star Wars isn’t clear. Thanks to Lance for sharing this artful missive with us. [Art © Estate of Ralph McQuarrie or successors in interest.]

The Guy With The Draggin’ Tatooine This painting of the planet Tatooine and its two moons was almost certainly the first of those beautiful Ralph McQuarrie “production sketches” that Charley Lippincott showed to Roy Thomas that afternoon/evening in February 1976. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

Charley then told me the rest of the story, through the destruction of the Death Star, and I said I’d try to help talk Stan into it. I’m sure I made it clear to Charley at that time that I intended to write and edit the comic myself, because there was never any discussion concerning anyone else who might write it.

That was basically the end of the meeting.

The whole thing probably lasted no more than a couple of “In A Little Cantina That The Boys Had Found” hours, counting a bit The Ralph McQuarrie “production sketch” that Lippincott referred to as “the cantina sequence” is the one that convinced Roy T. of socializing. By its to try to talk Stan Lee into publishing an adaptation of the film. Han Solo did not yet look like Harrison Ford, of course… and many close, Charley had of the aliens who’d be in the movie had not yet been designed in February of 1976. The heading, in case it seems familiar, is a line from the Bernie Taupin/Elton John song “Grow Some Funk of Your Own.” [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] probably explained that the adaptation— or at least part of it, I don’t think I’d seen a picture of Chewbacca among the paintings, depending on how many issues it took up—would need to go on only heard the name, in conjunction with Han Solo. Still, all I’m sale two or three months before the film’s premiere in spring of hearing from Charley are science-fiction elements, so I’m mentally ’77—the release date then set was April—so the comic could help kind of glazing over. publicize the movie. Clearly, he and George felt the movie needed By this time, of course, [original Marvel publisher] Martin all the help it could get. Prior to its actual release in May of ’77, Goodman was no longer running Marvel, with his late-’60s edict there was certainly a word-of-mouth, grapevine thing that was against “rockets, robots, and ray-guns,” which he hated because he going on, but there was never a huge advance marketing campaign felt that science-fiction had never sold many comics for him. Stan by 20th Century Fox itself. The studio apparently didn’t have a lot was more open to science-fiction, but it wasn’t a big selling point to of faith in the film, even though Charley told me they were considhim, either. I like science-fiction myself and, back in the mid-’50s ering it their “big picture” of 1977. [laughs] In fact, I remember when I was a teenager, I was a member of the fledgling Science reading somewhere that they actually tried at one point to unload Fiction Book Club. Still, I was really just sitting through Charley’s the film to another studio, to put it into what’s called pitch, figuring that when he was done I‘d say something like, “I’m “turnaround.” They had this $10 million investment, a fairly bigsorry but I just don’t see anything here that would make me beard budget deal back then, and they really didn’t know what to do Stan Lee in his lair and try to persuade him to do this book.” with it.

Maybe as a favor I’d have agreed to suggest to Stan that he give Also by meeting’s end, I must’ve known that Lucas… and Charley a few minutes’ hearing… but I wouldn’t have gone any 20th… weren’t asking for any money for the adaptation. The comic further than that. book was to be publicity for the movie, not a profit-making But then, as he’s rolling along, Charley says, “This next sketch is venture per se. That made it easier for me to approach Stan about of what we call ‘the cantina sequence.’” He pulls out a now-iconic it; I doubt I’d have done so if they’d been asking for an up-front painting of Han Solo, who at this point doesn’t look like Harrison payment from Marvel. In retrospect, I doubt any money had Ford, facing a space alien in a showdown, a sort of “slap-leather” changed hands, either, over the two-issue Golden Voyage of Sinbad situation, in what looks like a saloon in an old Western movie, with adaptation in Worlds Unknown, of which I’d been the editor. I a couple of aliens and Stormtroopers looking on. remember sometime in ’74 or ’75 going with Gerry Conway and our wives to a private screening of a horror/SF movie that some At that stage I said something along the lines of, “Okay, I’ll do New York studio rep hoped Marvel would adapt. It turned out to it!” Charley and Ed were both surprised at this, because up to this be pretty bad, and the rep who set up the screening actually apolopoint I’d given them no real encouragement. So I explained that gized to me for wasting my time… but even if Marvel had adapted they’d been talking about this movie as science-fiction, and straight it, the studio wouldn’t have asked for any money. We had paid science-fiction didn’t have a great track record in comics. But that something to do the Planet of the Apes comics, though; I don't know cantina painting made it suddenly hit home to me, as I told them, about Logan's Run, since I had no involvement with that one. that what the movie really was, was space opera. A blend of the science-fiction and Western genres. Space opera brought to mind I’m fairly certain it was at that same first “close encounter” that the old Planet Stories [pulp magazine] and especially the spin-off Charley told me George wanted Howard Chaykin to draw the Planet Comics that I’d liked as a kid. That kind of thing was comic. He’s written that the choice of Chaykin came about like so: something that I thought might just possibly sell some comics for The first issue of Mike Friedrich’s independent comic Star*Reach Marvel. had featured a story written and drawn by Chaykin starring his

Makin’ Wookiee

Howard Chaykin and his future wife Leslie Zahler at a comics convention, late ’70s. Thanks to Bill Wray.

futuristic science-fiction hero “Cody Starbuck.”

Starbuck would pop up elsewhere a few years later, but that first story made a real impression on Charley, who showed it to George and got him enthusiastic about Chaykin as well.

At that point, Howard had probably done more work for DC than for Marvel, such as his “Ironwolf” series and “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.” But he’d also drawn part of the very first installment of [Marvel’s] “War of the Worlds”—and, in the year before our Star Wars adaptation, I’d begun giving him Marvel assignments, including drawing a “Solomon Kane” story and pinups for Savage Sword of Conan, doing layouts for a Conan the Barbarian three-parter, and even drawing and writing an

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adaptation of a Larry Niven short story in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. I was especially impressed by his work on that last one.

In fact, by the time we asked him to do Star Wars, he was probably already working on “Monark Starstalker,” a one-shot he wrote and drew for Marvel that was very much a “Cody Starbuck” type of concept. I wasn’t involved with “Monark,” which as it turned out would go on sale in mid-1976, by which point we were starting to get into Star Wars. It’s funny to think now how similar in style the name “Monark Starstalker” is to the “Luke Starkiller” name that was a possibility for the main Star Wars hero, but I doubt Howard had heard that name, or “Luke Skywalker,” by then, as they weren’t really “out there” at that time.

RA: You’re right in mentioning both “Cody Starbuck” and “Ironwolf,” since, at the time of your February 1976 meeting with Charley, there’d only been one episode of “Starbuck” published—in Star*Reach #1 (April 1974)—but

Stop The Planet! I Want To Get On! Fiction House published Planet Stories pulp magazine till 1954, and Planet Comics until ’53. The cover artist of the July 1952 Planet Stories at right is unidentified. Roy Thomas specifically remembers owning that issue, and liked the “Lost World” series in Planet Comics, which influenced the “War of the Worlds” series he conceived for Marvel in the early ’70s. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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Still, when George, Howard, Charley, and I finally all got together in the same room out in L.A. in July of 1976, George mentions only “Cody Starbuck,” not “Ironwolf.” By then, I suppose, more “Starbuck” stories had appeared.

RA: You’re right on that. The second appearance of “Cody Starbuck” was in Star*Reach #4 (April 1976), which would have come out around the time of, or maybe just after, your first meeting with Lippincott and Summer, but several months before your and Chaykin’s meeting with Lucas and Lippincott in L.A. THOMAS: It may have been a combination of the two characters that got Lucas interested in Howard as the artist. They were similar in subject matter as well as artistic style, of course.

Avast, Mr. Starbuck!

Chaykin’s “Cody Starbuck” cover and splash page from Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach #1 (1974), perhaps the first so-called “ground-level” comic, halfway between the mainstream and “underground” comix. “Starbuck,” of course, was the last name of the first mate in Herman Melville’s 1850 novel Moby-Dick… while “Cody” was the last name of the fabled Buffalo Bill. [TM & © Howard Chaykin.]

there’d been three episodes of “Ironwolf” in DC’s Weird Worlds, in issues #8-10 (Dec. 1973-Nov. 1974), with a number of months’ hiatus between the second and last issues.

THOMAS: Apparently, George was aware of both series. In fact, in that Star Wars Insider interview, Ed Summer says that, some time before the Star Wars comic deal, he and George used to have long conversations about who the best comic book artists were. He says George was “smitten”—his word—over some storyboards Chaykin had drawn for a projected film Ed hoped to do, titled Starship Under—I remember Ed discussing that project with me several times. He says in the interview that he half-jokingly told George that he was afraid to tell him who’d drawn those storyboards, lest George hire him away to work on Star Wars! That’s kind of ironic, in retrospect… because, in an indirect sense, through Marvel, that’s pretty much what George did.

Interestingly, Ed claims it was the “Ironwolf” feature in DC’s Weird Worlds comic that George “mainly talked about at that time,” not “Cody Starbuck.” Ed recalls the two of them standing in his comics store one time, flipping through a new “Ironwolf” issue.

Since by then there’d been just the one “Cody Starbuck” story but several “Ironwolf” comics, Ed felt that Ironwolf was the character that made the strongest impression on Lucas. He said George “really loved… the wooden spaceships in ‘Ironwolf’”—which, of course, were inspired by the feel of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ flying ships in his “John Carter of Mars” novels.

Let Me Count The “Myriad Ways” For Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #5 (Sept. 1975), Chaykin wrote and drew a strong black-&-white adaptation of SF great Larry Niven’s short story “All the Myriad Ways”… a tale of alternate universes. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan.

[Original story TM & © Larry Niven; art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Whole Lotta Chaykin Goin’ On! (Above:) For DC, in his early years in the field, Chaykin created, plotted, and drew the “Iron-Wolf” series beginning in Weird Worlds #8 (Nov.-Dec. 1973) and drew “Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser,” the latter represented by his cover above for Sword of Sorcery #2 (April-May ’73), which was inked by Bernie Wrightson. [TM & © DC Comics.]

(Clockwise, from upper right:) For Marvel, Chaykin penciled the last half of the first “War of the Worlds” story, in Amazing Adventures #18 (May 1973)—“A Rattle of Bones,” a Solomon Kane adaptation for The Savage Sword of Conan #18 (April ’77), scripted by Roy Thomas— and the layouts of a three-part Conan the Barbarian serial in #79-81 (Oct.-Dec. 1977), inked/finished by Ernie Chan and scripted by RT. AA #18 was plotted by RT & Neal Adams, scripted by Gerry Conway, and inked by Frank Chiaramonte. Thanks to Barry Pearl, Stephen Friedt, Mark Muller, & Steven G. Willis for the Marvel scans. [AA page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; CTB page TM & © Conan Properties International, Ltd.; Kane page TM & © Solomon Kane Properties, Inc.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

conferred with Stan many, many times, about many different things, over the years, so I don’t recall that particular meeting. Maybe I got his initial okay just in a phone call. Or at least, he agreed to the meeting that Charley talks about between Charley, me, and some Marvel people… another meeting that clearly happened but that I don’t remember. The initial conversation between Stan and me, while surely brief, was the second breakthrough—Charley’s meeting with me was the first—on the road to there being a Star Wars comic.

As I just said, I don’t recall it myself, but Charley writes in one of his articles that there was then this important meeting at Marvel. He says that he, I, Stan, and Marvel’s circulation director, Ed Shukin, were present. Maybe Marvel’s president, James Galton, was there, too, but Charley doesn’t mention him. That meeting must’ve been very soon after

This “Monark” Is No Butterfly!

Cover and an action page from “Monark Starstalker,” created, written, and drawn by Howard Chaykin for Marvel Premiere #32 (Oct. 1976) The one-shot came out just as he was beginning serious work on the Star Wars comic book.

Thanks to the Grand Comics Database & Barry Pearl, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RA: I would bet that, if they were basing the look of Han Solo in any way on the look of Howard’s Cody Starbuck, it would’ve been based on that first story. That’s where the parallel of looks is most prevalent. Ironwolf’s outfit looked like a take on Scottish highlander garb or something from a futuristic stage production of Macbeth.

THOMAS: Right, “Rob Roy Goes to Mars”! Starbuck definitely had more of the look Han Solo would have. I was okay from the first with George and Charley’s desire for Chaykin to be the artist, though of course that depended on both Marvel and Howard also being agreeable to it. He was a good choice. I’ll admit that, left totally to my own devices, I might well have approached John Buscema or Gil Kane or maybe even Rich Buckler to draw the comic. Still, I never had any doubts about Chaykin being an excellent choice—except, of course, when the deadline problems reared their heads. But we’ll talk about that later.

RA: I assume that your meeting with Stan was quite successful, because he obviously OK’d it.

THOMAS: The funny thing is, I have no memory whatever of such a meeting! I mean, I know it happened… but of course I’ve

The Boys Who Cried “Ironwolf” Chaykin’s splash page for the “Ironwolf” tale in Weird Worlds #9 (Jan.-Feb. 1974). Ed Summer vividly recalled animated discussions that he and George Lucas had in his Supersnipe comic book store about this DC series at the time of its publication. Script by Denny O’Neil. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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20th. Charley represented Lucas, and Pevers represented 20th. Charley says there were people in 20th’s marketing department who thought he was crazy for wasting his time with this comic book thing!

By the way, quite apart from however many issues Charley might’ve wanted the adaptation to run, I myself had no interest in doing anything like the single-issue adaptations Dell had done in the ’40s through the Ed Shukin ’60s. Back then, Dell had had 30 pages or Marvel’s circulation so—and earlier something like 50—to work director, who attended with, because they didn’t sell ads in their a crucial February 1976 books; but, even so, they had to cut some of meeting at the Marvel the film’s events, since they’d only ever offices that also done one-issue adaptations. In 1977, Marvel included Stan Lee, Roy had only 17 or so story pages per issue.

Thomas, and Charley Lippincott. Thanks to Screenplays ran 100 pages or more per Jim Kealy. movie. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: The general rule of thumb is that one minute of screen time equals one page of script.] I felt we needed to do at least five or six issues to do it correctly. That meant a half year of issues, at a monthly clip.

RA: Marvel was even then in the course of adapting Logan’s Run as a five-issue adaptation, and that came out only about three months before the Star Wars adaptation began. In fact, the last two issues of the Logan’s Run adaptation and the first two issues of Star Wars were on the stands at the same time. And the Planet of the Apes magazine was still running, through the turn of ’77.

The Starbuck Stops Here!

A Chaykin page from his second “Cody Starbuck” tale, which appeared in Star*Reach #4 (April 1976)—as reprinted a few years back by TwoMorrows Publishing in The Star*Reach Companion. [TM & © Howard Chaykin.]

I’d initially contacted Stan about Star Wars—probably just a couple of days afterward, at most.

Charley says that I “pitched the project” at that meeting, then he took over to give the details about how many issues he thought the adaptation should be, when #1 needed to be on sale, that they’d like Chaykin to be the artist, even that he’d arrange to fly Chaykin out to the San Diego Comic-Con that summer to do a presentation.

I myself wouldn’t be any expense for them, because by then I’d be able to just drive down from L.A. He made the point that Marvel’s sales on the comic could benefit greatly from the publicity that Lucas and 20th would be doing in advance of the film’s premiere.

I’m sure Charley and I had discussed in advance the number of issues the adaptation should run. He wouldn’t have just sprung a number on me at the big meeting and risked my disagreeing with him, but I suspect the precise six-issue number was more my idea than his. In his articles, Charley writes that, in the end, the agreement called for the first five issues being free for Marvel, with payment on the sixth… however that worked out. That meant that, if there was a 7th and 8th issue and beyond, continuing the story past the events of the movie, Marvel would be paying on a regular basis… but of course, if the early issues didn’t sell, there’d be no 7th one. I wasn’t involved in those arrangements: that was between Marvel’s execs and lawyers, Charley, and (according to Charley) one Marc Pevers, an attorney who negotiated licensing deals for

THOMAS: One curious aside: Stan wrote, in the introduction he did for the paperback reprint of the adaptation that came out around fall of ’77, that he said yes to the project mostly because I’d told him that Alec Guinness was in the movie, and Stan loved Alec Guinness. That’s so nutty a story that it’s probably true. Certainly I know Stan remembers it that way. [both laugh] Alec Guinness wasn’t going to sell any comics. There wouldn’t be any photos of him in the book, no mention of him on the cover. But if Alec Guinness made Stan more amenable to having the comic published—great!

Charley wrote, on bleedingcool.com, in answer to some inoffensive comments posted online by artist Rob Liefeld, that a lot of what Stan wrote in that paperback intro was “hogwash.” “I was there,” he writes. “I made the deal. Both Stan and Roy are taking credit for stuff they did not do.” In this instance, of course, Charley just doesn’t understand how Stan works. When Stan wrote that intro for the paperback reprint in late ’77, he was just writing what he personally remembered, off the top of his head… so Stan mentions me, of course, because as far as he’s concerned, I’m the guy who You Deserve A Break Today! “suggested” that (Left to right:) Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Alec Marvel do “a Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi), an unidentified movie comicbook staffer, and director George Lucas during the Morocco version of the shoot in 1976. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

RA: About the financial arrangements for the comic: The Star Wars entry on Wikipedia, which may or may not be accurate, says that any payment for the first six issues would only take place after 100,000 copies of each issue were sold.

Not printed, but sold. However, that goal-mark had to have been actually made fairly early, from #3 on, when the movie instantly became such a huge hit. That figure would also suggest that Marvel itself didn’t have a lot of faith in the comic book’s chances.

Would You Buy A Used Wooden Horse From This Woman?

By 1956, Dell/Western was adapting films in 34-page versions—every one of an issue’s pages except its front and inside front covers. Case in point: the 1956 Warner Bros. pic Helen of Troy in Four Color #684, with comics script by Paul S. Newman & art by John Buscema. The cover combines a photo of actress Rosanna Podesta and a painting by an unidentified artist. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

film”… and he mentions “Eddie” Shukin, the circulation director, because he knew him well… but he clearly didn’t remember Charley per se, maybe because he just met him that once, at that single meeting. Stan isn’t trying to grab any credit, let alone give extra credit to me—he’s just telling what he remembers, without bothering to do any research about it. For my part, I’m confident that I’ve gone into such detail over the years about the origins of Marvel’s Star Wars comic, always with Charley Lippincott front and center in the tale, that to accuse me of “taking credit for stuff [I] did not do” is kind of ludicrous. The problem, I think, is that Charley has felt frozen out of his due credit for a lot of merchandising he did related to Star Wars over the early years, so he’s misplacing some of his aggression on Stan and me. I respect what Charley did—but when he starts accusing me of grabbing extra credit, I won’t stand silently by and take that, because it’s just not true.

THOMAS: That’s an understatement!

I don’t recall ever hearing about that 100,000-copies thing, or about the mildly contradictory statement that money would change hands with the sixth issue… so I can’t really comment knowledgeably on them. I don’t recall if I ever knew the precise print run of #1, but it probably wasn’t on the high side as print runs went in those days. Because, in addition to any misgivings Galton may have had, Stan wasn’t really pushing the comic that hard—even though it was his decision, really, that Marvel would do a Star Wars comic. I suspect he greenlighted the title partly because I was championing it, and he had a certain amount of respect for my sales instincts— though that wouldn’t have helped if the deal hadn’t been right. But it was other people who took care of money matters, contracts, etc.

I didn’t bother to inquire. That was Marvel’s business, and I didn’t want to get involved with it. My job was simply to turn out the comic book.

The next hurdle for the comic was Marvel’s circulation director— the previously mentioned Ed Shukin. I don’t remember dealing with him on it myself, except once. He had a good reputation in the

Now, back to that “pitch meeting”: I mentioned that Marvel president James Galton may have been there, because, at some point, he also had to approve the project. But here again, we run into the Rashomon thing… and this time it involves wildly different recollections of another event. When I talked to Galton by phone in 2007 and asked him about It’s Only A Paperback Moon… his memories of the Star Wars comic, he told The Rick Hoberg/Dave Cockrum cover for the me that he recalled 20th Century Fox and/or 1977 paperback book reprinting the six Lucas as wanting money for the adaptation. He issues of the Star Wars adaptation, which says that when I’d told him that back in ’76, featured an introduction by Stan Lee—one of the few times Stan has ever said or written and I’m quoting him here: “I threw you out of anything about Marvel’s connection to the my office.” But he must’ve been thinking about film. Roy’s main memory of that paperback some other occasion and about throwing is that it was originally slated to have only somebody else out of his office, because that Stan’s and George Lucas’ names on the never happened with me. Maybe he’d had an cover; he pushed hard to have his own and altercation earlier over Logan’s Run, but not Howard Chaykin’s names added, since, as he with me, and not over Star Wars. worded it to Marvel’s publisher, “We’re the ones who did the work being reprinted.”

Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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industry as a circulation director; but he came up to me one day, very early in the project, when I dropped by the Marvel offices—as I did at least a couple of times a week, to touch base with the other editors and sort of check things out. Shukin told me he had no faith in the comic, since earlier movie adaptations Marvel had done hadn’t sold all that well—I guess he meant The Golden Voyage of Sinbad [Worlds Unknown #7-8 (June-Aug, 1974)], although Planet of the Apes James Galton was up to about two dozen issues by then. It bothered him that we’d be doing six issues of President of Marvel, 1975-1991. Because of Star Wars, because if it didn’t sell, we’d be the Star Wars locked in to printing half a dozen issues of a adaptation’s economic comic that no one was buying. That kind of importance to Marvel thinking—which was not unreasonable—is in 1977, he later why I’m fairly sure the print run of the early thanked Roy Thomas issues of Star Wars was on the low side. In because “he made me fact, with print runs needing to be set a rich.” You’re welcome, couple months or more in advance, I wonder says A/E’s editor. what was the earliest of the six issues for which Marvel was able to jump up the print run. Probably #5 or 6, at the earliest.

Anyway, Shukin asked me if I could adapt the movie in one or two issues instead of six. I told him I could do it, but I wouldn’t do it. I explained that I felt that, to do a decent job adapting an adventure movie, we’d need five or six issues. Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention the “five” part at this stage—if I had, he’d have jumped on it! I reminded him I wasn’t getting paid anything extra by either George or 20th or Marvel for doing this comic. At this stage there weren’t even any royalties or “incentive payments” that would kick in if the comic sold well!

So I told Ed that, if he wanted to get Stan to appoint somebody else to write and edit the comic, I’d step aside, and then they could make it any number of issues they wanted. One issue, two issues… it wouldn’t matter to me then. But, of course, at that time, both he and I were operating under the distinct impression that George and Charley specifically wanted me to handle the book. Maybe they didn’t really care… maybe all they cared about was Chaykin’s art… but if so, we didn’t know that. Thus, Marvel wasn’t really eager to have the writer/editor walk off the project, so Shukin gave up on the idea of anything less than six issues, and I never heard anything more about it directly.

But he didn’t give up on his pessimism about the comic. In the last few weeks or even days before Star Wars opened in late May of ’77, Ed Summer went up to Marvel—he had some business up there related to his

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comics store—and he had a talk with Shukin. Ed [Summer] told me by phone about the conversation very soon afterward, while it was fresh in his mind. He said Shukin had told him, “We’re really going to take a bath with that adaptation of your friend George Lucas’ movie!” [laughs] Ed told him, “Well, I don’t think so.”

Yeah, Marvel took a bath, all right. A bath in money. Ed Shukin was a smart guy, no question, but who knew Star Wars would be such a huge hit? I certainly didn’t. I didn’t champion Star Wars because I wanted to harness myself and Marvel to a huge hit. I just thought it might be fun to adapt this space-opera movie. After all, I was moving to Hollywood anyway, and would be living just up the hill from the Warner lot in Burbank, and only a few miles from Universal, where George still had his offices from American Graffiti.

Actually, Ed related the above anecdote a bit differently in the Insider interview than I recall him telling it to me in 1977. He says there that, when he ran into Shukin at Marvel, Shukin told him the first issue “wasn’t selling. The returns on the books are just huge” and that “This [comic] is a dog. We’re really stuck with it.” That doesn’t seem to square with the admittedly tentative—and quite good—57% sales figure that I believe I heard for #1 even before the movie came out, but I can’t totally reconcile the two versions of the story. Since the first issue came out in early March, Marvel wouldn’t have had any really firm sales figures a little more than two months before the movie opened, and obviously the conversation between Summer and Shukin occurred before the premiere.

Still, the bottom line is that, whether based on returns or gut instinct, right before the movie opened, Shukin believed the Star Wars comic was going to be a bomb.

Interestingly, Ed Summer says [in the Insider interview] that he himself had told George that he thought it was a mistake to have issues of the comic go on sale before the movie opened. Clearly, he wasn’t on board with George’s and Charley’s thinking that the comic would help sell the forthcoming film, and not undercut it.

The Star Wars Comic Goes Global The Hoberg/Cockrum cover art for the 1977 Star Wars comic book paperback (and the first volume of the tabloid-size reprinting) was used in 1978 on the first issue of Portugal’s reprint edition (from Agência Portuguesa de Revistas, in Lisbon) and, with an added inset illo, on the debut number of the Brazilian reprint from Bloch Editores in Rio de Janeiro.

Thanks to Leonardo de Sá. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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even before he had the right character to go with it. Han, as Ed pointed out in that Insider interview, was the name of the race of villainous conquerors in the Buck Rogers comic strip that began in 1929. Also, I recall that there was one sequence in the outlines that took place entirely on the planet of the Wookiees. Some elements of that one were probably adapted later for the planet of the Ewoks, which is sort of like “Wookiee” spelled sideways, in Return of the Jedi.

Anyway, I read the Star Wars more-or-less-final screenplay that they gave me—perhaps “skimmed” would be a better word. I liked the story, as I gleaned it, and as I remembered it from Charley’s earlier telling… but I never really enjoyed reading screenplays that much, not even when I was writing them a few years later. At the time, I was busy first getting ready to move to L.A., and then, after I got there, starting a new life. Those factors, plus the fact that I had now turned my back on the kind of full involvement with comics that returning as editor-in-chief would’ve entailed, left me at pretty much an all-time low in my life when it came to my interest in writing comics. I wanted to do what I needed to do, and not that much more.

