Start from the Beginning

More podcasts than you can shake a mic at from NeoZAZ this weekend. The official Episode 1 of Trailer Pod Boys is now up and running. You can find it here at the Trailer Pod Boys website.

Comic Wars – Episode 2

Welcome back to another edition of Comic Wars. I forgot to say last time that I was going to take each issue of the comic in turn, so it will take several episodes to get through A New Hope.

When we last left our heroes, Luke had gone out into the Dune Sea to look for his prodigal droid, R2-D2, and run afoul of some Tusken Raiders. This is where we pick up the story.

The title of this chapter is “Six Against the Galaxy”. I’m not sure what math they’re using for this. There are seven main characters in the movie: Luke, Ben, Han, Chewie, Leia, Threepio and Artoo. And once they meet up with the rebellion, there’s tons of people fighting the Empire.

In the movie when Obi Wan gives Luke his father’s lightsaber and Luke asks what it is, Ben just says, “It’s your father’s lightsaber”. In the comic, for some reason they decide to have Ben give Luke some sort of child-molesting innuendo, “Touch the brightly-colored button up there by the pommel — and you’ll see!” I almost feel like I’m back in the bike shop with Arnold and Dudley.

Here we first learn about “the force”. And at least for the next few chapters, it is referred to in scare quotes. I realize that it’s a new concept to people in 1977, and seems really funny to us now that we’ve had thirty years to acclimate to it, but they keep it going for a really long time.

But my favorite part of this page is the final panel. In the movie, when Luke protests about going to Alderaan, Ben says, “You must do what you feel is right, of course.” But here, they decided to turn Luke into even more of a whining bitch.

Ben says, “You must do what you feel, Luke.” And Luke says, “Right now, I don’t feel too good!” What does that even mean? Is he going to “not do too good”?

It reminds me of Gene Hackman in some MST3K movie about astronauts. Matt knows what I’m talking about.

One of the most memorable lines that came from the original trilogy was from Ben Kenobi. Actually, most of the memorable lines were from him. I wonder if that was because he was one of the two Shakespearean actors in the cast, both of whom die in the first movie.

Anyway, when Ben and Luke are first observing Mos Eisley, Ben says what is now one of the most iconic lines ever, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

I want to give the writers of the comic the benefit of doubt and say that they didn’t know how memorable that line was going to become, when they DECIDED TO BUTCHER IT AND LEAVE IT BLEEDING IN A DITCH.

First of all, they put Ben and Luke in the middle of town, rather than on a cliff overlooking the city.

Secondly, they give Ben the preamble, “Well here it is, lad”. Ouch. “Lad”? They never use the word “lad” in the entire trilogy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used it in the prequels, though. The word found its ultimate epitaph in the NormalMan comics where every other nothing hero was called Something-Lad. I honestly don’t think any superhero in Marvel or DC comics in the last thirty years had “lad” in the name. Though I wouldn’t be too sure about DC.

And then finally they take out one of the two crucial words in the quote, and only let Ben say, “You won’t find a more wretched hive of villainy!”

Is it just thirty years of getting used to the quotes, or does that just seem wrong? I’m sure back when Lucas was writing this – you know, back when he could actually write – I imagine that he took some care with his words, and you know, this one worked out really well. Once you subtract the “scum” from the “villainy”, it just seems like subtracting the “Boba” from “Fett”. It just feels wrong.

Here we see another example of the comics trying to introduce a new concept to the comic-reading world. Forget about the fact that parsecs are a measure of distance, rather than time (Lucas apologists have retconned this one into oblivion) and notice the spelling, or rather hyphenation, of “par-secs”. It’s like not only had they not heard of the term before, but the script they received from Lucas either had it spelled wrong, or they figured it couldn’t be a real word, and so they could spell it however they wanted.

One of the most famous scenes deleted from Episode IV is the Jabba scene. I know I’ve seen a version of this where Jabba is a fat human. Then of course there is the Special1 Edition, in which Lucas shoehorned in an extremely fake CGI slug Jabba (not to mention a silent Boba Fett – Fett seems to be Lucas’ version of Heather Locklear).

But comic creators decided to turn Jabba into a green-skinned alien with sideburns that Wolverine would envy.

And in no version does Han say, “I’ll pay you because … it’s my pleasure.” That just sounds vaguely creepy.

One of the timeless things about Star Wars is that they didn’t use any Earth-normal phrases or idioms. That thought really didn’t make it into the minds of the comic creators, because they decided in their infinite wisdom to have C-3P0 say, “Was this trip really necessary?”

I’d like to think that even at 6 years old, I would have noticed that this was not what they said in the movie (heck, I could tell that the Biggs scenes that were inserted into the storybooks were not in the movie), even though I didn’t have VHS or DVD copies to view repeatedly. I think lines like that just don’t sound right in the Star Wars universe.

