Empire Strikes Back – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Ernie Colon & Al Williamson — A New Hope

May 22, 2024 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Droids #8, June 1987

Original Marvel Comics Star Wars comic book art by Ernie Colon & Williamson from the collection of Greg Goldstein

George Lucas thought SF comics legend Al Williamson (EC, Flash Gordon) was an ideal choice to draw the original Marvel adaption of Star Wars. (Now officially titled Chapter IV: A New Hope.)

Unfortunately, Al was locked into his deal for the Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip and couldn’t take the gig.

(Fortunately for George, his other choice came through: Howard Chaykin, who was extraordinarily familiar and comfortable with SF and swashbuckling came on board for the adaptation and a few additional issues. But, as always, we digress.)

Al ultimately ended up doing wonderful adaptations of both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The stories are gorgeous.

But… Al gets another shot on the original film, when, 10 years after the fact, Marvel decides to adapt A New Hope again — this time as a three-part story in the kids’ comic, Droids.

Ernie Colon provides lovely storytelling, and Williamson provides his beautiful inks, giving him credits on all three Star Wars original trilogy films.

As for the story itself — the main selling point is that this adaptation is told from the Droids’ point of view — which seems odd, since Lucas told interviewers that the films were told from the Droids’ POV, in the first place.

Deja Vu all over again?

Ralph McQuarrie — Luke On Hoth

May 28, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Empire Strikes Back Conceptual Art, Large format Giclee, 2006 (Original Painting, 1978)

I wish this were an actual Empire Strikes Back original from legendary conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie. That would be… just lovely.

But I’m not complaining. Just observing.

It’s actually an oversized canvas Giclee, limited to an edition of just 5 copies, published by Acme Archives about 15 years ago. Scanned from the original in highest resolution, the quality of the reproduction is superb.

Ralph McQuarrie. Star Wars.

Not much more to add here.

(Well, except that a smaller-sized version is still available from Acme here. They deserve a free plug, don’t you think?)

Alex Maleev — A Long Time Ago…

May 21, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Star Wars: Princess Leia #2, March 2015

Forty years ago today, life was definitely simpler. All I had to do was how to figure out how to get to the opening night of Empire Strikes Back.

Well, maybe not that simple.

Big films often did not open “wide” in those days, which meant ESB would not be playing anywhere near my college town of Binghamton, New York. Closest theater? In Syracuse. 75 miles away.

Fortunately, I had a car. Gas was (relatively) cheap. And finals had just ended.

That was the good news.

The bad? No on-line ordering. (Ha. We were still using punch cards and booking computer time in the lab.) No advance orders by phone. This was 1980. Horse and buggy era, tickets and technology wise. And in those days, no bank was offering credit cards to broke college students anyway.

So we had to wing it. The “we” in this case, my buddy Bob and I, pretty much the only people that hadn’t packed up for the semester.

Off we went. Up through farm country on Interstate 81. Somehow, even though we didn’t leave that early, and the legal speed limit was still 55mph, we made it to the “purchase tickets” line, and then the “entry” line in time, and had reasonable seats.

Good thing, too.

We had waited three years. I didn’t really want to wait another day.

I enjoyed it. A lot. Despite the fact that the story had been “spoiled” for me by the Marvel Comics adaptation, because I didn’t have the discipline to avoid reading it. (Lesson learned there. I never made that the mistake again, including, and especially, for Return Of The Jedi. Hell, I’ve occasionally forced friends who work on films into vows of silence.)

Alex Maleev’s beautiful painted cover features of one my favorite things about ESB: The battle on Hoth. I have a distinct memory of the first time I saw the Empire trailer tacked on to a Star Wars re-release in 1979. The audience absolutely lost its mind at the Hoth tease. (Well at pretty much everything, I guess.) And the finished battle did not disappoint, stop-motion and all.

Where was I? Oh yes. Great cover. Terrific artist. Wonderful memory.

And somehow Bob and I made it back before the cows came home. But not by much, I imagine.

*All three main original ESB posters are terrific.*

Mike Mayhew — Fool’s Gold

December 14, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

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.