In terms of Star Wars, that meant basically turning the breakingdown of the screenplay over to Howard Chaykin. I don’t recall if I gave him any real guidelines as to how and where to divide the story into six parts for six issues… certainly not after maybe the

Death Star Rising One of the earliest views that the fan-public had of art done for the Star Wars film was in Jim Steranko’s magazine Mediascene (#22, Nov.Dec. 1976), behind a Ralph McQuarrie cover. Of course, the precise look of the pic changed a bit in between these early conceptual “production sketches” and the finished movie. Thanks to Jim Kealy & Paul King.

[Art TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Ed says that George insisted that issue or two would get people talking, and besides, they still wouldn’t know the whole story.

Later, Ed admitted that George and Charley were right.

RA: How did you and Howard Chaykin work together on the adaptation?

THOMAS: Well, before long, we both received copies of the final screenplay, which was credited to George, though it wasn’t long before I heard rumors that a couple of other people had also worked on it, anonymously. Not that I cared.

I was also given, at some stage—this probably happened once it was definite that Marvel was going to continue its Star Wars comic past #6—a whole bunch of earlier potential synopses and outlines for the movie which had been prepared in 1976 or maybe even in 1975 or before. They may have been printed since, I don’t know— and I guess some of that stuff was used as a basis for the Dark Horse comics series The Star Wars, which restored the article to the title in order to take it back to its earliest stages as a concept. I haven’t picked up that series yet, but I’m told that it’s officially based on some early draft of the screenplay, not the outlines and such that I was given sometime in early ’77. I’m fairly sure I never had that really early actual screenplay.

The film’s Flash Gordon roots were even clearer in those outlines, as I recall, but I remember only a few details. One is of the original Han Solo being a 7-foot amphibian; I guess George liked that name

Sputnik Wars?

The Russians did their own adaptation of the first Star Wars film—whether authorized or not, we couldn’t say. One version of it, dated 1994, was sold recently on eBay, but that may have been a reprinting of an earlier publication. Here’s the cover (artist unknown), courtesy of Jeff Taylor, who spotted it being sold on eBay. [Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Makin’ Wookiee

Tatooine Does Not Believe In Tears Four early pages from the Russian comics adaptation of Star Wars. Finder Jeff Taylor tells us that’s Chewbacca in the blue vest on the page from “the cantina sequence.” We’ve no idea how many pages the entire adaptation ran. Maybe somebody can tell us more about it? [Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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The Star Wars Redux (Above:] In 2013-2014, Dark Horse Comics published an 8-issue series The Star Wars, based on an earlier (and quite different) approach to |the film in a George Lucas screenplay. Seen here are Nick Runge’s cover for The Star Wars #1 (Sept. 2013) and a panel in which the head of the Skywalker family encounters Han Solo, a massive green amphibian. Script

by J.W. Rinzler; art by Mike Mayhew. Thanks to Katie Delia.

(Below right:) For Mediascene #26 (July-Aug. 1977), Lucasfilm allowed Jim Steranko to reprint (or at least quote liberally from—we forget which) some of those earlier materials in its second issue devoted to Star Wars.

Of course, by then, everyone was familiar with the version that made it to the screen. Cover scan supplied by Rob Allen. Art probably by Ralph Mcquarrie. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] Roy Thomas doesn’t believe he ever saw the draft of the screenplay used for Dark Horse’s The Star Wars; but by spring of 1977 he did receive from Lucas and Lippincott several early outlines and notes for the prospective movie, in which he seems to recall Han Solo being a 7-foot, gaunt green amphibian rather than a bulky one. Still, both those notions are far closer to each other than they are to anything resembling Harrison Ford!

first issue. Of course, he knew I was just a phone call away if he wanted to talk anything over; also, as the batches of penciled pages came to me from him for dialoguing, I was monitoring to make sure everything was moving along all right, that we weren’t liable to run out of room at the end, etc. But I still left him largely to his own devices… and I don’t recall his ever voicing any objection to having that particular combination of freedom and responsibility.

Certainly he did a splendid job with the pacing, probably not far off what I’d have done if I’d given him a detailed synopsis to go along with the screenplay. I wasn’t surprised, having worked with him previously.

Next, I guess, came his first trip to Lucasfilm in L.A., right after the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con. They flew him out to the con, I suppose. I don’t recall if George and company paid for my hotel room in San Diego; I do know that, between 1974 and up until 2007, the San Diego Con itself never once picked up the tab for my room, which left me with ambivalent feelings about that con and led me to stop coming back west to attend it a year or two after we’d moved to South Carolina.

Anyway, back to 1976: Charley made all the arrangements for a “panel” consisting of himself, Chaykin, and me—and bless Steve Sansweet, who’s put together a number of books for Lucasfilm, for sending me, several years back, scans of a few photos from that event. You can see the three of us there, sitting casually on the edge

of the stage, wearing our 1976 Star Wars Tshirts that featured an early McQuarrie drawing of a space hero with a lightsaber, intended, I suppose, to be Luke Skywalker. I still have mine—I’ll flog it on eBay sometime when I’m broke, along with the original 1964 SpiderMan costume that I wore in Marvel’s 1972 Carnegie Hall show.

Behind us, projected on a screen, was the painting Howard had done of the main Star Wars characters. Charley says he sold posters that day that featured that artwork for $1 apiece, and he didn’t sell all of them, although I recall the fair-sized audience as being reasonably enthusiastic. [laughs] At one point he began giving them away! Well, I should talk! Either I didn’t get one myself—or, if Charley gave me one, I wasn’t bright enough to hang onto it.

That panel, or talk, or whatever you care to call it, was one of the first events, if not the first, at any comic convention held to publicize a forthcoming studio film, and it was all Charley’s brainchild. It felt kind of good to be attached to this upcoming film from a major studio, though if I’d known how our con panel might play a part in leading to today’s con scene, where movies and gaming have taken over from comics, I’m not sure I’d have gone through with it. At the time, though, it seemed like a harmless diversion

Makin’ Wookiee

All The Whirl’s A Stage A pair of long shots of (sitting left to right on stage) Charley Lippincott, Roy Thomas, & Howard Chaykin, at the Star Wars presentation panel at the July 1976 San Diego Comic-Con. Behind the gents is a projection of Chaykin’s original Star Wars poster, reproductions of which Lippincott was selling for $1 apiece (and a bit later, giving away). Note that all three gents are wearing the earliest-ever “The Star Wars” T-shirts, designed by Ralph McQuarrie. Thanks to Steve Sansweet. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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that wasn’t likely to affect the future of comics conventions much.

RA: I know that earlier conventions did stuff related to movies that were just coming out or had already come out, especially sciencefiction, but nothing so far in advance of the film’s release.

At that point, the world premiere of Star Wars was still at least nine months in the future.

Close Up & Personal

THOMAS: There’s also a photo of Mark Hamill, reputedly at that ’76 convention… but I don’t recall meeting him then, though I may have.

Charley Lippincott onstage at San Diego, 1976. Found on the Internet. [© the respective copyright holders.]

A day or so after the con, Chaykin and I had a meeting with George and Charley in George’s office on the Universal lot. I just barely recall it—I had a lot of other things on my mind, having just moved to L.A. a few weeks before—but a transcript of it has been reprinted in The Star Wars Insider and elsewhere, and it’s also available online… both in its original rough form, and as cleaned up later by editors. The tape clearly starts a little after the meeting began and ends rather abruptly, perhaps just because someone ran out of tape.

RA: That’s the impression I got. The meeting took place on July 27, while the Comic-Con had run from July 21-25. The version you sent me [from Star Wars Insider #122, Jan. 2011] was much more coherent than the online version I’d read, where it appeared to have been transcribed by someone learning English as a second language. Even in the cleaned-up version you sent me, though, the transcriber clearly had no knowledge of anybody or anything related to comics. Solomon Kane is transcribed as “Silent Kane.” Alex Nino’s name comes out as “L.S. Neil.” Bernie Wrightson’s name is mangled into “Righton”… Walt Simonson is “Siminson”…. Ralph Reese is Ralph “Raes.” However, they do know who Harlan Ellison is and how to spell his name. [chuckles]

Insider Out Howard Chaykin provided a new cover for Lucasfilm’s official magazine Star Wars Insider #122 (Jan. 2011), bringing the original 1976 poster and 1977 comic book cover scenes up to date. That issue featured J.W. Rinzler’s article “Movie Frame to Comic Frame: The Genesis of the Star Wars Comic Book,” most of which was devoted to a transcription of the July 27, 1976, meeting of George Lucas, Charley Lippincott, Howard Chaykin, and Roy Thomas in the former’s office on the Universal Studios lot. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Inc.]

THOMAS: [laughs] The transcription of that meeting, after lying buried in the “Lucasfilm Archives” for years, apparently also ran in that great big book on the various Star Wars comics series.

RA: I think they actually mention in the transcription that they’d flown Howard Chaykin in for the convention. The meeting apparently happened just eleven days after the movie wrapped principal photography, with “barely a single special effects shot [having been] completed.”

THOMAS: He wouldn’t have

Star Wars At San Diego, 1976 - Continued (Left:) Mark Hamill at the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con, with a photo credit to Joe Johnston in the Star Wars Scrapbook.

Thanks to the Tenth Letter of the Alphabet blog.

(Right:) Charley Lippincott at a table in the dealers’ room, “selling” Star Wars. The sign says that the comic book was then slated to go on sale beginning February 1977, with the movie premiere then set for April. Each was delayed by one month. Thanks to Steve Sansweet. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Makin’ Wookiee

Luke Skywalker—Poster Child For Star Wars Howard Chaykin’s 1976 Star Wars poster, which made its debut at that year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Scan courtesy of David Mandel, who purchased the original some time back. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

We Assume His First Name Was Still Cody?

A 1976 “Starbuck” page written and drawn by Chaykin. [TM & © Howard Chaykin.]

bought his own ticket simply because of the Star Wars comic, nor would Marvel have footed the bill— and at that point the con probably wouldn’t have paid his way.

Howard wasn’t a big name yet, and the ComicCon people weren’t going to shell out money on behalf of some movie that wouldn’t even be coming out till the next year.

He said he was going to need “considerable material on the hardware,” meaning the spaceships, guns, armor, et al. Charley chimed in to say there were good color photos of some of that, but very little on the interiors of the Death Star, which Chaykin had said he needed. Thus far, he says, his only reference had been the McQuarrie paintings, so he was glad he hadn’t had to get started yet. He mentions that the first issue was due on the stands the following February, so it would have to be completed by December; by then, he hoped to have all six issues penciled, and most inked, so he could spend January coloring the comics. Guess he was a little unclear on certain realities of comics publishing at the time, as the entire first issue, coloring and all, would’ve had to

The intro to the Insider transcription of the meeting says that George himself was “feeling very depressed about the space fantasy,” and that the shoot—which I guess includes both Morocco and England—had been “a horrible experience.” The transcript itself begins at the point where George is saying what a big fan he is of Howard’s work, especially “Cody Starbuck,” which he says he discovered—probably meaning that Charley had shown it to him— about halfway through the process of creating Star Wars. I have to wonder if maybe George didn’t say that to make certain that Chaykin didn’t think his work had inspired the film… for that way lies the path of the lawsuits that beset seemingly every major film production.

Howard then talks about how he’d originally hoped to see the adaptation published in black-&-white, but he saw why color made more sense. He said he wanted to keep the art “very simple.”

He was having trouble visualizing how the “laser swords” (what the film would call “lightsabers”) should be drawn; he seems to have felt that art could be color-held, meaning done with no black lines, though that’s not how it was done in the end.

He next inquires about possible “problems with likenesses,” and George—thinking he means legal restrictions—assures him there’d be no problems over that. That would’ve eased my mind had I been there to hear it, since we—Marvel—had had an enormous hassle over likenesses with the first black-&-white issue of Planet of the Apes, because of Charlton Heston’s reputation for litigiousness.

Howard tells George he’ll do what he can with likenesses, but he can’t guarantee close fidelity in every panel over six issues.

He felt that “the kid who plays Luke,” meaning Hamill, was “a little soft in the face,” so he’d have to “harden him up a little.” But he felt Han Solo (i.e., Harrison Ford) and Alec Guinness were perfect. He also noted the similarity of Darth Vader to Dr. Doom.

Planet Of The Attorneys (Bottom left:) Charlton Heston and Maurice Evans (in ape-makeup as Dr. Zaius) in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. [TM & © 20th Century Fox or successors in interest.]

(Above:) A page from Marvel’s black-&-white Planet of the Apes #1 (Aug. 1974), scripted by Doug Moench & illustrated by George Tuska & Mike Esposito—with some faces probably redrawn by John Romita. After the issue had already been at least partly printed, attorneys for 20th Century Fox— who’d had approval proofs for days but hadn’t bothered to look at them— suddenly got scared spitless when they noticed Tuska’s drawings of hero George Taylor, even though the artist had taken great care to give the hero just a standard heroic face. Based on the legendary litigiousness of Charlton Heston, they feared he’d sue them if there was even the vaguest resemblance between himself and the character in the comic. So Marvel had to discard at least one entire signature (16-page section) that had already been printed… wiping out any potential profit from POTA #1. In some pages, a beard was added to George Taylor to further defuse the problem. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders, probably 20th Century Fox.]

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leave Marvel by the end of December in order to be out in February… those realities would soon surface, of course, as he got into the penciling.

At this point, Charley asks, “Where’s Roy?” I don’t recall why I wasn’t there in time for the start of the meeting, but I must’ve gotten held up by something, maybe traffic. Charley says that one reason for the meeting is that I had “mislaid” my copy of the script. I have no memory of that, but maybe it’d gotten lost in my move west three weeks earlier and I’d only just realized that as I slowly unpacked.

George tells Howard that “tomorrow” he can look at some “footage,” and he tells Charley that Chaykin and I are going out to ILM the next day—Industrial Light and Magic, George’s new special-effects company—where we could also see the models. He meant the facility then in the San Fernando Valley, which I do recall seeing. All I recall of that visit, really, is the model of the surface of the Death Star, which was all laid out on some enormous table in a building the size of a huge barn. The Death Star set looked like a thousand Aurora model kits pasted together on top of some long, long table—and it was flat, although of course it was supposed to be the exterior of a sphere, as spaceships chased each other amid its artificial “canyons.”

An All-Star [Wars] Cast At the forefront of the article/transcript in The Star Wars Insider #122 was this illo by Chaykin of the principal characters from Star Wars. It originally appeared as a pin-up in a 1977 issue of the comic. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Howard, at this stage, returns to his need for head shots of all the characters he could get. He had no idea, for instance, what “Biggs,” another of the pilots, looked like.

Just then, I arrive. If I made any explanation for why I was late, it wasn’t caught on tape. I state that the comic script will follow the screenplay very closely, with a few captions added… for example, a “Suddenly…”

Charley interjects, “There’s a lot of ‘Suddenly’ in the script…

‘Suddenly’ this and ‘Suddenly’ that.” He says that “they” had been adding some “Suddenlys” to the novelization of the film, as well, having put in some earlier that day.

George asks how I intended to break the screenplay down, and I say that Howard and I hadn’t really discussed that yet. George confesses that he hasn’t “any idea how it’s going to work.”

Chaykin says to me that, since he’s leaving town that Thursday, he hopes I can read the screenplay and “get some vague idea of how you want to do it,” then mail him a letter to fill him in.

Hammerin’ Hamill The final page of Star Wars #1 (July 1977), with art by Howard Chaykin, script by Roy Thomas, from the Lucas screenplay. Chaykin had said he’d have to “harden up” Mark Hamill’s face a little. Thanks to MinuteMenDarthScanner website. [TM & © Lucasfilm, etc.]

George’s next comments give the impression that the movie “starts slow and builds”—true enough in some ways, perhaps, but I don’t think anyone who’s seen Star Wars—and that means just about everyone—would say it “starts slow,” though naturally it does build. After all, the screenplay and movie both begin with a battle and ship-boarding in space. It’s true that there’s a static scene or two on Tatooine… but George would later eliminate one or two early scenes in the editing room. Charley ventured his

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

Charley informs us that, when “some people in this town [i.e., Hollywood]” hear the words “Star Wars,” they “still think it’s the battle between stars at one studio and stars at another.” George humorously adds that “They think it’s the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton story.” I thought that was pretty funny. Later, I was to learn that it was also pretty accurate regarding the intellectual sweep of movie executives’ minds in that era.

I mention that I hope there won’t be any confusion between Star Wars and the also-upcoming Ralph Bakshi animated film War Wizards—although the title of that sword-and-sorcery movie would be shortened to just Wizards before it opened in February of ’77, just two or three months prior to Star Wars. I’m glad we have that transcript of this meeting at George’s office, because otherwise I’d never have remembered that I ever said—or thought—some of that stuff!

“…And Make The San Fernando Valley My Home” The original location of Lucas’ visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic was in the San Fernando Valley. Photo retrieved from the Internet. [© the respective copyright holders.]

confidence that there wasn’t going to be a problem with the action pace of the comic.

George perceptively saw that the big action scene at the end of the movie—the “sky battle” at the Death Star—was going to be a problem, because of what I called the “impersonality” of a bunch of spaceships firing at each other. But I reminded him that there’d also be plenty of panels of the pilots in their cockpits. Besides, I said, “It’s going to be part of a continued story, and by the last issue or two, where this is happening, [the readers] will be pretty well into it, and we’ll be able to afford an issue of that type.”

George quips that it will be “Your basic ‘Fighting Air Force’ issue,” and I concur. He points out that there are several different types of ships visually. Howard says that’s good, because otherwise a bunch of ships streaking by can get “a little boring.”

But he stressed that all his buddies “back East” who’d seen the material he’d gotten so far “have all gone nuts.” At first, he says, some of his colleagues were skeptical about just another sciencefiction movie, but they’d changed their mind after they saw the “materials.”

Charley then asks me which Star Wars logo the comic will use. I respond by asking him if there was a “regular” one that might be “well known” by the time the movie premiered, or whether Marvel would have to design its own. Charley answers that they’re in the process of designing such a logo, since 20th wanted one, too. George adds that the basic one they have right now is the one on the Tshirt… the one Charley, Howard, and I had modeled in San Diego. I pipe up that Marvel would be a bit reluctant to use that one, as it might prove hard to read on a newsstand. I mention that a two-word, two-line logo would be best for Marvel’s purposes… and that probably we (meaning I as the editor, really) would probably add some kind of line above the title. I give an off-thetop-of-the-head example: “Frenzy in a Far-Flung Future.”

Fighting Air Force—In Space!

(Left:) George Lucas half-jokingly indicated that Star Wars #6 would be “your basic ‘Fighting Air Force’ issue”—meaning full of airplane dogfights and the occasional shot of guys whose faces were hidden by pilot helmets. Whether or not he was referring to the specific comic book of that title, the cover of Superior Comics’ Fighting Air Force #5 (Nov. 1953) well illustrates his point. Ironically, Superior was actually a Canadian publisher. [TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

(Above:) This 8th story page, similar to a number of others in Star Wars #6 (Dec. 1977), shows only a helmeted Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader— and a whole bunch of dogfighting starcraft. Script by Roy Thomas; art by Howard Chaykin, Rick Hoberg, Bill Wray, & maybe Dave Stevens. Thanks to Paul King. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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the two were “horrible.” Chaykin said he would fix up the swordplay in the comic, that he would “idealize” it.

At that point, the meeting was clearly winding down, and whoever was doing the taping switched the recorder off, so that’s all we have. But it does add a few insights to the story of both Star Wars the film and Star Wars the comic book.

George and Charley didn’t show any particular desire to show me stills and designs and the like, figuring I probably didn’t need to see them. I really didn’t, and I didn’t press to see them, since I was also writing and editing several other comics a month, besides putting my new L.A. life together.

Howard can speak himself for what they showed him, and the like.

Ralph Bakshi The fabled “Bad Boy of Animation” in the early ’70s, beginning with his cinematic adaptation of R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat.

At this point, George opined that he felt the style of Chaykin’s Star Wars poster painting had been “very Kung Fu,” Off To See The Wizards while the style of A poster for the early-1977 Ralph Bakshi film Star Wars was Wizards—which in the summer of 1976, when Roy T. really much more mentioned it at a meeting with Lucas, was still titled War Wizards. Poster art by William Stout.

“Samurai”—which I guess is true, given that the plot of Star Wars was allegedly adapted from the Japanese film The Hidden Fortress.

RA: I think I remember that the Death Star sequence might have been inspired by the 1950s film The Bridges of Toko-Ri. THOMAS: Perhaps. I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never seen The Hidden Fortress, though, now that I think of it, I should! George said the lightsabers weren’t used that much in the film, and only in the Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader encounter were they seen in any real fight. He expressed a hope of making Luke Skywalker more of a “swordsman” in the future. This was a reminder, if anyone needed one, that George was very much thinking of Star Wars as only the first in a series of movies, which was very unusual in Hollywood in 1977. I doubt if the word “franchise” was then used for any film series, because there really weren’t many of those at the time, apart from the James Bond movies.

George said that Guinness had actually proved to be pretty good with a sword, but that David Prowse, the guy in the Darth Vader suit, was “terrible” at sword-fighting. Charley chimed in that the “still pictures” of the swordfight between

RA: Howard mentioned to me that simply viewing the production stills that he’d been given, which were all in black-&-white, didn’t make it any easier for him to figure out how things moved, what color they were, or what they looked like from all angles.

THOMAS: Yes! When he was penciling the Death Star, he had no idea what it would end up looking like. I think the inkers had to actually correct that art when they were working on it.

RA: That might have been the same thing with the X-Wing fighters, since both Rick Hoberg and Bill Wray mentioned that Howard’s layouts had very little detail as to what they looked like. It’s possible that Howard hadn’t gotten any actual X-Wing reference photos by the time he had to begin #6.

THOMAS: I’d worked with Howard previously on a few things, so I knew he’d do well. He said in some 1970s interview that he enjoyed working with me on our various projects, and I reciprocated that feeling. After my wife and I split up in ’75, he and I and [artist] Alan Kupperberg went out clubbing once. I wasn’t really into that scene, but I needed to get out of the house and out of the office, and it was fun.

Chaykin was young and needed assignments. He became one of a handful of artists whose careers I took enough interest in to look for excuses to give them work. He’d come in and say he could use some work, so I’d give him a Solomon Kane paperback and have him turn a story in it into however many comics pages it needed.

I’d write the dialogue later on. The only mistake I made was letting him talk me into letting him give Kane what I called “bumblebee sleeves” on his tunic... striped sleeves. I told him that’s not what a Puritan would’ve worn, but somehow he talked me into it. It looks good in the story, but it’s all wrong for Solomon Kane. But

It All Depends On What The Meaning Of “THE” Is! (Left:) The original Ralph McQuarrie-designed logo for Star Wars was included, along with his early art, on the T-shirts worn by Lippincott, Chaykin, and Thomas at the San Diego panel in July 1976… at a time when the “THE” was still a part of the title. Of course, had that simple, undramatic logo been used on the Marvel comic, the “THE” would’ve been dropped. Thanks to Tenth Letter of the Alphabet website.

(Above:) Equally unsatisfactory from RT's point of view would've been this logo, also introduced at the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con (see p. 22). This version found on the Internet, apparently taken from Charley Lippincott's stationery. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

What? No Lightsabers?

A scene from Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s film The Hidden Fortress (1958), which starred Toshiro Mifune and was reportedly a great influence on Lucas’ Star Wars. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Howard was really good, and I was looking forward to working with him on Star Wars.

He did most of the heavy lifting on that adaptation. Basically, I just told him to break down the story, from the screenplay, into six separate parts with more or less cliffhanger endings. There may have been places where I saw something that needed to be changed, but I don’t recall any. It all went very smoothly.

The only real problem was that the book was a monthly. While he finished the first issue okay, although under pressure, he quickly realized he couldn’t complete another installment, with full pencils and inks, in another four weeks. So he needed some help.

Apparently he ran into Steve Leialoha, who at the time was another budding young artist. They got it together that Steve would ink the later issues, and I rubber-stamped that notion. Steve is a very talented artist, but between deadline pressure and his being at the start of his career, the finished result didn’t look much like Chaykin artwork, which was what was desired. In all fairness to Steve, I don’t really know who would’ve been able to finish and ink Howard’s pencils and make it look like the inked Chaykin of the first issue, especially at that speed. Certainly the other issues were competent work, given the time pressure… but I’m not sure George or Charley understood that. In fact, I’m sure they didn’t.

Somewhere around #2 or #3, I was informed by Charley that they weren’t too happy with the art after #1, but I said there wasn’t really a lot I could do about it. I’ve always felt they held it against

Where’s Flynn & Rathbone When You Really Need Them?

(Above:) Darth Vader (David Prowse in helmet and armor) vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) go at it with lightsabers in a climactic scene from Star Wars.

(Right:) The same battle in Marvel’s Star Wars #4 (Oct. 1977), as drawn by Howard Chaykin & Steve Leialoha. Script by RT. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

me that from #2 on the book didn’t have the same Chaykin art style as the first, but as I told them, I couldn’t chain him to a desk and force him to draw faster. By the final movie issue, Steve was replaced by Rick Hoberg, who got help from his friends Bill Wray and Dave Stevens to finish it, heroically.

If all six of the issues looked like the Steve Leialoha first one, the became the inker and finishing adaptation would’ve been great. Still, artist of Star Wars #2-5, over all six issues had their moments. I’d Chaykin’s breakdowns. At this have loved to do the adaptation all late date, Roy T. feels he probably didn’t appreciate over again, with Chaykin or another Steve’s valiant efforts enough artist doing the complete art, but at the time. never got that chance. Dark Horse had someone else do a re-adaptation of that first film, and I was truly annoyed at not being offered the writing.

Makin’ Wookiee

Rick Hoberg & Bill Wray (left to right). Rick is shown at the original Marvel (animation) Studios circa the 1980s… while the photo of Bill is probably from the ’90s or later. Other photos of both can be seen with their interviews, later in this issue.

