Topps Stickers: Series 1

Well, it's been over a year since I blogged last - apologies to anybody keeping tabs on this site. Life has been hectic with kids, work etc (usual excuses). I have a little more time now and have a few posts lined up so I'll kick off with the first of Topps's sticker sets. Each wax-sealed pack of trading cards contained a sticker and there were eleven stickers for each series.

Series 1 was more or less a collection of character mugshots against a starry backdrop with the occasional spaceship. You can see in the photo above that some of the backgrounds are white. This means, unfortunately, that I have lost the background/border as it has peeled off which is a shame. I may try to get replacements for these cards.

Starlog #19 - February 1979

Starlog really is one of my favorite magazines from this era. It's not just the Star Wars stuff, but this issue alone spotlights a ton of other stuff I like such as Battlestar Galactica, Roger Corman and Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings animation. Not many magazines are such a joy to read from cover to cover.

This cover really has gone down in history as it's one of the few pieces of memorabilia connected to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. The dreaded show went out a month previous to this and the article doesn't give much away regarding public reception. It's really more of a set of stills with captions rather than an in depth look at the making of the show and other than a vague reference to 'creative differences', it doesn't say much about what must have been a fascinating production.

 

 

Also, a cool ad for Reel Images; a forerunner to home video. I like the art deco look on Vader.

 

Topps Trading Cards: Series 4

Here's the fourth series with the green borders. 1 more to go!

The puzzle of Han and Chewie is surprisingly tall and pretty hard to put together.  

We have 'movie facts' now instead of official descriptions and I like the one showing Lucas's influences like Flash Gordon and John Carter of Mars. I have to feel like they were groping a bit for new images to use on the card fronts. 'Luke's secret yen for action' made me laugh. Also cool; 'The Empire Strikes Back' way before there was a movie by that name. 

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...

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley

The second of Daley's Han Solo trilogy, this was published on Oct. 12 1979. This is the hardcover book club edition from that year.

Again, there is no Empire as the villains and the lack of Stormtroopers and TIE Fighters makes it all seem a bit 'un-Star Wars'. It opens with Han and Chewie hiding out on the planet Kamar and working some sort of sideshow racket; showing 'holodocumentaries' to the primitive natives. When that business venture goes awry they take on a job for a shady employer to ship an unknown cargo. That cargo turns out to be slaves and, not wanting any part of that, our heroes find themselves in a sticky situation as the slavers try to take command of the Falcon.  

Intervention on the parts of the Falcon's resident droids Blue Max and Bollux (yes, you read that right) enable Han and Chewie to defeat the slavers and make for the Planet Bonadan where their treacherous employers intended to meet their contact for payment. Han is up for revenge as the title suggests and along the way he gets caught up with a Corporate Sector Authority agent called Fiolla who is trying to break the slaving ring and Chewie has his paws full with a rodent-like debt collector trying to repossess the Falcon.

I'm continued to be surprised by the contributions Daley made to the Star Wars EU. In the previous novel I found out that Daley gave us Z95-Headhunters, vibroblades and Holocubes. In Han Solo's Revenge there is a thrilling 'swoop bike' chase. Different from the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi, swoop bikes are more souped up and are essentially an engine with a seat. They crop up all over the place in the EU and off the top of my head I can remember a similar chase in Shadows of the Empire.

Man x-rays a mail-away Kenner figure

I thought this was a pretty cool story. A collector in England had one of those mail-away Kenner figures from the '80s which he bought for about £5. But it had never been opened. These figures were claimed by sending off the tokens from the cardbacks and were delivered in plain white cardbord boxes so it was impossible to know which figure was inside. Hoping that it may have been a rocket-firing Boba Fett (I don't think any of those were actually dispatched, but anyway...) the collector had the box x-rayed by Nottingham University which also produced a 3D scan of the figure. It turned out to be Emperor Palpatine but nevermind. Personally I just think it's cool to see an x-ray of a Kenner figure!


   

Topps Bubblegum

Aside from the trading cards and bubblegum packs Topps did in the late seventies, they also sold single bubblegum sticks wrapped in foil with a paper wraparound displaying four different characters. They supposedly enclosed a 'movie poster pin up' although I've never seen what one looks like and they must be minuscule 'posters'. It feels a little weird collecting 36 year old bubblegum, but they look pretty cool in the display cabinet.