Star Wars: Lando, #1, September 2015
Mike Mayhew cleverly envisions Lando Calrissian’s ’s microsecond moment of glory in the Empire Strikes Back — interrupted by Vader and company.
Lucasfilm has not always encouraged more whimsical interpretations of its characters and storylines, so it was good to see this one approved to print.
Mike had submitted a few ideas (see below) for this variant cover and this one received the green light.
And Mike was kind enough to thank me for reminding him to file and back-up everything in his archive so that when art obsessives like myself come along, he has digital copies of the roughs and pencils to provide. You’d be surprised at how much comic art material will never see the publishing light of day again because no can find the files or scans.
Happily, here we can see the progression from thumbnail to sketch to pencils to finals, etc.
As for Lando? (Billy Dee Williams, a spry 82-years old.) I’m happy that he gets to make one final appearance in the Star Wars saga. But if he’s there just to make some grand sacrifice, I will be annoyed. (Ditto for Chewie. And the Falcon, too, for that matter.)
I think we’ve had enough of that.