29

RA: I’ll be honest with you. I bought the first Marvel issue when it came out in ’77, and I bought it not because I knew anything about Star Wars, because I knew nothing about the movie at that point. I bought it because Howard Chaykin, whom I’d admired since first spotting his work on “Ironwolf” in 1973, was drawing it.

THOMAS: Howard had an individualistic style. If you liked that style, then you’d pick up a comic with his artwork in it. He’s said that he doesn’t think he did a very good job on it, but I beg to disagree with him on that.

RA: I remember being bitterly disappointed when the second issue came out and it wasn’t all Chaykin artwork. I like Steve Leialoha a lot, but I’ve always preferred Chaykin doing his own pencils and inks.

It Was A Plot!

Roy Thomas had hoped to spy Alfred Hitchcock on one of his trips to the Universal lot, but alas, it was not to be. Hitchcock’s final film had been Family Plot, released in 1976—and he was working for a time on one to be called The Short Night, but it never came to fruition. This poster for Universal’s Family Plot utilized the famous director’s face.

[TM & © Universal or successors in interest.]

THOMAS: Yeah, the art in the later issues kind of fell between two stools, two art styles. Now, mind you, I’m not overly proud of all the writing, either! [laughs] I had an easier job of it than Howard and Steve did, by far. I think I did OK adapting the dialogue, but I feel I turned a few too many of the screenplay directions into captions. I was frankly worried about readers being able to follow the story, and maybe I over-compensated. All six issues were produced in a very breakneck-speed situation. When the penciling came in, I had to turn it around right away. Just zoom through it and not think about it too much.

RA: Either Howard told me this, or I heard it from somewhere, that the art for the first issue was delivered in December of 1976 and the book had to be on sale in late February or early March of 1977.

THOMAS: That’s pretty fast, but it sounds about right. At that time, you had to have more or less a two-month lead-time from when something was turned in to when it appeared on the stands.

They can do it faster nowadays. The first three issues did come out before the premiere of the movie—based on the film’s release date of May 25, 1977—around Memorial Day. Once the movie came out, the number of comics issues on sale by then didn’t matter anymore to Lucas or Charley or 20th.

I recall that I was over at George’s office on the Universal lot a time or two during this period before the movie came out.

Hitchcock’s office was in a building very near George’s, and I kept hoping to get a glimpse of him, but I never did. I recall very little about my trips to the office except that—let’s see, I met the secretary who’d soon become Mrs. Mark Hamill… she seemed very nice. And Harrison Ford was leaving as I arrived one day, and the two of us were introduced in passing. But that’s about it.

RA: You’ve told the story of seeing a rough cut of the movie at George’s….

THOMAS: Yeah, my most significant memory of the pre-release days was when Howard, Steve, and I—and maybe someone else, including probably Charley—were flown up to George’s place near San Anselmo, California, to see that rough cut. That was in February of 1977—almost exactly a year after I’d first gotten involved with Star Wars, and only three months before its premiere. I guess the idea was to help us do the comic, but by that

Raising [Solomon] Kane Savage Sword of Conan #22 (Sept. 1977) featured a four-page portfolio of “The Chaykin Barbarians,” including the above illustration of Solomon Kane, replete with the “bumblebee sleeves” that were most un-Puritan. But Roy was a sucker for Chaykin art and dramatics, so he let them stay in. Nice drawing, huh? [TM & © Solomon Kane Properties, Inc.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

integrate us comics people and the film people. In fact, we sat in a little group a bit apart and up front, maybe like the kids’ section, when the screening started.

I think most Alter Ego readers will know what a “rough cut” is—in this instance, a version of the complete film, but minus virtually any special effects, with either no music score or a temporary one inserted just to hold place and set the mood. In the case of a movie like Star Wars, that means the total feel was quite different from the final film that was going to be in theatres three months later.

Jeff Jones at the 1971 New York Comic Art Convention. Photo courtesy of Mike Zeck & Pedro Angosto.

stage the artists and I would’ve been nearly finished doing the adaptation, so it really wasn’t going to help much, except maybe with #6 or so—or with #7 and beyond—if those issues ever happened.

We landed in a small plane at some small airport, and a stretch limo was waiting to take us and a handful of 20th executives to George’s. Among those was Alan Ladd, Jr., the head of Keeping Up With The Jones’ 20th—and of course the son of According to pop historian Robert the noted actor who’d played Wiener, George Lucas at one point Shane and so many other fine hired comics and magazine artist movie roles. I’d always Jeffrey (Jeff) Jones to paint one of especially liked his father as Jim the very earliest Star Wars posters.

Bowie in The Iron Mistress. On Jones’ art wasn’t used, but he later the way, I was on one of the sold his original sketch to Bob, who graciously sent us a scan of it. “jump seats” in the limo, facing [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] Ladd, and I felt I should say something to him… though, now that I think of it, it might’ve actually been against protocol.

Anyway, I told him I believed Star Wars would be a big hit. A kind of weary look came over his face, and he responded, “We sure hope so” or “It had better be” or something like that… and that was the end of that exchange. It was only some time later that I read in an article how taciturn Ladd was, a man of very few words, like most of the roles his father had played in films. One movie person who dealt with him had said, “When he says ‘hello,’ he thinks he’s holding up his end of the conversation.” I also learned later that his job was basically on the line, because he was the one who’d greenlit Star Wars and was just about the only person at 20th who had any faith in the project—assuming he still did, at that point. I really felt glad when he was vindicated.

Lucas had quite a spread in San Anselmo… a whole separate building for editing and screening, evidently built from his profits on American Graffiti. His then-wife Marcia was a film editor, and she had her own editing studio there. I don’t recall that we were ever in George’s actual house. Just the big screening-room.

George himself spent most of his time, naturally, with several film-director friends who had been invited to see that rough cut along with us and the studio execs. The only one I remember being introduced to was Phil Kaufman, who’d later direct Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Right Stuff; he had recently directed The Outlaw Josey Wales. No particular attempt was made to

It started with a “crawl” of words moving up the screen that was copied from the old Flash Gordon serials of the ’30s, since they had been George’s original inspiration. Only thing is, this wasn’t the same “crawl” the audience would see in May, not that George necessarily knew that then. It had entirely different wording, and did not start with, or contain, the phrase “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” It told the movie’s backstory— just as it was written in the screenplay Howard and I had. And of course it’s on the first page of the first issue of the comic, word for word.

I remember somebody connected with the film telling me that the belief was that, on the night of the world premiere, George would be up in the projection booth at Mann’s Chinese Theatre, making just a few last-minute changes to his movie.

After the crawl, of course, came that wonderful, breathtaking opening with the space ship entering the screen from the top—and then being pursued by another one. That very first scene set the pace for the whole movie. It put the audience in the right frame of mind for what they were going to see. For, as everyone knows now but almost nobody was prepared for then, the second space ship would just keep coming, keep filling the screen—dwarfing both the first ship and all our preconceptions of how big a space ship could be. The early audiences would have the same gaping, jawdropping response that the artists and I—and maybe George’s director friends, for all I know—had that day, during what Steve Sansweet years later would inform me was often referred to as “that legendary screening.” It’s interesting, in retrospect, that although very few technical effects were in place in that rough cut, this first scene was basically complete. I guess George wanted to set things up right for the screening. It would be even more effective on a bigger screen, of course. We saw it on a more or less standard-size home-movie screen… maybe a bit bigger.

The fight aboard the boarded ship was mostly in good shape, except that there were no ray-blasts coming out of the weapons that were fired. Instead of a ray of light, there were just handdrawn arrows coming out of people’s guns—place-holders to tell the special-effects people where the ray-blasts should go. That got us in the mood to accept the lack of special effects in what followed.

Alan Ladd, Jr. President of 20th Century Fox, 1976-79—and the man who put his career on the line for Star Wars. It paid off handsomely for him— and for 20th, which had reportedly been in danger of shutting its doors forever before Lucas’ blockbuster movie bailed them out.

(Remind anybody of what happened to a certain comic book company around the same time?) Ladd was a principal attendee of the rough cut screening of the film in February 1977.

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about how far movies, or comic books, had to be prepared in advance. Biggs is one of the rebel pilots killed in the final battle against the Death Star, but his death means little or nothing in the film, because the character hadn’t been well-introduced to the audience.

RA: Yes, I asked Howard about Biggs as well, and his answer was quite similar to yours.

THOMAS: The big scene in the rough cut, for me, was the battle with the TIE fighters after Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca escape from the Death Star near the middle of the film. Luke or Han would be shown firing away, like tailgunners in old World War II bombers—and then there’d be a cut to black-&-white stock footage of World War II aerial dogfights between Allies and Axis, with some Zero or Messerschmitt or whatever it was going down in flames—or maybe it was Korean War footage between Saberjets and MIGs, but I definitely remember that it was in black-&-white, and was real war footage—then back to Han or Luke blasting away, then cut to more dogfighting. It was suddenly like a timetravel movie! I found this back-and-forth hilarious—and I wish that, on the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, Lucasfilm and Disney would release a DVD of that rough cut. I’ll bet it would sell. I’d buy a copy!

By the time the screening was finished, I was convinced Star Wars would be a good movie. Now, whether it would be a hit or not—well, that, no man could say.

A Long Time Ago, In A Comic Book Far, Far Away…

Because it was based on the final screenplay given to scripter/editor Roy Thomas and appeared in a comic that went on sale more than two months before the film’s premiere, the splash page of Star Wars #1 (July 1977) displayed the wording of the movie-serial-style “crawl” that was included in the screenplay… and which he and others had seen at the February ’77 screening. Of course, the only way the comic might’ve hoped to achieve the same startling effect as the opening sequence of the movie would have been to take up much or all of page 1 with panels that showed the smaller rebel ship enter from top of frame… then the nose of the pursuing Empire ship enter behind it… with more and more of the Empire craft filling subsequent panels until, perhaps in a full-page splash on p. 2, we saw the entire Empire vessel attacking the rebel ship. And, even with six issues, the Marvel team didn’t have that kind of space. Art by Howard Chaykin. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Inc.]

I remember being struck, when Darth Vader enters at the end of that scene, by his resemblance to Dr. Doom, not that that hadn’t occurred to all of us long before. But I wasn’t prepared for what came next. When Vader spoke—well, there was no James Earl Jones voice-over yet—just David Prowse, saying his lines in what I guess was a heavy Scottish accent, as filtered through a heavy gasmask. In other words, I couldn’t understand a single word of what he said! Luckily, I knew the gist of it from the screenplay.

RA: That must have made it difficult to figure out what was going on, for the folks who hadn’t read the screenplay!

THOMAS: As the movie moved along, I noticed that a scene from early in the screenplay—between Luke and some buddies of his on Tatooine, one of whom was Biggs Darklighter—had been cut. Of course, that scene appeared in the first issue of the comic, going on sale any day, and Marvel would be raked over the coals by a couple of unsophisticated letter-writers who knew from nothing

TIE One On—Again!

This art spot, assembled by A/E layout man Chris Day from materials sent to him by Ye Editor, also appeared in A/E #68’s article on the Star Wars comic— but there was no way we could improve on it, so here it is again, to illustrate what Roy, Howard, and Steve—as well as Alan Ladd, Jr., and all George Lucas’ movie-director pals—saw in between insert shots of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo doubling as tailgunners. The pics used here are from the 1940 Battle of Britain, but they have the look of the vintage aerial dogfight footage used in the “rough cut,” with Axis fighter planes substituting for TIE fighters.

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

32

And indeed, some were saying quite the opposite. Russ Jones, a friend of mine, was one of the guys who’d put the first issue or so of Warren’s Creepy together. He was temporarily crashing in my apartment up the hill from the Warner studio during the period just before the movie came out. Russ was dealing with the Charles Fries production company on a screenplay Russ Jones he was writing (with my help, In 1964 he was the original actually, near the end) for a movie editor of Warren Publishing’s called Claws, which dealt with feral, Creepy. Russ passed away in lethal, and mind-melded cats, a sort 2013. A screen capture from a of The Birds for felines. He came party at artist Leonard Starr’s Manhattan apartment in 1965; back from a meeting there one day courtesy of Tom Sawyer. [© the around this time and said, “The respective copyright holders.] word in the industry is that your friend Lucas is a one-hit wonder.”

Meaning, of course, that George had shot his wad, and got deliriously lucky, with American Graffiti a few years earlier. I told Russ I thought those people were nuts, but I was just guessing. Evidently,

Enter The Villain—Boo! Hiss!

The readers’ first glimpse of Darth Vader in Star Wars #1 reflects the artistic reference Chaykin was given by Lucas’ people… nor did the artist or scripter have to worry about whether it was David Prowse’s or James Earl Jones’ voice coming out of that black, muffling helmet. Script by RT, art by HC. Thanks to MinuteMen-DarthScanner website. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Inc.]

though, there was a lot of that kind of talk around town.

RA: Well, science-fiction wasn’t really respected or appreciated among studio heads at the time, any more than it was in the comics field. It was nearly always used in “B” pictures, not the prestigious “A” films.

THOMAS: Yes. Still, 20th actually had two science-fiction movies coming out that year—and apparently, some execs there thought that their big fantasy picture that year might be not Star Wars but Damnation Alley, an apocalyptic thriller—based on a novel by Roger Zelazny—in which a bunch of people go on a journey through a post-Armageddon hell in some sort of big land-machine.

After both movies had debuted, it was clear which was the hit and which was a huge flop… and for a year after that, every time I drove up the hill to where Barham Boulevard dead-ended at the street that became Ventura, there, sitting in a vacant lot staring at me, was that big land-machine, dumped there unceremoniously by 20th and eventually carted away and forgotten. As movie writer William Goldman once said famously in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade, “Nobody knows anything.” He was dead right.

Anyway, back at the screening: When the lights came up, all of us applauded, I think sincerely. But we’d have done so anyway… we were guests, after all, who’d been flown and limo’d up here to San Anselmo! There followed a screening of a bunch of test shots of various star-ship models exploding, with discussion by George and his director pals concerning sound effects. And if you think I was going to hold up my hand and say, “But there’s no sound in outer space,” you’re crazy.

Biggs’ Big Scene

After a buffet, during which George seemed understandably ill at ease despite attempting to be affable to one and all, the artists and I were soon bundled back to L.A. Maybe Howard learned a bit there that helped him with the last issue or so of the adaptation—I don’t know. Certainly I got nothing practical out of it—but I’m glad I was there, taking part in a “legendary screening” of the rough cut of what would soon be a legendary motion picture.

One of the two pages in the first issue that illustrates a scene between Luke and Biggs that did not appear in the released film. The other page from that sequence appears on p. 55 of this issue. Thanks to MinuteMen-DarthScanner website. [TM & © Lucasfilm.]

I should also tell you about the party that Charley’s thengirlfriend, Carol Wikarska, threw, and my second encounter with Harrison Ford. The party must’ve been just before the movie

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premiered, because as soon as it came out, it was an instant hit.

RA: It would have had to have been before, because after the movie hit, Harrison Ford would have been off on a press junket immediately.

THOMAS: I suppose so. I was living in L.A., and Carol—who worked for the Star Wars Corporation in some capacity—had this afternoon party in her apartment for people from Star Wars. Only a few dozen people were there. I don’t recall recognizing any of them, except for Harrison Ford, whom I’d met in passing at George’s office.

I wasn’t dating anyone in particular at the time—this was two or three weeks before I met Dann—so I invited this friend I’d gone to high school with, Angie Leonard, to go with me. She was an artist and art therapist who lived in the [San Fernando] Valley. She didn’t know or care anything about comics, and not that much about movies, but she thought it might be fun. We were sitting on a couch, talking. Harrison was across the room, and I guess he spotted me. I suspect he was like me—didn’t really know many people there, so responded to a recognizable face. He walked over and squatted down by the couch… eating away at some ice cream or cake like we were. He started talking away to Ang and me—just generalities.

I tried to say some positive things about the movie because I had some good feelings for it, although nobody knew how it was going to do at the boxoffice. I said something about how I thought it would do well. He said that he could use a hit for “my so-called career.” I do remember that particular exact phrase—“my so-called career.” [laughs] Little did he know that sometime in the next few days or weeks his whole life was going to change forever. First

Party Time!

(Above:) Angie Leonard and Roy Thomas, in the 1980s or ’90s. They had been friends in high school… and visiting her in Los Angeles had been instrumental in leading Roy to move there in 1976. Sadly, Angie died of cancer in 2003... and is still sorely missed by friends in Missouri and California. Thanks to Dann Thomas. (Left:) Harrison Ford as Han Solo, 1977.

Of course, he wasn’t dressed like that at the party recounted in the interview. Alas, we were unable to locate a photo of Carol Wikarska.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

with Han Solo, and later even more so after Raiders of the Lost Ark. Between those two roles, Harrison became one of the biggest movie stars to come out of the 1970s.

I’ve never seen him since that day. That was it for me and Harrison Ford. At that point, he was still doing carpentry work between acting gigs. Obviously, he wasn’t that happy with his acting career… or apparently with the movie, which at one stage— not to me, I think it was to [artist] Rick Hoberg—he referred to as a “big dumb science-fiction picture.”

Very soon afterward, of course, the movie opened—opened big, and then got bigger—and that completely changed my relationship with George and Charley and the concept itself. The funny thing is, originally Charley and George had had a great interest in having there be a Star Wars comic, and in the end it turned out to be of no importance to them, except for a bit of licensing income—while Marvel, aside from Chaykin and myself, had earlier had virtually no interest in the comic, and it turned out to be very important for them!

Anybody Out There Remember The “Adventure You’ll Never Forget”?

(Left:) A poster for the 1977 20th Century Fox SF film Damnation Alley. (Above:) The vehicle itself—which, as it turned out, was not destined for fame… or even for preservation. [TM & © 20th Century Fox or successors in interest.]

I didn’t know this until years later, but both Marvel’s later editorin-chief Jim Shooter and publisher James Galton have gone on record saying, in essence, that the Star Wars comic virtually saved Marvel from going down the tubes. Its massive profits in the reprint editions bought the company some time to adjust to the new direct market that was coming into being and to do whatever re-structuring was needed to save the company. The phenomenon of Star Wars kept the company solvent at what was a bad time for it.

It’s well known now, but it sure wasn’t then, that, when Galton was put in as president to replace the

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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issues #4-6 went through the roof, and Marvel began to reprint the earlier issues within a couple of months. I think there were a couple of reprintings of the entire 6-issue run of the actual comics, and then they were reprinted in a tabloid form, with three issues collected in each tabloid book. Those sold through the roof as well.

I know the comics were experimenting with the 35¢ price increase, and I’ve seen versions of #1 with both the 30¢ and 35¢ price on the cover.

RA: The 35¢ on the cover may have been on the reprints, since the 35¢ increase doesn’t show up until #5 on the copies I have.

THOMAS: I’m thinking I heard it was an experiment on #1, done in some parts of the country or in certain regions, but I could be wrong. Maybe that was just on the reprint version. Would’ve seemed weird to experiment with the price on a title where the circulation director didn’t have any faith in the material’s sales potential—or maybe that’s why it was done, I dunno. Whatever the price was, the comic was making money from the word go. If the movie’d been a flop, comics sales probably would’ve quickly fallen off, and nobody would have ended up caring. Both the original printings and the reprints sold tremendously.

The only Star Wars reprinting that didn’t sell in that initial batch, according to Shukin, I think—when I saw him again in Florida in the mid-’90s, when he was briefly the circulation director of Tekno Comics—was the second 1978 tabloid collection, the one that reprinted all six issues between two covers. I think the precise term he used was, “We went to the well once too often.” [laughs] The two tabloids that had collected three issues each had done very

Vive La Star Wars!

Besides all the reprinting of Star Wars #1-6 that was done by Marvel in the United States, there were all those lucrative foreign versions—such as La Guerre des Étoiles in France. Thanks to Jean-Michel Ferragatti. This publication was a reprinting of the entire film adaptation. Artist unknown.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

hapless Al Landau in 1975, he was told that he had a year or two to turn the company around or Marvel would either be sold or liquidated. The average sales percentage of a comic book at the time was, I’m pretty sure, below 50%. So the Star Wars comic, with that tentative 57% figure I recall seeing, was a modest hit right from the start, based strictly on word of mouth about the movie and maybe the look of the movie as Chaykin’s art interpreted it. Charley had been right: Marvel’s comic would benefit from such publicity just as much as 20th did for the movie.

I didn’t know anything about how much the Star Wars comic had meant to Marvel until about ten years ago. Oh, I knew Marvel was making money with the reprintings, but I never bothered to check to see just how well they were doing. It was partly like I didn’t want to know, since I wasn’t getting any kind of thank-you money from either George or 20th or Marvel.

RA: When I was interviewing Mike Friedrich [for a future issue of A/E], he told me that Star*Reach sales zoomed in the summer of 1977 because anything with the word “Star” on the cover became catnip to buyers at that time.

THOMAS: Once the movie came out, sales of

Ernie Chan The Filipino artist had been particularly identified with Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian. Thanks to Mark Evanier.

Coming To A Galaxy Near You! Ernie Chan’s cover for the tabloid-sized Marvel Special Edition Star Wars #3, which reprinted all six issues of the movie adaptation.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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and told me that Stan didn’t like the faces, so they’d gotten Marie Severin to redraw all the Kull faces in that story.

That struck a nerve, and I asked Archie if he’d please give Stan a message from me. I asked him Marie Severin to tell Stan that, Archie Goodwin She redrew all Rick’s instead of Editor-in-chief of Kull faces—but it complaining about Marvel Comics, 1976wasn’t her fault. She 77. But in the case of the faces in a short was just following the “King Kull” story, back-up story which orders. From the 1975 he was just the the editor of the Marvel Con program messenger. [© Marvel magazine and the book. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.] writer of the story Characters, Inc.] (both of them me) thought were just fine, he should sit down and write me a check for bringing Marvel Star Wars, from which they are obviously making trainloads of money.

“We Had Faces Then!”

This page from a “King Kull” story in The Savage Sword of Conan #23 (Oct. 1977) was penciled by Rick Hoberg and inked by Bill Wray—except that staff artist Marie Severin was directed by publisher Stan Lee to redraw all the Kull faces in the 9-page adaptation of a tale by Robert E. Howard. We’ll never know precisely what the faces Rick drew looked like, ’cause they were all whited out. It caused a minor insubordination from scripter/editor Roy Thomas. [TM & © Kull Properties, Inc.]

well. They were priced at $1 or $1.25, so there was extra profit from that. It also allowed many readers to get the earlier issues that they may have missed.

At some point around then, I began feeling a little put out because, after all, I wasn’t getting anything over my initial pagerate and editorial fee. Marvel had recently started paying some reprint fees. I don’t remember exactly how much. Stan and I had discussed the idea of paying reprint money from time to time when I’d been editor-in-chief between ’72 and ’74. I think in ’77 I may have gotten $1 or $2 a page for one, maybe even two, reprintings… though I kinda suspect it was only for one.

That actually led to an awkward episode, because when they were right in the middle of reprinting Star Wars over and over, really raking in dough from this thing that I had practically pulled them kicking and screaming into doing, Stan, as publisher, happened to spot a back-up feature in Savage Sword of Conan, a “King Kull” story penciled by Rick Hoberg and scripted by me.

Rick, of course, was the young artist who’d finished Chaykin’s pencils for Star Wars #6. The story was “The Striking of the Gong” [Savage Sword of Conan #23 (Oct. 1977)]. For some reason, Stan took a dislike to the way Rick had drawn King Kull’s face. Archie Goodwin was still the editor-in-chief, and he phoned me in L.A.

Archie paused a second, then asked if I was sure I wanted him to relay that to Stan. I told him he could tell Stan that pretty much word for word. You know of my great admiration and respect for Stan, but I was really annoyed that he was nitpicking on this “Kull” story when Marvel should’ve been showing its appreciation for my bringing them Star Wars. I hung up and thought to myself, if any check that was sent wasn’t for four figures, I wasn’t even going to write a thank-you note! [laughs] I did get a check soon afterward. It was for $500, which was worth a lot more then than it is today—but I still didn’t write a thank-you note. I cashed the check, though. And I will say that I never got any impression that Stan held my petulant message against me. Maybe Archie softened it a bit in the relaying, I dunno. If he did, maybe I’m lucky! [laughs] RA: Maybe Stan had the faces changed because Rick worked on that last issue of the adaptation…

THOMAS: No, I’m pretty positive there was no connection. Mind you, only Stan would have gotten away with ordering a change like that. Marvel’s editorial department, by itself, had no real right to do so… not even Archie as editor-in-chief. Oh, they’d very occasionally make a minor change anyway, even though they had no right to, and I’d give them hell whenever they did, just on general principles… or, really, to discourage them from doing it again. My contract said that editorial wasn’t to change anything on my books without Stan’s or my approval. Stan could overrule me, of course. I might not like it, but I would’ve yielded totally to his right to do that. I would not have yielded to Archie, or later Shooter, or anybody else doing it unless they could convince me they were right. That was my deal. That was why I was working for Marvel and not DC from late 1974 to 1980.

I had a basically good relationship, though, with all the editorsin-chief until Jim Shooter took over: with Len and Marv, briefly with Gerry, and then with Archie.

RA: The article in American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s [on p. 206] mentions that, after the initial low print run, Star Wars #1 went on to sell over a million copies, mainly through reprints.

THOMAS: That was truly amazing for those days. It had probably been a decade or more since comics had seen sales like that—like that “Mighty Mouse” 3-D comic from St. John in 1953. And, you

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

36

Pick One From Column “H”…

(Clockwise from above left:) This panel from Star Wars #4 (Oct. 1977), drawn by Howard Chaykin & Steve Leialoha, was based on reading the screenplay—but the kiss in the movie was probably a bit more “sisterly.”

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), & Han Solo (Harrison Ford), in a publicity still from Star Wars. Roy T. quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to do anything with the relationship between Luke and Leia—or to so much as touch Darth Vader—but he was happy to turn the next four issues of the mag into Han Solo & Chewbacca Comics!

