Italian Big Bang #3

Big Bang is a large format periodical published in Italy by Fabbri Editori in 1979.  This weekly comic collects American newspaper strips including Star Wars strips written and drawn by Russ Manning.  The series ran for only 13 issues and 3 of the covers feature Star Wars artwork.  The first of these covers is on Big Bang #3.

Big Bang #3a - Fabbri Editori, Italy (April 1979)

A common practice with newspapers was to publish a separate Sunday comic strip section.  These separate sections are in color and afford more room for comic strips than the newspaper's daily section devoted to strips.  A typical Sunday strip is a half to a third of a page in size and contains roughly two to three times the content of a daily strip which is usually only three or four panels long.  The daily strip is published in the newspaper from Monday through Saturday and the Sunday strip is published on Sunday.  At the time Big Bang was released, some newspapers did not carry the daily Star Wars strip but did publish a Sunday section so there were actually two different Star Wars stories by Russ Manning being published in American newspapers concurrently.  The daily newspaper strip story is Gambler's World and it was published from March 12, 1979 to September 8, 1979.  The Constancia Affair is the Sunday strip story which was published from March 11, 1979 to July 8, 1979.  The cover for Big Bang #3 is taken from a panel in the Sunday strip combined with the planet from another panel.

Star Wars Sunday Strip: The Constancia Affair - Los Angeles Times Syndicate, U.S.
(March 25, 1979)