Star Wars (comic strip)

A Star Wars comic strip ran in both daily strips and Sunday strips, originally distributed between 1979 and 1984 by two American newspaper publishers, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and Watertown Daily Times.

Star Wars
Publication information
Format	Newspaper
Genre	Science fiction Space opera
Creative team
Written by	Russ Manning (1979) Steve Gerber (1979) Don R. Christensen (1980) Archie Goodwin (as Russ Helm) (1979–1980) Archie Goodwin (1980–1984)
Artist(s)	Russ Manning (1979–1980) Alfredo Alcala (1980–1981) Rick Hoberg (1980) Dave Stevens (1980) Al Williamson (1981–1984) assisting drawers: Alden McWilliams (1981–1982) Carlos Garzon (1981–1982)
Editor(s)	Dean Mullaney

In 1991, Russ Cochran published a 2500-copy limited run of a three-volume hardcover boxset of all of Goodwin and Williamson's Star Wars comic strips from between 1981 and 1984. From 1992 to 1994, Dark Horse Comics collected colorized compilations of the newspaper strip in its Classic Star Wars series. Between 2017 and 2018, The Library of American Comics published a three-volume reprint series of the complete comic strip.

Overview

A black-and-white newspaper comic strip spun off from Star Wars began in 1979. The daily strips and the Sunday strips originally told separate stories, but after six months the first writer and artist of the strip, Russ Manning, was replaced as writer, reportedly because newspapers wanted a story that was "more like a comic book".[1] The strip merged the two different storylines into one continuity.[2] Manning died due to cancer in 1981[3] and a new artist, Alfredo Alcala replaced him for a brief run. Next, the strip was taken over by writer Archie Goodwin and artist Al Williamson, who had both worked on Marvel Comics' self-titled Star Wars series, continued until the end of the strip in 1984.[4] The strip has 26 storylines in total.[5] The Sunday page also included a topper strip called Star Wars Scrapbook. This strip was written by Archie Goodwin, and ran from May 24 to December 27, 1981.[5]

Story arcs

Sharlee

(Sunday, March 11 - July 8, 1979)

Black Hole

(daily, March 12 - Sept 9, 1979)

Planet of the Wookiees

(Sunday, July 15 - Sept 3, 1979)

Tatooine Sojourn

(Sept 10 - Nov 5, 1979)

Princess Leia, Imperial Servant

(Nov 6 - Dec 31, 1979)

The Second Kessel Run

(Jan 1 - Feb 25, 1980)

Bring Me the Children

(Feb 26 - April 21, 1980)

As Long As We Live

(April 22 - June 16, 1980)

Planet of Kadril

(Aug 11 - Oct 5, 1980)

Han Solo at Stars' End

(Oct 6, 1980 - Feb 8, 1981)

The Bounty Hunter of Ord Mantell

(Feb 9 - April 19, 1981)

While the Rebel Alliance is still stationed on Yavin 4, Luke and Leia are scouting a planet as a potential new base. After an Imperial scout walker destroys their ship, Han and Chewbacca arrive in the Millennium Falcon just in time to save them. While evading Imperials escaping the planet, the Falcon has to perform a taxing maneuver, forcing them to land for repairs on Ord Mantell. There, Leia is captured by bounty hunter Skorr. Luke goes to help her, but is overpowered. Skorr's men use the Rebels as leverage to force Han to surrender himself.[lower-alpha 1] Han arrives in a skyhopper, plausibly to exchange himself for his friends, keeping the Falcon running to make it appear that Chewie will come save him. Chewie arrives, but in a cargo flyer, using its tractor beam to rescue the Rebel trio. Skorr uses a homing beacon to track the Rebels, but by the time they realize this, an Imperial fleet has closed in on them. The Rebels plant the homing beacon on an escape pod and send it towards the Imperials, leading Skorr to be captured, and the Falcon free to return to Yavin 4.

