Pizzazz #9 - June 1978

Shaun Cassidy is the mug on the cover for this issue but there's no article on him, just a series of photographs. There is however, an article on the mechanical shark of the upcoming Jaws 2 which was pretty sweet. I like that movie. Not a patch on the original of course, but as far as sequels go it's not bad at all.

On to the Star Wars strip, and I've not really any clue as to what's going on story wise having not read the previous installments. Luke, Leia and the droids seem to be escaping from some high tech planet with the aid of 'the keeper'. I'm looking forward to getting all issues of this magazine and putting the strips into chronological order to make sense of them.   

Pizzazz #5 - February 1978

Now isn't that just the coolest cover ever? Linda Rondstadt backed by Dr. Strange on lead guitar with Captain America on bass and C-3PO on drums. Linda Rondstadt was the cover story for this issue and boy was she hot stuff in the '70s. Widely regarded one of the top stars of the decade, she was regularly alluded to as 'The Queen of Rock' with sell-out shows and chart topping albums. This year she is seventy. Just let that sink in for a while.

No teen mag is complete without an 'agony aunt' column and some of the old ones can be pretty hilarious. In Pizzazz's case it's 'Write Wendy' who, when contacted by a kid who's two-timing a pair of girls actually tells him its the perfect set up and not to get caught! I have a feeling 'Wendy' isn't taking her duties all that seriously here. I also have a feeling this agony 'aunt' is actually and agony uncle.









Anyway, on to the Star Wars strip. Luke and Leia have found some sort of Mayan style temple and the Empire is hot on their heels. In true Scooby-Doo fashion, Threepio inadvertently gets them out of the scrape.

A few choice advertisements here, including one for Peter Pan book and records for such decade stalwarts as Kojak and the Six Million Dollar Man. Also a nifty CB set for kids (the late '70s was when this was a massive craze) and a 'logic' computer game form MB which, although wonderfully retro, would likely have bored me to tears.

Homage to Original Marvel Cover Art

Entertainment Weekly recently posted an exclusive image of some artwork by Alex Ross done as an homage to Howard Chaykin's original cover for the Marvel Star Wars comic book. This celebrates the return of the franchise to Marvel after several decades with Dark Horse. This just looks awesome...

Pizzazz Magazine #14 - November, 1978

Straight to the Star Wars strip and I have to say I love the pink fur trim on the Imperial Officer's uniform. As per usual for this period, Luke Skywalker looks a lot like He-Man.

It was a pleasant surprise to see a pic of those Topps Star Wars cards featured in this 'Consumer Guide to Gums'.   

This is a nice feature, putting our Alderaanian princess up there with Barbarella and the incredibly hot Maya from Space: 1999. 

Marvel #1-6

Well, I finally tracked down the original 6 issues of Marvel's Star Wars comic for bearable prices. Issues #1 - #6 was the adaptation of the movie and began in April 1977 (Marvel cover dates at this time were generally 3 months ahead explaining the 'July' on #1). There's some pretty crazy/loosely inspired cover art on show here. My favorite is #5 where the Death Star is attacking what is presumably Yavin IV and is depicted as a hovering ball thing emitting laser blasts as if it is no bigger than your average flying saucer.

I won't go through the whole plot here as I assume most of you reading this are familiar with this particular story arc (wink) but as the adaptation was based on the original script rather than the movie itself there are the occasional interesting inconsistencies which are worth taking a look at.

The major difference is the inclusion of the 'Biggs Darklighter' scene on Tatooine which was cut from the movie.

The second 'deleted' scene is, of course, the one with Jabba the Hutt. Here he is portrayed as some sort of yellowish walrus humanoid with long whiskers. I have no idea why he looks like this in the comic. In the novelization he is vaguely described as an overweight, hairy being (possibly human) and in the scene that was filmed he was portrayed by Declan Mulholland as a clearly human character in a furry costume. This Marvel version of the character turns up later in the series too.

Biggs turns up again in issue 5 for his second deleted scene; the one that was actually put back in the movie in 1997. An interesting line that didn't get put back in (or even filmed for all I know) is 'Red Leader''s mentioning that he knew Luke's father and what a hot-shot pilot he was back in the day.














The artwork gets a bit on the psychedelic side in some panels and the death of Ben is surprisingly shocking.

"By the immortal gods of the Sith!" - I wonder if that line was in the script before being replaced with the somewhat simpler "What!?"

The comic even gives its own explanation of why Chewie never got a medal. He was too tall! And of course, the adventures of the 'Star Warriors' continued in issue 7 and beyond...

One cool thing about the early comics is the letters pages. As the comic was released before the movie a lot readers hadn't seen it yet and there is a lot of speculation and hype about the movie's release. Also, many comparisons are made here between the comic and the novelization which readers seem to know inside out. Man, were people ready to see this movie!  

The Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of Star Wars

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.