Star Wars Comics by Cardinal Cox
	George Lucas drew on many influences when he was creating Star Wars. One, which was generally uncredited, was the work of comic creator and artist Jack Kirby. Dr Doom, who first appeared in Fantastic Four issue five, Marvel 1962, contributed to the look of Darth vader. A larger source fior George was Kirby's New Gods, which started in 1971 from DC: Luke Skywalker borrowed both the history of Orion and, where Luke had the Force, Orion's Atro-Force, which came from the Source. The Death Star was influenced by the look of Apokolips, where Darkseid, orion's father and enemy, ruled. When the movie itself was nearing completion, it was george Lucas who pushed both Fox and Marvel into producing a comic tie-in. Marvel hadn't been that interested, their previous SF movie tie-in, Logan's Run, hadn't done well; also there were those more interested in doing a comic based upon The Man From Atlantis TV serial. (This lasted only seven issues.) George, however, wanted a Marvel comic. Drawn by Howard Chaykin, the first issue was published just before the film opened, giving the comic fans a taste of the excitement to come. When the film was released, the fans of that went in their droves to the comic shops for the printed version, which included a few scenes that never made it to the big screen. Star Wars issue one became the firt million selling comic since Batman over ten years earlier, possibly the largest selling comic since the 1950s. just as the film revitalised the movie industry, so the adaptation  fed back into the comic business, getting people to go to comic shops and buy other titles. One of the first titles to be directly influenced by Star Wars was X-Men (co-created by jack kirby in 1963). Written then by Chris Claremont (who twenty years later was to co-write the Shadow War series of novels with George Lucas),, the title now gained a galactic empire, the Shi'ar, with its own Imperial Guard as well as mercenaries, the Starjammers, whose leader was the long lost father of Cyclops. Meanwhile, at the Star Wars comic, after adapting the original film, they continued the story with necessarily no character or plot development until the second film. This became all the more apparent in the gap before Return of the Jedi, as now the characters had to have adventures, but not to try to rescue Han. Before the title was cancelled in 1986 (after over 100 issues), Marvel also started to publish an Ewoks title (1985-1987) and Droids (1986-1987). At the end of 1987, Blackthorne started to publish its four issue Star Wars in 3D comic, complete with the obligatory glasses. In 1991, Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights to produce Star Wars comics. The Dark Horse system is, as with their other movie tie-ins, not to have a single continuing title, but to have  each story in its own mini-series, creating a new issue one every few months. As well as reprinting a number of the Marvel strips, they started by adapoting some of Timothy Zahn's novels, which continued the Star Wars story, before expanding with their own tales. These included their own Droids series and X-WingRogue Squadron, continuing the adventures of Luke's friend Wedge. In 1996, Dark horse also started to publish The Black Pearl, an interesting costumed crime fight comic, which was co-scripted by Mark Hamill, one of the few actors to see comics as a legimate market for their own writings.: a medium with many of the strengths of film or tyelevision, but without the constraints of budget. ***************************************************************************************************** The above was written to accompany a display of Star Wars comics, supplied by The House On The Borderland, at an exhibition of Star Wars memorabilia at Peterborough Museum through the summer of 2002. To find out more about Peterborough Museum go to www.peterboroughheritage.org,uk