As well as releasing the first 6 issues of the comic in 2 collections (plus a single collection of issues 1-6), Marvel also did this trade-paperback style anthology published by Del Rey in November 1977. It's much smaller than the comic books so the artwork is a little squashed in there and its all in black and white as you can see in the images below. It also included an intro by Stan Lee who manfully owns that he initially turned down the idea of a Star Wars comic thinking that the world didn't really need another 'ray-gun space opera', but quickly changed his mind upon seeing an early cut of the movie. Then there's Roy Thomas's preface where he details the difficult task of producing a comic book with only movie stills to go on and the frustration at seeing scenes such as the Biggs Darklighter one being cut from the movie.
The issues are called 'chapters' and include the cover image for each issue as well as a nifty bit of closing artwork for each chapter.
At the end of the book there's some neat pin-up art courtesy of Howard Chaykin and Ernie Chan.
Hi. Do you actually own that book? May I ask what the ISBN is? I'd like to try to hunt it down.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see the Chaykin art without distracting colors.
Yeah, the ISBN is; 0-345-27492-x.
ReplyDeleteI have that book somewhere. Wherever it is, I know it's sitting right on top of the World of Fire book of the same size.
ReplyDeleteI never liked the angry, macho Luke Skywalker in these comic book adaptations. Totally wrong!
ReplyDeleteWasp dudes! Amazing stuff continues the good work. Brooklyns Finest The Film Tips
ReplyDeleteHa! I remember buying this book from woolworths for 90p,almost 40yrs ago, after watching the original release of star wars this tiny book went everywhere with me until sum ome stole it, gotta try n find a copy again!
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