The Dutch speaking population of the Netherlands (also informally known as Holland) had to wait until 1982 before they got their own Star Wars #1. Juniorpress published the Star Wars title which ran for 24 issues ending in 1984. The cover to the Dutch Star Wars #1 has the same art as the U.S. edition.
Star Wars #1a - Juniorpress, Netherlands (1982) Star Wars #1 Star Wars #2
Juniorpress continued publishing Dutch editions of Star Wars comics with the Star Wars Special and Star Wars Omnibus titles from 1984 through 1989.
The final numbers are not out yet, but Marvel Comic's Star Wars titles have taken 3 of the Top 10 spots for February 2015. Head on over to The Comics Chronicles to read more.
Charles Lippincott, Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising at The Star Wars Corporation during its formative years, was the person tasked with creating awareness for the first Star Wars movie before it was released. He is responsible for getting the deals made on the 1976 Star Wars book, the Star Wars appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con, and of course, the Marvel Star Wars comics. Recently, he had two fascinating Facebook posts that cover the history of how Marvel got the Star Wars comic license. Here are the two postings in there entirety:
Charles Lippincott's Facebook Posting 1 In the summer of 1975, I was working on the Universal lot for Alfred Hitchcock when I ran into George Lucas and Gary Kurz. They told me about their new project they were starting up at Fox, and asked me if I'd be interested in reading the script. "Sure," I said, I'd love to read it. And I loved it. I loved it so much I wanted to work with George and Gary on Star Wars. I met with George to talk about our ideas of marketing and merchandising the film. We both loved comics, science fiction and toys, so it was easy for us to come to a mutual understanding that we'd work together using comics and toys to promote the film.
I had other projects to tie up before I could begin working on Star Wars, so it was several months after our initial meeting that I finally started working. George and Gary had received a go-ahead from Laddie so they left to begin pre-production. I was left with free rein to market and promote Star Wars the way I deemed best.
From the very begining, it was my intention to market Star Wars using comics. The reason why is very simple - its the same audience. That's a no-brainer today, when Comic-Con is used to premier a lot of Hollywood product, but in 1976, films weren't marketed that way. Basically, films were conventionally marketed through ads in newspapers, radio and TV spots.
In the 70's, the best news stand in Los Angeles was World Books and News on Cahuenga. I went there regularly to buy comics, magazines and newspapers. I got to know one of the guys there, Larry (think he was one of the owners), who would look out for things which might interest me. World Books and News was one of the few places in LA you could get stuff like international magazines and underground comics. Larry saved Star Reach's first issue for me. The cover was by Jim Starlin but Chaykin had a 16 page Cody Starbuck's story. The moment I read it, I loved Cody Starbuck.
I don't think I showed George the Cody Starbucks at our initial meeting at the Black Tower on the Universal lot, but by the time George left to start pre-production in the UK, he agreed with me. We wanted Chaykin to do the comics. Cody Starbucks was a swashbuckling figure like you might have had in a Three Musketeers strip but very contemporary. Although he had a sword, Cody was drawn in such a way you knew he could also handle a gun or lightsaber. He was not stuck with a period look, which is what we needed for Star Wars. We had to have characters which were drawn in such a way they transcended time and space. They had to be characters which the readers would accept.
We also decided to go with Marvel, and not DC Comics. I had met Jeannete Kahn, who ran DC, but felt they were not on the cutting edge. This was because DC was as not as aggressive a company as Marvel. Marvel had come out with Conan and other characters which we felt were in line with what we wanted to do with a Star Wars comic series. DC had one guy there who was a great historian that I really liked, but as a whole, they were too staid a company. Roy Thomas had been the editor at Marvel and had done a terrific job expanding their character lineup by bringing in characters from pulp fiction, including the great Robert E. Howard's Conan, King Kull, and Solomon Kane. Marvel's aggressive expansion of characters was important because we needed to be with a company who was actively building a science fiction base.
