Retelling history: How the deal really went down for Marvel Star Wars #1

[comicwiz]

Hey guys, something just showed up on my FB news feeds and I thought it would be great to finally piece together the story I started telling in another thread. For those who don't know, Charles Lippincott was directly involved with marketing and merchandising Star Wars, and was the person who pitched a deal to Marvel to produce the comic series.

 

Charles Lippincott sharing history is one of the main reasons why I've remained active on Facebook, and the retelling of the Marvel deal happens here and here. Below I have also provided screenshots of the posts, but encourage you to visit the actual posts on his timeline for some of the great comments that follow:

 

 

[Chip Cataldo]

Awesome stuff, Joe. Keep it coming, please. This is gold.

[jools&jim]

 

Outstanding, thanks for posting this!

 

 

[Prince Namor]

Great stuff!

[musicmeta]

Amazing reading!

[Ghost Town]

Great stuff. Thanks for posting it!

[slym2none]

 

 

 

-slym

[comicwiz]

Awesome stuff, Joe. Keep it coming, please. This is gold.

 

Thanks Chip , and all others who have chimed in and enjoyed the post.

 

Charles suffers from Alzheimer's so we are pretty lucky to have him share what he does, and I believe a lot of the reason this stuff even gets written is that his wife helps him.

 

I highly recommend people friend him on Facebook as posts like these are just tip of the iceberg as far as the amount of amazing historical information he's shared just in the space of the last year that I've been active.

 

In truth, I almost missed this as yesterday was a a pretty busy day. Unfortunately with Facebook, posts get buried if you don't read them within a few hours of the messages being posted.

[comicwiz]

One other point, and this is for Charles as I promised him awhile back I would help do what I could to get the truth out. It appears that over the years, his name has been excluded from the retelling of this story, and the way it really happened. Part of this "revisionism", he claims, relates to some bad feelings over the Kenner deal, which later saw George Lucas slapped with a defamation suit by Marc Pevers. That's the context for the post below, and I just wanted to make sure people knew the real story as it happened, not the version where Ed get's all the credit:

 

[Doc McCoy]

This is great stuff. Thanks for posting!

[Dr. Balls]

This is great stuff. Thanks for posting!

 

+1

 

This was a great read!

[Comicopolis]

[comicwiz]

Just a heads-up guys, Charles is unravelling the second part of this retelling of the Marvel Comics deal for Star Wars comics.

 

Here is a link to his Facebook timeline. Alternatively, it should end up on his blog site at some point, which a few kind souls are helping him run to make sure his stories are told and shared.

[Chip Cataldo]

If anyone isn't following along, it's a must read. Just fascinating stuff, and it's wonderful that Charles is opening up about this entire story.

[sharkbait]

Thank you for sharing!

 

[piper]

Can someone post it here for us non Facebook crowd?

[comicwiz]

Can someone post it here for us non Facebook crowd?

 

As mentioned, it will eventually get posted on his blog. I see the three posts from yesterday have been combined into one, and has already made it to his blog, so keep checking back there for the rest.

 

For those who want to read it as it's being posted, it's all there on his Facebook timeline too.

[comicwiz]

Guys, this will be the last excerpt (it's amazing) that I'll be sharing here. As incredible as this stuff is, and as much I feel collectors here will appreciate it, the forums here are too flaky and I just don't have the time to bother messing around between posts crashing, errors, and pages taking ages to load. Just take a moment to show your appreciation to Charles and those helping to post this information by stopping-by his blog (where the following excerpt can be read in it's complete form) and/or his facebook page. CONTINUATION OF MEETING

[At the July 27, 76 meeting, there are a stack of comic books including the Atlas/Seaboard SCORPION and Star Reach 1, 4 and 5 which George looks at. Star Reach 5 is Howard's later work, which George refers to as liking less than the earlier work.]

Charlie: I brought a whole stack of STAR REACH. I gave it to him to see.

Howard: [Re #1] It won't be quite that simple, because Roy doesn't go for that approach.

[George picks up other work and begins to browse through it.]

George: Yeah, I actually liked the earlier. Something -- THE SCORPION and this style. I like that. Which period is that?

Howard: About two years ago.

George: This is very similar to around the same thing as CODY I liked a lot.

Howard: Basically, my reason for working in a simple style was to prove to myself that I could do it. Now I know that I can do it. [but] it's not commercial for people like Marvel. It's a really non-Marvel approach.

Charlie: Alex [Toth] talked about you. Did you see him?

Howard: No, I'm afraid not. He's a little bit of a (garbled). We've had some disagreements. We fight. We don't talk. He's a strange dude. He hangs up on people. He doesn't talk to people for months. I really don't like him, but how do you deal with it?

