Star Wars age 9 Comic Book

My other comic: Between * Wars!

Since making this site, I was inspired by my young self to create a new original grown-up comic. Please check it out and give it a ‘Share’? It’d mean lots to me.

The current issue: Jack excitedly brings his new army helmet to Jim’s house, but is in for a disappointment Read Strip >

between wars comic: the kids are playing Star Wars

So, what’s Between * Wars all about?

It’s based in the Seventies and crucially – for followers of SWa9 – it’s also in between World War II and Star Wars! It’s full of nostalgia and 70’s popular culture. So if you’re a child of the 70s you’ll get an extra kick out of it. But also, if you’re curious about what I’m doing now, four decades after my childhood Star Wars adaptation, an artist and writer – this is the one to watch. Thanks folks, I’ll hope to see you over there in the comments box or in the:

Facebook page and Twitter feed!

Art Notes: The first actual likeness!

Blimey! A character has been depicted and actually looks like him. I wonder how that happened? Every character has been the master of a thousand faces up to now. Ben must have been drawn from observation, from some photo or other. Perhaps from the photos in the novelisation?

Cracked!

Honestly though, would you really hand over a deadly weapon to a kid? And let him just flail it about in your house? I think it was Cracked Magazine (hilarious read) – or MAD that did a spoof of SW and in it, Ben activates the lightsaber when facing Ben and: Bzzzt! Straight through the old boy it goes! Kenobi just slaps on two giant Elastoplasts front and back and shrugs it off as if it’s a “mere scratch”.

SFTPaS-SFX – tm ©

The patented «Smudged marker and spit technique makes a return appearance: SFTPaS-SFX – tm ©. I’m lucky the Ptyalin enzyme didn’t break down the starch in the paper. Ben Burtt described how the lightsaber was an easily achieved effect – “a very simple animation technique”. It’s funny, I remember the backs of the bubble-gum cards with their ‘film facts’ describing how the prop they used when shooting was painted with a special paint that reflected daylight at a thousand times it’s original intensity. I «discussed this previously.

Film Notes

Alec Guinness was a great one for the uneasy – slightly shifty looking side-ways glance. He even does it in Star Wars. You can see a hint of it – no doubt it’s inadvertent – in that top panel. Great performance by Guinness though. In this scene he shifts about uneasily when Luke questions him. Those quick Sideways glances – even rocks back and forth like a naughty kid on the edge of his chair feet, swinging, who’s been sent to the principal’s office. Afraid to speak. And quite crafty too. Later when they find the burnt-out Sandcrawler you can tell that Guinness is playing it like someone who already knows what’s befallen Owen and Beru, as he draws Luke’s attention to what must be the work of Stormtroopers rather than Sand People. Just having re-watched the scenes – it seems almost callous. He’s manipulating the boy. This follows his earlier“You must do what you feel is right. Of course…” Did he know, even then, what they’d find in the desert?