Not to mention the fact that if the Falcon was experiencing enough turbulence to hurl Threepio out of his chair so that he was barely clinging on by his arthritic fingers, he would end up suffering more damager than when he fell down the bluff on Tattooine.

Well, that’s about it for Issue 2. Tune in next time to see Luke begin his Jedi training and someone exclaim, “That’s no moon.”

Physics-defying Pants

If you like movies that show off the left-upper-thigh of their lead actress, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is for you. That, and many more important facts in the latest episode of the Cutting Room Floor.

Artie Gibson

Don’t come any closer! You might catch the Zombie! Or, you might catch a few minutes of the train wreck that is Resident Evil over at the Cutting Room Floor.

Comic Wars – Episode 1

A long time ago, in an attic right up the street, Matt stashed a box of comics that I had given him. It consisted of a near-complete run of the Star Wars comic book produced by Marvel concurrently with the original movie trilogy.

I had completely forgotten about them, but on his last visit to Pennsylvania, Matt went digging in his parents’ attic and found the box. I hadn’t seen these comics in at least ten years, so I was curious to dig through them.

Mind you, these are not mint-condition, individually bagged with backing boards. No, I bought them en masse from the local comic shop¹ sometime in the late 80’s for a grand total of five bucks. Some issues are missing, a few are duplicated. The pages are yellowed, the covers are torn, or absent.

But … it’s Star Wars. It’s probably the first instance of the “expanded universe”, since the comics continued between the three movies and filled in a lot of stuff that never made it to the screen (and for good reason).

My collection only extends up to issue 100 (Oct 1985) although the series ran to issue 107. According to Wookieepedia:

The series was such a smash hit for Marvel in an otherwise dismal sales year that many who worked at Marvel in 1977 consider it to have singlehandedly saved them from financial ruin.

I can certainly see how this would be the case – had I money at the time, I would have bought every issue. At the same time, this was pre-Watchmen and the state of comic books was, shall we say, not as respected as it is now (exhibit A). It was mainly for kids, and so you didn’t get the caliber of writing or art that you see in many (but certainly not all) comics now.

So as I read through these, the dialogue and descriptions (those that differ from the movie version, which is more than you would think) seem very blunt and heavy-handed, which I think was the style of the time.

Also, the art is kind of crap, with brief glimpses of talent. I figure they were rushing so fast to put this out that they couldn’t spend the time to do better work. Wookieepedia, again:

The cover for this issue was based on Howard Chaykin’s original convention poster, which became one of the most valuable posters in the Star Wars collecting world.

There are several things wrong with this cover, which make you think Howard Chaykin hadn’t actually seen the movie when he did it:

• Han’s shirt is orange
• Leia’s dress is black
• The flange on Vader’s helmet makes me think he got a new kicky hairstyle for the summer. (I have the reprinted compilation of the first three issues, apparently on the original #1, he was green)
• The X-wing fighter’s lower engines are on the inside of the wing, making it impossible to close. That sounds like something I would’ve done in my scribblings as a 10-year old. How does a professional artist get away with that?
• Luke’s lightsaber is red. Everyone knows his was blue until Jedi.
• Luke is way too muscular.

A lot of these differences probably stem from them trying to get the comic out around the same time as the movie, and so a) Nobody knew at the time how iconic the movie would become and that fanboys would gnash their teeth at any deviation from canon and b)the artists and writers probably didn’t have a lot of time to memorize the movie before pushing out the comic.

But I still find it amusing to go through this and pick out all the glaring mistakes. Join me, won’t you?

Rather than the now-all-too-familiar crawl, Marvel decided to change up the exposition a little bit. They start with the same first line, “It is a time of CIVIL WAR in the galaxy” (jumping into all-caps as comic letterers are wont to do), but the rest of it is completely off the reservation. It seems a bit too sensational, whereas the original crawl just sort of laid the foundation for what was about to happen and let the following action speak for itself, the comic book feels the need to punch up every word balloon and descriptive text box. This is typical of the entire series, and unfortunately of most comics in general.

One thing to note about the cover and this first page, which I picked up from Wookieepedia, as I didn’t notice it myself, is that this is the only time you will see the Star Wars logo with the “S” and “T” disconnected (also the “R” and “S”). In the movie and all other comic issues after this, the familiar logo is used that joins the first two and last two letters.

Most of the first few pages are similar to the movie (although with typical comic-book purple prose) until we get to the scene where Leia gets captured.

First of all, I’m not sure why they felt the need to have her declare that she set her blaster to kill rather than stun. From the ferocity of the opening scenes, this can be assumed. Also, it makes to difference to the rest of the story.

