CRIVENS! COMICS & STUFF!: IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...

Friday, 24 November 2023

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...

Characters copyright MARVEL COMICS and relevant and respective owners

I know I had Star Wars Weekly #71 when it first came out in 1979 because I cut off the cover and affixed the Princess Leia section to one of my bedroom walls. Well, I actually used Evo-Stik to glue it to the wall - and there it stayed for around four years before we flitted to another house in another neighbourhood. The picture was ruined beyond repair when I tried to remove it, so it didn't adorn my new room for the just over four years my family and myself lived in that new house. Nor did it when we moved back to our previous home as it never made it out of there to begin with. It was absent for around 35 years until I saw the cover on the Internet and copied it, enlarged it, and then returned a print-out of it to pretty much the same spot on the wall it had previously occupied. It was good to see her there again.

The image you see above is from a replacement copy I received yesterday, having bought it via eBay just a few days before. Apart from the first couple of interior pages, I remember nothing of the contents*, making me think that I had only purchased my original copy primarily so I could use the cover as a poster, as I thought the pic of Princess Leia was pretty hot. I don't think I was buying the comic after the early issues, certainly not into the later numbers of which this is one, which tends to confirm (for me) that it was bought just for the cover. I was therefore surprised to see a Tales Of The Watcher strip in my new copy that I have absolutely no memory of seeing 44 years ago - or at any other time. I thought it was a nice little story so decided to share it with you here, as a reward for you having to dredge through my weary personal reminiscence.

So enjoy the story - and also that alluring Carmine Infantino drawing of the princess with the red-hot bod! And feel free to leave a comment - I'll be watching (for I am ~~The~~ A Watcher).

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*I'd owned the original US presentations of Warlock and Guardians of course, but their inclusion in the UK SWW had obviously eluded my memory so many years after the fact. (And maybe even not too long after buying it and removing the cover.)

2 comments:

Colin Jones said...: I remember that cover very well because my father saw it and said "She didn't look like that in the film!"

I also remember the Watcher story which was completely clueless about science. It's set in the Year 3000 when the Earth is getting colder and colder because the Sun is getting dimmer as if it was a lump of coal. In actual fact the Sun is getting slowly hotter and Earth will be totally uninhabitable in about a billion years. Around five billion years from now the Sun will expand into a "Red Giant" star and probably swallow up the Earth. I already knew all these facts when I read that Watcher story in Star Wars Weekly!; 25 November 2023 at 14:04
Kid said...: CJ, the 'facts' of which you speak are only speculation which nobody can know will happen or not. Five billion years from now is a long way away and nobody can really have a scooby what will happen then. And it's quite logical to assume (for the purpose of a story) that a great big ball of fire will eventually cool down over time as that's what usually happens with fire in the here and now. Maybe it'll get extra hot before cooling down, but it's anyone's guess. If scientists were so reliable, they wouldn't have to revise their theories and textbooks every few years. And remember, although you read this story in 1979, it was a reprint from the '60s when perhaps there was a different take on things regarding the sun.

And your dad was right - Princess Leia didn't look like that in the film. What was George Lucas thinking of, for goodness sake?!; 25 November 2023 at 15:01

About the artist:

From 1985 to 2000 A.D. (little joke there), I contributed to a variety of high profile comics and magazines for various companies.

For IPC/FLEETWAY/EGMONT, I freelanced as a lettering and logo artist on various weekly comics and monthly magazines, and also as a resize comic artist and spot illustrator on pocket books, summer specials and annuals.

For MARVEL U.K., BLACK LIBRARY, REDAN and USBORNE BOOKS, I again freelanced as a lettering artist, also working as a restoration artist for MARVEL U.S., restoring and re-creating certain pages of JACK KIRBY art for their MARVEL MASTERWORKS editions.

I also lettered the MARVELMAN sample pages submitted to MARVEL U.S. when they were considering acquiring the character, which - as we all now know - they DID.

Supplied comic strips, cartoons and illustrated advertisements for local business campaigns and newspaper publication on a professional basis since the age of 16. Did my first paid art job for publication at 14 or 15 for Lanarkshire Education Board.

Have also made TV appearances as a collector of memorabilia.

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Just some of the titles I worked on are:

2000 A.D. * JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE * DICEMAN * SONIC The COMIC * JUDGE DREDD, LAWMAN Of The FUTURE * CRISIS * REVOLVER * EAGLE * TIGER * BATTLE ACTION-FORCE * BUSTER * WHIZZER & CHIPS * WHOOPEE * NIPPER * SCHOOL FUN * ACE VENTURA, PET DETECTIVE * The REAL GHOSTBUSTERS * DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE * COUNT DUCKULA * RUGRATS * The TRANSFORMERS * DEATH'S HEAD * THUNDERCATS * GALAXY RANGERS * DRAGON'S CLAWS * SINDY * MARVEL MASTERWORKS * The TROLLS * LOADED * INFERNO * WARHAMMER * ROSE BLACK.

Copyright Notice:

Images remain the property of their respective copyright owners and are used here only for the purpose of review, promotion, and nostalgia.

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In the case of images culled from my own collection where copyright of an item isn't mine, I impose no copying restrictions on fellow bloggers.

(Although, if you don't allow copying on your own site, then you really shouldn't be copying from others, should you?)

And while you can credit this blog if you like, it's not mandatory. Who has time to make notes of every casually visited site during an idle browse of the internet?

In the case of anyone copying images of my own artwork and calligraphy, I affirm my right to be identified as the creator, and any such copying should not be for the purpose of monetary or material gain. (Unless it's mine.)

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Please also note that this blog is not sponsored by, affiliated with, or connected to, any organisation, business, or group, and is wholly independent.