Photo covers on comics became prominent during the golden era of Western comics in the late 1940s to around 1960. These comics featured popular Western actors like Tom Mix, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Using a photo instead of commissioning art for the cover saved the publisher time and money and allowed readers to better connect the content with a favorite personality. After Western comics fell out of favor, Dell Comics, and later Gold Key, continued to heavily use photo covers for a variety of their television and movie tie-in titles. The 2 most prominent publishers since the late 1960s, Marvel and DC Comics, used photo covers sparingly. In the modern era, photo covers are mostly used as a variant for a comic and there are ample examples for Star Wars comics featuring photo covers from both Dark Horse and Marvel Comics. Interestingly, Dark Horse used photo covers for their Star Wars Tales anthology title and only these covers were distributed to newsstands, not the art covers.
During Marvel's original run, no American Star Wars comic featured a photo cover. British readers however were treated to 8 comics that used photos as the standard cover in the Star Wars Weekly 117 issue run.
Star Wars Weekly #50a - Marvel Comics, England (January 17, 1979)Star Wars Weekly #51a - Marvel Comics, England (January 24, 1979)Star Wars Weekly #52a - Marvel Comics, England (January 31, 1979)Star Wars Weekly #57a - Marvel Comics, England (March 28, 1979)Star Wars Weekly #58a - Marvel Comics, England (April 4, 1979)Star Wars Weekly #100a - Marvel Comics, England (January 23, 1980)Star Wars Weekly #101a - Marvel Comics, England (January 30, 1980)Star Wars Weekly #102a - Marvel Comics, England (February 6, 1980)
Today, with the movies and other media instantly accessible, these photo covers would be no big deal. But when these comics were published, I imagine they were a welcome addition by British readers. For me, these covers add to the joy of collecting the Star Wars Weekly title.
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