Star Wars (1977) #26 and Star Wars Weekly #55

The British Star Wars Weekly started in February 1978 when the U.S. Star Wars title was only on issue #11.  Star Wars #8 has a cover date of February 1978 and I use the cover date, not the actual on-sale date, in the description of the comics in this blog because it is convenient.  But it was traditional for U.S. comics to date comics approximately 3 months in the future from the actual on-sale date so newsstands knew when to pull and return issues to the distributor.  With each British issue containing half a U.S. comic, it is not surprising that the weekly publication quickly used up the available U.S. content and needed new material.  The issues containing new material is widely known to Star Wars comic collectors, but what is also interesting is much of the content we attribute to being published in the U.S. first was actually published in England first.  An example of this is Star Wars #26 which has a cover date of August 1979, but was actually on-sale in May 1979.  The British Star Wars Weekly #55 started selling in March 1979, a full two months before the U.S. edition!

Star Wars #26a - Marvel Comics, U.S. (August 1979)

The Carmine Infantino drawn cover for Star Wars #26 shows Luke Skywalker standing over a badly damaged R2-D2.  In the background is a wrecked TIE Fighter and lurking nearby is the pilot that shot R2.  On the cover Luke is wearing his familiar Tatooine garb, but inside the issue he is wearing his X-Wing fighter uniform.  The location for this scene is one of Yavin's moons without a breathable atmosphere.  I can only guess Luke is drawn in his more familiar outfit because a helmeted Luke on the cover would have been unrecognizable.

Star Wars Weekly #55a - Marvel Comics, England (March 14, 1979)
contains first half of Star Wars #26

The cover for Star Wars Weekly #55 is almost identical to the U.S. cover.  The image is mirrored and the surface R2-D2 is lying on as well as the moon in the background have additional texturing and different coloring.  The pilot is still standing behind an stalagmite, but the protrusion has been cropped from the image.  The biggest difference between the two covers is Luke's head has been redrawn and his belt has been detailed.

Luke's head on the British cover is technically an improvement over the U.S. cover but it is not such a drastic change that I really understand why there was a need to redraw it but not fix other elements of the cover.  For example, R2-D2's proportions are off, with his body being almost as wide as he is tall and his legs are positioned way too high.  And the Imperial TIE pilot looks nothing like the movie counterpart.  I have a fondness for Star Wars #26, Infantino's quirky style and all, because it was the first issue that I started collecting the original Star Wars title.  For this reason, I prefer the U.S. cover.