Tuesday, August 16, 2011

STAR WARS (1977) Poster by Howard Chaykin

Artist Howard Chaykin was personally selected by George Lucas to draw Marvel's official Star Wars comics adaptation back in 1977, and penciled both the film adaptation and the following Magnificent Seven-inspired story arc (several years before Roger Corman  & John Sayles would exploit the same idea in Battle Beyond the Stars!). This poster was a Limited Edition piece - the first - commissioned by  Lucas.

13 comments:

  1. (I hope this doesn't double-post, it looks like it didn't go through)

    Even at 13 or so (could there be a better age to be when SW came out?) I found the Marvel movie adaption almost hilarious, especially their covers, which attempted to, uhm, Marvel-ize the comic. However, once they left the movie behind, they created some of my favorite stories, even to this day, especially "Solo's Seven", or whatever it was called, with the green carnivorous rabbit, Jaxxon, who was 14 kinds of awesome. In terms of adapting the movie to comic form, the manga interpretation, done decades later, captured the energy and power of the film much better than staid Marvel layouts of the 1970s; it's not a surprise that the Marvel comic got better when they started telling comic-book stories in it.

    PS: Did you notice the space bandit in the aforementioned story was none other than Sergio Aragones, of MAD and Groo (years later) fame?

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  2. Today, no one would dare use a hand drawn image as a poster, but that's the way it was in the 70's. Illustration still held sway over photography when depicting science fiction.
    On a side note, this poster as well as many others is included in the Star Wars Poster Book which I highly recommend.

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  3. I remember being frustrated that I couldn't get every issue of that early run of the comic. Back then we had to find our comics at the local drug store or grocery with no dedicated stores. It was hit or miss getting an issue.

    Was there a version of this poster done with markers to color in? Or is my memory getting that bad?

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  4. IIRC, this poster was originally printed in a very limited run of only 1000 and intended to be distributed for free at a comic-book convention in the summer of '76, to start some preliminary buzz on the upcoming movie. At the time, no one had any idea what this "Star Wars" thing was, so most of the posters went unclaimed. Then, once the movie broke, they of course became immensely sought after and collectible. That artwork has been reprinted from time to time over the years, but when you run across one of those original 1000 posters somewhere, they're always insanely pricey.

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  5. I love the Y-Wings on the poster, which is something you almost never see. That's my favorite ship -- even above the X-Wing.

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  6. Very awesome! I was 11 when SW came out---also a good age to be.

    I love the Y-Wings (probably because of the resemblance to the Enterprise from Trek). Other than the X-Wings, I have never been too attached to the Rebellion's ships (except for the Falcon, of course). Love the Star Destroyers and the TIE Fighters!

    Gordon Long

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  7. OOO! Patrick, your memory is not completely gone; I actually HAVE those coloring posters! There were two sets of Craft Master Star Wars "POSTER ART" black and white coloring posters. The first set was drawn by a HARLEY COPIC, and has very fine detail. The second set wasn't quite as finely detailed, and has no artist credit. (I have tons more info about these, but there's a word/character limit to how much one can post, aparently.) There were to my knowledge never any coloring poster versions of the Chaykin poster shown above, but it sure looks like it would have made for a great one!

    Getting a bit off topic, there were also similarly drawn Poster Art posters for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Battlestar Galactica, and a not as well-drawn set for the Dino DeLaurentis King Kong. Maybe, Christopher, a future blog post could cover all of these Poster Art sets. (Maybe you already have, and I missed it...)

    CR

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  8. Posterplanet.net are selling reprints of these on Ebay. Can't vouch for their quality but they seem O.K. Might get one. Interestingly, it dates the original from 1976. Maybe when Lucas commissioned them?
    I also had the colouring posters btw. Don't think the Chaykin was one of them though

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  9. Star Wars publicist Charley Lippincott commisioned Howard Chaykin to create this poster exclusively for sale at SDCC and World-Con in 1976. There were something like a thousand printed and sold for a mere $1.75 each, but only a handful of them were actually purchased. A version of the image also graced the first issue of the monthly Marvel comic (in which Darth Vader was actually colored green!).

    btw, while Chaykin's artwork wasn't made into a poster for one of those color-it-yourself pen and poster sets, there was one which borrowed a great deal of imagery from John Berkey's artwork for the cover of the film's novelization.

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  10. Cr and Tim -- Glad to know my memories were merely muddled and didn't spring out of the ether!

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  11. I love that era, when even officially licensed posters and other merchandise was likely to have it's own quirky and specially commissioned art, rather than the overly slick and boringly identical "press kit" type images we see on similar film merchandising today. It also makes for interesting and unique collectibles.

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  12. Tim: thanks for the reminder about the John Berkey novelization cover art... I KNEW that the second coloring poster in the first set looked familiar! (I had tried to give written descriptions of both coloring poster sets yesterday, but you managed to describe that one in fewer words.)
    CR

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  13. Patrick and CR: My pleasure!

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