[turns to talk to George]

Howard: I'll do it in a fairly illustrative style and we'll see how the first one runs. I still want to keep it very simple, because the introduction of more is just going to go [to] mess. More and more we add is just going to go . You're going to have to bold it up a little bit, just because the fine line just isn't re­producing.

I couldn't bring any of the SOLOMON KANE out with me, which I'm working on now. I'm going to finish that up as soon as I get back. That's with ink and oil. That was inked with pen, and brushed by Pentel. I will probably do it with these new Pentels which are very fine, which get pen and pen line effect, simply because it's easier for me to work that way. I can get an elaborate effect or as simple effect as I want. That's not the problem. I'm never happy with the results of my jobs in pen -- they're too scratchy. I haven't got the hand control to get like the flexibility that Simonson does, or [bernie] Wrightson does. Well, Wrightson is meeting his deadline now, but there's so many [he missed]. That's why Wrightson's not working in color comics any more, or comics in general. His stuff's unreproduceable now.

Charlie: Is that what happened to Walt Simonson, too?

Howard: Simonson's still in comics. He got practical. He's not inking anymore, he's just laying out. He dropped out of the field. He never finished a book. He owes his father an enormous amount of money. He's taking his degree in geology and he's going to spend the next year laying books out. Also, he's living with an easy job. He comes up in the world, and then he comes down again. I think he'll still be inking a [bit] and an occasional [book]. That's what I'm going to do after the STAR WARS. I'm going to finish this book and go on lay out, and maybe get out of comic books.

George: And get into what?

Howard: Illustration, maybe. Regular []. I'm real tired. Technically, the field is just falling apart. They're reproducing on paper plates now. Fine lines no longer break up now -- they wiggle! The response that I get from people who read comics is really, on a general level, pretty replusive.

[PHONE rings. Meeting interrupted as GEORGE talks to JIM NELSON. CHARLIE and HOWARD continue discussing reader responsse to comics until GEORGE finishes conversation with JIM and returns]

Charlie: Are you familiar with Alex Nino's work?

Howard: He did the adaptation of Harlan's REPENT, HARLEQUIN?

Charlie: [to George] If you haven't seen it, I've got it at home.

Howard: It's gorgeous stuff.

Charlie: He did it for the special science fiction — black and white --

Howard: He did BEHOLD THE MAN.

George: Oh, the Marvel --

Charlie: Yeah.

George: Oh, then I must have seen it. I've got all of those. But I don't remember the name.

Howard: It's very ehhh. It's not really great comic stuff. His storytelling is real weak and his design is occasionally a little too far-out to read, but the basic structure of his brush line is perfect, and that's similar to what I want to try on the STAR WARS, because it's sparkly and it reproduces. So I want to stay away from fine pen. No cross-hatching. There's enough gray. The reproduction is bad enough. I'd like to go for bold effects. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do the laser swords. I have no idea. I think I'll just have to get down and do it. it up a couple of times before I get it right. And it might have to be draw in by color. That's what I'll be doing.

George: That'll be great. We're looking forward to it. Our wonderful adventure in comics. We all hope. It'll be interesting to see how it goes with the movie.

Howard: Are there going to be any problems with likenesses?

George: Well, I don't know. That's another thing. How do you feel about that? Do you feel comfortable with attempting likenesses or would you rather avoid that completely?

Howard: Are any of your actors going to be [gesticulates with hands]?

George: No, no problems.

Howard: Okay, because that's come up often. In the PLANET OF THE APES adaptation we couldn't use certain faces from the film. I'm going to attempt likenesses, only a simplified likeness. I mean over a single book, I could probably do it over six issues, it's going to be a royal pain in the . Simply because no matter how many photographs you give me -- you could give me tons and it still wouldn't be enough because there are just so many shots of heads. So what I've basically done with the poster, and also I feel that kid who plays Luke is a little soft in the face and I'm going to harden him up a little bit. He's got a great cleft and that's fine, but he looks like sixteen, and I'm going to harden him up. It'll make him more heroic in the picture. Han Solo is perfect. He looks like I drew him. He looks my cliche mercenary hero. He looks like Starbuck. Alec Guiness is no problem. He reeks character. You could break him into a caricature. In everything else -- I will need considerable material on the hardware. I've got all the material I need on the gun, because I've got not only the photographs provided, but plenty of small arms in the world catalogues. And the guns used in the film are very familiar weapons. I mean you look at the dominant force who carries 1896 gun. I recognized the gun immediately and fell out of my chair. Seemed like that was the only reason they gave me the job. Chewbacca will be no problem. Same thing is true of Darth Vader. Darth Vader is a comic book character. He looks like a comic book character -- Doctor Doom. I need plenty of material on the X-fighters and the Y-fighters, much more than I have now, if there is any available. Period.

