STAR WARS MEMORIES 5

In the spring of 1977, Marvel Comics secured the rights to produce a six-issue comic book adaptation of STAR WARS. Roy Thomas was the writer and Howard Chaykin was the artist. George Lucas himself had granted his approval for Marvel to get the rights to produce the comics and the story has it that Lucas also lobbied for the team of Thomas and Chaykin.

Given the months-in-advance production schedule, a full three issues of the comic book had been produced and published before the film opened. Which means that I, of course, had purchased and read those three issues and knew half of the story before I saw the film. I know, I know I should have waited (I did wait to read the novelization) but Roy Thomas is one of my favorite comic book writers and Howard Chaykin is one of my favorite comic book artists and I just couldn't resist the urge. The hype was just starting to build about this film and I wanted to be in on the ground floor.

Those first six Marvel STAR WARS comics have since been reprinted and repackaged several times over and published by both Marvel and Dark Horse (the current license holder for STAR WARS comics). It's a fairly faithful adaptation that was produced using a shooting script (not the final cut of the film) and publicity photos for reference. As such, there are a few little things here and there that appear in the comic which did not make it into the final cut of the film.

I don't have those original six issues any more but I do have one of those immense Treasury Edition reprints around here somewhere.