That's the background of the decision to go with Chaykin and Marvel.
With George and Gary in the UK, I was busy copyrighting STAR WARS property and putting together the presentation for Fox's Board of Directors meeting to get more money into our revised production budget. This was the legendary Fox's Board of Director's meeting where Board members confused the title Star Wars with movie stars battling. I then did the presentation at Fox's Exhibitors' convention, the "26 for 76" meeting. A few days later, I went to New York and did the same presentation for Fox's New York offices. After that presentation to the New York office, Marc Pevers and I went to New York's International Toy Fair.
This was Feb. 1976.
I used the hotel's phone book and found Marvel's number. I tried calling Marvel cold to see if I could get a meeting with Stan Lee. I couldn't. No, Stan Lee didn't have any appointments free that day, the next day or even next week. So what was I going to do? How was I going to get in? Ah, Ed Summer, George's partner in Supersnipe. Ed had comic book connections, why not use them? Duh... So I called Ed to see if he could arrange a meeting with Roy Thomas, who had been the editor at Marvel previously. I knew Roy would knows the ins and outs of getting into Marvel.
Sure enough, Ed knew Roy and set up a meeting that evening. We went to Roy's house and I pitched him the star wars comic books. Roy loved it. Roy wanted to be involved! Great! I mean, Roy was a legend! It would be a phenomenal team -- Roy writing and Chaykind drawing. the two would do a great comic book. Roy then set up a meeting with Stan. See, what this proves is that there's more ways than one to get into a door. I mean, in LA it's legendary that writers try everything from throwing scripts over a producer's fence so it lands next to them sunbathing by the pool to getting to know an actor's hairdresser. I was going to use every possible connection to get an in to meeting Marvel.
The meeting. Stan Lee and Eddie Shukin, business manager for Marvel, were there as Roy pitched the project. I stepped in, telling them the number of comic books I wanted to do, when I wanted to have them out, and how I would promote the comicbooks. Besides the typical publicity route, I would arrange for us to get put on San Diego's 1976 Comic-Con's schedule, and even bring Roy and Howard out for a presentation. We would do a Chaykin poster that would be sold for a minimal fees to give the fans something they could take away with them until the comic book came out. While the idea of getting fans reved up and interested in Marvel's Star Wars Comics thrilled Stan and Shuykin, what excited them even more was they weren't going to have to spend a penny licensing the comics. We were giving them the rights free. And to top it off, we would not only give them the first 5 issues free, they wouldn't have to spend a nickle promoting it. We would foot the bill, from Comic-con to ads. This was an offer Marvel couldn't refuse.
At the time, I didn't know Marvel Comics was in financial trouble. It wouldn't have mattered, because Marvel and DC were still at the top of their game. We needed the comic books to get to our market, and both these companies had their distribution channels set up so we could reach our market. It was worth giving away stuff FREE to get a foothold into the market because we would be reacing our audience.
After my meeting with Stan and our coming to an agreement for the first 5 books being free, with payment on the 6th, Marc Pevers then took over the legal contracts.
Marc Pevers was Fox's representative and an attorney who negotiated licensing deal with me. I represented Star Wars. Marc, 20th Century. The two of us had gone to the Toy Fair to license Star Wars and after the Toy Fair, Marc had gone back to Los Angeles while I stayed trying to lock down the Marvel deal. There were people in Fox's marketing department who really thoght I was wasting my time staying in New York to meet with Marvel. They truly believed comic books were not worth the effort -- and thought I was nuts for giving away the rights. They could not see tie-in the between comic book audiences and Star War audiences, nor did they realize that by giving away the first 5 free, we'd have out market build for the 6th and beyond.
To conclude this section of the MARVEL STAR WARS CMICS, I'll conclude by saying that contrary to rumors, STAR WARS merchandising contracts weren't made with a handshake and $50. The Marvel licensing deal was hashed out by Marc Pevers and Marvel's attorneys, then signed by George. All details were negotiated, then finalized in print, with both parties signing the contracts.