Charlie: I've got color prints of the models, of the x-wing and the y-wing.

Howard: I'll need profiles on that stuff. That's what it is.

George: I think also, when they took their stuff, the problem with what they did is it's very square-on. They didn't do any --

Charlie: The model shots?

George: Yeah. They didn't do any good angles. When he did it, he drew them all at great cockeyed angles, but he didn't... When they took their stills they're all like planned.

Howard: Well, that's okay. That's no problem. I can do that in my head. My profile books never give you shots that mount or that record a view. They give you right-on or front and back of them.

George: Well, they have that -- a complete set of --

Charlie: Yeah, they have shot all the weapons and everything.

Howard: Yeah, I've got the weapons, but I need the aircraft. And I need the interiors on Death Star. I have absolutely no idea what it looks like.

Charlie: That's a problem. There are not good shots --

George: Well, you can see it. Too bad. I wish I had that book. I just assumed that you'd have lots of stills laying around like we did there.

Charlie: Well, we have a box of stills, but it's only limited up to a certain point.

George: In this book -- we've got a book. Maybe I'll send it to you. It has the story in fifty stills.

[NOTE The "Glory Book," as the photo book is now referred to by fans, given to HOWARD has a plain cover. When Roy Thomas and and Howard took on the job, they were mailed a -script, package of Ralph McQuarrie's drawings and production stills]

George: In this book -- we've got a book. Maybe I'll send it to you. It has the story in fifty stills.

Howard: Oh, with the laser sword wrapped around it?

George: No, it's like that only it's an 8"X10", only it's got fifty stills from the actual picture.

Howard: Can you take a new order?

George: Yeah.

[George steps our and arranges for Carol to find a copy of the Glory Book.]

Howard: Fine. That would help me to key. I could then take my stills and kind of piece it together. Each still from the fifty, with the others from my collection.

Charlie: Do you want all those proof sheets?

Howard: The ones you've got out there? Ah, not really. There's almost too much material there to use, you know what I mean?

Charlie: What would be better, then, is if you went through it -- which is going to take you a while -- and mark what you want.

Howard: I may have time tomorrow. Is tomorrow all right?

Charlie: Yeah, it's all right with me. It's too bad 'cause I just put in an order last night at 11:00. But if you can do it tomorrow, fine. I'll just put them to work on it.

Howard: I'll need the interior cockpit shots and stuff like that. Also some color guide. My first vision of the color film was here. I had no idea what color Han Solo -- his outfit, his hair; the Princess; I suspected Luke was blond, but it could have been sandy hair. Various things like that, my only key was the paintings.

Charlie: Why don't you come in here early tomorrow? Because you can go through the black and white, and mark out the numbers that you want. And the color -- go through the transparencies, what's here, and then mark out what you need and I'll duplicate it and send it out.

Howard: Not transparencies.

Charlie: It's the only way.

Howard: Don't you have any prints?

Charlie: It'd be better to use transparencies and just project them, because if we try to get prints it may not be very good.

Howard: I thought you were talking about the contact sheets.

Charlie: No, but we're talking about color.

Howard: Oh, those. I don't even need those.

Charlie: But if you wanted to see what the color was like, that's what I'm saying.

Howard: That I don't need immediately, and...

Charlie: Because the black and white I'll have made up as 8Xl0s. It'll take about a month to do.

Howard: Well, I'm glad I don't have to get started yet. I just don't want to fake anything.

Charlie: But I mean, if you wanted stuff that was color-keyed --

Howard: That, again, can wait.

Charlie: See, the color on a print will not be as good

Howard: Well, I won't have to color the books. The first issue isn't due on the stands until Februrary, and that means they're due in the house in December. By December, I hope to have all the books penciled, at least, and most of them inked. I hope to have the whole bunch finished by December or January. So that's cool. So I can spend January coloring six comics. So that's no rush on that.

Charley: Where's Roy? Are you sure he knows he's supposed to be here?

Howard: [shrugs] Are you sure he knows he's supposed to be here?

Charlie: [Carol] tried to call ILM, but once again, we can't call into ILM. The phones are so screwed.

George: When did that happen?

Charlie: It started happening yesterday, I guess when you arrived. And then, I don't know... It doesn't make any sense. We've called his house -- everything. It's too bad. He must have started talking to somebody and forgot.

Howard: I'd like to get on him and have him read that -script, then re-read it and break it down for me because I want to get started on the job, on the first issue. I have no intention of doing break-down myself.

Charlie: But he needs a new -script. That's another reason for coming over here today. He mislaid the -script I sent him.

Howard: I'm not going to break the -script up for him, because that's his job. I can fight with him after he's made the decision, after I've made mine. It's going to be a lot of fun to do. There's a lot of material to work with.

