Thursday, 28 July 2016

1999: CLASSIC STAR WARS: A LONG TIME AGO.... DIGEST ISSUE 1 (DARK HORSE)

From March 1999: the first issue of the Dark Horse black & white digest CLASSIC STAR WARS: A LONG TIME AGO....

It sounds strange now but - at the time - this was a really big deal. It was the first time that pretty much any of the 1977-85 Marvel Star Wars run had been reprinted. Despite the boom in Star Wars publishing pretty much throughout the 1990s, no one had tackled the inventory of Marvel material (107 regular issues, one mini-series, three annuals and two Star Comics series). And the price of back issues (never exactly in plentiful supply in he UK thanks to a long-standing embargo on copies shipped to UK newsagents) had shot up as collectors returned to the saga.

However, Dark Horse didn't exactly jump at the opportunity. These digests shrunk the artwork (making text tough to read) and reproduced it in b&w. And they cherry-picked the reprints so collectors weren't getting a complete chronological run. Even the selection of cover art hardly sold the product inside.

Nevertheless, this run of six 96-page editions (sometimes described as trade paperbacks online although they are actually digests) were essential purchases at the time. Only to be superseded by a run of (really expensive) Dark Horse trade paperbacks. Which were then replaced by Omnibus editions. More recently, with the license back at Marvel, the original run has been collected into several whopping volumes... with prices to match.


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8 comments:

  1. KlownKrusty28 July 2016 at 11:14

    You're right about the odd choice of cover art, this entirely passed me by and I'd never have guessed it reprinted the Marvel issues.

    Would be interested to know what issues they chose, those first 30 Marvel issues have pretty tight continuity.

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  2. ed28 July 2016 at 11:55

    I well remember being informed by a mail order dealer that the value of original marvel issues had increased tenfold.

    apparently it was this cover image that persuaded Anthony Daniels to play C-3PO.

    those re-prints were fairly shoddy as the marvel series was something of an unloved child at that time. Thankfully, the later editions rectified this.

    krusty, you can see a cover gallery here along with details of which stories were included :

    http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=225671


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    Replies
    1. KlownKrusty28 July 2016 at 15:54

      Thanks Ed, sometimes I think you're the unsung archivist for this website!

      Although that link doesn't have full details for every issue it's comprehensive enough to suggest that these reprints focused mostly on the Micheline/Simonson post-ESB era stories, which were a very strong run.

      Plus, I see Goodwin's #50 tale, "The Crimson Forever", is in there. That's a fabulous story and was so exciting to read at the time (in my case in the UK ESB Annual #2)--to be getting a new Han Solo story chapter after he'd been sidelined in carbonite for so long.

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  3. ed28 July 2016 at 18:57

    thanks for saying that krusty, I suppose I am come to think of it !

    Its just that slow puts up so much good stuff here and it always leads to further online research. The results of which I like to include on the blog.

    and its the least I can do for someone who actually writes for star wars comics.

    agreed about that post-ESB run, second only to the Goodwin / Infantino era.

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  4. ed28 July 2016 at 19:30

    RIP JERRY DOYLE

    from Babylon 5 :

    http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/28/jerry-doyle-babylon-5-dead-dies

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  5. ed29 July 2016 at 12:13

    the new issue of DR WHO has a fascinating article on the correspondence between the BBC and M-UK over DR WHO WEEKLY and then DR WHO MONTHLY.

    Once again, poor old JNT doesn't come out of it very well.

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  6. Unknown30 July 2016 at 15:25

    I have no recollection of these digests and I was buying Dark Horse comics at the time. I had a few of the Dark Horse trade editions (5 or so years ago, Forbidden Planet had stacks of a few of the editions, selling for £4.99 and £9.99). Good news is that this September Marvel are republishing them in their Epic trade paperback format featuring the first 20 odd issues, the Pizzazz strips and Doomworld (?) from Star Wars Weekly. Really nice old school Star Wars cover as well.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown30 July 2016 at 15:25

    I have no recollection of these digests and I was buying Dark Horse comics at the time. I had a few of the Dark Horse trade editions (5 or so years ago, Forbidden Planet had stacks of a few of the editions, selling for £4.99 and £9.99). Good news is that this September Marvel are republishing them in their Epic trade paperback format featuring the first 20 odd issues, the Pizzazz strips and Doomworld (?) from Star Wars Weekly. Really nice old school Star Wars cover as well.

    ReplyDelete