Darth Vader Strikes

(April 20 - July 26, 1981)

Acting on a tip from an apparently sympathetic Imperial officer, Luke goes undercover as a droid mechanic on Darth Vader's new construction project, the Super Star Destroyer Executor. The officer arranges for a group of saboteurs to meet underground, where Vader plans to capture the Rebel spy. R2-D2 releases steam to cover Luke's escape on a supply barge, accompanied by the droids and a new friend, Tanith Shire.

The Serpent Masters

(July 27 - Nov 1, 1981)

Shire reveals that she has stolen several such barges by sending them crashing to the planet they are headed for. On the surface, the flying-serpent-riding scavengers of the cargo take Tanith and Luke into their crater as slaves. Luke and the droids realize the serpent masters are using a high-pitched noise to control the beasts, and R2-D2 emits this so Luke can ride one of the dragons and battle the supreme leader. This results in the defeat of the tyrants, and the slaves are freed.

Deadly Reunion

(Nov 2, 1981 - Jan 1, 1982)

Luke and Tanith depart in a short-range vessel, and decide to head to a nearby planet to rendezvous with Leia, who is due to be picked up in the Falcon. Just then, the Empire arrives in the system, forcing a mass evacuation, which includes Tanith. Han arrives to rescue Luke and Leia, but a chase from TIE bombers leads them to follow a mysterious signal into a gravity well around a collapsing dwarf star. Han and Luke manage to procure access to bomb charges from the estranged Imperial scientist that he used to initiate the star's collapse. Using it to boost the Falcon into hyperdrive, the Rebels manage to escape without being vaporized.

Traitor's Gambit

(Jan 2 - March 7, 1982)

Yavin 4 is under Imperial attack, so Leia recommends Han take them to a water world where she has a contact interested in joining the Rebellion. Upon their arrival, Han voices his distrust in the contact, Silver Fyre, whom he knows to be a distrustful pirate. Fyre's second in command, Kraaken, overhears Han and Luke discussing intel they gathered about the Executor's potential weaknesses and stored in the droids. During a hunt, Luke is stunned, leaving him prey to a sea monster, but Chewbacca and Han save him. They realize Kraaken arranged the scenario so he could retrieve the data from the droids, but Leia catches the traitor.

The Night Beast

(March 8 - May 16, 1982)

The Rebels return to Yavin with Fyre's forces as reinforcements. A TIE bomber crash awakens a dormant monster in the Massassi ruins. Luke investigates its origin, discovering the temple's original inhabitants left the creature in a stasis chamber to protect their planet when they were forced to leave the galaxy during an ancient war. Luke suspects the creature may be Force-sensitive and eventually succeeds in calming it long enough to lead it onto a transport ship programmed to follow its masters across the stars.

The Return of Ben Kenobi

(May 17 - July 25, 1982)

Luke goes to investigate a Rebel weapons smuggler's report that Ben Kenobi is among the living. This turns out to be an imposter hired by Vader to lure Luke into a trap. However, the actor sympathizes with Luke and foils the dark lord's plot, allowing Skywalker to escape.

The Power Gem

(July 26 - Oct 3, 1982)

Han and Chewie investigate the possibility of retrieving an ancient power gem to penetrate the Executor's magnetic shields. Chewie is required to take part in an arena fight to win the gem. Han instructs Chewie to provoke an unscheduled fight with the champion on the training grounds, while he steals the gem, which he reveals to his captors to be diminishing in power. Han and Chewie are thus allowed to escape.

Iceworld

(Oct 4 - Nov 13, 1982)

Luke and C-3PO evade a group of TIE fighters by hiding their ship in the slipstream of a comet's tail, but are unable to pull free before crashing into an ice planet. A woman riding a tauntaun finds them. Her father, a former Imperial governor, thinks it best to eliminate any possible leaks as to their location, but Luke defends himself. Luke and the woman go to salvage the communicator from his ship, but the governor attacks them; both he and his daughter are apparently killed, but they are revealed to be robotic replicants of their human counterparts.