Charles Lippincott's Facebook Posting 2 The great thing about this timeline is I have people letting me know what is out there.. This is from W.R. Miller -- a name you should remember because I think he'll write the most accurate book ever written on SW history... And the most comprehensive... The minutia details he asks are sometimes overwhelming grin emoticon :
"Hi Charles. Great overview of the Marvel Comics situation. For your records, here are some quotes you made that were reported by Variety, June 3, 1987: Lippincott: “Comic books at the time on movies were either one issue or two issues; I wanted five issues, two or three issues before the movie came out and the rest of them after the movie came out. I felt the story was strong enough to do a miniseries, which was unheard of at the time because nobody did miniseries. “I went into a meeting with Lee and others the next day. We talked out a deal. They told me it was not a great deal. They said science-fiction doesn’t work in comic books. On top of it, we aren’t going to give you any advance money. And we won’t give you any royalties on the first 100,000 copies. I said, ‘Fine, I’ll take the deal. But the royalties must be the following: from every copy after the first 100,000 copies and if we continue on after issue Six, that we get royalties right from the beginning. They said, ‘fine.’ “I went back with the comic book deal and told 20th Century-Fox. One, they didn’t care about comic books and two, they told me I was a real dummy.” Source: Charles Lippincott at Marketing panel at Star Wars 10th Anniversary Convention, 5:00 p.m., May 24, 1987. Documentation by Variety, June 3, 1987"
In the first Facebook posting, Steve Leialoha, the inker for Star Wars #2-5 and Star Wars Annual #1, is one of the responders with kind words for Charles Lippincott. In the second posting, David Herbert responds with postings of the original cover art for Star Wars #1 and the Treasury #1 from his collection.
Free Comic Book Day is an annual event that takes place the first Saturday in May. On that day, retailers distribute special comics provided by publishers for free to the public in the hopes of attracting new readers. The first Free Comic Book Day occurred on May 4, 2002, timed to take place the day after the first Spider-Man film was released. At the time, comic books were at a sales low point, and raising interest in the print medium was very important to both retailers and publishers. The Star Wars franchise was always a big seller for Dark Horse Comics, so their 2002 Free Comic Book Day offering was a Star Wars comic, Star Wars Tales - A Jedi's Weapon.
Star Wars Tales: A Jedi's Weapon (Free Comic Book Day 2002) Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (May 2002)
Star Wars Tales - A Jedi's Weapon contains a short story that is printed again a month later in Star Wars Tales #12. The cover for this Free Comic Book Day offering is also used as the photo cover for Star Wars Tales #12 (Star Wars Tales offered both art and photo covers for most of it's run.) In the story, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are diplomatic hosts to the king of Kashir, a world ready to join the Republic. Anakin loses his lightsaber and receives a lesson from Obi-Wan on the importance of trust.
Most Free Comic Book Day offerings provide a blank location for a stamp or sticker advertising the comic shop. While some shops used this area to advertise, it is common to find these Free Comic Book Day issues without any markings.
Sometimes when I acquire a foreign Star Wars comic, I am not always successful on finding out more information about the comic. This is one of those comics. I see it on some sites called TV Land Comics Deluxe #33, but I have not found any evidence TV Land Comics Deluxe is a title with more than this one issue despite the number 33 on the cover. On the copyright page it is titled, in English, the Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of the Empire Strikes Back. The rest of the comic is in Japanese.
TV Land Comics Deluxe: Marvel Comics Presents The Empire Strikes Back - Marvel Comics, Japan (1980)
This paperback measures 4 1/2" x 6 3/4" and the cover has a nice dust jacket. The cover is different from other version of the Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of the Empire Strikes Back with a collage of photos and art. This paperback is definitely a quality product and lives up to the deluxe branding.