Marvel and Thomas did soon receive permission, however, to utilize Luke and Leia (minus any romantic intimations) in the new “teen” magazine Pizzazz, which featured an ongoing three-pages-per-issue continuity laid out by Howard Chaykin and embellished by Tony DeZuniga. These have been collected a time or two over the years. Thanks to Paul King for the scan. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

know, once you’ve done the original printing, the profit margin for reprints is greater than the profit from the original, because there’s no further expense to the company except for the printing and paper costs. At the time, you didn’t have to repay for the art or writing.

First they reprinted the comics as comics.

Then they printed the tabloid editions. Those tabloid numbers may or may not be counted in that million-copies-sold figure. That’s kind of amazing. [laughs] Who knew?

After the movie came out, I had one or two further meetings with George. I remember two specific instances—but they may have been different phases of the same day.

Tony DeZuniga Besides inking several early Star Wars cover, the talented Filipinoborn artist drew numerous pinups for special editions. This is a 21st-century photo of the late illustrator.

First I went up to his office to get approval for the post-movie storyline that would begin in Star Wars #7. Even before that meeting, I must’ve spoken with Charley, probably by phone, about possible plots for the comic book continuation—it wouldn’t have been anyone else but Charley, because he was the only liaison between George and me—and I immediately began to find the whole process frustrating as hell. Star Wars had suddenly become this sacred cow.

First I was told I couldn’t use Darth Vader in any way, shape, or form. Also, I couldn’t do anything with any romance between Luke and Leia, something that was at least implied in the first film. I wasn’t told, not even a hint, that they were brother and sister, though I suppose George knew at that point. The funny thing is, though, there’s a sort of kissing scene in the adaptation, an interpretation of the screenplay… and nobody had objected to that.

Next I asked Charley if I could do something with the Clone Wars, which are referred to at one point in the screenplay, but I was told, “No, we might want to do something with that someday.” Well, it took them a few decades, but they finally did. Shows I could recognize a good idea when I spotted it. George may have been somewhat unsure, at that stage, about the precise storyline of the

second film—in fact, I know for a fact that he was, and I’ll tell you why in a minute—so I guess the safest bet was just not to let me play around with any of the elements of the film beyond the use of a bare handful of the characters. That makes sense, but it wasn’t much fun for me.

I wouldn’t for a second deny that George was entirely within his rights to do what he wanted to with his concept… but my interest in being a part of the Star Wars team was diminishing by the moment, since the comic book was now the stump of a tail on a very large—and growing—dog.

I suppose I could’ve used Luke in #7 onward, if I’d wanted to, long as I kept him away from Leia. And I did use Luke in the Marvel teenage magazine Pizzazz, for which I started writing a 3page “Star Wars” chapter in each issue—more about that in a minute.

However, the character in the movie that most interested me was Han Solo. And, once I saw him, you could add Chewbacca the Wookiee, who was basically his Tonto. I figured I’d do a Han Solo and Chewbacca story—and Charley thought that would be fine.

Han Solo reminded me of C.L. Moore’s 1930s pulp science-fiction hero Northwest Smith, whom I’d once tried to get the rights to for Marvel, as well as all those Planet Comics and Planet Stories heroes.

Makin’ Wookiee

So, for the second story arc, I met with George at his office and got the approval to do what I described as “a kind of The Magnificent Seven storyline,” starring Han and Chewie. A samurai kind of movie for a samurai kind of comic. This was the same meeting, I’m pretty sure, at which George told me all about his interest in Carlos Castaneda and his then very popular books that purported to be a series of conversations with a man called Don Juan [Matus], who was allegedly a mystic of considerable spiritual knowledge. Knowing that George felt that way, and that that had apparently been at least part of the inspiration for “The Force”—an aspect of the movie I never related to at all—I read one of Castaneda’s books, but I quickly came to suspect it was just a work of fiction masquerading as non-fiction. I soon learned that a lot of critics thought the same thing. Nor could I really take the guy’s philosophy seriously. But George did, and I don’t disrespect him for that… though I was a bit taken aback at one point in the meeting when George got down on the floor and curled up in a fetal position to illustrate some point about Castaneda or Don Juan.

It’s funny to think in retrospect that I don’t recall George ever mentioning the main book that he’s said was an influence on Star Wars—namely, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Now there was a book I had read! In fact, I had collected all four of the volumes of Campbell’s much more massive Masks of God series, starting back when I was a teacher in St. Louis.

RA: I presume there was no mention of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World comics or the King Arthur legend, either?

THOMAS: Not that I recall. I think that’s the same meeting—very shortly after the picture opened—where George told me he was happy that from the first I’d always spelled “Wookiee” correctly— with two “e’s”—and that, in fact, to date, I was just about the only person who did! I’ve always been kind of quietly proud of that.

I’m just sorry I never got around to asking him—if he even knew—where he’d gotten the word “Wookiee” from. Sometime in the 1980s, in the celebrated Strand used book store in Manhattan, I ran across—although I can’t seem to locate it now—a book from back during World War II that printed the text of a British play titled The Wookie—with one “e”—I think it may have starred Edmund Gwenn, who was also a great character actor in movies. It was set at the time of the “Miracle of Dunkirk” in June of 1940, where the British Navy evacuated many of its troops from a defeated France back to England, against great odds. I’ve no idea if George ever saw or heard of that play, of course.

Let’s see—either another day, or maybe it was that same day, there was also this weird little lunch at a restaurant on the Universal lot with George, Charley, Mark Hamill, and me. I don’t recall ever having met Hamill before—nor since, come to that—and at one point during the meal I noticed he was kind of staring at me, off and on. So I asked him why. He said, “I’ve been reading your comics for so many years, I thought you’d be older.” “I am older” was my reply, and I made some Picture of Dorian Gray-type joke. I was 36 at the time, but I suppose I looked a bit younger.

Also at that lunch, just like I had a couple of years earlier at that dinner in New York, I learned about a future, secret film project of George’s—in this case, Howard the Duck. I remember George saying that the most important thing was that it mustn’t end up looking like “a man in a duck suit”—which of course is unfortunately exactly what it did end up looking like, because that’s what it was.

There was some casual discussion about who might write the Howard the Duck movie, and after I heard a couple of names, I dared to suggest to George that he get Steve Gerber to write it.

After all, the Duck had been his idea. But he and Charley just

37

Duck & Cover A cozy scene from the 1986 Universal film Howard the Duck, starring the fowl Marvel hero created by writer Steve Gerber & artist Val Mayerik. Seen above are Lea Thompson and (in the Duck suit) Ed Gale. [Howard the Duck TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; still TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

shrugged that off, naturally. Steve and I were comic book writers, not movie writers.

RA: That kind of attitude seems really dated today, since film and TV writers and comic book writers bounce back and forth all the time between film, television, and comic writing.

THOMAS: Yeah, I’d even do it myself for several lucrative years in the first half of the ’80s. George, Charley, and to some extent Mark Hamill talked a bit about the possible direction of the nowinevitable sequel to Star Wars. Just like back in New York, this part of the conversation pretty much took place as if I weren’t there.

The main thing I remember is George saying he wasn’t sure at that point how much Han Solo would appear in that movie—by which he meant that Solo might have a much smaller part in the second film.

Then, probably to cover George, Charley suddenly spoke up and admonished Mark: “Now, not a word of this to Harrison!”

Mark, caught in an awkward position, assured them that mum was the word. Oddly, nobody bothered to swear me to silence. Maybe they just figured I wasn’t as likely to run into Harrison Ford as Mark was… and of course they were right about that. But I realized I had been part of a privileged conversation, and I wouldn’t have squealed, honest! [laughs] Well, not till years later, anyhow.

Anyway, sometime after they’d seen Star Wars #8 or maybe 9, probably in photocopy form, Charley called and told me that George thought the story was too close to The Magnificent Seven.

Well, maybe it was—it was kind of an in-joke thing; I even called one of our seven the Starkiller Kid, and I had named (and had asked Howard to model) the lead villain after Mad artist Sergio Aragonés. I had a Don Quixote-type character in there, too. Still, I’d basically written the story I’d told George I was going to write.

And, if they didn’t like it, well, that storyline would be over in an issue or two and we’d be moving on to another.

RA: That seems odd, considering that Artoo Detoo’s and See Threepio’s characters were, by Lucas’ own admission, inspired by the two goofy thieves in The Hidden Fortress. I was going to ask you about the green bunny—Jaxxon—that you introduced in Star Wars #8. Legend has it that Lucasfilm wasn’t thrilled with that character.

THOMAS: It wasn’t Lucasfilm—it was George personally. I can only guess precisely why, because I never heard from him directly

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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Gil Kane

C.L. Moore

Star artist of Green Lantern, The Atom, and The Amazing Spider-Man.

(1911-1989). She was a bank teller when she wrote her famous stories of Northwest Smith and swordwoman Jirel of Joiry.

Northwest Of Earth (Above left:) The short stories featuring C.L. (Catherine Lucille) Moore’s space-opera hero Northwest Smith appeared in 1930s issues of Weird Tales magazine, at the same time Robert E. Howard’s Conan was shedding rivers of blood therein. This illo by Ric Binkley graced the cover of Gnome Press’ 1954 collection Northwest of Earth. An earlier Gnome volume of her work, Shambleau and Others, had featured more tales of Smith, including the title story, a moody science-fantasy classic. From Ye Editor’s personal collection. [© the respective copyright holders.]

(Above right:) The cover of Star Wars #7 (Jan. 1978), heralding the first post-movie storyline, had an intentionally Western feel, as drawn by Gil Kane & Tom Palmer.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Separate But Equal

Carlos Castaneda

(Above:) The cover of Carlos Castaneda’s 1971 book A Separate Reality. There were several others.

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

(1925-1998).

Joseph Campbell Lucky Sevens (Above:) Roy T. decided that Star Wars #7-10 would drop Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookiee into a storyline very reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film The Seven Samurai and its 1960 U.S. quasi-remake The Magnificent Seven, which had starred Yul Brynner. Also seen above is the Kane/Palmer cover of Star Wars #8.

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Mythologist (1904-1987).

Myth Takes (Above:) A Commemorative Edition of Joseph Campbell’s seminal 1949 work on comparative mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Makin’ Wookiee

about it. But Charley, over the phone, informed me that George really didn’t like the “green bunny” character. He felt it was just too humorous, or cartoony, or something—I forget the exact words, but that was the gist of it. Myself, I didn’t see all that much difference between the “green bunny” and Chewbacca the Wookiee. Sure, Jaxxon did look like a rabbit, but he wasn’t a rabbit. He’s an alien who happens to look like a rabbit… or at least a Bugs Bunny version of one. The Wookiee is an alien that looks like a giant teddy bear… although admittedly, Jaxxon was more cartoony.

It was about at this point in the conversation, with Charley complaining to me about both these things, that, even though the “green bunny” would be out of the series after #10, I decided on the spur of the moment—and I immediately told Charley this— that, after #10, I’d be leaving the book. He seemed quite surprised.

39

I guess he expected me to come to heel, because naturally I wouldn’t want to lose the plum of writing the Star Wars comic. But, with no royalties at stake, I saw it as just another comic book— and one that had become a much less fun one to write!

I told Charley that, in terms of adaptations and continuations, I preferred to just stick to doing Conan and the like. I liked working with Robert E. Howard, because he was dead. [both laugh] The Howard estate just cashed the checks.

They didn’t really What’s Up, Jaxxon? bother me about the Jaxxon showed up again on the cover of Star “Conan” stories I Wars #9 (March 1978), courtesy of artists Gil created myself, even Kane & Tony DeZuniga. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] though I happily coordinated stuff all the time with the Howard estate, since I had a very good relationship with the agent, Glenn Lord. But I wasn’t interested in having to run and check everything in Star Wars against what George might want to do at some unspecified time in the future. That would be annoying—and, as they say, bor-ing.

I told Charley I was honored to have been a part of the Star Wars team up to this point, but that I was out as of #10. In fact, it was probably after that conversation with Charley that I actually had Don Glut dialogue all or part of #10 from my plot. I dropped writing the short, serialized “Star Wars” episodes in Pizzazz magazine at the same time. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: There were no fewer than 18 such episodes—the first six by Thomas, Chaykin, & DeZuniga, the remainder scripted by Archie Goodwin with various artists. The first sixteen ran in Pizzazz #1-16, 1977-78; the latter two were collected in later reprintings by Dark Horse and, most recently, in the hardcover Star Wars Omnibus, Vol. 3. Thanks to Rodrigo Baeza and Tim Stroup for this info.]

Archie Goodwin took over both Star Wars comic-writing assignments. Maybe he had more of a feel for it than I did. Certainly he was much more amenable to working with Lucasfilm the way they wanted things handled. I think it was a win-win situation all around. I got to be associated with the six most important issues of Star Wars ever, but I didn’t have to stick around to do things I wasn’t interested in doing.

This “Rabbit’s” Foot Isn’t So Lucky!

The introduction of Jaxxon the green “rabbit” over two pages in Star Wars #8. Written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Howard Chaykin & Tom Palmer. The writer/editor was exceptionally pleased with Chaykin’s artistic handling of the character—but George Lucas disliked Jaxxon intensely. The name “Jaxxon” was a nod to the term “jackrabbit”… and perhaps, as well, to RT’s hometown of Jackson, Missouri. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

The idea of writing a Star Wars novel or a Star Wars comic now wouldn’t hold much interest for me, past the financial. The funny thing is, Archie clearly liked Chaykin’s and my “green bunny,” because he used him a few issues later [in Star Wars #16], in a story Walt Simonson drew. Archie used him… he’s even on one cover… I guess nobody’d told him that George hated the character. I understand that the word came back immediately from the Lucas people that Jaxxon was never again to be used! The “green bunny” was verboten! [mock-shouts] Hey, George, if you're reading this: If you've really

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

40

got no use for Jaxxon, why not ask Disney to give him back to Chaykin and me?

It’s kind of funny, because I get a lot of people who come up and tell me they love that character!

When people ask me Walter Simonson why George didn’t like him, I tell them that it’s because he was busy creating Jar Jar Binks. [laughs] RA: At that point practically no one had seen Rocket Raccoon or could have realized what a potential cash cow of merchandising he would become.

THOMAS: When did Rocket Raccoon debut?

RA: In the back-up story in Marvel Preview #7 [Summer 1976].

THOMAS: So he pre-dates the debut of Star Wars as both film and comic! I didn’t know that. I’m certainly not aware of seeing that comic before I did the “green bunny,” although I may have. Was Bucky O’Hare a green rabbit? Did he come out before Jaxxon?

The Interstellar Torch Is Passed (Left:) With issue #11 (May 1978), Archie Goodwin took over as writer and editor of the comic, and handled it for a nice (in every sense of the word) long run. Cover art by Gil Kane & Tony DeZuniga. A photo of Goodwin was seen on p. 35.

(Right:) Walter Simonson’s cover for Star Wars #16 (Oct. 1978), as well as Goodwin’s story inside, brought Jaxxon back—but only until George Lucas found out about it! [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

RA: Bucky was a green rabbit, who did have Star Wars-type adventures. He first appeared in 1984 in Echoes of Future Past, although he’d been created some years earlier. Still, both his creation and his first appearance were years after Jaxxon appeared.

However, Steve Leialoha was doing “Newton the Rabbit Wonder” and later “Rick Rabbit” in Quack #2-6 [Jan. 1977-Dec, 1977) and Eclipse, the Magazine #2 [Jan. 1982]. Newton had some Star Wars-style adventures as well.

THOMAS: See, that’s the thing. This was a little while after Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck and suddenly everybody was doing either duck or rabbit stories. Or, in the case of Rocket, raccoon stories. All of that happened after Howard hit… and I’m sure that Howard was an influence on me, as well.

All the same, I’m convinced to this day that, in the movie rough cut that I saw, I saw an alien in that cantina scene—not a major character, just someone in the background in a shot or two—that reminded me of Porky Pig. That’s where Jaxxon came from. I wasn’t interested in a Porky Pig alien, but I did start thinking of a Bugs Bunny-type alien. Since Chewbacca the Wookiee was a strange teddy-bear kind of creature, it wasn’t much of a stretch in my mind to carry it one little step further and do a green alien “bunny.” That just appealed to me. I thought, if you had four or five human characters running around with Han and Chewbacca, then why not have one that was even more strangely alien then Chewbacca?

I can understand George’s feeling, though. He was worried about somebody not taking the character or the series seriously.

However, what I can’t understand is, if that’s how he felt, then why, years later, did he create such a ridiculous character as Jar Jar Binks? That character is a lot more stupid and more offensive than Jaxxon ever was. [laughs] RA: A lot more stupid and, frankly, irritating.

THOMAS: I guess Jar Jar didn’t look like a cartoon to him. I’m not trying to badmouth George, whom I sincerely admire… just to point out that even this genius at world-building—one of three I’ve been associated with in my life, the others being Stan and Jack Kirby, of course—could have a blind spot and miss the forest for the trees. Somehow, Chewbacca was OK, but a “green rabbit” isn’t OK, but Jar Jar Binks is OK. It’s hard for me to appreciate the reasoning behind all that.

A Jar-ring Addition To The Mythos Jar Jar Binks with Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, in the 1999 film Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Of course, George didn’t need to be consistent or right. He just had to be George! He created Star Wars, so if he doesn’t like

Makin’ Wookiee

41

Rocket Checked In! (Left:) Rocket Raccoon started out as Rocky Raccoon (his name taken from the Beatles song, of course), sporting an upper-class English accent in a backup story in the black-&-white mag Marvel Preview #7 (Summer 1976) by writer Bill Mantlo & artist Keith Giffen. In the early 21st century, he became one of the stars of a new Guardians of the Galaxy #1 (July 2008), behind the painted cover by Clint Langley. Finally, in 2014, he became a CGI presence in the blockbuster Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. Only, by then, he’d dropped his last name! Thanks to Barry Pearl for the Marvel Preview page. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

something, then it’s out.

I’ve no quarrel with that philosophy. I just decided that if Jaxxon was out, then so was I. I might have used him in stories in the future or I might not have. At the time, I had no specific future plans for him. Still, I’d have been happy to have gone on doing Han Solo adventures for a long time.

But once I saw I was going to have to get approval on everything, I wanted no part of it.

As I said, I was and am proud to have been a part of Star Wars, even just as the little barnacle that I was.

Nobody had really done anything like a space-opera movie in years. I can’t really think of anything but the Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers serials of the 1930s to really compare it to. It wasn’t really science-fiction, not in the sense of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Star Wars was really somewhat unique for the time period—and wonderfully realized.

Some months later, when there was a Star Wars comic strip and I learned they were buying sequences from different writers, I got in touch with Carol Wikarska, who was then in charge of the strip.

She liked an idea of mine that involved a Sleeping Beauty/Valkyrie

Rabbit Transit (Left:) Another green rabbit!? Cover of a 1980s Bucky O’Hare graphic novel with art by Michael Golden and script by Larry Hama. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

(Above:) Several years earlier, four-issue Star Wars embellisher Steve Leialoha had already introduced his white space-rabbit in Star*Reach’s black-&-white Quack comic book, beginning with #1 (Jan. 1977). [TM & © Steve Leialoha.]

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

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Get The Rabbit Habit!

(Left & center:) Apparently, you couldn’t keep a good “green rabbit” down forever! Several years back, Michael Kogge sent us scans of this Easter card—and an actual Easter egg—emblazoned with Jaxxon’s likeness. Other details, alas, unknown. Perhaps they had to be smuggled in—fitting, since Jaxxon was a Lepi smuggler from Coachelle Prime.

(Right:) Even Marvel and Lucasfilm gave in eventually—at least to the extent that the early-2015 new “Star Wars #1” had a variant cover for a special “#001” edition that was distributed only at parties held to launch Marvel’s second series of Star Wars comics. Art by John Tyler Christopher. Well, Roy T. takes such things in his stride. Weren’t Stan Lee and Jack Kirby once denied admission to Reed and Sue Richards’ wedding? [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

type amid a lake made out of fire… but in the end it fell through, and I never submitted anything else. During that period, George had me invited to some big bash across from Universal, and the two of us nodded to each other from a few feet away… that’s the last time I saw him.

I had no contact with Charley after that, either. I wasn’t especially angry with him, though I was a bit annoyed with George, who’d never even said “thanks” for the shepherding I had done of the Star Wars comic in those crucial early days, let alone handing out a bonus or any such thing, like I heard he did to the guy who’d ghosted the Star Wars novelization under George’s name— was that Alan Dean Foster? Maybe George thought Marvel was taking care of me moneywise… but of course, “Th-Th-That’s All, Folks!” nobody was. Oh, well, I got my page rate, and Roy Thomas has always hoped to track down the precise alien that, in either the rough cut working for Marvel was or finished film of Star Wars, somehow always a good job. reminded him of Porky Pig—a sighting that eventually led, in a roundabout way, to the creation of Jaxxon the “green rabbit.”

Seeing the still above from the “cantina sequence,” he’s begun to wonder if maybe it isn’t this so-called “Bossk alien” that he saw from a distance in the movie, standing at the bar. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

After I quit the comic, Star Wars was barely on my radar. I saw the next two movies over the next few years, of course.

Rather liked the second

one. In fact, I was invited—with Dann as my plus-one—to an early screening of Return of the Jedi. I liked the first half of the movie, with its “John Carter of Mars” swipes and Jabba the Hut—but sometime after the story got to the planet of the Ewoks, I leaned over to Dann and whispered, “If I’d paid to get in to see this, I’d demand my money back.”

Since Star Wars celebrates its various anniversaries with a vengeance, or else they’re celebrated by licensees, I did once make a tidy sum from Dynamic Forces, which flew me from South Carolina up to Philadelphia and from there I was driven to a warehouse in New Jersey, where I spent a couple of hours signing a thousand or so copies of a Dark Horse reprinting. But otherwise, I had to settle for getting a copy or two of the reissues.

Things have gotten considerably better the past couple of years, since Disney bought first Marvel, then Lucasfilm, and Marvel began collecting the old Star Wars comics in hardcovers and the like.

Marvel’s been generous with what they call “incentive payments” when they’ve reprinted the first ten issues. But even before that, I’ve always been glad to have been associated, for a year or so in 1976 and 1977, with one of the great fantasy films of all time.

RA: Do you know what the publicity and editorial people we’ve been talking about remember about the early days of the Star Wars comic?

THOMAS: Not that much. As I said earlier: In the years before I wrote about Star Wars in Alter Ego #68, I tried at various times to get in touch with Charley Lippincott, especially after I revived Alter Ego. When he didn’t respond—well, by then I knew, via the

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Russ Manning drew (and sometimes wrote) the Star Wars strip beginning in 1979.

However, he was forced to relinquish the strip when his health declined. He passed away at age 52 in 1981.

See Threepio In A Strip Joint The first Star Wars Sunday comic strip, written and drawn by former Tarzan and Magnus, Robot Fighter artist Russ Manning, and featuring See Threepio. The date on the strip appears to be March 11, 1979. Thanks to Leonard de Sá. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

You Know Me, Al (Above:) The first daily of an Al Williamson comic strip adaptation of the Star Wars film, probably done in the early 1980s. According to Williamson in his introduction to the 1991 Russ Cochran, Publisher tome Star Wars, Volume 1, which reprinted the first part of the Williamson/Archie Goodwin run on the Star Wars newspaper strip, he was approached “in the mid-1970s… by Ed Summer, who told me that the director of American Graffiti was doing a science-fiction movie and wanted me to adapt it for comics”—which probably meant comic strips rather than comic books. Williamson had to decline at that time—and to decline again when Charley Lippincott approached him about such a strip in 1977. At some stage a bit later, Williamson began a strip adaptation of the film, the first dozen dailies of which were first reprinted (alas, with inferior reproduction, perhaps due to poor Photostats) in James Van Hise’s 1983 book The Art of Al Williamson.

However, these strips were not used; and when Williamson and Goodman took over the strip beginning in 1983, they came up with a brand new storyline. Thanks to Leonard de Sá. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] (Right:) Al Williamson and his world as delineated by the artist himself, on the cover of The Art of Al Williamson. [TM & © Estate of Al Williamson.]

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Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

And The Band Dessinée Played On! The Marvel Star Wars adaptation was serialized in the French youngpeople’s magazine Télé Junior, First Series, No. 3 (1977 or ’78). That publication specialized in comics material related to TV—and apparently in this case, movies.

[Star Wars characters TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.; Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, etc.; other characters TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

grapevine, that Charley’d had his own falling-out with Lucas, though I didn’t know any details; so I figured he just didn’t want to discuss it. Still, I would’ve thought that common courtesy would’ve led him to at least respond, so maybe he never got my communication. I went ahead with my own account in A/E #68, and it holds up fairly well except for a few sentences here and there—like about the fourth person at the dinner where I met Lucas, things like that. Nothing too crucial. I was glad to have contributions in that issue from Howard Chaykin, Steve Leialoha, Rick Hoberg, Bill Wray, and Dave Stevens, to boot.

One day, in 2007, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, the late Dr. Matthew Bruccoli, of the English department of the University of South Carolina, over in Columbia, South Carolina— about an hour from our place out in the country. Besides being one of the foremost scholars on the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matt was also a publisher of academic books, and he was calling to tell me that he’d been in touch with James Galton on some business matter. When he learned Galton had been the president of Marvel Comics, Matt had mentioned that he knew me. Galton asked him

“The Cantina Sequence”—An Alternate POV In the Oct. 1977 Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #139, editor/publisher Jim Van Hise was a severe critic of Marvel’s Star Wars comic, particularly of Howard Chaykin’s artwork—and especially his inking of #1. He also felt Chaykin had picked “virtually without exception, all the most uninteresting angles to portray” the story, particularly in the so-called “cantina sequence.” So he asked young artist Kerry Gammill (later a well-respected pro) to draw two pages of that part of the film—and Gammill did a great job of it in his own way. Which is not to say, of course, that Ye Editor concurs in JVS’s assessments of Chaykin’s art. Besides, Gammill had the advantage, as Chaykin had not, of having seen the movie before he drew his pages.

