Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

And Chewie meets Luke SkyWalken

Ben‘s like a Samurai here isn’t he? And is Luke being played by Christopher Walken, now? («previously it was Patrick Mower) This comic has a veritable cast of thousands.

Howard Chaykin’s slightly more exciting, but less funny treatment – Marvel 1977

Artwork Notes

Seems to me that this 10 year old was looking forward to picking up that RED marker more than anything! My mum and my big sister were disturbed by some of the demonic looking heavy metal ‘artwork’ I was doing as a teenager, a few years later in secondary school. I do remember that. But, wasn’t I ever afraid that they’d see this stuff, at the time? From the hands of a 10 year old?

Once, when I was about 9 or 10, I was sat in my Granny and Grandad White’s house in Liverpool, and I carefully drew a big picture of Adolf Hitler in my sketch pad. He filled the page, in a full-length standing pose! Next – perhaps to impress my dear ol’ grandad Jacko (who was actually a World War One veteran) – I took great pleasure in absolutely drilling Adolf with machine-gun bullets. Blood, bits of flesh etc., flying out of him. Terrific fun. Very satisfying.

I wonder if granny Rosie was worried? And I wonder if Grandad was traumatised? he never wanted to speak about the war!

But here I am. All grown up and perfectly normal…

“HAI!”
“AAAAIEEEEEE”
FORP

– Star Wars age 9, Master John White, Jr.

Check out the barely scribbled-in permanent black marker background around Ben and the blood dripping off his saber! Yep, running along it in rivulets, dripping – no, pouring, and creating a lake of gore all over the Cantina floor. I loved Star wars more than anything but I must have felt there’s always room for improvement! Sweet boy.

Film Notes (more gore)

It was shocking in the ’70s

Speaking of gore and extreme violence, people have commented on how Walrus Man (Ponda Baba) bled a lot when Ben sliced off his arm,“Don’t lightsaber wounds instantly cauterize?” they plead. Later, I suppose George could script and approve lightsaber decapitations and de-limbulations and not disturb the kids with any blood. But wait a minute… in theSpecial Editions, when our heroes burst into the Control Room and shoot the Imperial officers, George has toned down the blaster impacts to their chests because it was too shocking and violent. So, we keep the chopped-off bloody arm, but remove the smoking laser blast to the chest. Hmmm. You know, when you kill someone, it’s really not nice, no matter how you try to sanitise it.

So, Chewie meets Luke SkyWalken!

Poor fellow – he must be terrified. And Walken looks scared too! It’s funny you know, I’ve just remembered that Walken auditioned to play Han Solo in Star Wars.

And guess what? Kevin Spacey, did a wonderful recreation of it for Saturday Night Live:

Spacey/Walken, auditions for Star Wars as Han Solo

It seems heretical to say this – but I bet he would have been good. If a bit creepy. And Kurt Russell would have been.. well, who knows. It could have worked. Thankfully we never found out in either case.

Incidentally, do a search for the spoof SNL audition by aRichard Dreyfus impersontor, for the part of C-3PO. It’s even better!