Admiral Ackbar

(Nov 14, 1982 - Jan 23, 1983)

Leia and Han pick up Luke on Hoth. They plan to meet with Mon Calamari's leaders, newly sympathetic to the Rebellion, for support in relocating their base, but they find only wreckage at the rendezvous point. They are able to learn that Admiral Ackbar and his men took escape pods to a nearby planet, where Imperials are also searching for them. Upon their landing, giant worms drag the Falcon to the bottom of a lake. Han and Luke battle the Imperials, and when they return to the others, Ackbar positions them by the lake so the giant worms will abandon the Falcon for the Imperial ships. This allows the heroes to escape the planet.

Doom Mission

(Jan 24 - April 17, 1983)

The Falcon jumps to a debris field which was recently the site of a battle between the Rebels and the Executor. Luke notices a Rebel scout ship jump to hyperspace. When they return to Yavin, Dodonna's son, Vrad, returns in the ship Luke saw, allegedly after taking damage while battling the Executor. Luke and Vrad both volunteer to put the power gem to use against the Executor. This worries Luke, who confronts Vrad about his suspicions that he avoided the battle and faked the damage to his ship. Vrad lands the fighter on a planet where he intends to abandon Luke and flee both the Rebellion and Empire, but Vader senses Luke and turns the Executor towards them. Vrad departs, and Han reveals that he followed Luke in the Falcon in case anything happened. Vrad then attacks Vader's flagship, but is destroyed against its shields. This allows the Falcon to get in a shot which helps slow Vader's ship so the Rebels can evacuate Yavin. Dodonna promotes Luke to commander, and stay behind on the planet to bomb the attacking Imperials, sacrificing himself in the process.

Race for Survival

(April 18 - July 10, 1983)

The Imperials surmise that the Rebels will escape through a weak point in their blockade, and set a trap for them. Luke scouts ahead, sees the waiting Imperials, and warns the others, but his ship is destroyed in the process. Han scouts an alternate path which seems hopeless because it passes through the stellar flares of an unstable star; he rescues Luke and they learn that Leia is leading the fleeting into the alternate path. He uses the Force to sense when the stellar flares are coming, but this clues Vader into his location. However, an admiral accidentally pilots three Star Destroyers directly into the Executor's shields, allowing the Rebel fleet to escape. They go through hyperspace to Hoth, but the Falcon's navigational systems are damaged from the stellar flares and Han is forced to land on a nearby planet to make repairs.

The Paradise Detour

(July 11 - Oct 2, 1983)

The surface of the planet is tropical, and Luke follows the voice of a woman whom he believes to be Tanith Shire. He rescues her from a monstrous plant before realizing that she is another woman altogether. He encounters several more illusions and realizes that the woman is actually an ancient witch. Luke lets her drain her energy by making various attacks. The Falcon then rejoins the Rebels on Hoth.

A New Beginning

(Oct 3 - Dec 25, 1983)

The Falcon's arrival alerts a mysterious ship; Han and Luke are sent to investigate. The ship captures the Falcon in a tractor beam, and is revealed to be manned by pirates, led by Han's acquaintance Raskar, hoping to collect Jabba the Hutt's bounty on Han. Luke suggests that Han pretend he still has the reward money from Leia, but Raskar believes he has it stored on Hoth. Han pilots them down in the Falcon and crash-lands in a ravine. Luke then says the treasure is hidden in a cavern in front of them, in which they discover lumni-spice, a naturally occurring treasure which Raskar is convinced is the collateral they were looking for. A dragon-slug attacks them, but Luke is able to slay it with his lightsaber. Happy to have the valuable spice, Raskar helps Han get the Falcon out of the ravine. However, bounty hunters, including Dengar,[lower-alpha 2] Bossk, and Skorr, are waiting aboard Raskar's ship, all working for Boba Fett to collect Jabba's bounty on Han.