[Characters, dialogue, & property TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] JVH basically lauded Roy T.’s scripting of the adaptation, though he came to the erroneous conclusion that its virtues were probably due to “Star Wars Corporation, in the person of Charles Lippincott,” having “strict control over what Marvel does with the Star Wars comic.” In point of fact, Lippincott and Lucas, except for complaining about the look of the finished art starting in #2, kept hands off the six-issue adaptation while it was in progress... nor did they ever request any changes in #7-10, despite their misgivings stated on pp. 37-39 of this interview. (“Star Wars Corporation,” incidentally, was the predecessor title to Lucasfilm, Ltd.)

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to pass his greetings along to me, because, as Matt quoted him, “He made me rich.” I laughed when Matt told me that. I took it to mean that the happy timing and fabulous sales of the early Star Wars comics enabled him to successfully complete his two-year mission to “save Marvel”—and that, whether with money per se or stock options or whatever, he’d been amply rewarded by the conglomerate that owned Marvel. Well, I’m glad somebody in comics got rich out of Star Wars, since I sure didn’t. But then, all I had done was persuade Marvel to do the comic in the first place.

Really, Charley and I are the ones who should’ve gotten rich on it—us, and maybe Howard Chaykin.

I phoned Galton immediately. I hoped he’d consent to an interview for Alter Ego, but that never worked out. The main thing I remember from our very friendly conversation was his memory, which I mentioned earlier, that I’d told him that the studio wanted money up front if Marvel adapted Star Wars. But I knew that was a false memory on his part… something confirmed a bit later by Steve Sansweet when he was doing books for Lucasfilm, and still later by Charley.

I was still in touch with Ed Summer off and on, even though our friendship had sort of dead-ended in the early 1980s over matters related to the two Conan films. We got somewhat friendlier again over time. Both before and after he gave his three-part interview to The Star Wars Insider, I kept inviting him to write an article about his Star Wars and Conan connections. Even though I’d probably disagree with some things he might believe or remember, I promised him he could have his say in the pages of Alter Ego— and get paid a little for it besides. He said he would, but he never got around to it. And then, in November of 2014, I found out online that he had just died, at age 68. I knew he’d never taken proper care of himself, but I was still surprised and saddened.

I was even more surprised—I think it was just a couple of days later—to suddenly get an e-mail from Charley Lippincott! He informed me that he was determined to get his side of the Star Wars saga told, because he felt he’d been unfairly treated in official Lucasfilm histories and wasn’t credited for his significant contributions to the early success of Star Wars. I wrote back, in essence, that I was definitely on his side about that. I didn’t know many details, but I did know of his supreme importance to the existence of the comic book, if nothing else.

He informed me up front—and he made no secret of the fact, and why should he?—that he was in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s, which was a big shock to me. He said he wanted to get all the facts together and put everything in either a book or in an article, while he still could. I never learned if his contacting me so soon after Ed Summer passed away was a coincidence or not, but he made it clear right off the bat that he felt Ed had taken

Charley Lippincott A signed vintage photo, found on the Internet.

Satire Wars In the same issue of RBCC, fan-artist Ron Wilber wrote and drew a 4-page parody of Star Wars—perhaps the first Mad-style lampoon ever done of the film. There would soon, of course, be countless others. This one was exceptionally well done, as exemplified by its first page. [© Ronald Wilber.]

credit that he shouldn’t have. As a ferinstance, he brought up the night that he—Charley—pitched the Star Wars adaptation to me.

He wrote that Ed claimed—I presumed he meant in the Insider interview—to have been there as well, and Charley was sure he hadn’t been. I had to inform him that he was wrong about that.

Charley ended up basically conceding that point. After all, I had no motive to lie about it… and better reason than he did to remember aspects of that evening.

Still, I did understand, to some extent, what I, too, felt was a tendency on Ed’s part sometimes to build up his own part in things. For instance, Ed’s Wikipedia entry says—I suspect based on information he supplied—that “the original treatment/screenplay [of the movie that became the 1982 Conan the Barbarian] was written by Summer with some collaboration by Roy Thomas….”

“Some collaboration”? While Ed had had a very vague idea for a story in mind when he’d approached me in 1975-76 with the suggestion that the two of us co-write a first Conan treatment for producer Ed Pressman, we did the thing together, 50-50. Ed arranged for John Buscema to do a few black-&-white illustrations related to our story. Ed and I were both paid (though not all that much) for it at the time, and we shared billing, naturally with his name first. So he and I did have a few problems—that’s not the only one—and I’d have been willing to debate him in private or in

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public about them any day of the week. But that’s not to diminish his crucial importance to the first Conan film, and I wanted Ed, like Charley, to get any credit due him with regard to the Star Wars comic book that turned out to be so important to Marvel. If Ed ever made any claims about his relationship to the Star Wars movie itself—well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Maybe it’s worth noting that his Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention Star Wars at all, either the movie or the comic… nor does it mention his partnership with Lucas in the Supersnipe art business. I’ll have more to say about the Conan thing sometime when I talk about my connection to the first two Conan movies… but this isn’t the time or place.

RA: You know, one of the things I’ve noticed in interviewing folks from the Golden or Silver Age of Comics is that some people seem to remember everything, while others don’t remember much about those days at all. It was their day job, and who really remembers every detail of their day job?

They often remember odd little bits and pieces that can be quite interesting, but of major events or titles they worked on that would be considered iconic in later years, they may remember very little. I strongly suspect that some of that is just the passage of time, but also that they just didn’t consider that particular book or event to be all that important at the time they were doing it. Then they’re asked questions about something that happened forty years earlier and they just don’t remember, and may even misremember, details.

THOMAS: No doubt about it. There are things I remember vividly from that year or so when I was involved with Stars Wars—and other things, like the meeting with Stan, Charley, and Shukin, that I completely blank on, even though I know they must’ve happened.

The same is obviously true of Charley, Ed [Summer], and pretty much everybody else.

Anyway, Charley and I traded e-mails back and forth around the turn of 2015, and I tried to answer his questions. He kept a running record of our e-mails and soon edited pieces of them together into the form of an “interview” by him of me, a rough draft of which he sent me. But he wouldn’t give me permission to print it in Alter Ego, nor would he consent to do an interview for my magazine. It was clear to me early on that this was mostly a one-way street, that he was only interested in my helping him set the record straight, as he saw it. Still, despite some mild annoyance over that, I continued the back-andforth, mostly because I felt he deserved it. Besides, I was learning interesting behind-the-scene stuff about Star Wars. I told Charley Yes, We Said Weekly, that, like him, I wanted to Not Weakly! get every detail nailed down In early 1978, Marvel’s UK arm launched that I could, and that I Star Wars Weekly, which took two issues wasn’t interested in perpetto reprint each issue of the U.S. comic uating any myths. Why book (but alas, in black-&-white) for an avid British audience. This cover for issue should I be, given my #2 (Feb. 15, ’78) was penciled by X-Men lifelong passion for history? artist Dave Cockrum; inker uncertain.

That “When the legend Thanks to Martin Gately. [TM & © becomes fact, print the Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Twins—The Prequel Ed Summer (he’s the one on the left) and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the movie set (in Spain) of Conan the Barbarian, circa 1981-82. This photo first appeared in The Savage Sword of Conan #79 (Aug. 1982). [© the respective copyright holders.]

legend” line—from [the movie] The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance— has always been anathema to me. No. Print the fact. Or print the legend, but tell people it’s a legend!

Charley told me via e-mail that he’d been “really pissed” at Chaykin for “flaking out” and not doing full art after #1. In fact, he stated that to some extent he still resented it. Charley feels that Howard abandoned doing full art after #1 so he could work on other comics projects at the same time. I told him that, if that was the case, I sure never knew it. I’m positive Howard wasn’t working on anything else with me once he really got into drawing Star Wars.

That would’ve been counterproductive, for me and for Marvel. The idea Charley seems to have—that I’d have given Chaykin, say, a Solomon Kane story to do after he’d started drawing the Star Wars comic—is totally ludicrous. He appears to have arrived at that conclusion mostly by looking at a bunch of on-sale dates for comics that Chaykin drew and then counting back from there, under the assumption that all that work was done precisely so many months before it was published. But Marvel didn’t always work that way.

Some things got printed as soon as they were done; others got put into inventory for a short time, or occasionally for a long time.

RA: There certainly isn’t any big comics project that you could point to and say, “That’s what Chaykin did instead of the full art for Star Wars.”

Afterwards, he did a big graphic novel with Samuel Delaney and an adaptation of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, but I’m pretty sure all of that started sometime after his work on Star Wars.

THOMAS: I’ve always presumed so. I accepted Howard’s claim, after Star Wars #1, that he wouldn’t be able to deliver five more issues on a monthly basis, pencil and inks—forget about the coloring. In fact, after #7 or 8, he had some penciling help from his friend Alan Kupperberg, though I didn’t know that at the time; but that has zero to do with #1-6. Howard had had his own complaints about #1-6, apparently feeling—maybe correctly—that the deadline he’d been given earlier had been moved up on him so the first issue could come out in February or March. There’s a sign visible in a photo taken at the 1976 San Diego Con that says the movie would debut in April of ’77, but that had soon been changed to May. At one point in 1975, the movie had optimistically been announced for release for Christmas 1976!

And that brings me—very reluctantly—to a controversy that,

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Steve’s or anybody else’s opinion of Jaxxon the green rabbit, except to a certain extent George’s… but that part about me removing him as inker and nobody telling him bothered me. It isn’t the way I generally acted as an editor. But I thought, well, maybe something like that did happen—so I started wracking my brain to see what I could recall.

Only thing is, I quickly realized I couldn’t make any kind of coherent sense out of Steve’s recollection of learning about his “firing” at the San Diego Comic-Con when he saw [Filipino artist] Rudy Nebres inking a page of Star Wars #6. That simply can’t have happened, because it was Hoberg and his buddies who inked #6, not Nebres. Steve also tells Charley that, three decades later, Rudy didn’t recall doing any Star Wars—and frankly, I think that’s because he didn’t do any, at least not while I was handling the series!

RA: There’s certainly no credit for Nebres, either in the comics themselves or on the Grand Comics Database or anywhere else I’ve seen.

THOMAS: Actually, there’s no way that Rudy or Rick or anybody

They Never Saw The Light Of Day Upon first seeing Star Wars in 1977, comic book artist Gene Day was so overcome with enthusiasm that he spent three weeks drawing ten black-&white illustrations to be issued as a portfolio. However, when Star Wars Corporation/Lucasfilm, Ltd.—or maybe 20th Century Fox—got wind of the project, they were not amused, and forced Day to forego publication. Gene had gotten so carried away that he forgot about little things like trademark and copyright law… but his work (surviving only in a photocopy or scan here or there) was inspiring, nonetheless. This particular illo was a “collage,” delineating the various aspects of the film. Thanks to Paul King.

[Star Wars characters & concepts TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

until very recently, I didn’t even know existed! In his 2014-15 e-mails to me, Charley had mentioned that Steve Leialoha was “fired”—his word—from inking the Star Wars comic after #5, with “other people,” meaning Rick Hoberg and company, brought in to replace him. I don’t recall “firing” Steve… or exactly why and how he was replaced… but I’m not swearing it didn’t happen, in some form or other. Steve recently told Charley, in an interview that’s now available online—which is why I feel I need to respond to it— that I “unceremoniously” removed him from the book after the fifth issue. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: It should be pointed out that Steve Leialoha was invited to be interviewed for this issue, but did not respond to my e-mails. He was, however, interviewed for Star Wars coverage in A/E #68.]

But here comes the weird part: Steve goes on to tell Charley that the way he learned he was off the book was when he “was at the San Diego Con that year”—that would be 1977, of course—and “saw Rudy Nebres inking a [Star Wars] panel.” Steve says he was so upset about it that he decided not to ask me for any future work—and, he adds, “the Green Rabbit convinced me I had made the right choice.” Kind of snide, that. Now, I could care less about

Hopping Into Hyperspace This final page of Star Wars #2 (Aug. 1977), with Steve Leialoha finishing the penciling and inking over Howard Chaykin’s layouts, serves as a reminder that young Steve did a fine job under difficult circumstances. It was probably unfair of Thomas, Lippincott, and Lucas to expect these issues to look like all-Chaykin art… and how much better, really, could any version of this page have been? [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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kind of thing shouldn’t be done—and I don’t recall doing it. Just the same, when I heard his account, I wondered if maybe I had somehow neglected either to tell Steve myself, or to have Marvel’s production manager, John Verpoorten, do so. Sure, I was the editor, and it was ultimately my responsibility; but production managers at Marvel often fulfilled that function, from Sol Brodsky on. After all, it was Chaykin, not me, who’d brought Steve onto the book, although I had to approve the choice… and I did, because that’s what Howard wanted, and because I knew Steve was a talented young artist. It’s just that the way Steve says he found out he was off Star Wars is frankly impossible, John Verpoorten which confuses things a Marvel’s production manager bit. Well, it was a long from 1970-77. From the 1975 time ago… in a galaxy Marvel Con program book. far, far away. I’ve misremembered a few things in my day… and perhaps Steve and Charley have as well.

Rudy Nebres

Still, I wanted to get to the bottom of things, so I emailed Rick Hoberg to see what he might recall about the circumstances under which he became the official finishing artist of #6. Rick, who’s been working for Lucasfilm for years, responded at once that, when he was offered that issue, “the deadline was brutal.” His

back in the day.

Rudy Tuesday Whatever his connection or lack of same to Star Wars #6, Filipino-born artist Rudy Nebres was around to ink Carmine Infantino’s pencils for the cover of Marvel’s Star Wars Annual, Vol. 1, #2, in 1982. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

else could’ve been inking any of Star Wars #6 at the 1977 San Diego Con, because by the late July date of that con, the 6th issue was just two or three weeks away from hitting the newsstands, as per the onsale dates given out by Charley! Obviously, #6 had to have gone to press at least a month or two earlier! Unless Steve’s talking about some earlier 1977 “San Diego Con” that I don’t know about, his memory must be playing tricks with him in that area… though I’m definitely not accusing him of deliberately making anything up. I’m sure he believes what he says—but that part, at least, simply couldn’t have happened the way he says it did.

As for his being “unceremoniously” replaced—I honestly have no recollection of the circumstances of his leaving the book, so I can only look at possibilities and probabilities. First off: if it was my decision, and not his own, for him to leave Star Wars after #5, one thing he fails to take into account, probably because he never knew about it, is that I was getting grief from Charley Lippincott—speaking for George Lucas and, clearly, for himself—about the art in the comic after #1. And yet Charley tells Steve, in that recent interview, that he thought the issues Steve inked “looked great.” But if he thought that back in 1977, it’s sure news to me! Then why the hell was I getting complaints from the Star Wars crowd, laid on me by Charley—the only person there I dealt with besides, on rare occasion, George— about Chaykin not doing full art, and how issues from #2 on didn’t look as good as #1?

I really do feel bad, though, even forty years later, if I took Steve off the book without his being informed that I was doing so. That

“Trust The Farce, Luke!”

In 1977, Steve Leialoha drew a funny-animal parody of Star Wars characters for The Comic Reader #152. TCR was the primary adzine (comics news fanzine) of its day, originally launched by Jerry Bails, founding editor of Alter Ego. Thanks to Jim Van Dore. [Art © Steve Leialoha.]

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recollection—which means that either Verpoorten or, more likely, I myself must’ve told him this—was, and I quote, that “Steve was so mired in finishing the previous issue that there was no way he was going to be able to make the due date of 7 to 8 days that you had left to get the book in on time.” Clearly, I—as well as Verpoorten back in New York, in charge of trafficking the comics—must’ve felt it imperative that we get the finished art of #6 under way while #5 was still being in the works. Rick felt such a sense of urgency that he immediately asked Bill Wray to help him out by inking it. He adds that “no one but Bill, Dave [Stevens], and myself laid a hand on those pages, unless Dave had Bil Stout jump in on his inks, which I highly doubt, so I know that Rudy Nebres was not involved.” I checked with Bill Wray, and he said the only assistance he had in the inking was from his father, Sam Wray, who “inked some hardlines.” Dave, of course, passed away at far too early an age a few years ago. Rick’s cover for #6 was inked by Tom Palmer, but again, that would’ve had to be done well before July.

That brings me to one possible reason why I, and/or Verpoorten, might’ve delayed telling Steve that #6 had been given to another inker: If he was still finishing up #5, as Rick was told, it could’ve precipitated a disaster to tell him, “Oh, by the way, we got someone else to ink the next issue.” I strongly dislike subterfuge, but, given our responsibilities to Marvel, you can see why we might’ve been reluctant to take the chance that Steve might get angry and quit before finishing the very late #5—or that he might at least slow down because he no longer had the incentive of the next issue waiting for him. It would’ve been only a human reaction… so another human reaction, on our part, would’ve been to delay telling him. I’m not saying that happened—like I said, I

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just plain don’t recall— it’s just that it’s possible and makes sense.

Of course, as soon as Steve turned in #5, he’d have been informed he wouldn’t be doing #6— and maybe some other work could’ve been found for him, to make up for the loss, if he wanted it—though, by his own account, he never gave us a chance to make it up to him, or to show any appreciation for his efforts. But meanwhile, any delay in telling him, even for just a few days or a week, Cherchez La FORCE! would’ve made it Coming perhaps a bit late to the party, it possible for Steve to learn looks as if the cover of the French comics about the disposition of magazine Titans #30 (Jan. 10, 1980) definitely #6 from somebody else depicts a key scene from the 1977 Star Wars before anyone at Marvel film. But then, supplier Jean-Michel Ferragatti got around to telling him, tells us that Star Wars #7-10 weren’t which I’m sorry about— reprinted in France till 2000! He suspects, he even though he can says, that the French censors may have had a “problem” with Jaxxon the “green rabbit.” hardly have learned Artist unidentified. Thanks to Jean-Michel about it by seeing Rudy Ferragatti. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] Nebres inking #6 at “the San Diego Con.” I know a lot of this is speculation, and that’s all it can be, at this late stage; but someone—probably me, or else Verpoorten—told Rick that #5 was still being inked when he started on #6, and all that I’ve just said flows from that fact.

Now, I’ve never denied I wasn’t entirely happy with the look of #2 on, and I know for a fact that neither were George and Charley.

But I knew that Steve was doing the best he could in a bad situation timewise, and given his own newness in the field—and actually, he did a pretty good job, especially given the rush nature of those issues. Like others, I probably judged them a bit unfairly at the time because I wanted all six issues to look like Chaykin’s art on the first. I feel bad if over the years I’ve cast any aspersions on Steve or his art, because he really did come through for us—I just feel that his memory is flawed in at least one area. Steve’s a nice guy, as well as an excellent artist… I’ve

Obi-Wan Vs. Darth—Still Another POV (Left:) Gil Kane’s sketch for the layout of the cover of Marvel UK’s Star Wars Weekly #8 (March 29, 1978). Thanks to Mike Burkey.

(Above:) The finished cover for SWW #8, as penciled by Kane and inked by Tony DeZuniga. Martin Gately, who sent us this scan, says he suspects the Artoo Detoo and See Threepio figures in the background may have been added by another artist.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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Ed Summer’s saying, in the Insider, that at one point Ed—and, he seemed to suggest, Charley as well—had wanted Warren Publishing to handle the adaptation, with DC a second choice, and Marvel effectively a third. However, Charley insisted to me that Marvel was “always the first choice because of what you had done when you were Editor there.” He said he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that Marvel would turn them down, so he’d “never thought of an alternative.” And yet—he has written that he spoke with [DC publisher] Jenette Kahn, so clearly DC was in the running at some early stage, whether or not Warren was.

Maybe Jim Warren remembers… he reads Alter Ego, so maybe he’ll weigh in on things in a future issue.

There was a bit more to Charley’s and my e-mail exchanges, but nothing of much importance. After a few weeks, with my accepting that I was contributing to Charley’s eventual article or book or whatever but that he wasn’t going to reciprocate, we ceased contact.

Well, to be honest, it was a little more complicated than that. At some point, after all these friendly and mutually appreciative e-mails going back and forth between us, I suddenly found Charley accusing me of having deliberately made up some stuff I’d said in earlier articles, because of a few discrepancies in accounts I gave over the years—starting with the piece I wrote for Starlog [magazine], on the film’s tenth anniversary—and I couldn’t seem to convince him that such discrepancies were simply the result of natural faults in memory, rather than deliberate attempts to mislead. I was beginning to get a bit hot under the collar myself as those e-mails came and went between us…

The Write Stuff The cover of the science-fiction/fantasy film magazine Starlog #120 (July 1987). For it, Roy wrote what are probably his first extended remembrances of the comic’s origins for editor David McDonnell, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Star Wars film.

[Star Wars images TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

said so many times. The combination of him and Chaykin just didn’t jell that time, that’s all—and apparently there were deadline concerns as well, which were probably the deciding factor.

Anyway, moving on to less bitter wine: in his e-mails, Charley also recalled the first two issues of Star Wars as having print runs of about 250,000. That’s a bit higher than I’d have expected, given Ed Shukin’s lack of faith in the project. Still, not a really big print run for Marvel at that time.

During our e-mail exchange, Charley sent me the release dates of the first six issues of Star Wars, which indicated that #1 had officially gone on sale on March 8, 1977… not in February as I’d thought, but just missing it by a little over a week. We probably were supposed to get it out in February, back when the movie’s release date had been April instead of May… or maybe we were still supposed to, and it just shipped a week or so late. That was happening a lot at Marvel back in those days. According to Charley’s list, each of the subsequent five issues of the adaptation came out approximately one month after that March 8 date… no more delays or lateness. Issue #6 went on sale in early August.

RA: Which would make three issues being out by the time the movie premiered on May 25, 1977.

THOMAS: Right. By the way, back in 2015, I asked Charley about

Then suddenly I stopped, and I remembered—hey, he’d told me up front that he was in the early stages of a disease that causes loss of memory and the like. Not wanting to have a fight with a basically nice guy who’s bravely battling a debilitating illness, I just dropped out of the conversation. In January 2016, I e-mailed him to try to change his mind about doing an interview for Alter Ego, or about letting us print one of his accounts… but the only reply I got was a cut-and-pasted quote from his Facebook post, uploaded to me on January 13. It referred vaguely to a recent doctor’s appointment, and ended: David Bowie’s passing makes me feel my mortality more. I’m so impressed with his last album, especially “Lazarus.” You could tell he knew he was dying, which makes the song all the more powerful. I’m feeling my mortality more. I get requests for interviews, but am turning them down as I want to spend my time and energy finishing up all the posts I’ve started. I’m going to use “Lazarus” as my inspiration to get work done. I want to be like Bowie and finish my life’s work.

After receiving that re-post, I made no further attempt to reach Charley, since he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to respond personally. I figured I’d just let things lie, given his health problems.

But since then, unfortunately, the accusations have multiplied in Charley’s online articles, and I guess on his Facebook page and in his eBook tying everything together. He never informed me of the eBook or sent me a link to it, even though it may contain the “interview” with me that he actually just assembled from our e-mails. In paragraphs that accompany his interview with Steve Leialoha, he gratu-

David Bowie Pop icon (1947-2016).

Makin’ Wookiee

51

Star Warts (Clockwise from top left:) Three U.S. parody mags quickly got in their digs at Lucas’ space-fantasy.

Cracked In Space (Above:) John Severin, who was a Timely/Marvel artist in the 1950s and drew again for Marvel in the 1960s and occasionally after, was for many years a mainstay artist of Cracked. So we thought we’d share with you the first page of his (and writer Joe Catalono’s) takeoff on Lucas’ classic film, from Cracked #146. Thanks to Mark Arnold. [TM & © Cracked Magazine/Mega Media]

Cracked Mazagine #146 (Nov. 1977) seems to have beaten the others to the punch. Cover (and parody story inside) by John Severin. [TM & © Cracked Magazine/Mega Media.]

Marvel’s own Crazy Magazine #32 (Dec. 1977) was right on its heels—or maybe tied with it, depending on how far ahead, respectively, Cracked and Crazy dated their issues. Cover artist unidentified. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] The old original—Mad—brought out its own lampoon with its 196th issue, dated Jan. 1978, with cover by Jack Rickard. [TM & © E.C. Publications or successors in interest.]

52

Roy Thomas Tells All About Marvel’s 1977 Star Wars Comic

Archie’s Pals See Threepio & Artoo Detoo (Left:) Pretty soon, even Archie Comics got into the act, in Mad House Comics #111 (Feb. 1978).

Cover probably by Stan Goldberg & Jon D’Agostino. Thanks to morgangraphix and Mike’s Amazing World website. [TM & © Archie Comics Publications, Inc.]

itously claims that “A lot of bulls*** was going on at Marvel, with Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean. A few paragraphs later, he refers to how the “shenanigans of Roy, Howie, and Marvel really pisses me off.” The non-agreement of subject and verb is in the original.

Then he goes on at great detail about how either Marvel or I—or maybe both of us—were deliberately giving Chaykin work on Solomon Kane stories, or maybe on a Nick Fury series, or anyway on something, at a time when Howard should’ve been drawing just Star Wars. I’ve already pointed out that all those onsale dates of Chaykin material that Charley lists don’t prove anything, since sometimes finished material might sit on the shelf for a while. In particular, as regards the Kane stuff for Savage Sword, I’d drop such fillers into that magazine whenever I had an open slot, and Chaykin’s work for Savage Sword probably wasn’t done with any specific issue in mind. Surely, most if not all of the non-Star Wars stuff Charley complains about was done before he started drawing Star Wars #1, which was after his trip west in late July of ’76, when he got a copy of the screenplay and additional artistic reference. It wouldn’t have made any sense for me to give him any competing assignments once he had to get rolling on Star Wars… and I didn’t, of course. In fact, I suspect I was partly giving Chaykin those other assignments so that he’d have plenty of Marvel work until he could really begin Star Wars, and wouldn’t take some DC assignment that might’ve caused us problems.

RA: Well, you’ve mentioned that Charley was and is unhappy with the history of his involvement with the Star Wars comic. Do you think it possible that that’s coloring his memory?

THOMAS: He himself has written that, whenever anything went wrong with the Star Wars comic, George Lucas held it against him—and Charley in turn seems to hold those things against Chaykin, Marvel, and me. Most of his arguments don’t hold water, and I’d have preferred not to have to deal with them—except that his

Death To The Death Star!