Unlike other version of the paperback, this issue contains the redrawn Yoda and not the original Yoda. There are some sites that talk about a 2nd edition of the U.S. Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of the Empire Strikes Back which has the corrected Yoda. I have never seen a 2nd edition of that paperback, but the existence of this foreign comic makes me believe that book may exist.
If you have more information about this comic, for example, if it was part of a series of deluxe paperbacks, please let me know. I would also like to have proof of the existence of a 2nd edition of the Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of the Empire Strikes Back paperback.
In 1999, Dark Horse acquired the rights to publish 3 popular comics for U.S. audiences from Italian publisher Serio Bonelli Editore: Dylan Dog, Martin Mystery, and Nathan Never. Starting in March 1999, Dark Horse released the first issue of these series with each comic costing $4.95. In order to promote the books, Dark Horse also shipped an incentive Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... collection to retailers for every set of 3 Bonelli comics ordered. This promotion ran for a total of 6 months with a new issue of the Bonelli books accompanied by a new Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... collection. Not surprisingly, the Bonelli comics only lasted until issue #6 when the promotion ended. This promotion was the only way to receive an issue of Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago....
Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #1a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (March 1999) Star Wars #91 Star Wars Annual #1 Star Wars Annual #3Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #2a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (April 1999) Star Wars #28 Star Wars #38 Star Wars #49 Star Wars #50Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #3a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (May 1999) Star Wars #51 Star Wars #52 Star Wars #60 Star Wars #66Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #4a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (June 1999) Star Wars #68 Star Wars #69 Star Wars #79 Star Wars #81Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #5a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (July 1999) Star Wars #58 Star Wars #59 Star Wars Annual #2Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... #6a - Dark Horse Comics, U.S. (August 1999) Star Wars #80 Star Wars #83 Star Wars #86 Star Wars #103
Each black and white issue of Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... contains a gorgeous Ralph McQuarrie cover. The interiors consist of Marvel Star Wars reprints. When the promotion began, the lowest selling Bonelli book was Martin Mystery #1 with close to 6,500 copies. By the end of the promotion, the lowest selling book was Martin Mystery #6 with around 3,500 copies. That puts the print run for the Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago.... issues at between 3,500 and 6,500 copies.
The publisher Grupo Editorial Colombiano (GRECO) published 4 issues of la Guerra de las Galaxias in 1978 that were distributed to several South American countries including: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile. The 4 Colombian issues each contains 2 U.S. Star Wars issues encompassing the Star Wars movie adaptation and Star Wars #7 and 8.
la Guerra de las Galaxias #1a - Grupo Editorial Colombiano (GRECO), Colombia (1978) Star Wars #1 Star Wars #2la Guerra de las Galaxias #2a - Grupo Editorial Colombiano (GRECO), Colombia (1978) Star Wars #3 Star Wars #4la Guerra de las Galaxias #3a - Grupo Editorial Colombiano (GRECO), Colombia (1978) Star Wars #5 Star Wars #6la Guerra de las Galaxias #4a - Grupo Editorial Colombiano (GRECO), Colombia (1978) Star Wars #7 Star Wars #8
Each issue is black and white. There are no ads inside and the back cover matches the front cover.
The cover to the issue #4 proclaims: "At last! Beyond the cinema! Beyond the galaxy!" It is the same cover as the U.S. Star Wars #2, but with some notable differences. Luke Skywalker has been replaced by Han Solo and Ben Kenobi has been replaced by an insect alien! To turn Luke Skywalker into Han Solo, his hair is drawn differently and is colored brown. Additionally, Luke's tunic is shortened, the infamous Han Solo vest is added, and a holster is drawn on his hip. For Ben Kenobi, Ben's lightsaber has been replaced by a staff and his face has been redrawn to look like an insect alien. There is a insectoid priest in Star Wars #7 that Han Solo and Chewbacca save from an angry alien mob on Aduba-3 and this new alien on the cover is meant to be that character.