The other thing I thought was noteworthy was the right-hand panel. Remove the descriptive text from the top and it would be indistinguishable from a money shot in a porno. You’ve got the big “OHHH” she’s letting out – too big for even a word balloon. The mysterious “FSSS” sound of her getting hit in the chest by some unidentified substance. They even drew her dress clinging to her perky breasts much moreso than anywhere else in the entire comic. Kind of reinforces the stereotype of the comic artist slaving away in a basement dreaming up busty women that he will never get the chance to see, much less date. I’m not saying that comic artists are really like this, but this kind of cheap exploitation doesn’t help their case.

I wouldn’t have minded if Leia looked like that in the movie more often. We had to wait until Jedi for good spank material.

Cut to Threepio and Artoo on Tattooine. I found it strange that they crammed the scene with Artoo getting taken by the Jawas right up against the scene of the two droids going their separate ways. In the movie, it seems like Artoo is traveling alone for some time before he comes upon the scavengers. But I’m sure that was just a judgement call to save some pages. Fair enough. Doesn’t mess with the story at all.

The thing I think is funny in this scene is the drawing of Artoo in the first panel of the middle row. It looks like he’s goose-stepping along, both his left and middle feet up off the ground, barely standing on the “toes” of his right foot. I just can’t imaging how this works without him falling over in a heap.

This next bit has to be my favorite sequence in the whole first chapter. Maybe the whole series.

Here we see the famous board meeting of all the top Empire brass arguing about what to do about the Princess and the Rebels and the Death Star, etc. In the movie it serves to a) introduce us to Grand Moff Tarkin (bad ass) and a few of the other Generals/Governors/Moffs (whom we never see again) and to give us our first glimpse of Darth Vader’s mystical powers.

In the comic, apparently they thought Vader was a bit too evil and wanted to give him some humanity, while he’s force-choking that poor bastard Motti. So they draw him fetching a steaming cup of liquid (coffee?) via telekenesis, and having it magically switch hands, just so he can dramatically point with it while Motti is asphyxiating.

This cracks me up because nowhere in the movies do we even get the suggestion that Vader consumes food (other than the whole dinner on Bespin thing, but that’s still up in the air whether they actually had dinner with Han, Leia and Lando or if it was just a dramatic set up) in any normal way. And how could he, with the helmet and all? Does he fit a straw through the little grate? Or is there a nozzle that he pops open and pours it into?

Back on Tattooine, Luke is arguing with his uncle about joining the Academy. This panel shows that either the comic artists/writers had seen a preliminary cut of the film (which is likely, given a bunch of scenes that are in the comic but were cut from the final release of the movie) or that they saw something that needed to be improved.

In the movie, the dialogue is very similar to this panel, but Owen never says “Forget it” the first time. He just yells, “I said ‘forget it’!” after Luke asks if Kenobi knew his father. This has bothered me for almost thirty years. Matt and I have even made fun of it in an early audio spoof of Star Wars we did about fifteen years ago.

Either Lucas didn’t write the scene very well, or he had to cut out the first line for some reason. It’s nice that the comic writer put it back in for a little more continuity.

Those are the highlights for the first chapter. Let me just leave you with this classic ad:

Can you imagine an ad for a weight-gain product in a comic book today? Or anywhere outside of a GNC catalog? Was it just thirty years ago that people were worried about being too skinny?

See you next time. Same Star-time, same Star-channel.

1 The local comic shop in Quakertown when I grew up was definitely right out of central casting. Run by a guy named Josh who looked like Charles Manson (minus the swastika tattoo) and chain-smoked clove cigarettes, he bought and sold new and used comics, role-playing game books, toys, and of course pornography. I used to spend every Friday night hanging out there playing RPG’s with him, his wife, and the other weird denizens of the comic shop.

He drove a busted up old van that was literally held together with duct tape and perpetually half-filled with overflow inventory from the store. It was the only vehicle I’ve ever been in with a “three on the tree” manual transmission.

Do You Like Cats?

I never saw a real video-dating-service video before, so I’m not sure how representative these clips are. But I’m going to go ahead and assume that everyone using a video dating service in the 80’s was just like this:

I can just watch that over and over again.

Universal Harmony

We got a bag full of Zombie fun over at the Cutting Room Floor. Go check it out!

Foamy Chewbacca

If you like strippers, and if you like zombies, boy howdy, does the Cutting Room Floor have something for you. Also, it helps if you like long-winded stories about computer viruses.

Trailer Pod Boys

Finally, a podcast dedicated to “Trailer Park Boys” and the latest edition to our Podcast collection. David, Quint, and I have begun hosting a bi-weekly podcast about “Trailer Park Boys” that will feature news, reviews, profiles, and round table discussions about this iconic sitcom.

So, check out our pilot episode at the new Trailer Pod Boys Website, and stay tuned for new episodes coming soon.

And if haven’t checked them out already, take listen to our other podcasts:

The D-1-3 Show - A comedy podcast with 3 guys that talk about just about anything that slips in and out of their minds.

The Cutting Room Floor – a (nearly) weekly podcast about filmmaking and reviews of films that you’ve most likely missed in theaters.