Thursday, August 4, 2016

Retro Dark Horse

A Decade of Dark Horse #2

In 1996, Dark Horse celebrated it's 10th anniversary by publishing a 4-issue mini-series anthology titled A Decade of Dark Horse.  Each issue of the series features three or four short stories for properties that Dark Horse had published over it's first decade including: Sin City, Concrete, The Mask, Nexus, Grendel,Godzilla, Predator, Aliens, and Star Wars.  The original 10-page Star Wars story, named This Crumb For Hire, tells the tale of how Salacious Crumb came into the service of Jabba The Hutt.  Han Solo and Chewbacca deliver spice to Jabba the Hutt and his two henchmen, Bib Fortuna and Bidlo Kwerve, on Kwenn Station, and after a botched double-crossing by Jabba, the smugglers receive their pay and depart for the Corporate Sector.  While Bib and Bidlo are loading the cargo onto Jabba's transport ship, Salacious Crumb, a Kowakian Monkey-Lizard, is chased off the station into the transport and wanders into Jabba's chambers.  After scolding Bib and Bidlo for their part in the failed double-cross of Han, Jabba retires to his chambers to eat and is startled by Crumb who is in his bowl of gruel.  Jabba summons Bib and Bidlo who are humorously covered in Jabba's food by Crumb and Jabba decides to hire Salacious Crumb as long as he continues to amuse Jabba.

A Decade of Dark Horse #2a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (August 1996)
Han Solo and Chewbacca only appear for three pages in the story but are featured prominently on the front of the wrap around cover.  On the cover and in the pages, Han Solo is drawn to appear younger than he is in Star Wars and the Corporate Sector where they depart to is where the Han Solo books by Brian Daley take place.

Another interesting note is Jabba's majordomo at the time of the story is Naroon Cuthus and Bib is portrayed as just a hired thug.

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