My Last Star War, 1984-85
To all phases of a life and a career, there are beginnings and endings. Some are swift and abrupt while others fade softly in and out. I can truthfully say my “kid comics” phase ended softly with the projects shown here. Fittingly, they were all Star Wars fanzine projects.
After punching away in the fanzine world for two and half years (starting fall ’81) and letting others pay for the printing, I launched the Lightspeed prologue issue in May ’84 and issue 1 in August 1985. My art had gotten noticeably better and I was exploding with ambition to tell a huge new Star Wars story now that the movies were over, seemingly forever.
I described here what my plans were and why they ultimately did not come to pass. On this page, I will share with you all the Star Wars projects that were in motion when I made the decision to wind them down. Prepare for a peek under the hood. It may not be pretty, but it’s honest.
Maize Flight’s Revenge
This was the first story I threw myself into after Return of the Jedi came out, but it was set right after The Empire Strikes Back. When the Empire credits started rolling, one of the many questions in my head was, “What about Wedge?” We saw him again in Jedi, but we didn’t get any backstory. So I took a spin at explaining what happened to Wedge on his way back to the rebel fleet.
Alternate Visions
Here’s a weird one, and I’m glad I held onto it. For Lightspeed issue 1, my pal Jim Emelander wrote a story called Knight to the King (see it here) and this is what he came up with for issue 2. His idea was to put Luke through various nightmare scenarios in which pivotal scenes from the movies didn’t go quite the same way.
The story didn’t make it to finished art, but survives in the form of plot notes and my rough draft pages. Back then, I wrote the script as I drew the roughs, intending to refine everything in the finished draft. It’s intentionally scribbly and messy because it was all about capturing the words and images as quickly as possible. I still make comics this way, but now I write the script first.
Conspiracies
If Lightspeed issue 2 had been published, this would have been the lead story. It’s the next chapter of The New Empire Saga, my unfinished magnum opus. The story was fully plotted, but I only roughed out the first 16 pages. Presented here are those pages (with dialogue), the full plot summary, and some related development material. This was where I officially put Star Wars to bed.
The New Empire Saga notes and sketches
I know what you must be asking: “What would the Star Wars sequels have been like if Tim made them?”
If you feel like indulging me, here’s everything I wrote and sketched in the planning stage of The New Empire. It would have taken ten chapters to tell with various sub-chapters feeding into it. Here you can get an idea of how big this story would have been, and how it would differ from what we saw in the movies. The next Star War would be fought with politics as much as weaponry. And this time, the enemy wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of his predecessors.
When I look back at this stuff, it saddens me that I didn’t get to draw it. But at the rate I was going, I would have been lucky to get it all done in five years. That would have taken me all the way up to 1990, crashing right into Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. Instead, I took steps toward my next big life phase: drawing pro comics.
The first step on that road was an unexpected one. By 1985 my attention was shifting away from Star Wars toward the ever-expanding realm of anime and manga. In 1986, after taking time off from comics to run a local sci-fi convention, I got the urge to create a prequel to my favorite mecha anime series, Armored Trooper Votoms (see it here).
In 1987, my creative juices were dedicated to an original concept, inspired by all the anime I’d absorbed: a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action story called BROID. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d get to draw Votoms for a living, but I thought BROID had a shot, so I started pitching it to publishers with completely roughed-out issues to prove I was serious.
All these efforts finally paid off in 1988 when my pro comics career officially commenced with a Dark Horse series titled Mecha. My next break came in 1989 when BROID got picked up, and a few years later – despite all expectations – I even got to draw Votoms for a living. (Read about it here.)
On that note, the “kids comics” section of ArtValt reaches its natural conclusion. If you want to continue the ride, “pro comics” picks up from here. Either way, thanks for reading!
Postscript: one more Star War
It’s 1994. I haven’t drawn a Star Wars comic in almost ten years. But I have drawn lots of other comics (professionally) including anime adaptations and original stories. I’ve also had a steady side-gig drawing illustrations for Star Wars RPGs from West End Games (as seen in the “Game Days” section of ArtValt). The comic book rights have been picked up by Dark Horse, and I’m thinking of getting back in the groove.
I decide the best way to do this is to write and draw a 6-page story I can submit as a sample. I give it everything I’ve got (and this time my influence is the mighty Al Williamson). But…it never gets to Dark Horse. The walls are higher than they used to be. You can’t just send things in unsolicited any more, you need to obtain and sign a form that relieves a publisher of liability. I guess someone sent a sample in once and a comic book came out that was similar enough to merit litigation. Or maybe that never happened, and some lawyer just imagined it might. Either way, there’s a new hoop to jump through.
If I remember right, I contacted Dark Horse to ask for the form but they never responded. So this 6-page comic just became a portfolio piece that few people ever saw (until now). I’m still quite proud of it, and wouldn’t change a line today.
Oh, one other thing…I thought it would be cool to have some Mandalorians in it. Again, this was 1994.
Design Works
