Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,958 
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Post by Crimebuster on Oct 8, 2018 23:03:11 GMT -5
The first part of my probably endless discussion of Marvel's classic Star Wars series with Confessor is finally available for your listening... pleasure? |
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Post by brutalis on Oct 9, 2018 8:17:49 GMT -5
Entertaining Part 1 guys. 4 chapters must have been a lot to decipher and work through for each of you. I can't help but picture in my mind of Confessor stretched out on his sofa during this conversation wearing his green bunny slippers and Star Wars pajama's.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 13, 2018 20:46:06 GMT -5
I had heard Confessor sing, but hadn’t heard him talk!
Great job, gentlemen!!!
The interview brought a big childish smile to my face, as it brought me back to those happy years of the early Star Wars phenomenon... back when there was no “Episode IV” before the opening crawl! Back when Star Wars was still fresh and, shall we say, more innocent (when every character in the background didn’t have their own 1000-word Wikipedia article, to paraphrase Honest Trailers).
I can relate to Confessor’s plight, that of having the comic as the only source of Star Wars once the movie was off the screens and VHS wasn’t a thing yet! (In my case, the lifebuoy were the two Treasury Editions). There was also a storybook with plenty of stills from the film, including the opening scene with Biggs, but it wasn’t quite the same. (Big thumbs up to the novel, too, especially since my copy came with several of McQuarrie’s defining paintings).
It would have been a disaster had the film been adapted over two issues only. Logan’s run had lasted five, Star Wars six, and that allowed the stories to be told as stories, not as spark notes versions.
I share Confessor’s appraisal of Chaykin’s art on those issues... I never could understand how anyone could gush over those issues. (Ditto Howie’s art on Micronauts). Issue #6 looked better due to the tight inking, but we were light years away from the gorgeous look of Cody Starbuck, American Flagg or even Iron Wolf. He’s a very hard artist to ink in the first place, and while part of his pencils’ appeal comes from their loose nature, they can quickly get too loose, if you get my meaning.
Spot on comments on the storytelling and the pacing of the first six issues. Not having seen the movie, Howie naturally didn’t follow it... and as a comic, I think the story benefitted from it.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,958
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Post by Crimebuster on Oct 14, 2018 13:50:03 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197
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Post by Confessor on Oct 21, 2018 20:33:32 GMT -5
I just plucked up the courage to listen to this episode. Not bad....I almost sound coherent.  I really don't envy Crimebuster the task of editing down my rambling, non-linear musing on the series into something approaching an informed interview. Although he's done a sterling job, actually. |
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Post by MDG on Oct 22, 2018 10:13:49 GMT -5
I just plucked up the courage to listen to this episode. Not bad....I almost sound coherent. I really don't envy Crimebuster the task of editing down my rambling, non-linear musing on the series into something approaching an informed interview. Although he's done a sterling job, actually. I enjoyed it very much. Even though Start Wars isn't something I usually care about, The behind the scenes stuff is very interesting. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 2, 2018 13:23:59 GMT -5
I'll want to relive those heady days of enthusiasm as well though I was late to see the movie in theater and started with #24... it was a must get every month from there and made a regular comic spinner rack browser of me, then I got those 3 fer bags of reprints, plus some British Weeklies.
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Post by tarkintino on Nov 15, 2018 15:01:47 GMT -5
The interview brought a big childish smile to my face, as it brought me back to those happy years of the early Star Wars phenomenon... back when there was no “Episode IV” before the opening crawl! Back when Star Wars was still fresh and, shall we say, more innocent (when every character in the background didn’t have their own 1000-word Wikipedia article, to paraphrase Honest Trailers). Agreed; back then, there was only "Star Wars" and toward the end of 1977, various magazines were already talking about the possibility of what was only referred to as "Star Wars II." That's how new--fresh the film was. Even after the publication of the first spin-off novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (from March of 1978) and the early backstories printed in the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly tabloids--  --SW was still this new "thing" so filled with interesting possibilities left to our imaginations--it was not filled by a massive corporate machine hard selling you on "canon". It was a thrilling new voice in sci-fi, a voice that started to fade right around the period immediately after the release of Return of the Jedi, where by that time, SW was truly that aforementioned corporate machine. For me, it was a bit different; I had the comic, but it was not long before I bought as many of the flood of publications as I could afford, and even the 8mm home movie of the first film. It was edited to death in order to fit the format, but in a time before the widespread sale of home video players, it was great to see any part of the film. Someone on YouTube uploaded part of the 8mm film sold back that period-- I guess the needed length of an adaptation also depends on how clever the creative team is. For example, Gold Key's single issue Beneath the Planet of the Apes adaptation from 1970 effectively captured the essence of the film, and did not miss much. Of course, a film's complexity might demand more issues, but a one shot can work too. If there was one thing nearly every reader of Marvel's Star Wars could agree on, it was how terrible and unsuited Chaykin's work was for SW. I've read George Lucas had wanted Al Williamson to adapt his film, but I'm not certain if that's truth or legend. What is a fact is that Lucas wanted Williamson for the Star Wars daily strip early on (with the artist illustrating those legendary, unpublished two weeks or dailies), but it was not until adapting The Empire Strikes Back that Williamson would find himself fully involved with the strip. Anyone looking at his incomplete newspaper adaptation of the first film cannot help but wonder how much of a classic Marvel's monthly would have been in his hands, when he was at the height of his talent--  In any case, the adaptation was solid enough where story was concerned to get me past Chaykin, and ready for the regular series to come. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 17, 2018 20:45:46 GMT -5
I used to listen to the soundtrack vinyl LP (pretty sure it was actually my brother's) and remember parts of the movie while doing one of the Star Wars puzzles I had as much as look through the giant tabloid reprint of the Marvel comics #1-6 (just imagine Al Williamson at that size instead of Chaykin layouts finished by D. Hands). Chaykin should've been a perfect fit actually, if he'd had the time, and Carmine Infantino even inked by Gene Day wasn't the cutting edge of top quality either. There was that one Michael Golden issue though.
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