Showdown

(Dec 26, 1983 - Feb 5, 1984)

The bounty hunters take the pirates' ship, with Luke and Han aboard, to Ord Mantell to meet Fett,[lower-alpha 1] and find Vader there, discussing plans with Fett. The latter suggests that he capture Han and use him to lure Luke to Vader before he collects Jabba's bounty on Han. The bounty hunters let the pirates go, but lock them in their hold. Skorr allows Han and Luke to break free, wishing to kill them in order to get his revenge, but Han is able to defeat him.

The Final Trap

(Feb 6 - March 11, 1984)

The Star Warriors return to Hoth, but discover that C-3PO and R2-D2 are in distress. They arrive on Verdanth to find the droids being attacked by an Imperial probe droid; Vader, alerted to this activity, uses a cybernetic Force-empowered device to attack Luke through the probe droid. Han blasts it, and Vader orders more probes to find his Rebel prey.

Collections

In 1991, Russ Cochran published a 2500-copy limited run of a three-volume hardcover boxset of all of Goodwin and Williamson's Star Wars comic strips from 1981 to 1984,[10] signed by both creators, and featuring new cover illustrations by the latter.[11][lower-alpha 3]

Comics from this series were collected twice by Dark Horse Comics. The first collection was released in 1992 with the title Classic Star Wars. It collected the later years of the strip done by Goodwin and Williamson, excluding the Sunday strips, and it colored the black-and-white daily strips and rearranged them to fit the comic book format. In 1994, Manning's strip was released as Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures,[7] including both daily and Sunday comics, with the exception of two storylines. One of the excluded storylines was later collected in a one-shot comic book, exclusive to Kay-Bee Toys.[13]

In early 2017, a collection series by The Library of American Comics was announced. IDW Publishing President and COO Greg Goldstein stated that this collection would be the first fully complete version of the strip, including all strips in chronological order and with the title headers for all Sunday strips and bonus panels, material which usually had been discarded in the previous collections from other publishers.[14] These were released in three volumes as Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics. The first volume was released in conjunction with Star Wars' 40th anniversary in May 2017,[15] and the third entry was released in September 2018. That year, the first volume was nominated for an Eisner Award in the category "Best Archival Collection/Project - Strips".[16] In 2019, the third volume won the Eisner Award in the same category.[17] The hardcover volumes measure 11 inches × 8.5 inches, (280 mm × 216 mm), landscape orientation,[1] have sewn binding,[18] and come with dust jackets and sewn ribbon bookmarks.[19] Each volume contains approximately 600 strips.[20] The daily strips are reproduced in black-and-white in full original newspaper sizing, arranged three to a page; the full-page color Sunday strips have been recolored and are arranged one per page. All the strips have annotated first publication dates.[13][21] The collection presents the storylines in chronological order. Essays by Rich Handley and Henry G. Franke III are included.[22][23] The book series is published under license and in cooperation with Marvel and Lucasfilm.[1] Each volume had the MSRP set at $49.99 at release.[20]

Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics

Volume	Release date	Title	Period	Page count	ISBN
1	May 9, 2017	“Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics – Vol. 1”	1979–1980	260	978-1-63140-872-4
2	March 13, 2018	“Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics – Vol. 2”	1980–1982	295	978-1-68405-053-6
3	September 18, 2018	“Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics – Vol. 3”	1982–1984	272	978-1-68405-329-2

Legacy

Williamson's depiction of an Imperial scout walker in The Bounty Hunter of Ord Mantell was later reused in issues of Marvel's Star Wars (c. 1982) and the first story arc of Dark Horse's X-wing Rogue Squadron (c. 1995, drawn by Williamson's assistant Allen Nunis). It was later distinguished as an All Terrain Advance Raider, a variant of the All Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST).[24]

