Eager to read a bit more Star Wars graphic art, I’ve been going through some of the boxes I brought back from my parents loft some time ago and had a dig around my old Star Wars comic book collection.
In here I’ve got a stack of old Marvel Star Wars comics as well as lots of the one-shots and series from Dark Horse.
I’ve pretty much got all of the classic Marvel comics that ran under the Star Wars badge from 1977 which were reprints of US equivalent comic, and a few issues after a name change to Empire Strikes Back (weekly). There’s only a couple missing so it’d be nice to hunt down the last few on ebay and make a complete collection one day.
After Empires short run, Marvel UK renamed their comic to Return of the Jedi weekly which ran for way over 150 issues. This had a magazine style which had contained two Star Wars stories plus a third non SW serial. It also contained an introductory intro, competitions, readers letters and pictures and sometimes a black and white ROTJ picture poster.
I do have the complete set of these (minus posters as these were plastered all over my bedroom wall) and recall eagerly awaiting each issue even though some contained reprints from earlier SW serials.
Here’s the very first issue I ever brought and surprisingly its still in one piece as I must have read this over and over and over and over and…etc etc
Nope, my first issue of ROTJ weekly was not issue #1 but number #17. I have no idea how the first 16 issues slipped by me at our local paper shop but at a comic convention I went to about 15 years ago, i spotted a few for sake and they helped me back fill that initial gap.
Page one and a very nostalgic advert for the Chewie bandoleer. Remember this one from back in the day to help you carry around your Kenner action figures?..or the C-3PO head carry case? Sadly, i had neither of these but I did have the Rebel transport ship and you could cram a hellava lot of figures in there 
…and sneaky sweets!
The main story in this issue was a section of the movie adaptation of Star Wars:A New Hope.
The last few pages and the third story usually consisted of non Star Wars material but were just as good. This issue contains Indiana Jones and future issues would see comic book adaptations of the Time Bandits & The Spy Who Loved Me movies as well as my favourite – Bladerunner. You know, I read this before actually seeing the film.
Also I’ve found a couple of old Eagle albums too, now these dotake me back.
Well whaddaya know, Dave Gibbons of Watchmen/Beneath a Steel Sky/2000AD fame did the Dan Dare cover.
Heavy snow is forecasted here over the next few days but now that I’ve got these out of storage who cares if we get snowed in
Very nice mate! Fingers crossed for 18ft of snow that doesn’t clear until July