1977: FAMOUS MONSTERS STAR WARS SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE (WARREN)

From 1977: Another Warren black & white one shot: the first official STAR WARS MAGAZINE!

FAMOUS MONSTERS STAR WARS SPECTAULR was quick out the launch bay as one of the very first official print tie-ins with the who-would-have-thought-it blockbuster. Other speedy contenders included the novelization, the early issues of Marvel's comic book and Treasury Editions and the (superior to this) STAR WARS COLLECTORS EDITION: UK edition courtesy of Marvel).

The cover is a cracker (nailing the robots and aliens attraction of the movie and the merchandise) and not a still that seems to surface that often. The contents, however, are more disappointing: The usual Famous Monsters mix of poorly reproduced photos and enthusiastic but superficial text.  The arrival of STARLOG and STARBURST must have seemed like something radical and new (as did the launch of SFX in the 1990s after more than a decade of both and their formulaic spin-offs.

I picked this up from a dealer last year for under a fiver (maybe because a little beat up) but it seemed like a good price for such an early piece of Star Wars print media.