References

Footnotes

1. Han mentions such an encounter in The Empire Strikes Back.[6] Brian Daley also recounted an encounter between Han and bounty hunters on the planet in his 1983 audio drama, Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell.[7][8]
2. Referred to as "Zuckass"[9]
3. The first volume notably features a traditional AT-ST walker on its cover, while the original comic and later Dark Horse Comics trade paperback cover feature Williamson's unique interpretation.[11][12]

Citations

1. McCaw, Derek (April 19, 2017). "IDW Presents 'Star Wars The Classic Newspaper Comics'". FanboyPlanet.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
2. Trate, Robert (April 19, 2017). "Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics, Vol. 1 – Coming from IDW Publishing". Sci-FiMoviePage.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
3. Greenberger, Robert. "For Your Consideration: IDW's Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics". WestfieldComics.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
4. Kit, Borys (February 12, 2018). "First Look: 'Star Wars' Newspaper Strips Collected". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
5. Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 366. ISBN 9780472117567.
6. Baker, Chris (June 29, 2017). "Celebrating Star Wars #22". Marvel Entertainment. Retrieved July 6, 2020.
7. Hansen, John (September 23, 2013). "'Star Wars' flashback: 'Classic Star Wars' Issues 1–7 (Goodwin/Williamson newspaper strips, 1981-82) (Comic book reviews)". Cold Bananas Movie & TV Reviews. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
8. Hansen, John (March 26, 2015). "'Star Wars' flashback: 'Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell' (1983) (Audio drama review)". Cold Bananas Movie & TV Reviews. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
9. Rickard, Ron (December 27, 2017). "Star Wars Comic Collector: Classic Star Wars #20 (12 Days of Bounty Hunter Covers)". Star Wars Comic Collector. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
10. Goodwin, Archie (1994). Cooper, Bob (ed.). Classic Star Wars: Volume One – In Deadly Pursuit. Williamson, Al (1st ed.). Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics. pp. i, 192. ISBN 1-56971-017-1. OCLC 31326940.
11. "Star Wars Newspaper HC (1991 Russ Cochran) comic books". mycomicshop.com. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
12. Wise, Philip. "Jedi Journals Comics". Rebelscum.com. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
13. Greene, Jamie (February 9, 2018). "Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1". TheRoarbots.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
14. Joseph, Eric (April 19, 2017). "IDW Announces Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics, Vol. 1". WeGotThisCovered.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
15. Miller, Gordon S. (May 26, 2017). "Book Review: Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics, Vol. 1". CinemaSentries.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
16. https://www.newsarama.com/39672-2018-eisner-awards-nominations.html Retrieved 2019-09-05
17. Polo, Susana (July 20, 2019). "Here are all the Eisner-winning comics and creators of 2019". Polygon. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
18. VanderPloeg, Scott (December 20, 2018). "Review – Star Wars The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol 2". ComicBookDaily.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
19. VanderPloeg, Scott (June 12, 2017). "Review – Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics Vol 1". Comic Book Daily. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
20. Spry, Jeff (April 19, 2017). "IDW to release deluxe edition of vintage Star Wars newspaper strips". Syfy.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
21. Blackout, Ian (March 1, 2018). "Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 2 – Book Review". Set The Tape. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
22. Miller, Gordon S. (December 10, 2018). "Book Review: Star Wars: The Complete Classic Newspaper Comics, Vol. 3". CinemaSentries.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
23. Brittany, Michele (May 16, 2017). "Fanbase Press – 'Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Volume I' – Hardcover Book Review". FanbasePress.com. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
24. Luceno, James (2004). Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy. Chasemore, Richard., Jenssen, Hans (1st American ed.). New York: Lucas Books/DK. ISBN 0-7566-0307-2. OCLC 57652567.

External links

• Publisher website – IDW Publishing – The Library of American Comics – Star Wars
• The Library of American Comics' YouTube channel – Inside look: Star Wars, Vol. 1