My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/gCsDjyN3oqU

Enjoy! ( )

Even though the comic adaptation of George Lucas’ Star Wars by Marvel contains a few factual flaws (Red Five, and what’s with Jabba the Hutt?) and the illustrated characters rarely look like Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, it was still quite delightful to revisit the space epic in comic book form. Most of the flaws I can write off as being due to them writing the story before the finalized film was released, but it was a bit weird to see so much exposition within the panels. Most modern comics rely on strong dialogue and visuals to get the story across to readers, but during this period Marvel writers seemed to add a lot of omniscient narrative in addition to these staples - not always necessarily in fact. The majority of the panels adequately depicted the story (with much of the artwork being surprisingly good for non-coloured or shaded work) and the dialogue was generally taken right out of the film, so a lot of their added content in the form of characters’ inner thoughts (which didn’t appear in the film obviously) or in a formalized narration came off as being slightly overkill and in some cases downright forced. All that aside, considering that comic adaptations of films or novels often aren’t successful (even now), Marvel made a pretty strong representation of the Star Wars story! ( )

LUCAS FILM
DIBUJO: HOWARD CHAYKIN ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3470690.html

in the days before home video, let alone DVDs, we were able to relive the cinema experience only by getting the comic book, by two Marvel luminaries, Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin.

Of course it's not a match for the big screen (or even small screen, these days), but it's a faithful and enjoyable adaptation with a couple of wrinkles - notably an early scene with Luke and his friend Biggs, which was cut from the film, survives here. ( )

This collected edition of Marvel Comics' adaptation of the original Star Wars, written by Roy Thomas with art by Howard Chaykin, served as one of the initial ways Lucasfilm sought to meet fans' demand for more Star Wars merchandise, appearing in print in November 1977, just six months after the film's release. Ballantine and Del Rey published it rather than Marvel itself and the book is significantly smaller than the original comic books it collects, making the type difficult to read at points. The paper is high quality, but, likely in an effort to cut costs, the images appear as the inked art prior to coloring. Though Chaykin's art is gorgeous, the reduction in size hinders the reader's ability to fully appreciate it. At this point, both Marvel and Dark Horse have published full-color (and full-size) collections of this initial comics adaptation, so this volume will appeal primarily to collectors rather than casual readers, but it still has its charms. Among them are Stan Lee's enthusiastic introduction from 1977 and Roy Thomas's account of the joy he had working with the film production team prior to the movie's completion, so that cut scenes ended up in the comic (like Luke and Biggs or Jabba the Hutt). ( )