Star Wars: The Force Awakens Graphic Novel Adaptation

Star Wars is not the first licensed property to have multiple comic publishers at the same time in the United States.  The first time I remember seeing multiple publishers was for the Terminator franchise.  NOW Comics was the first publisher of Terminator comics from 1988 - 1990.  When NOW Comics went bankrupt, Dark Horse held the license from 1990 - 1992 and released several mini-series and a one-shot.  Perhaps due to the first and second film in the franchise being produced by different studios, Marvel was granted the license for the Terminator 2: Judgement Day movie and released a 3-issue mini-series in September and October 1991.

The next time I remember seeing multiple publishers was for the Star Trek franchise.  DC published Star Trek from 1984 to 1996.  In addition to publishing adventures for the original crew, they also published comics for The Next Generation.  Deep Space Nine debuted on television in 1993 and the publishing rights for this spin-off was picked up by Malibu.  DC and Malibu did collaborate on a cross-over story between The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine before the license for all Star Trek series went to Marvel and their Paramount imprint in 1996.

The most recent franchise to have multiple publishers is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Dark Horse began publishing Buffy comics in 1998 and even published a comic based on the spin-off series Angel.  Dark Horse gave up the rights to Angel and in 2005 IDW began publishing Angel mini-series and one-shots while Dark Horse was publishing Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics.  In 2011 Dark Horse again received the license for Angel.

Unlike these other licensing deals, it looks like Marvel, IDW, and Joe Books are not confined to any particular era.  Instead, the separation is based on the type of stories told with the Marvel titles aimed at older audiences while IDW is catering to an all-age reader.  Joe Books so far has just published fumetti style books in their Cinestory format.

IDW published a graphic novel adaptation of The Force Awakens in August 2017 which was originally published internationally.  The IDW version has a different cover than those published overseas.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Graphic Novel Adaptation a - IDW Publishing, U.S. (August 2017)

This is the first single adaptation of these international adaptations in the United States.  The first six adaptations which were published individually overseas were collected into the Disney-Lucasfilm Press hardcover books Star Wars: The Original Trilogy - A Graphic Novel and Star Wars: The Prequel Trilogy - A Graphic Novel.  It isn't clear if Disney-Lucasfilm Press will publish a hardcover collection of the sequel trilogy adaptation when it completes in 2019 or if IDW is now the sole publisher of the all-age material.  IDW is publishing the all-age Rogue One adaptation which is due to be released in December.