The two issues of Marvel UK’s Star Wars Weekly that reprinted Star Wars #6, with its comic book version of the grand finale of George Lucas’ film, were #11 (April 19, 1978) & #12 (April 26, ’78). Pencils for #11 by Howard Bender - #12 penciler uncertain; inks on both by Tony DeZuniga.

Thanks to Martin Gately.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Makin’ Wookiee

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Isn’t Roy A Little Short For A Stormtrooper?

(Above:) Roy T. was surprised, pleased, and proud when, at a comics convention in Des Moines, Iowa, in November 2010, he was given an award and was officially “welcomed as an honorary member of the 501st Legion Fan Organization… in appreciation of your contribution to the Star Wars legacy.”

The 501st Legion is an all-volunteer group devoted to cosplay related to George Lucas’ film creations. As for the heading quote above—it, of course, is an in-joke—just between Roy and a few zillion Star Wars fans!

(Right:) The ultimate achievement, naturally, was the first six issues of Marvel’s original Star Wars series themselves—as epitomized by this wellrendered page drawn by Howard Chaykin (with script by RT) from Star Wars #1 on sale way back in March of 1977. Thanks to MinuteMen-DarthScanner website. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999 Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

articles are now out there on the Internet and the like, making claims against Howard and myself that are largely if not totally unjustified.

Now, I can’t stop him from thinking and writing about what he thinks… but obviously I have an equal right to say that I feel that mostly he’s just built a house of straw, which he now wants to set on fire, with us in it. I’d love to have ignored all his online accusations in [this issue of] Alter Ego… but silence, as they say, implies agreement. Thus, since I most emphatically do not agree, I must dissent.

Despite all this, though, I want to make clear that I wish Charley well… and, of course, I think both of us did right by Star Wars, by our respective lights. Whether it did well by us is a matter of opinion. I sincerely hope that Charley gets his historical due as an important member of the early Star Wars team. He deserves it… though not at the expense of trashing Chaykin, Marvel, and me.

Basically, I’ve always counted Charley as one of the good guys.

But so, in my eyes, was George Lucas, in spite of the way things went downhill for me on the Star Wars comic. It all reminds me of a sign I used to drive past many a day in Burbank [California] back in ’76-’77, on the theatre-type marquee of some movie production company: “In love and film, everything is a fight!” Maybe we should add “comic books” to that short list.

Luke Skywalker lays eyes for the first time on Princess/Senator Leia (or at least, on her hologram) in Marvel’s Star Wars #1 (Aug. 1977). Script by Roy Thomas; art by Howard Chaykin. Thanks to MinuteMen-DarthScanner website. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

And with that, I guess I’ve pretty much run out of things to say about Star Wars. At least, I sure as hell hope so!

RA: Thanks, Roy!

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“ The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40!

HOWARD CHAYKIN On Star Wars

Part Two

The Artist/Co-Adapter Of Marvel’s Star Wars #1-10 Takes A Brief Look Backward

I

Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Howard Chaykin started his comics career working as an assistant to Gil Kane, then moved on to assist Wallace Wood, Neal Adams, and Gray Morrow in the early 1970s. By 1972 he was doing short pieces for DC’s various anthology titles and fill-ins at Marvel on “Man-Thing.”

His first major assignment was drawing Fritz Leiber’s sword-&sorcery characters Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser in DC’s adaptation of their adventures in 1973’s Sword of Sorcery.

Following that short-lived series, he created “Ironwolf” for DC and his creator-owned “Cody Starbuck” for the early independent title Star*Reach. Throughout the 1970s he largely appeared as a utility player for the mainstream publishers, drawing and sometimes writing material for World of Krypton, “War of the Worlds,” “Enemy Ace,” and various anthology titles. In the late ’70s and early ’80s he did a series of highly acclaimed, fully painted graphic novels adapting The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester and original works by Michael Moorcock and Samuel Delaney. He hit his stride in 1983 with his own creation, American Flagg!, which ran for over 40 issues, although he would prefer you ignore anything he didn’t write and draw. Since then, he’s worked as either writer/artist or as writer or as artist on The Shadow, Time (Squared), Blackhawk, Black Kiss, Twilight, Pulp Fantastic, American Century, Mighty Love, City of Tomorrow, the online 24 College Ave., Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage, Blade, War Is Hell: The First Flight of The Phantom Eagle, Supreme Power, Rawhide Kid, Buck Rogers, and many more. In the 1990s he worked as a scriptwriter for the first Flash television series. In 1976 he began work with Roy Thomas on the adaptation for Marvel Comics of the forthcoming and then largely unknown film Star Wars. This interview was conducted by phone on January 17, 2016.

RICHARD ARNDT: How did you get involved in doing the adaptation for the first movie?

HOWARD CHAYKIN: I really don’t remember. I think I was asked to do it because [George] Lucas had seen the “Cody Starbuck” stories I’d done for Star*Reach. That was through Ed Summer, who ran the comic art business that

Howard Chaykin in a recent convention photo—plus a fabulous commission piece of Luke and Leia. Thanks to Howard for the latter—and to Hero Initiative, the comics charity of whose disbursement board he’s a long-time member, for the former. Learn more about Hero Initiative on p. 57. [Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Howard Chaykin On Star Wars

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RA: Did you do your page breakdowns off the original screenplay?

CHAYKIN: I broke the screenplay down into six issues. Roy then wrote dialogue to accompany that material.

RA: The reason I asked was that there’s a minor character in the comic who doesn’t really appear in the movie.

CHAYKIN: You’re talking about Biggs Darklighter. Well, that happens a lot. You know, stuff just disappears between greenlighting the script and actually filming.

RA: I noticed the same thing in the 1979 Alien adaptation by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. There’s an interesting scene in the book that explains the fate of the captain which doesn’t actually appear in the film.

CHAYKIN: Darklighter wasn’t all that important a character, so

Trust The Force, Luke!

A fairly recent Luke Skywalker commission illustration, courtesy of artist Chaykin. It’s a bit easier to find stills from the movie these days than it was in 1976! [Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Lucas was a part owner of. They felt I was the right guy to do it.

There was a lot of influence from my Cody Starbuck character on Han Solo.

RA: Yes, I remember thinking the same thing when I first saw the movie in 1977. Now, you inked the first issue solo, but after that you had either Steve Leialoha (#2-5) or Rick Hoberg and Bill Wray (#6, which concluded the original adaptation) as inkers. Was that because of a deadline problem?

CHAYKIN: I think it was hubris, more than anything else. In retrospect, and as I’ve said more than once, I don’t think I did the best possible job that I could have. I did do the best job I was capable of at the time on the material but, in looking back, I wish I’d done better work. Frankly, Steve Leialoha saved my ass.

Not A Biggs Deal (Above:) This early all-Chaykin-art page from Marvel’s Star Wars #1 (July 1977) illustrates a scene that was in the more or less final screenplay—but was eventually left on the cutting-room floor. Naturally, the artist and scripter/editor Roy Thomas (and Marvel Comics) got blamed by unsophisticated fans for “not being faithful to the movie”— even though that issue went on sale more than two months before the movie’s world premiere! Thanks to MinuteMen-DarthScanner website—or is that counted as a blog?

(Left:) Garrick Hagon (on left) as Biggs Darklighter and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, either in a scene set on Tatooine, or else conversing between shots. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

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“The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40! – Part Two

McQuarrie Magic (Above:) The center spread of Jim Steranko’s tabloid pop-culture magazine Mediascene #22 (Nov.-Dec. 1976) spotlighted Ralph McQuarrie’s fantastic 1975 production sketch of Luke fighting Darth Vader, months before the film came out. The McQuarrie art was one of Howard Chaykin’s most valuable artistic reference sources while he was drawing Star Wars #1-6. Thanks to Jim Kealy.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

dropping him from the film probably saved some time.

RA: How much production art or stills did you have before working on the book?

CHAYKIN: I had about 400 stills and all the Ralph McQuarrie paintings. The stills looked like stuff from Ikea. The McQuarrie paintings were inspirational. When I finally saw the movie, it was like the McQuarrie paintings. That’s a demonstration of how good a job Lucas did in achieving his vision.

RA: Then did you experience any difficulty working from the resource material? Obviously the stills weren’t a great deal of help to you.

CHAYKIN: You have to remember that, at that time, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill weren’t well-known faces. They were non-entities, visually. The stills were supposed to give me an idea of what they looked like. I did what I could with what I had to work with. You got what you could from the photos, but frequently I had no idea what these characters actually looked like from the stills I was provided. Darth Vader, in particular, was very unclear.

RA: I suppose that would be true. The way he moved and how he sounded when he talked was a major theme in the movie, but I have no idea how you would show that when your only knowledge of him is from a still photograph. They may have even been trying to keep his appearance somewhat of a secret before the movie debuted.

The Palmer Raids “Peerless Tom Palmer,” says the cutline beneath the legendary inker’s photo in the 1975 Marvel Con program book—and Howard C. (as well as Roy T.) would concur. Depicted above is the Chaykin/Palmer splash page from Star Wars #8 (Feb. 1978), with thanks to Paul King. Script by RT. Frank Springer had ably embellished issue #7. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Howard Chaykin On Star Wars

57

Alan Kupperberg (Above:) Actually, it’s three Kupperberg brothers and a then-new member of the clan in a pic from the ’90s. (Left to right:) Paul K., himself a comics writer, and his young son Max, now twenty… Lewis K…. and Alan K., who notably drew runs of The Invaders and several other Marvel comics over the years.

CHAYKIN: It was Alan Kupperberg, not Paul— who is a writer, not a cartoonist. Alan helped me out with a few pages of rough layouts here and there for those numbers—not full issues, though, as I recollect.

Well, I have to wrap this up because we’ve got to get out of here. We’re taking the grandkids to see the new Star Wars movie. It’s not my choice, but the grandkids want to see it.

RA: You take care and I appreciate your time.

CHAYKIN: I appreciate your attention.

Bye now!

Look Homeward, Howard!

(Above:) A commissioned, black-&-white version of the first Star Wars poster that Chaykin painted in 1976, courtesy of the artist. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] (Right:) Howard enjoying himself at the New York Comics Convention, Oct. 11, 2014—photo courtesy of Todd Klein.

CHAYKIN: I don’t know if that was the case.

RA: Did you have any input to have Rick Hoberg and Bill Wray ink the last issue of the adaptation?

CHAYKIN: None. You have to understand that I was simply a utility player. Nothing special. I didn’t become anything of any value in the comic book business until I did American Flagg! in the early 1980s. In the 1970s I was just a chucklehead working.

RA: To be honest, I actually followed your work from book to book.

CHAYKIN: Thanks, but I wasn’t anything special. I didn’t get any good until I’d woodshedded for a couple of years and then came back on Flagg!. The art I did in the 1970s will haunt me for the rest of my life. So, please.

RA: Okay, I’ll let it haunt you.

CHAYKIN: You’re very kind.

RA: You did continue on the Star Wars book for four more issues after the adaptation was completed…

CHAYKIN: That was a terrible mistake, but I needed the work.

Tom Palmer did most of the inking on those stories. Tom is one of the great guys.

RA: One thing that Roy wanted me to ask was Paul Kupperberg’s claim to have ghosted the layouts for #7-10.

58

“ The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40!

Part Three

RICK HOBERG On Star Wars

From Finishing Star Wars #6—To A Career At Lucasfilm

I

Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Rick Hoberg’s first big break in comics came with his cover art for the original adaptation of the Star Wars movie for Marvel Comics. Both before and after that, he assisted Russ Manning on the newspaper strips Tarzan and Star Wars. He’s also worked for various comics companies on such titles as The Invaders, Kull the Destroyer, Savage Sword of Conan, What If, Batman, The Brave and the Bold, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, Eternity Smith, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Justice League, DNAgents, and New Gods.

He currently works on licensing merchandise for Star Wars. The interview was conducted by phone on January 21, 2016.

Buck Rogers. I loved the science-fiction of the 1950s. What Lucas was doing seemed to fit in with those things.

Somewhere along the line I expressed this to Roy, and he very quickly gave me a tumble with #2, doing the cover. I’m not quite sure exactly why I got the nod. It may have had something to do with Roy wanting Chaykin to continue working on the interior and he wanted to get the covers out ahead of time. That’s how Marvel used to work. You did the cover much ahead of the actual books. So I was doing the cover way ahead of the interior art that Chaykin was doing.

RICHARD ARNDT: How did you get involved with the Star Wars comic in the first place? You were drawing the covers before you did any of the interior artwork you did on #6.

RICK HOBERG: In two words—Roy Thomas. Roy Thomas literally gave me my big break in comics by allowing me to work on Star Wars.

What I understood from Roy was that he had a real interest in this property, as did I. I’d actually been following news of it for several years, as a fan, in the local media. The L.A. Times in particular, as that paper’s Charles Champlin had been following George Lucas’ career. I was enthralled with Lucas’s first film—THX 1138—as well as American Graffiti. When I found out that Lucas was making this kind of a film, I was very excited. I was a huge fan of things like Flash Gordon and

The covers reflected the fact that Roy was trying to do a more “Marvely” approach to the story. I drew the covers for #2, 4, 5, and 6 of the adaptation, as well as #10 and the first two Treasury editions. For some reason, fans really like those two Treasury edition issues. Tom Palmer inked the covers of [regular issues] #2 and 6, Frank Giacoia inked #4, Dave Cockrum did #5 as well as the two Treasury editions, while Tony DeZuniga inked #10. I just got the Artifact Edition of the Star Wars issues from IDW, and I didn’t realize until I saw that what a spectacular job Tom Palmer did inking #6’s cover. The coloring, no offense to the colorist back then, was just terrible on the original printing and it didn’t represent what a fine job Tom did on that issue. It’s just beautiful.

On those covers, mind you, none of us at that point knew exactly what

Rick Hoberg is seen on the left with wife Aleta, circa the late 1970s—the era when he had his first (but far from last) artistic assignment related to Star Wars: namely, penciling the cover of issue #2 (Aug. 1977), which was inked by Tom Palmer. As Rick surmises, he was tapped instead of Howard Chaykin so that the latter could plunge ahead with the interior penciling of #3. On right is a photo of Rick more recently, speaking at the San Diego Comic-Con. Thanks to Rick & Aleta for the first photo. [Cover TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Rick Hoberg On Star Wars

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Rick Had Them Covered!

Rick also penciled the covers of the first two tabloid-sized “Treasury” editions, titled Marvel Special Edition Featuring Star Wars, each of which collected three issues of the film adaptation. The first was inked by Dave Cockrum, the second by Tony DeZuniga. Little did Rick realize, when he did all these covers, that he was prepping for his future career with Lucasfilm! [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

the movie was going to look like. The only issue that I had really good reference on and had seen a small portion of the film was the final issue of the adaptation—#6. Even then I knew very little about the actual movie. We had still pictures, but not that much of a sense of where the story was going visually.

RA: I was thinking about that, because Howard Chaykin had mentioned that he had a hard time with Darth Vader because the stills he had didn’t show a whole lot.

HOBERG: People take it for granted these days as to what Darth Vader looked like, but remember, we had no digital information back then. The photos were black, white, and gray static images. Well, you take a character like Darth Vader, who’s dressed all in shiny black, and all you can see in a black-&-white photo is reflections. I totally understand where Howard was coming from on that. Unlike Howard, I was a young guy in the business who had the advantage of living on the West Coast and was able to go up to Lucasfilm and get reference materials directly from the studio. They wanted me to have it and work from it. I believe I became pretty adept at drawing Darth Vader by the time I did the final adaptation issue.

RA: Before you began working for Marvel, is it correct that you worked as an assistant for Russ Manning for a while?

HOBERG: I’d worked for Russ as a penciler for some overseas Tarzan comic books. I was a young and really terrible artist at that point, but I had to ape Russ’ style, which I was able to do. So I worked for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., for a while. Within six months of that, Roy took a chance on me and started feeding me work.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Ink! (Left:) Rick’s introduction to interior art on the Star Wars comic came with this splash page for issue #6 (Dec. 1977)—a full-blown space battle scene! Note that Bill Wray is given co-credit as one of the “embellishers” (finishing inkers); although the assignment was officially Rick’s, he wanted to share credit with Bill.

Dave Stevens contributed to a few pages, as well. Script by Roy Thomas.

(Right:) By the time Rick and company inked #6, it was easier to get reference on exactly what Darth Vader looked like—and the issue benefited from that.

Thanks to Paul King for both scans. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

60

“The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40! – Part Three

that issue. Dave did four or five pages, maybe not the whole page, but we were all working from some really rough layouts that Howard had given us and my own pencils were rough in spots as well. We were trying to fill in the layouts that Howard had provided with the cinematic world that Star Wars existed in. We were really trying our best to figure out what a TIEfighter or an X-Wing fighter looked like, what Darth Vader looked like.

As you can also see in that sixth issue, we were actually trying to get some genuine likenesses as well.

San Diego Daze (Above left:) Rick, seen standing in a Hawaiian-style shirt, at the 1974 San Diego Comic-Con… probably at an event that featured guest Roy Thomas, then Marvel’s editor-in-chief. Collectors of a full set of Marvel Value Cards (remember them?) were invited to said event. This is the period during which young Rick was working with artist/writer Russ Manning on Tarzan material on Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.-produced comics that were covered in more detail in A/E #129. Also seen, in black shirt, is Rick’s (and later Roy’s) friend Eric Hoffman. Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck & Rick Hoberg.

(Above center:) A more recent (2006) Tarzan drawing by Rick, done for Belgian fan Dominique Leonard.

[Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

RA: The reason I asked the question about Manning was that I was wondering if that was where you met Dave Stevens.

HOBERG: I’d met Dave Stevens years before at the San Diego Comic-Con. Bill Wray had introduced us. Bill was a great social facilitator for artists to meet each other. The three of us actually became pretty good friends. Bill and I did a lot together socially, and Dave was quite social when he came up to L.A. He lived in San Diego at the time. Still, I really got to know Dave better when I worked with him at Hanna-Barbara. We were both hired by Doug Wildey to work on the Godzilla cartoon that Hanna-Barbara did in 1975. Then, when I had the chance to do Star Wars, Dave and Bill were the first two guys I called.

We had to do that sixth issue under great duress… Bill and I in particular. Dave did some great work there. I don’t know how he got it all done, particularly with the quality of the work he did on

RA: Yes, I noticed on the last couple of pages that there are certainly photo references for the Luke Skywalker on page 16 and Han Solo on page 17.

HOBERG: I was working from photos and handing them over to Dave to ink.

Sometimes Dave took over and just did what he did so well.

There’s a Luke Skywalker close-up that he did a tremendous job on, especially considering our time crunch.

RA: I’m pretty sure that Dave also inked at least the top tier of panels on page 2. It looks like his inks.

HOBERG: Very likely, because that’s how we were working. It was jam-session style. We worked day and night to get that job done by the deadline. I think we had 4½ days to ink the entire book. It was a week, maybe a day or two more, to finish the penciling and do all the inking.

There’s kind of a funny story about when Bill and I delivered the book. We were exhausted. We

Dave Stevens I’m Ready For My Closeup, Mr. Lucas!

(Above:) This bottom panel from the second-from-last page of Star Wars #6 is probably one of those that Rick’s talking about when he speaks of Dave Stevens doing “a tremendous job” on a closeup of Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill.

Art by Chaykin, Hoberg, Wray, & Stevens; script by RT. Thanks to Paul King. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

would achieve comics stardom in the 1980s with his writing and drawing of the Rocketeer series.

Sadly, he passed away far too young in 2008.

Rick Hoberg On Star Wars

61

science-fiction movie adaptation—something that had never been a hit in all those years that comics had been doing them. So I had the fortunate opportunity to do a number of the covers and the interior of #6. Working on that book literally made my entire career. I still work for Lucasfilm to this day. I worked on licensing art for The Force Awakens, and I just finished working on Rogue One as well. I expect that there’ll be more when the next Star Wars film comes out.

All of that starts with Roy, who fought the good fight to get this comic done right. Stan Lee, as I understand it, wanted to do a giant-sized issue and have it done in one, but Roy fought to adapt it in six issues and have the room to let the story breathe. I think the merchandising work I’m doing right now all started with the comic adaptation of the movie. I do Star Wars line art for T-shirts.

If you see comic art style T-shirt designs, there’s a good chance it’s my art.

From what I understand, Star Wars saved Marvel Comics from bankruptcy back in the day and has impacted the world in ways I guess we’re still discovering. It was fun to be a part of it at the start and continue to be a part of it today.

Kung Fu Manchu Even before Roy Thomas moved to California in mid-1976 and encountered Rick on a social basis, Hoberg was doing the occasional odd job for Marvel— as witness this subscription-ad illo featuring Shang-Chi and Fu Manchu from the black-&-white Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #5 (Oct. 1974). At that time, Tony Isabella was the mag’s editor, under Roy as editor-in-chief. Mayhap ’twas Tony who gave Rick his very first Marvel assignment? [Fu Manchu TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders; Shang-Chi & other art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

drove up from Orange County to L.A.—Hollywood, where Roy was living in an apartment. We delivered our pages to his door and we couldn’t wait to show them to him. We were so proud of what we did! Roy answered the door after we knocked on it and said, “Thanks, fellas, you have to excuse me. I’ve got an important call I’ve got to finish.” Then he just kinda shut the door in our faces! [laughs] We just stood there looking at each other going “What? But—look at what we did!” It was one of those funny moments when you just went, “Screw it, I’m going to relax now.” [laughs] I can’t say enough about Roy, though. It was so great to work on that comic book. As I’m sure you know, when the movie was a big hit, all the big names at Marvel very suddenly wanted to work on that book. I only got the job because I was a young kid.

Nobody really cared about this book while the movie was still in post-production. They thought it was just going to be another

Happy Endings (Above:) The final page of Star Wars #6, as rough-penciled by Howard Chaykin and embellished by Rick Hoberg, Bill Wray, and (perhaps) Dave Stevens. Script by Roy T. Thanks to Paul King. [TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.] (Left:) “Rick mugging” is the tagline his buddy Bill Wray affixed to the scan of this photo he sent of Hoberg during the pair’s days at Marvel’s animation studios in the 1980s.

Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; other art © 2016 Benito Gallego. Coloring by Arnie Grieves.

by ROY THOMAS & BENITO GALLEGO

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63

“ The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40!

Part Four

BILL WRAY On Star Wars The Inker Of The Film-Finale Issue Talks About Working In An Intergalactic War Zone

I

Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Bill Wray began his professional career at Marvel in 1976. He’s worked for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Mad magazine, and is currently drawing comics for publisher and fellow artist Ashley Wood. He’s also contributed to the Ren and Stimpy cartoon show. This interview was conducted by phone on January 20, 2016.

RICHARD ARNDT: We’re talking to artist Bill Wray about his work on the Marvel adaptation of the first Star Wars movie. Welcome, and thanks for agreeing to this interview. How did you get involved in inking the last issue of the Star Wars adaptation, working with Rick Hoberg? [NOTE: On Star Wars #6, Hoberg completed the penciling from Howard Chaykin’s layouts and was the person given the inking assignment by editor Roy Thomas.]

out in a couple of obscure film magazines.

RA: Would that have been the McQuarrie artwork?

WRAY: We may have seen some of that. Still, there was literally almost nothing out there at the time we needed to work on the comic. But somebody was kind enough to get us both to a screening of the movie.

BILL WRAY: I can’t remember if Rick Hoberg and I met Roy Thomas at the same time or if Rick met him first and brought me in. What I do remember is that Rick and I were both trying to break into the business at the same time. We were involved with the same comic book club—I think it was called the West Coast Comics Club, run by a guy named Eugene Henderson. He’s still involved in comics. For years he ran the Russ Manning Award presentation at Comic-Con. Rick was the penciler and I was the inker. We did some samples together and ended up doing a few things for Marvel, mostly through Roy. Star Wars was the first big thing that we got. For one reason or another, Howard Chaykin had gotten behind on the deadline and we were given #6 as an issue to “ink,” but the pencils we got from Howard were arguably not even layouts. There was only a week left before the deadline.

Rick had to pencil the whole issue and I had to ink the whole thing.

One good benefit of that was that— see, we didn’t get any references to work from. Either Howard didn’t have any or he needed them for future issues or something.

Maybe there simply wasn’t time to get any references to us.

We really had nothing to work with except for a few bits of pre-publicity art that had come

Bill Wray poses at left “for an Uncle Creepy sample drawing,” to use his own phrase— while above is the fifth-from-last page of Star Wars #6, as rough-penciled by Howard Chaykin and inked/finished by Rick Hoberg, Bill Wray, and perhaps Dave Stevens. Script by RT. Thanks to Paul King. [Page TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

64

“The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40! – Part Four

WRAY: A pro could do those things! We were still starting out.

Rick did better than I did. He inked a couple of pages to help out as well. I was a slow inker trying to do a vintage, slick, Dave Stevens type of inking style. Dave was one of two guys I looked up to. The other was Frazetta. We both looked up to Frazetta. I was trying to do the best work that I possibly could.

The story of my involvement ended kind of funny, and I don’t know if Roy remembers this. We didn’t sleep a lot that week. When you’re young you can push yourself to those extremes. So we made the deadline and we were really happy with it. We were all proud and we were excited to have Dave on the inking because we knew those likenesses of the main characters would be strong.

Those were the pages we gave him. So we knocked on Roy’s door—this was in California. I don’t think he had a house yet. I think he was renting an apartment. We knocked on the door and there was no answer for a little while. Then we heard some mumbling and talking. I said, “Oh, somebody else is there.” Then he answered the door in a bathrobe like he’d just pulled it on and we’d interrupted something. We said, “Oh, we got the art, Roy.”

Kull Them With Kindness!

Bill Wray inked Rick Hoberg’s pencils for the “King Kull” story “The Striking of the Gong” in Savage Sword of Conan #23 (Oct. 1977), probably shortly before the two of them teamed up to embellish the sixth issue of Star Wars. Roy Thomas was scripter and editor—but somehow all credits except the handlettered one for Robert E. Howard got left off this story in the issue, although fortunately they’re given on the issue’s contents page. Perhaps that’s because Stan Lee had Marie Severin redraw all Kull faces in the story, as detailed by Roy back on p. 35. [TM & © Kull Properties, Inc.]

