16: New World!
Continuing on from the « previous 3 strips: Jack’s finds his day and his world is quite different after seeing Star Wars for the first time in 1977!
Star Wars, Star Wars, everywhere…
Above: Seeing Star Wars in bits of stone! Back and front. (1977)
Its amazing the stuff that I kept – like my own home-made Star Wars Comic Adaptation – from over 3 and a half decades ago. Have a look at the image above and you’ll see that like Jack, I was seeing Star Wars in… everything! 9 year old John S and I were playing in the woods surrounding the Hydro-Electric Dam across the road from my house and I found this stone. I immediately saw an Imperial Stormtrooper‘s head in its outline. Naturally, I brought it home and painted it with my Rowney poster paints. The little cut-out in the ‘chin’ was probably the bit that sparked instant recognition – and my power of imagination.
Selling Star Wars
Above: Charles Lippincott’s excellent new Blog
Funnily enough, it wouldn’t be long after we imagined Star Wars in everything, that we actually saw it stamped on everything – in reality.
Stationery, lunchboxes, clothing and even paper party cups, plates and napkins. The legendary marketing man, Charles Lippincott was probably the main reason why we bought all of this stuff. These days, Charles is more likely to question the methods and effects of modern advertising, marketing, consumerism and capitalism in our world. And guess what? You can now ‘Befriend’ him on Facebook and follow his brand new Blog articles. The material and memories he’s sharing with fans of Star Wars, Alien, Judge Dredd, Flash Gordon and more – from his vast archives – is absolutely fascinating. He writes eloquently, and in great depth about his time with LucasFilm, exploding many myths along the way. If you like comics – and I assume you might, because you’re here – you’ll love his many illuminating articles about the production of the Marvel Star Wars adaptation.
Above: Amazing that I still have this! I talked my mum into buying the set, but then couldn’t face actually using – and ruining – them for my birthday party. I even have a napkin which still hasn’t disintegrated! (1978)
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Thanks!
** Stay Groovy, all you 1970s kids! **
– John White
Jack was awoken from a dream-filled night's sleep under his Charlie's Angels beadspread, by his plastic, 1970s, Japanese alarm clock. BZZZ - BZZZ - BZZZ - insisted the space-age gadget.
"Yay!", he cried, more enthusiastic about this new day ahead than any other that he could recall.
But then, instead of irritatingly buzzing, his Clock seemed to go, PEW! - PEW! - PEW! much like the Star Wars laser guns the day before at the cinema.
After getting dressed, without bothering to get washed first, he walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Passing the sitting room, his dad who was sat in one of the green leathertte armchairs of their 3-piece suite, looked up from his paper and greeted him with "Good Star Wars, Jack!"
"Good morning, Dad." replied Jack with a broad grin.
"D'you have a good Star Wars?"
"Like a log, thanks." piped Jack again, not really noticing anything unusual about the exchange - yet.
On the kitchen table, Jack found his bowl of Salty Fibre Husks awaiting him like every other morning. His mum enquired, spoon of sugar in hand,
"Would you like Star Wars and Star Wars on your Star Wars, pet?" The sugar helped to mask the taste of the salt.
"Oh, just Star Wars please mum" says Jack. She poured his milk.
Munching, Jack looked at the breakfast cereal box. Instead of the usual text, all he saw that morning was: STAR WARS HUSKS. With 3 Added Star Wars. The ICI logo monogram had even been replaced with 'SW'.
Oddest of all was that the news - which was always so boring - crackling from the wooden BUSH transistor radio actually seemed more interesting - this morning: "...the SW Envoy to the Middle Star Wars will meet President Star Wars today to discuss the burgeoning Star Wars crisis in the Star Wars..."
Baffled, Jack glanced at the HP Brown Sauce bottle. It read, "SW Sauce. By Appointment to His Imperial Majesty, Lord Darth Vader."
Even the remains of his breakfast cereal, had formed the letters 'SW' in the remaining milk. His eyes bulged, his mouth gaped.
Suddenly, he got it - he understood what his friends had been experiencing all this time after seeing Star Wars. Their obsession. Without further thought, he lept from the breakfast table and bounded out of the front door of the house.
His mum, startled at his hasty exit, called after him, "Star Wars???"
"Hold all of my calls today mum! I have to talk to Jim and Neal right away!!!"
"Are you all Star Wars, Jack?" she called again before he vanished around the drive.
"Yes, everything's Star Wars!"
I, too was nine when I first saw it. At a drive-in theatre, no less. You nailed it. Good comic.
Hey ‘Fletch’,
Thanks! Someone mentioned the other day – can’t remember where – that they also saw it at a drive-in. The great thing was, the space scenes in the film merged with the night sky!
Hilarious, John. Everything’s so richly detailed; I can see why it took a long time to do. One of my favourite bits is the frame where the cereal seems to spell the letters ‘SW’. In that moment, Jack’s obsession seems to have reached the transcendent level of Roy Neary’s in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And yes, I can absolutely relate to it.
Oh yes! I never even thought of Roy and his mashed potatoes! That was a great scene Darren.
I would’ve been 3 when I first saw Star Wars in the Cinema, I don’t have many coherent memories from before then, it was mostly just brown and orange, but it was the 70’s…
I do remember the rulers and the pencil toppers etc. I still have three vintage 70’s Star wars pillowcases. They were drawing favourable comments just this weekend…
Hi Dan, brown and orange, (chuckle). You’re doing well to remember ANYTHING from the age of 3.
Now, should there be a cheeky wink after your “favourable comments” line?
It was *absolutely* a different world. I’ve never felt able to explain the sea change that occurred that year. No amount of superlatives or lengthy/overlapping stories seemed adequate to explain just how, on all levels everything was different for everybody. It didn’t even matter if you didn’t like or care about Star Wars; it was there, and one way or another you were aware of it and the impact it had(s). One day there was; The World and All That it Contains, and the next; Star Wars and “everything else”.
I’m really impressed with how your strip has done such an amazing job of conveying just what really happened, especially to us kids of that time…
Thanks Terran. Nicely expressed! What age were you when you saw it? I was a very impressionable 9.
I’d had my seventh birthday the previous February. One of my gifts was all six issues of the Marvel Comics adaptation. (what I wouldn’t give to still have those!)
What strikes me as interesting is how, as fun and exciting as the comics were, they in no way ruined my first viewing. After all, what could have ever prepared me for that Star Destroyer that just kept going and going?!
Like you, my previous adventures were “Sands of Iwo Jima”, “Kelley’s Heroes” and “Sahara”, or Zorro, Sinbad, and The Three Musketeers. After, we still played those sorts of things, but they were always “second choice”.
One day it was rat-a-tat, next day it was p-choo – p-choo!
While it’s obviously you won’t find yourself in these photos, you may enjoy this article. This was the same day and the theatre I first saw the film. I think we were there at a different time of day though.
http://blog.sfgate.com/thebige…