For my third go-round with West End Games, the scenario for the adventure was quite different. Instead of a backwater planet, this one was set on an industrial and cultural center, a busy city planet that we wouldn’t see on film until the prequels and sequels arrived.

I was the sole artist assigned to this book, so I was entrusted with the task of designing the characters and environment: a race of amphibians, an Imperial Swamp Trooper, a method of docking for TIE fighters, and a pair of female mercenaries who I subconsciously thought of as the Star Wars version of Japan’s Dirty Pair.

In 1991, I figured out how to turn my Star Wars fandom into freelance income. Planets of the Galaxy, Volume 1 was my first West End Games assignment, and it was a good one to start with. The books in this 3-volume series presented gamers with new planets on which to plot their adventures, none of which had been established in the original trilogy.