RA: So you actually saw the movie before you did your work on the comic? [NOTE: This was not the same screening, in February 1977, that Roy Thomas talks about in this issue’s lead interview.]

WRAY: Saw the movie before it actually came out, but even there they had nothing to give us. No hard copies of anything, which was odd. We must have had a couple of publicity stills. We must have had something. Still, the lack of reference was a big issue at the time.

Rick finished the pencils on the whole thing. I inked it. I wasn’t that fast. I was a young kid and this was my first work at Marvel.

Dave Stevens was a really good friend of mine, and we asked him to help. He inked about 2½ pages. I even had my dad inking backgrounds. My first professional job and I was already using assistants! I had no choice! The deadline was so tight.

RA: Well, with only a week and 17 pages to pencil and ink…

“We Had Faces Then!”

Since the pages rough-penciled by Howard Chaykin for Star Wars #6 had little detail, perhaps it was for the best that much of what Wray and Hoberg (and Stevens) had to ink consisted of faces—like those of Luke and Biggs on this 5th page—and dogfighting space ships. Script by RT. Thanks to Paul King.

[TM & © Lucasfilm, Ltd.]

Bill Wray On Star Wars

He says “Oh, great. Thanks a lot,” then slams the door in our face. [laughter] We assumed he had a girl in there and we interrupted him. Good for him, I guess. [chuckles] But we were stunned. We couldn’t imagine working 18 hours a day for a week and not getting one word of feedback or having the editor even glance at it.

We both looked at each other and said, “Welcome to Hollywood.” [laughter]

65

A Wray Of Hope Bill Wray in a recent photo—and a poster utilizing his striking art for a 2014 art show in Los Angeles. [Art © William Wray; Batman TM & © DC Comics.]

I’m sure if we had come an hour or two later and he was relaxed, he would have chewed the fat a little.

When we saw the movie—and remember, this was before it was actually released to the public—we absolutely loved it. We couldn’t believe our good fortune to be involved in this thing. Howard had expressed a little bit of disdain about it to us. He really didn’t like it. But when we saw the movie, we knew it was going to be giant, though we certainly didn’t know it would become what it became.

You know, Howard was pegged as the kind of science-fiction, swashbuckler guy. It made total sense to have him as the penciler, because that’s what he did and that’s what this was. But quickie movie adaptations are kind of brutal. The deadlines are tough.

There can be a lot of interference from the studio and, depending on the project, that means you’ve got to go through a lot of fixes or redraws on faces with difficult stars. I don’t think that was a factor with Star Wars, though, because none of the actors were really big names yet. But I can’t remember anybody who’s worked on them saying they enjoyed doing a movie adaptation. [laughs] It sounds great at first, but they always end up being a bit of a nightmare.

Still, we loved it!

RA: Well, good!

WRAY: I was always a little jealous of Rick, a little bit, because he went on to use that Star Wars connection to do some more work for Lucas. But for me, that was it!

RA: Well, thank you for doing this interview.

WRAY: It was fun!

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67

“ The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40!

Addendum

The 1978 STAR WARS Adaptation A/E

Notes by Lee Harsfeld

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: While this issue was in the early stages of preparation, Steven Rowe and Chet Cox forwarded to me an installment of the blog “Lee’s Comic Rack” that “reprinted” highlights from a 1978 adaptation of the film Star Wars, just a year after the one Howard Chaykin and I produced for Marvel. It was published by Pendulum Press, the same company that also issued a set of comics-style adaptations of various literary classics with art by artists such as Alex Nino. The illustrator of this greatly truncated (but well-done) version was comics veteran Charles Nicholas (presumed co-creator of Blue Beetle, among other things); the writer was one Linda A. Cadrain. But, rather than rephrase what Lee Harsfeld had written in his notes accompanying various panels from this later Star Wars adaptation, we got permission to reprint the piece just as it appeared on January 20, 2015, under the title “Charles Nicholas Stayed Busy after Charlton, Part 2.” All art & story are TM & © by Lucasfilm or its successors in interest—oh, and as you’ll very soon realize, the panels were not reprinted by Lee in the order in which the events occurred in the movie. Our thanks to Lee for the whole megillah! And now, we happily turn the narration over to him...

My copy of Pendulum Press’ Star Wars adaptation (Contemporary Motivators, 1978) must have been a big hit at Jefferson Middle School’s Reading Department in Meriden, Connecticut—the worn front and back covers attest to as much. Of course, for the following photo, I software-restored the front-cover border to something like its original state. I cheated, in other words.

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The Cover Of Pendulum Press’ Star Wars Comic

68

“The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40! – Addendum

A 31-page Star Wars comic book adaptation may sound like an impossible task, and maybe it is, but illustrator Charles Nicholas and adapter [scripter] Linda A. Cadrain pretty nearly pulled it off. The chief issue, besides the drastically reduced narrative? Too many panels describing action instead of showing it—e.g., “Quickly Leia blasted open a small grate in the wall,” and “Moving in on the target, Luke fired, then shot up and away from the Death Star.”

Then again, the whole point of these Pendulum comics was to encourage kids to read, so maybe such measures were for the best. But what’s Star Wars without all the zaps, blasts, and explosions? (Actually, a lot better, in my opinion—I hate the movie’s sound effects!) Even the Kenobi/Vader duel gets three measly panels, all close-ups.

But at least we get a nice Nicholas rendering of the Death Star explosion.

Better than the original, really, which looked like stock footage from Lost in Space.

“The 1978 Star Wars Adaptation”

And we get these other above-average panels to make up for the adaptation’s lost opportunities. Here, as at Charlton, Nicholas was no slouch in the space-art department.

69

70

“The Comic That Saved Marvel” Turns 40! – Addendum

Of the core characters, “Ben” is especially well-drawn.

“The 1978 Star Wars Adaptation”

71

Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker are adequately rendered, and Darth Vader is terrific.

Ditto for the droids.

Chewbacca is nicely done. Han Solo, on the other hand, looks like a moonlighting Reggie from Archie Comics.

Can’t win ‘em all, I guess. Anyway, minus the talents involved, this drastically compressed version of Star Wars would likely have been told with a lot less (pun alert) force, if much of any. Too bad Cadrain and Nicholas weren’t given more space—this might have aspired to a Classics Illustrated level. But all format limitations considered, this is a very competent and diverting adaptation. Just ask the patrons of Jefferson Middle School’s Reading Department.

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74

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Comics And All That Jazz!

W

Basie Loved His “Shockers!”

(Left & below:) Two comics trashed by the Count: Harvey’s Chamber of Chills #25 (Oct. 1954), drawn by Lee Elias; and Farrell’s Fantastic Comics #10 (Nov. 1954), illustrated by the Iger Shop. [© the respective copyright holders.]

by Michael T. Gilbert

hat do you get the man who has everything? Well, for Christmas of 2011 my inventive wife came up with the perfect solution. Since I’m always on the lookout for unusual comics-related material, Janet decided to scour the library and online archives for some four-color goodies. On Christmas day she presented me with a most unusual gift: articles connecting two indigenous American art forms, comic books and jazz... and some swing and blues tossed in for good measure! What’s not to love? Here’s a sampling...

Count Basie (Aug. 21, 1904 - April 26, 1984) Let’s start off our comic book Hit Parade with legendary bandleader William James “Count” Basie, an avowed hardcore horror comics addict! But, with the help of Dr. Wertham and similar “experts” as seen below, our boy seems to have gone “cold turkey.” Confidentially, I’m betting he fished the comics out of the trash the second the photographer left!

Here are a few comic book quotes worth noting: “Count Basie the bandleader, telephoning his wife, Catherine, at their St. Albans, L.I., home just before she left for Paris to join him on his current European tour: “Baby, bring me some comics books. I haven’t got anything to read.”

— Jet, April 22, 1954.

Count–down For A Jet (Below:) Count Basie from Jet (Oct. 28, 1954). [© 2017 Jet.]

Comics And All That Jazz!

75

He has a particular affection for certain kinds of comic books, not because he lacks intelligence or interest in other material, but because the horror tales to which he gravitates serve as a partial outlet for all the aggression he keeps down.

“Basie was disappointed,” says a band member, “when they started to clean up the comics, because they hit most at those shockers he liked so much.”

— Nat Hentoff, The Jazz Life (1961), p. 151.

Billie Holiday (April 17, 1915 - July 17th, 1959) Singer Billie Holiday was another comic book addict, though that particular addiction was the least of her troubles. A remarkably talented singer, she was also extremely self-destructive, hooked on booze, drugs, bad men... and comic books. I’ll bet Dr. Wertham loved reading that!

Billie died from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959 at a tragically young 44.

Among her most famous songs were “Lady Sings the Blues” and “Strange Fruit,” a haunting folk ballad about lynchings in the South.

Selected quotes: Eleanora Fagan Holiday was a tomboy, and her father called

Lady Sings The Blues!

(Above:) Billie Holiday in happier times.

her Bill. She called herself Billie after her favorite movie actress, Billie Dove. She attended school only through the fifth grade, and she secretly loved comic books as an adult.

After a lifetime of tragic heroin addiction, police harassment, and jail terms she died at age 44 of heart and liver failure.

—The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People, Irving Wallace, pp. 260, 2008.

When she arrived in Manhattan she wanted to be in a hotel in midtown. She asked for a hotel on Dream Street, West 47th Street, so called because of all the drug busts. I put her in there and I got the impression that she was clean and was going to stay off drugs, that she was trying to stay away from Harlem and drug pushers and ex-husbands, who sometimes provided drugs to keep her in line. She did ask for comic books. I went out to a newsstand and bought her a huge stack. She was terribly grateful.

—Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon

by Donald Clark, p. 280.

According to Donald Clarke, “Lady was nonpolitical; when she looked at ‘Strange Fruit’ she didn’t know what to make of it. She never read anything but comic books... and she was used to learning songs, not reading poetry. (Miles Davis is reported to have loved comic books as well.)

“Mama May Have… Papa May Have…”

(Above:) Billie Holiday and her second husband, Louis McKay. The photo appeared in Jet (July 2, 1959). Billie had been under arrest in her hospital bed since June 12 on drug charges. She died two weeks later, on July 17, 1959, having succumbed to “congestion of the lungs, complicated by heart failure.” [© 2017 Jet.]

— If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday by Farah Jasmine Griffin. 2002.

Within two months of [tenor saxophonist Lester] Young’s death, Holiday collapsed into a coma. At the hospital, a white powder was discovered by her bedside and, conse-

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

quently, she was fingerprinted and photographed on her death-bed by the police. They also confiscated her records and comic books. Finally, Holiday died on 15 (sic) July 1959, with less that $1000 to her name.

— Independent News, James Maycock, July 14, 1999.

Telltale specks of white powder on the tip of her nose were the cause of it all. “I didn’t know they could be this cruel to nobody, daddy,” complained singer Billie Holiday to her husband Louis McKay, last week after police took away her comic books, magazines, record player and radio. “Get me out of here!”

— Jet, July 2, 1959, P. 56.

Sarah Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) ...[S]lacks are her favorite reading apparel; and reading comic books. She scans the latter by the thousands, she says, especially the weird kind that feature witches and vampires.

— Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, by Leslie Gourse, p.81, 2009.

The Divine Vampire-Lover (Above:) Singer Sarah Vaughan loved vampires, such as the one on the cover of Avon’s Eerie Comics #1 (Jan. 1947)—in many ways, the very first horror comic ever. Artist uncertain, but probably Bob Fujitani. [© the respective copyright holders.]

No Respect!

Comics and jazz, two uniquely American art forms, were generally looked down upon by mainstream America. Perhaps

Horne-in’ In!

I Left My Heart In A Comic Book!

(Above:) Musicians often crossed over into comics. Tony Bennett appeared in Youthful Romances #12 (June 1952). [© the respective copyright holders.]

(Above left:) Singer Sarah Lena Horne also got the comic book treatment, courtesy of artist Phil Berube, in Eastern’s Juke Box #5 (Nov. 1948). (Right:) And here she is on the cover of Jet (April 22, 1954). [© the respective copyright holders.]

Comics And All That Jazz!

Duking It Out! Three different artists “Duke” it out on this page. (Clockwise, from top left:) Duke Ellington from Orbit’s Taffy #7 (April 1947), depicted by Maurice Del Bourgo; Eastern Color’s Juke Box #1 (March 1948), drawn by noted African-American cartoonist A.C. Hollingsworth; and an early ’80s R. Crumb trading card. The latter, inspired by a 1930 photo, was reprinted in Abrams’ 2006 collection Robert Crumb’s Heroes of the Blues, Jazz and Country.

[Crumb art © R. Crumb; other art © the respective copyright owners.]

that’s why so many black musicians gravitated to comics. And when jazz and blues musicians weren’t reading comics, they starred in them! Comics and pop music went together like cigarettes and smoke.

Eastman Color’s Juke Box Funnies, DC’s Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Orbit’s Taffy, and Parents’ Magazine’s Sweet Sixteen often featured musical stars and up-and-comers.

Youthful Publishing’s Youthful Romances even featured musical personalities like Tony Bennett and Mel Torme playing cupid in sappy love stories!

Duke Ellington (April 29, 1899 - May 24, 1974) While it’s not known if Duke Ellington liked comic books, comic readers certainly liked him. Perhaps best known for popular songs like “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” and “Sophisticated Lady,” (Left:) And here’s the Duke himself! [© the respective copyright holders.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

The Duke also made a mark as a comic book character of sorts, appearing in at least two short stories.

And In Conclusion...

Ella’s Swell-a!

Even Ella Fitzgerald managed to get into the act! Her story in Juke Box Funnies #3 (July 1948) was illustrated by the great Alex Toth. Photo by Bruno Bernard. [Art © the respective copyright holders.]

Not surprisingly, many comic pros are also music fans. When asked in 2012 what three things he couldn’t live without, cartoonist Howard Chaykin replied: “My beautiful wife, pork, and Count Basie records!” Joe Simon was also a fan. In the Jazz Handbook, Simon was quoted as saying, “When I and other young artists were working in comics, our work carried with it a particularly American slant. After all, we were Americans drawing and writing about things that touched us. As it turned out, the early work was, you might say, a comic book version of Jazz.”

And on that high note, it’s time to bid farewell. Special thanks to Janet Gilbert for initiating and helping research this musical interlude!

Till next time…

Heroes TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Alter Ego’s Multi-Part Tribute To G.B. Love & RBCC – Part 8

G.B. Love.

(1939-2001) Courtesy of Robert Brown.

EARL BLAIR, JR., Remembers G.B. Love & Houston Fandom

by Bill Schelly

I

NTRODUCTION: In order to run more photographs, and an excerpt from the article on G.B. Love’s passing by James Van Hise from Comics Buyer’s Guide, we divided my interview with Earl Blair, Jr., into two parts.

In the previous installment, we discussed the birth of Houston comics fandom (briefly), G.B.’s arrival there from Miami in 1974, his role as copublisher of the fanzine Trek, and his part in putting on mini-cons and Houston Cons in the mid-1970s. Now, for the final part of our tribute to Love and his prominent place in 1960s-70s fandom, we focus on his involvement in putting on Star Trek conventions in Texas, his friendship with Earl Blair, Jr., and his untimely passing on January 17, 2001.

Special thanks for photographs to Earl Blair, Jr., Robert Brown, and Roy Bonario, and to Jim Van Hise for the excerpt from his article in Comics Buyer’s Guide on Love’s passing. This interview was transcribed by Brian K. Morris.

G.B. Love On Horseback….?

BILL SCHELLY: G.B. didn’t have any family or anybody in Houston, right?

EARL BLAIR, JR.: His mother and father lived in Galveston. They’d moved to Galveston from Miami.

We’d go down there and see them occasionally. And in those days, you could rent horses. See, G.B. always Earl Blair, Jr. loved cowboys and horses and all of that. And occasionally, G.B. and I Recent photo portrait, courtesy would ride horses. We went to the of (and © 2017 by) Earl Blair, Jr. beach a couple of times to see his parents, and we’d rent horses and go along the beach for a little bit just to let him ride. There was one old horse named Booger that was pretty well worn and was easy for G.B. to ride. I’d put him in the saddle, take a belt, and wrap it around the saddle horn to give him sort of like a safety belt on there, which is okay as long as the horse doesn’t bolt and go crazy. That all ended one day when Booger took off! G.B. held on, and it looked like The Lone Ranger riding Silver! I mean, he was on it for all he was worth! And then the horse slammed on the brakes, and G.B. went over the saddle horn. He could have been hurt really bad, but fortunately, he wasn’t. That was the last time you ever saw G.B. Love on horseback. [Bill laughs] BS: You had some other business ventures with G.B., didn’t you?

“Keep ’Em Buying!”

(Above:) G.B. Love at a 1970s Houston Con. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

(Right:) Houston fan Ray Jones with Earl’s first wife Wilene, and G.B., at a mini-con in that Texas city sometime between 1974 and 1976. [Latter photo © Earl Blair, Jr.]

BLAIR: Yes, G.B. bought an interest in the company I worked for, which was United Films.

We had the maritime division down here. That’s what I did for a living. Crews on cargo ships and freighters and oil tankers used to while away the hours by watching

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Comic Fandom Archive

One-Trek Minds Trek magazine spawned a series of mass market paperback books titled The Best of Trek, starting with the first one in 1978; cover by Eddie Jones. When the reprint material began running thin, editors Walter Irwin and G.B. Love included new articles, many of them written by Irwin. [TM & © CBS Studios, Inc. or successors in interest.]

16mm films. I’d have to deliver cases of film reels, forty or fifty of them, to the Houston ship channel, and lug the things up the gangplanks and get ’em into the crew rooms. Then I’d have to go out there and pick them up, and then take them some more films and swap them out. It was a lucrative business for a while. But obviously, with the advent of video tape and DVD, that business went away. But G.B. was a part owner for the few years that it lasted. We both had a lot of irons in the fire.

BS: Didn’t you and G B. do some of the first Star Trek conventions?

BLAIR: Yes, we did. We did Star Trek San Antonio, I think it was in January or February of 1975. [NOTE: The ad for their Star Trek con in 1975 talks about “last year’s sensational convention.” Could this San Antonio affair have occurred in 1974? —Bill.] We got on the front page of the San Antonio newspaper. It was front-page news! We had rented out this little, little kind of Ramada Inn-like venue, and had a film room and a dealers’ room. We expected, oh, maybe three or four hundred people. Thousands showed up! It was the most unbelievable sight I had ever seen.

Friendship From Afar BS: What happened?

BLAIR: I got involved in consulting with Snuff Garrett’s company The Nostalgia Merchant, and I got very busy with that. I was being flown out to California periodically and spending a week out there and then coming back and trying to get the next edition of Film Collectors Registry out and in the mails, and what have you. So we just didn’t get to have the opportunity to go any further as business partners.

BS: According to my notes, you moved to Alabama eventually, where you lived through the 1980s and 1990s. Why did you move there?

BLAIR: Because that’s where my wife Wilene’s parents were. We had three children, and it was good that they be around their grandparents. And we could afford to buy a place there. It was a farm, actually, not far from Huntsville. My mother was still in Houston. I lived in Alabama for about 17 years.

BS: G.B. must have seen dollar signs there.

BLAIR: His business sense was just flawless.

BS: Yeah.

BLAIR: And he was right. That thing was a phenomenal success.

Huge crowds of people were clamoring to get in. We showed the Star Trek blooper reel, I don’t know how many times. Dealers were selling more than half of everything they brought, clearing off whole tables. That was probably the most money we’d ever made in a weekend. It was incredible. But then our paths kind of separated.

All Spruced Up! (Left:) G.B. and 1940s Republic Western-movie star Ruth Terry at a Houston Con. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

(Right:) G.B. Love loved airplanes. Here he’s seen peering into the cockpit of Howard Hughes’ legendary Spruce Goose when it was on exhibit in Long Beach, California, next to the Queen Mary. [This photo © 2017 Earl Blair, Jr.]

Earl Blair, Jr., Remembers G.B. Love & Houston Fandom

Friends (Left to right:) G.B., Herman Taylor, Roy Bonario, and Al Davis at a convention. Herman Taylor was in the same accident that led to G.B.’s passing. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

BS: Okay, so what was G.B. doing?

BLAIR: He was working with Walter Irwin on Trek. That one turned out to be a pretty good little deal for him. Sometimes I regretted that I didn’t stay on board with that. They did the magazine, and then began collecting that material into Best of Trek paperback books. That lasted a long time, because there were what, a dozen or 14 of those? But, while I was living in Alabama, G.B. and I stayed in touch. He came and visited a number of times.

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Memories Are Made Of This G.B., Christmas 1983, at the House of Memories on Binz Street. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

from Roy [Bonario] telling me G.B. had been in a car wreck, with his friend Herman Taylor. Both of them were in the hospital with broken legs. Well, by the time I visited, G.B. was in rehab. This was in the fall of 2000. [NOTE: The accident occurred on November 30, 2000, after a dinner at Roy Bonario’s house. —Bill.]

I came to Houston to see him. I went to the rehab place and spent some time with him out there. Then I came back again a second time, and he looked like he had gotten worse. He was still

As he got older, he started spending more time at church. He had a church “family” there nearby.

BS: What was his religion?

BLAIR: I think it was Baptist, but I wouldn’t swear to that because I never went to the church with him. It may not have been Baptist, it may have been some sort of offshoot. He was also briefly married, because G.B., like most men, wanted a family and kids. He met a woman through a dating service, and they were married, but it quickly broke up—over financial issues, I think. You know, he was always very tight with a buck. [Bill chuckles] So that was an unhappy experience for him.

BS: Let’s talk about his car accident, which, unfortunately, led to his demise.

BLAIR: Well, I was living in Alabama. And I got a call

Houston’s Greatest Hits Advertisements for two Houston events in 1975 appeared in RBCC #115. Love and Blair were behind both conventions, which were hugely successful. [Star Trek TM & © CBS Television or successors in interest.]

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Hi Ho Bonario!

(Left:) Roy Bonario in 1973. (Right:) G.B. Love with Bonario’s grandson Michael. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

there. I told him that when he was better, he could come out and stay with us in Alabama. He was crying and he said, “I don’t think I’m ever going to leave this place.” And of course I denied–“G.B., come on, buddy. You’re going to be fine,” and tried to cheer him up. Well, he never got out of either rehab or the hospital. There were complications, and he just got weaker and weaker. Then I get a call from Roy one night and he says, “G.B.’s in the hospital.

They’ve put him back in, it doesn’t look good.” When I got there, he was in absolutely terrible shape. His church group were all sort of hanging around and I didn’t like the way that looked.

January 17, 2001 BS: Do you think that he just sort of gave up?

BLAIR: Something like that. I stayed there with him for most of the day. But they said he was having trouble breathing, and so he was lying back in the bed there, looking out the window. And they came in with a mask to help his breathing. He’d been sleeping a lot and was a bit uncomfortable, so they put this mask over him.

After he went to sleep, I left to visit my mother. When I got back, it was night. His church group was there, standing around him, and someone said, “He doesn’t have much longer.” He was lying in bed and his breathing got shallower… and shallower… and shallower. Finally, it stopped. I was alongside his bed at the very moment when he died. And the most amazing thing happened, Bill. When he died, the cerebral palsy all went away.

BLAIR: He was a dear, dear, dearest friend to me. I tried to do everything I could for him. It wasn’t enough.

BS: When you think back on him on the happier times, what are some of the memories?

BLAIR: Well, you know, he was just a wonderful wit. He was so funny. He had a keen sense of humor and boy, I tell you, we would just joke back and forth and as I said, he could dish it out as well as take it. Mainly, you see, he was his own man. If he’d never met Earl Blair, he’d have done just fine.

That’s the end of our interview with Earl Blair. Jr.. about his friendship with the late, great G.B. Love. After G.B.’s passing, and the passing of Earl’s wife Wilene a year later, Earl moved back to Houston. He eventually remarried, and has run his Captain Bijou business ever since. You can visit his website (www.captainbijou.com) where he sells all manner of collectibles.

This concludes our 8-part tribute to G.B. Love and RBCC. Fandom owes a tremendous debt to G B., and I’m glad to have finally devoted a substantial portion of Alter Ego magazine to his story.

BS: Really?

BLAIR: His hands straightened out, his arms straightened out, his legs and feet that had been so painful and so harmed by this disease were all normal.

BS: It sounds like it was an overwhelming experience for you.

Easter Parade G. B. Love on an Easter Sunday. Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

Keep On Trekking!

In the 1990s, after some of the Best of Trek books were out of print, Love and Irwin packaged the material yet again. Pictured: The Best of the Best of Trek Vol. 2 (1992). [Star Trek © CBS Television.]

Coming Next: My interview with Ted White about all the comics-related aspects of his multi-faceted career as a writer and editor.

For information on my recent books, such as biographies of Harvey Kurtzman, Otto Binder, and John Stanley, go to my website: www.billschelly.net. You can contact me by email at: hamstrpres@aol.com.

Earl Blair, Jr., Remembers G.B. Love & Houston Fandom

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POST SCRIPTUM: Excerpt from the obituary in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1422 (Feb. 16, 2001) titled “Fanzine Publisher G.B. Love Dies,” by James Van Hise: It was with shock that I learned that G.B. Love had died Jan. 17 as a result of injuries suffered in an automobile accident some weeks earlier.

G.B.’s close friend Roy Bonario said what had happened. “His cerebral palsy had gotten worse but it really didn’t deter him much. He rode his bicycle every day, did his own shopping, joined a church, and functioned pretty well. He just walked a little more slowly and had a few more aches and pains than usual. He spent all his holidays with me and my family and would have supper every other Thursday night with me and several other close friends.

“On Nov. 30, after one of these suppers, a friend was taking him home, when they were in a major accident. They both came out of it with broken legs and cuts and bruises. G.B. did not mend quickly but after a few weeks was transferred to a hospital by his house. His HMO refused to pay for rehab in the hospital, and he was sent to a nursing home that did nothing for him. There was a long battle with the HMO, but it would only pay for home care. By this time, he had acquired a bladder infection and was sent back to the hospital. He was very depressed and weak, since he wouldn’t eat much, even though we were with him most of the time urging him on. He had severe pain from inactivity of his muscles. All this led to pneumonia, and within three days he was gone.

