Lightspeed No. 1, 1985
This project marks the culmination of my “kid comics” years, when I took them as far as they could go: the publishing of my own homemade Star Wars fanzine.
As I recounted previously, I was already drawing my own Star Wars comics when I bumped into the fanzine world in September 1981. (The actual point of contact was described here.) The moment I learned I could get Star Wars comics into other people’s ‘zines, I realized I could make my own as well. I had to learn how they were made and sold, then all I needed was money to cover print costs.
That money came, slowly and grudgingly, through my first few commercial art jobs after graduating high school in May 1983 (the same week Return of the Jedi premiered). Meanwhile, I wrote and drew 14 comics for other ‘zines (eleven Star Wars, 3 others) and then finally had enough in the bank to fund my own ‘zine, the Lightspeed “Prologue issue” in May 1984. (See its content here, here, and here.)
This was also the beginning of a long-term project I called The New Empire Saga. It would be the next great struggle for our heroes, grappling with the remnants of the Empire (which covered a whole galaxy, after all). The primary villain would be a previously-unseen Vice Emperor and a whole bunch of new characters would join the war on both sides. I plotted out ten chapters with Lightspeed as the vehicle to publish them.
The Prologue issue was a warmup for this. At some point I managed to sell of all 100 issues while I worked on issue 1. The opening chapter would be a story called Before the Storm.
Lightspeed No. 1 looked a lot better than the Prologue. It was saddle-stitched rather than clipped together, and ran 96 pages. A second comic story was going to be drawn by my friend Scott Rosema, but he had to bail for work that actually paid money. I couldn’t hold that against him, so I substituted a reprint of my favorite earlier comic, The Littlest Bounty Hunter. A short story was contributed by newbie artist Aaron Wirrick, I added a few feature pages, and it was ready for print.
It came off the press in August 1985 and…pretty much went nowhere. I’d put the word out at conventions, but very few orders came in. This issue did NOT sell out. The proof is that I still have ten or so copies in my archive. I grudgingly had to admit that the rest of the world was a lot less interested in my long-term project than I was. I’d have to do a lot of hustling to GET them interested. And, despite all the years of buildup, I just didn’t feel like it.
There were two main reasons for this. First, my hatred of hustling burns just slightly hotter than my love of writing and drawing. It feels like work and gobbles up an enormous amount of time and energy. Sitting behind a table at a sci-fi convention, watching everyone wander by without giving your stuff a second glance, is pure hell to me. The precise, geometric opposite of writing and drawing.
Second, it was now two years after Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars was kinda over. The newspaper strip was gone and the Marvel comics were becoming increasingly strained. Even I was starting to question the value of hanging on. I could either devote the next several years of my creativity to someone else’s IP, or create something original. Once I started framing it that way, it became easier to see myself NOT drawing any more Star Wars comics.
In hindsight, I am 100% certain this was the right choice. If I had stuck with it, two things would have happened. First, I would have run headlong into Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy (1991-1993), which would cover a lot of the same ideas and basically turn The New Empire Saga into a footnote. Second, I wouldn’t have had an original comic story (BROID) ready to pitch in 1989 and launch my professional comics career. So that was lucky.
I didn’t make that decision immediately, however. I’d compiled a ton of notes and sketches for New Empire and three more Star Wars comics were already in the rough stage when I pulled the curtain down. So, though I’m tempted to make this the final “kid comics” article here at ArtValt, there’s a little bit more gas in the tank. Stay tuned!
About Before the Storm
There isn’t a lot of action in this story, but it represents an important shift in my writing approach. The New Empire Saga was going to be a magnum opus, so I put much more thought and planning into it than any previous story. The process demonstrated to me that taking the time to brainstorm and work out plot details (large and small) yielded much better results. I applied the process to every subsequent project and it paid off handsomely. I don’t think I could have learned it any other way. So even if I didn’t complete The New Empire Saga, it was still time well spent.
POSTSCRIPT:
What’s that thing distracting you to the right? Believe it or not, it’s another fanzine that published Before the Storm. It’s the 34th issue of a German Star Wars ‘zine that came out in March 1992. Somehow, they got their hands on a copy of Lightspeed No. 1 and asked me for permission to reprint the story. I said sure. They presented it in English with zero context, so I don’t think German readers had the slightest clue what it was doing there.