Yoda Man! (Left:) Roy Bonario and Earl Blair, Jr.,in a recent photograph, alongside a very convincing Yoda.

Courtesy of Roy Bonario.

(Right:) G.B. Love in the 1970s. Photo by Robert Brown.

“He was a pioneer in comics fandom, a good businessman, independent with a handicap that he wanted no consideration for, and one of the best friends I ever had. Needless to say, he will be missed by all of us here who knew him.”

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gave it away like it was chewing gum in a 1-cent vending machine.

In the early ’60s, I “won” an original Flash cover by Infantino. I called up Julie to thank him and asked him if I could visit the offices and get him (Julie) to autograph the page.

“I didn’t draw it. You don’t want my name on it.” I think he growled it into the phone.

“But you gave it to me.”

Silence.

“Yeah, bring it by.”

Soon after, my first visit to DC. And I left with a load of original art. I think I remember a table where everything was placed. As if visiting fans were trick-or-treating. Editors and artists alike felt it necessary to give us “something.” (I picture my dog’s open mouth and begging eyes, his tongue licking his lips as he waits for his “treat.”) Following trips proved just as fruitful. I valued Golden Age comics much more than original art, so I traded and sold the art to start my collection. Time and my will eventually deciding if I did the right thing.

Never got a piece of art from Marvel. Were they more sensitive to the eventual worth?

Bernie Bubnis Frankly, Bernie, I doubt it. More likely, it’s just that original Timely/Marvel publisher Martin Goodman wanted to hang onto the artwork—one prime reason being, I was told more than once during the latter 1960s, that he feared returning it to the artists might result in its

S

pecial thanks to artist Shane Foley for adding the Star Wars universe to the multitude of settings where he has deigned to insert our venerable “maskots” Captain Ego and/or Alter Ego—in this case, the latter. This time, he’s added a feminine presence which may be unfamiliar to many modern-day A/E readers, in the person of Joy Holiday, the magazine’s very first super-“maskot,” created by artist/editor Ronn Foss in the early 1960s. [Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas – costume designed by Ron Harris; Joy Holiday TM & © Estate of Ronn Foss; other art © Shane Foley.]

Alter Ego #135, which featured an interview with Silver-Age-andsince comics writer and editor Len Wein, to our considerable surprise, didn’t garner a lot of mail… we suspect because Len has been so prominent and so well-covered for so long (some 45 to 50 years now) that not many folks felt they had anything to add or subtract from Richard Arndt’s career-encompassing interview. But that issue was as popular sales-wise as others before and after it… so we’re assuming that most readers were more than satisfied.

As this issue was in preparation, we were chagrined to learn that Len suffered a mild stroke in the latter part of October, but is doing well and should make a complete recovery. Guess none of us is getting any younger (not even you readers), but we figure Len will be around to entertain and delight us for a long time yet.

Bernie Bubnis, who for a time was involved with Len in the early stages of planning for what eventually became the very first true comics convention ever, held in New York City in 1964, had this to say about his old colleague: Hi Roy, Never knew the story about Len being blackballed for “missing” original art at DC. Not that many years before, editors

Swamped Again!

One of Len Wein’s most notable co-creations is seen in this Bernie Wrightsondrawn splash page for Swamp Thing #2 (Dec. 1972-Jan. 1973)—from a later reprinting. Script by Len, of course. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

re:

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being sold abroad and reprinted in some country where it would be difficult for him to sue that publisher.

Who’s Who In Comics Phantom Reader Mitchell Senft tipped us off (’cause Shane Foley himself was apparently too modest) that the executor of our past 100-plus “maskot” illos recently had a pro assignment of his own! Shane, as you may recall, lives in Bundaberg, Australia—and the classic King Features comic strip The Phantom is very popular there in comic book reprints. As the news service www.abc.net.au reported this past June, Shane—well, let’s quote them for a moment: “By day he works for the Queensland Ambulance Service but by night he takes to city rooftops fighting villains, exploring the deepest, darkest jungles, and blasting off into the galaxy as a comic book illustrator.” The then-latest Phantom comic book sported a cover drawn by Shane—a job he got after sending a sample drawing to the publisher (ABC Wide Bay: Ross Kay) some time before. And yes, Shane was kind enough to mention that he drew illustrations for Alter Ego way off in the U.S., as well. Congrats, Shane!

Seen above left is our lad working on the horizontal cover—which itself is reproduced above right. [Art TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

Just One Of Those Man-Things!

(Right:) “Gaff” (the former Carl Gafford, now Douglas Jones), a longtime colorist in the comics field, sent in this anecdote related to a Jim Mooneydrawn “Man-Thing” story too late to be included in the “re:” section dealing with A/E #133, so we’re presenting it—and the artwork at right—this time around. He writes: “The pencils of Man-Thing, Vol. 2, #2 (Jan. 1980), drawn by Jim Mooney, were lost in the mails to inker Bob Wiacek, but Xeroxes had been made for scripting and the lettering would be done on overlays to put on the finished art. I was on staff as Marvel’s proofreader and had just recently lightboxed with non-photo blue pencil the enlarged stats of Gil Kane’s breakdowns for the issue of ‘What If Gwen Stacy Had Lived?’ for Frank Giacoia to ink, so I offered to do the same with the missing Man-Thing issue.

“The pencils were quite finished (unlike Gil’s breakdowns) and so were very easy to lightbox. There were a couple of art changes requested, moving panels over to make room for type, that sort of thing. In one case, though, they wanted the panel redrawn to show a reflection on in Man-Thing’s eye, so I drew that panel myself. It only took a day or two to lightbox the issue, and it was on its way to Orz [= Tom Orzechowski] to letter and Bob to ink on actual paper instead of vellum overlays, and then I colored the book when it got back (I was a big Man-Thing fan at the time; even helped ink the backgrounds in one issue).

“Just another crazy day at the Marvel bullpen!”

No argument there, Gaff!

By the way, as this issue was being put together, we learned that Gaff had been hospitalized due to health complications related to diabetes. We know everyone will join us in wishing Gaff a hearty and swift recovery! He’s provided us with many colorful anecdotes about the comics of a few decades ago—and we want him to get back to doing so! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

I myself have long had mixed feelings about DC’s (particularly my early-’60s correspondent, Julie Schwartz’s) largess with original art. I was one of the very first people to receive artwork when he began mailing it out to various letter-writers, beginning with the entire art to the “Three Dimwits” story in The Flash #117 (Dec. 1960)—but later I realized that the proper thing to have done would’ve been to give it back to the artists (with, in my mind, some of it also going to the writer who invented the story, wrote the dialogue and captions, and described the panels which the artist drew). No matter… I eventually traded off that “Flash” story, as well as some “Hawkman” and “Justice League of America” art sent to me by Julie.

Next, an e-mail from John Benson about something in “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!”: Roy, In his piece on Hillman crime comics in A/E #135, Michael Gilbert notes that the story “Itchy’s Big Score,” about a small-time crook who falls apart when he unexpectedly gets more money than he can handle, is not your typical crime story. True. The narrative that Gilbert outlines wasn’t typical in 1923 when Dashiell Hammett wrote it as “The Green Elephant,” or in 1947 when it was reprinted

86

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

in the Spivak collection Dead Yellow Women as a newsstand digest, where the Hillman writer evidently read it before writing his 1948 story.

Hammett’s character wasn’t named Itchy, but interestingly Hammett did write a story titled “Itchy” around the same time, which, in its way, had some similarities to “The Green Elephant.”

The lead character commits some petty crimes that cause the papers to dub the culprit a “gentleman crook,” and he starts to believe the hype, which is his undoing. As far as I can determine, this story wasn’t reprinted until 1962, so the use of the name in the Hillman story may have been a coincidence, as unlikely as that seems. (Both stories were reprinted in Lost Stories, Vince Emery’s 2005 collection of obscure Hammett tales.)

In addition, on page 54, the “Wakey-Wakey” caption describes the image as a “Zolne cover” and then says “Artist unknown.”

John Benson Afraid that latter was probably my fault, John. Michael wrote one of those artist IDs (or non-IDs); I wrote the other. The Grand Comics Database lists the artist of that cover as “Dan Zonerowich (?),” which isn’t enough of a positive ID for us generally… but I neglected to take out the “Zolne” reference. Sorry about that… and thanks for the insights re the probable source of that story in Real Clue, Vol. 3, #7 (Sept. 1948). At least the comics tale’s uncredited writer stole from the best!

A couple of hasty notes from people who ought to know: Jeff Gelb says that “the mystery man handing Archie Goodwin his Inkpot [Award] in San Diego in 1982 is… the one and only great Shel Dorf, God rest his soul.” Sorry I didn’t recognize him from that angle!

Black Marvel P.C. Hamerlinck notes to Bill Schelly and A/E’s editor that the RBCC #107 cover referenced on p. 62 and shown on p. 63 is not by C.C. Beck, as identified: “It was drawn by Bill Black. The illustration of Captain Marvel that Beck drew for G.B. Love and that Van Hise refers to in the interview appeared in the RBCC Special #8.” (See above.) Just shows what a great job Bill Black did in mimicking Beck’s style. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics, Inc.]

Veteran comics writer and editor Mike W. Barr points out that, while Len Wein undoubtedly created the “Human Target” whose real name was Christopher Chance, the name had been used for characters (and story titles) in early DC stories, including a “Batman” yarn in Detective Comics #201 (Nov. 1953) and in Gang Busters #61 (Dec. 1957-Jan. 1958)… the latter an influence that Len acknowledged years ago in an interview in The Comics Journal. Of course, that lineage was also discussed and illustrated in detail in conjunction with the Marv Wolfman interview in A/E #113. Naturally, it’s the specific character, not the phrase, that Len conceived. Even Batman wasn’t the first “batman.”

Send your cards and letters (remember them?) to: Roy Thomas 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com

The Alter-Ego-Fans online group is cleverly hidden at group.yahoo.com/group/alter-ego-fans. Yahoo Groups has eradicated its “Add Member” tool for moderators, so if you want to join this magazine’s online chat group and find that it won’t let you in, please contact Chet Cox at good ol’ mormonyoyoman@gmail.com with your name and a little bit about yourself. On the A/E list, we discuss the Silver Age, the Golden Age, and Alter Ego itself, and Roy T. himself is often there with advance news, requests for help re keeping A/E a repository of Silver and Golden Age knowledge., etc., etc. It’s fun, educational, and it’s carb-free!

Other art © Jay Piscopo

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Steamboat – Part II

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A Portfolio Of African-Americans In Fawcett Comics

by P.C. Hamerlinck

T

housands of people adored Jack Benny’s Rochester, The Spirit’s Ebony, and Captain Marvel’s Steamboat. Many Americans also naively believed that these jocular characters represented the average African-American man.

The gifted Eddie Anderson as Rochester played the role of a servant brilliantly, delivering his own clever brand of astuteness and wit on radio and television which confounded and baffled Benny to no end … yet the bond of affection between the two was always obvious. And Benny, the straight man, allowed for Anderson to mature into a fine comedian.

Ebony, created by Will Eisner, was sort of a mini-version of Rochester, and Eisner developed for his newspaper comic-reading audience an honest feeling of fondness and affection between the young African-American boy and the masked Spirit. Eisner told FCA in 1975 that he never meant for Ebony “to be a put-down or a stereotype of Black people.”

Steamboat was the top African-American character in comic books by default during the war years, simply because he appeared in one of the industry’s best-selling features, “Captain Marvel.” While Steamboat didn’t quite measure up to either Rochester or Ebony, at least the Fawcett

A Bad Worm In A Good Apple Steamboat appeared in a couple of chapters of Otto Binder’s groundbreaking “Monster Society of Evil” serial, which ran in 25 consecutive issues of Captain Marvel Adventures. Steamboat was actually the first man on the planet to lay eyes on a certain wicked glasses-wearing worm! (CMA #27 [Sept. ’43]; art by Beck and staff.) [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

writers were still able to adequately evolve a similar BennyRochester/Spirit-Ebony tactile sense of trust and reliance between Billy Batson and his “faithful servant.”

Steamboat’s debut was in America’s Greatest Comics #2 (1942), where he is offered a job by Billy Batson at the end of the “Captain Marvel” story. The character didn’t necessarily gain much in the way of intelligence over the course of the stories, but at least he was given some moments of heroism on several occasions—such as when he was hypnotized into believing he was Captain Marvel in the aptly-titled “The World’s Mightiest Mistake” from Captain Marvel Adventures #16 (panels shown in our previous issue), where it’s quite astounding to see today just how far Fawcett pushed it with racist characterizations.

Steamboat ’Round The Bend A painted (but alas, sadly stereotyped) Steamboat portrait by C.C. Beck for his exhibit “The Marvelous World of C.C. Beck,” held at the Lake Wales, Florida, Depot Museum in May 1979. “All of us at Fawcett always liked to produce a good comic. We liked excitement, adventure, strange locations, and interesting people. We didn’t like war propaganda, sermons about crime and racial equality, and other worthless stuff the publishers were always experimenting with. We were left alone the majority of the time, although they forced us to get rid of Billy Batson’s pal, Steamboat.” — C.C. Beck, 1979 interview with P.C. Hamerlinck (reprinted in the 2001 TwoMorrows book Fawcett Companion). [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

Steamboat was one of Captain Marvel’s regular cast members for over three years before abruptly disappearing for good. In the 1960 essay “The Big Red Cheese,” Richard Lupoff described Steamboat as “the exemplification of the racial stereotype of the era, as popularized in innumerable pulp magazine stories, radio dramas, motion pictures (perhaps there most of all), and other popular media.” In the first part of our Steamboat coverage, which began last issue, Brian Cremins (author of the University Press of Mississippi book Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia) delved into the history of the Youthbuilders—an after-school program developed by social worker and education reformer Sabra Holbrook. The Youthbuilders was the very group—with comic-book-reading New York City middle school kids who took part in the program—that had visited

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Fawcett Collectors of America

executive editor Will Lieberson at Fawcett Publications West 44th Street Manhattan offices in 1945 and argued passionately and persuasively for the removal of Steamboat.

In the same spirit that Holbrook encouraged her teachers and her students to compile as much research as possible before taking on an important social topic, P.C. Hamerlinck has assembled for this issue’s finale a portfolio of various images, information, and insights regarding Steamboat and other African-American portrayals during the Golden Age of Comics, including personal reflections from Fawcett comic-creators C.C. Beck, Otto Binder, Marc Swayze, and Will Lieberson. We hope the material presented in this and our previous issue offers other writers and scholars a starting point for further discussion of the perspectives found in popular culture during that era… and of one ill-fated character who appeared in some of the top-selling comics of the 1940s in the United States.

The World’s Mightiest No-Show Steamboat often proved to be a helpful companion, especially when Billy caught a cold and his sore throat prevented him from saying his magic word in Otto Binder’s “Captain Marvel and the Time He Didn’t Show Up” (CMA #21 [Feb. ’43]; art by Beck’s staff artists), a unique story in which Captain Marvel doesn’t appear in one single panel! [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

A Marc Twain (Above:) “Captain Marvel In Mexico” was illustrated by Marc Swayze and appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #16 (Oct. ’42); author unknown.

Marc told readers in his “We Didn’t Know … It Was the Golden Age” column in Alter Ego #88 that “Steamboat … was Billy Batson’s valet, faithful friend, and confidant … unfortunately, there came a time when Steamboat’s inclusion… began to have meanings other than those intended … his presence began to be viewed with disfavor. There were new changes afoot.

It was a new day … for entertainment … for comics … for our land. I liked Steamboat, but he had to go ….” [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

“Death” Of A Salesman (Right:) Even Steamboat was put to use to enlist more members into the growing Captain Marvel Club, as shown in this advertisement that appeared in CMA #18 (Dec. ’42). By the time Steamboat was being phased out, the total card-carrying memberships of the CM Club had tallied at over 560,000. Over at the newsstands, Captain Marvel Adventures and Whiz Comics had a combined monthly sale of approximately 1,600,000 copies, according to a 1945 office memorandum from Fawcett Vice President and Circulation Manager, Roscoe K. Fawcett. [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

Steamboat—Part II

91

In Living Stereo(type) A pair of intriguing, but often neglected, “Captain Marvel” stories. (Above:) A diverting mind-swap “Ego Exchanger” between Billy/CM and Steamboat with entertaining consequences occurred in CMA #19 (Jan. ’43) by Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza, & the CM art staff…

And, below, in a later issue, Steamboat acquired great intellect by drinking water from “The Lost River” in CMA #36 (June ’44); scripter unknown; art by C.C. Beck & staff. Beck wrote in 1985 [published later in AE V3#2] that “[Steamboat] was created to capture the affection of Black readers. Unfortunately, he offended them instead and was unceremoniously killed off after a delegation of Blacks visited the Fawcett editor’s office protesting because he was a servant, because he had huge lips and kinky hair, and because he spoke in a dialect. He was always a cartoon character, not intended to be realistic at all, but he was taken seriously by some, sadly enough.” [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

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Fawcett Collectors of America

Red Dots In The Sunset Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Steamboat was a true friend of Billy and the World’s Mightiest Mortal, as this poignant panel beautifully conveys, in “The King of Storms” (CMA #13 [July ’42]; art by Beck & staff; scripter unknown). (Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

There’ll Be Some Changes Made “Captain Marvel and the World’s Mightiest Dream” from Captain Marvel Adventures #48 (Aug.-Sept., ’45) marked the final appearance of Steamboat.

(Script by Otto Binder; art by C.C. Beck/Pete Costanza.) Binder told Matt Lage in a 1974 FCA interview that Steamboat had been the creation of Fawcett editor Ed Herron, and that the character was dropped “during a wave of criticism of any anti-minority leanings that came up in that period … orders came down from above to abolish all such dialects … I was all in favor actually, of antidiscrimination so it didn’t bother me, except that we did sigh once in a while because it was fun to depict such dialect groups. We never meant to degrade them, merely play them for humor. We thought it was kind of sad that the public couldn’t distinguish between harmless well-meant-dialectcharacters and true racial antipathy; just because we had Swedish people taking like Swedes do, or the famed Yiddish talk, didn’t mean we hated or looked down on them.” [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

Steamboat—Part II

That’s M’Boy Raboy!

(Above:) C.C. Beck reported in his later years that fellow artist Mac Raboy championed the oppressed and was sensitive towards race issues. On occasion, Raboy drew African-Americans in panels of “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories whenever he felt he could get away with it.

He drew an African-American youngster wearing a CMJr costume in Master Comics #25 (Apr. ’42), in a story involving a child’s broken balloon containing secret messages that were part of a Japanese plot to sabotage communications to Alaska. Writer unknown.

[Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics.]

(Right:) Later, when Raboy joined Ken Crossen’s Spark Publications to illustrate the Green Lama comic, he helped author what was undoubtedly the greatest Golden Age comic book story on racism. In “The Four Freedoms,” a letter from a Private in the Army brings the Green Lama to an Army camp, wherein dwells a resident bigot. The Green Lama transports the racist soldier to Nazi Germany, where the results of bigotry are vividly portrayed, and the White G.I. learns his lesson and later offers to defend a black G.I. against all racists. This pivotal tale was written by Crossen (also formerly from Fawcett), illustrated by Raboy and by another man from Fawcett, Harry Anderson, who was brought in to finish the art job. (Below: a cropped Raboy self-portrait from fellow artist George Roussos’ 1940s sketchbook.) Writer unknown. [Shazam characters TM & © DC Comics; Green Lama TM & © the respective trademark & copyright owners.]

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Fawcett Collectors of America

"Amos 'n' Andy" Of The Cornfield A panel from the "Jasper and The Scarecrow" story in George Pal's Puppetoons #5 (Sept.

1946). Art by Joe Oriolo; scripter unknown. [TM & © the respective copyright notice.]

Puppetoons On A String (Above:) Fawcett’s George Pal’s Puppetoons comic book, drawn by Joe Oriolo, featured Jasper—the only African-American character during the Golden Age who was almost completely void of the standard racial dialect and mannerisms. But even Pal’s puppets succumbed to stereotyping: while his studio had created Jasper in an acceptable way, it also produced The Scarecrow, a typically-portrayed African-American character of the period.

Seen above is Oriolo's cover for GPP #1 (Dec. 1945). Sadly, Fawcett’s Steamboat and Jasper represented the best treatment African-Americans received in comic books during the war years—especially evident after you inspect characters from other publishers of that era. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Timely Comics’ form of stereotyping often consisted of showing grotesque facial closeups of African-American characters (unrelated to the stories) in frightening situations, as if the writers and artists believed that AfricanAmericans were capable of a greater level of fear in a feeble attempt to produce a humorous effect. These instances were never seen in their leading features (Captain America, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner), but did creep in to Bucky & Toro tales in Young Allies. (The only continuing African-American character at Timely was Whitewash Jones from Young Allies.) In the 1960s, as Marvel Comics, under the direction of Stan Lee, the company became a leader of racial equality in comics.

Dell’s Li’l Eight Ball was a long-running feature in Walter Lantz’s New Funnies. The character had the typical racial dialect in addition to repellent racist-related situations. There was also the character Bumbazine in Walt Kelly’s “Albert and Pogo” series in Animal Comics. But matters eventually began to improve …and comics had come a long way by the time Robert Kanigher wrote the soul-stirring “I Am Curious Black” in Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #106 (Nov. ’70).

Comics With A Message (Above:) “The Decision to remove Steamboat was completely my own,” Will Lieberson told Matt Lage in a 1974 FCA interview. “I always found the character objectionable, and when I took over Rod Reed’s position I exercised my prerogative as executive editor and ordered him out of all future scripts.” By the springtime of 1946 Lieberson was running a full-page “special announcement” (introduced by Captain and Mary Marvel) in all Fawcett comic books to “All Boys and Girls of America of Every Race, Creed and Color” on the virtues of fair play in life, not picking on minorities, and other sound advice to help make the world a better place to live in, delivered by Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown, district attorney of San Francisco. The closing statement on the announcement said it all: “The Color of Every Man’s Blood is Red, Regardless of Race or Religion.” [ Shazam heroes TM & c DC Comics.]

Steamboat—Part II

Being A Sport About It! Times were a-changing. Will Lieberson’s editorial regime at Fawcett ushered in comics where African-Americans were finally represented and depicted in an honorable and respectable manner. In 1947 Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by becoming the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. Beginning in 1950 Fawcett produced a half-dozen issues of Jackie Robinson, and released comic book one-shots of baseball stars Don Newcombe, Larry Doby, Roy Campenella, and the Thrilling True Story of the Baseball Giants featuring Willie Mays and Monte Irvin. Fawcett also produced two comic books about boxer Joe Louis, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937-49.

Looking to appeal further to the African-American demographic, these particular comics often featured advertisements on their inside back covers for Fawcett’s Signet line of “Great Negro Novels… on Racial Themes.”

And there were three issues of Fawcett’s Negro Romance comic written by Roy Ald, who was interviewed in A/E #104-108. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

95

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DOUG MOENCH in the 1970s at Warren and Marvel (Master of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, Deathlok, Werewolf by Night, Morbius, Moon Knight, Ka-Zar, Weirdworld)!

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“Creatures of the Night!” Moon Knight’s DOUG MOENCH and BILL SIENKIEWICZ in a Pro2Pro interview, Ghost Rider, Night Nurse, Eclipso in the Bronze Age, I…Vampire, interviews with Batman writer MIKE W. BARR and Marvel’s Nightcat, JACQUELINE TAVAREZ. Featuring work by BOB BUDIANSKY, J. M. DeMATTEIS, DAVE SIMONS, ROGER STERN, TOM SUTTON, JEAN THOMAS, and more.

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Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a featurelength, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career.

A look at 75 years of Archie Comics’ characters and titles, from Archie and his pals ‘n gals to the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and today’s “Dark Circle”! Also: Careerspanning interviews with The Fox’s DEAN HASPIEL and Kevin Keller’s cartoonist DAN PARENT, who both jam on our exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Plus our usual features, including the hilarious FRED HEMBECK!

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KIRBY: ALPHA! Looks at the beginnings of Kirby’s greatest concepts, and how he looked back in time and to the future for the origins of ideas like DEVIL DINOSAUR, FOREVER PEOPLE, 2001, ETERNALS, KAMANDI, OMAC, and more! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 WonderCon Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more!

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KIRBY: OMEGA! Looks at endings, deaths, and Anti-Life in the Kirbyverse, including poignant losses and passings from such series as NEW GODS, KAMANDI, FANTASTIC FOUR, LOSERS, THOR, DEMON and others! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 Silicon Valley Comic-Con Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON!

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HERO-A-GO-GO!

Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. BACK ISSUE magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPER-FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!” CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, SpiderMan), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), and many more!

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GEORGE KHOURY's “love letter” to comics of 1976-1986, covering all the top artists, the coolest stories, and even the best ads!

Biography of the Superman artist who co-created Supergirl, Brainiac, and the Legion of Super-Heroes!

Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, and explore the Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream!

(288-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0

(240-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-063-2

(112-page trade paperback) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-066-3

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-064-9

SUBSCRIPTIONS ECONOMY US Alter Ego (Six 100-page issues) $65.00 Back Issue (Eight 80-page issues) $73.00 BrickJournal (Six 80-page issues) $55.00 Comic Book Creator (Four 80-page issues) $40.00 Jack Kirby Collector (Four 100-page issues) $45.00

LAST SUPERMAN STANDING

EXPEDITED US $83.00 $88.00 $66.00 $50.00 $58.00

PREMIUM US $92.00 $97.00 $73.00 $54.00 $61.00

INTERNATIONAL $102.00 $116.00 $87.00 $60.00 $67.00

DIGITAL ONLY $29.70 $31.60 $23.70 $15.80 $19.80

PRINTED IN CHINA

2017 RATES

MLJ COMPANION

Documents the complete history of Archie Comics’ “Mighty Crusaders” super-hero characters, from the 1940s to today!