Charlie: Is there anything else you're going to need, other than the black and whites, do you think?

Howard: I can get the copies of the model shots now? They're in color?

George: Are they going to out there and look at them?

Charlie: Yeah. If you want to look at footage tomorrow, we can do it in the morning.

George: Actually, if they're going out there, they can also see the models.

Howard: Also, I need head shots on all the characters, the major characters and the minor ones. I have no idea who Biggs is -- the other pilot. The general in the war room with the Princess, I don't know him.

Charlie: You'll see once you get the stuff made up and you can look at the stuff. It's very kind of story-sense. Mark out the stuff. Because then what I'll do, I'll give you the sheets tomorrow. There's caption sheets for all the photos. So you can go through the caption sheets, figure out some of them.

Howard: I'm leaving Thursday.

Charlie: I know. Then what you do is mark up the shot and when I get the shot back, I'll write the description on the back.

Howard: That's okay?

Charlie: Unless you order a thousand.

Howard: I can't really see that happening. I need ship detail, background stuff, and curio detail. There are some shots of Han Solo sitting in the cockpit seat with a headset. That kind of stuff.

Charlie: Well, that's easy enough.

 

George: Well, have we given Roy up for lost?

 

Charlie: I don't know. I don't know what to do. I'm surprised at him.

 

George: What time is it?

 

Charlie: It is five of 5:00.

 

George: Where is he?

 

Charlie: He lives nearby. He lives in that new development over here on Barham.

 

George: Oh, yeah, there.

 

Charlie: It's that direction. Look at the way the lot is.

 

George: Oh, right. Over there.

 

Howard: Heavy with the lights on. Incredibly busy city.

 

George: Wonderworld.

 

Charlie: Jean-Luc Goddard called it "The Great Garage." I guess it is. You have to have some place to stuff all these people... You're signing the backs of them.

 

George: Yep.

 

Charlie: Oh, I thought the whole thing was to sign the front.

 

George: This is not a very good pen.

 

Charlie: What kind of pen do you want?

 

George: Well, Pentel. I want one of the narrow guage. This is one of those funny new pens. Works great, but it doesn't work so great on the back of these.

 

Charlie: You want a narrow, black Pentel? There may be one here [goes to desk & gets pen]

 

George: The pen ran out of ink. What a dud.

 

[Roy arrives and Charley motions in greeting.]

 

Charlie: We were talking about style a little bit, the illustration work.

 

Roy: Yeah, the illustration work. The writing will follow the screenplay, with a few captions that we'll put in... "Suddenly," for example.

 

Charlie: An occasional "suddenly." There's a lot of "suddenlies" in the -script.

 

Roy: Yeah, I know.

 

George: "Suddenly this," and "suddenly that."

 

Charlie: We put a few in the novel. We put a few in today.

 

George: We added one to novel. He didn't have any "suddenlies."

 

[Conversation between Howard and Roy indecipherable.]

 

George: I wanted to bring up that thing, too, now that you're here. The possibility for the editorial page we talked

 

Roy: The naming sometimes...

 

Charlie: That's why I want to bring it up, because he doesn't know .. To see how he feels. The comic book is going to be seventeen pages of artwork.

 

Roy: And there's one page that’s used for a letters page or whatever.

 

Charlie: Right. That's what I meant by the editorial page, anyhow. Gary is keen on having like a credit copy or something like that for the movie, which I don't think is necessary. I think it should be replacing the letter page in the first two issues, because they'll be out before the movie. Then we'll just have copy about the movie, which is agreeable to everybody.

 

George: Right. I don't think we need credits from the movie.

 

Charlie: And that way we don't take away pages for the story. And then, the first two letter pages would definitely be just material on the movie, because they'll come out before the movie.

 

George: I doubt if it's necessary even after the movie comes out to do —

 

Charlie: Unless we want to take up half the letters page, which is probably all we'd need anyway.

 

Roy: I can get it typeset into half a page and we can run a few letters in the third issue. Whatever you prefer.

 

Charlie: That way we keep it to seventeen pages of art so that you know consistently, six issues of seventeen pages each.

 

Roy: And one a whole flashback sequence, which we may need occasionally. Keep it to an absolute minimum. We can get by without them.

 

Howard: It isn't going to be a problem.

 

Roy: Sometime, too, we might make the second page -- as a suggestion, one page regularly could be like "the story so far" kind of thing. And I wondered how you would feel. Any problem with that?

 

George: No, that's all right.

 

Roy: And so we could always make the second page of the story be that, and then go on from there -- another splash over there.

 

George: Have you figured out at all how you're going to break it down? Have you tried at all to break it into seventeen...

 

Roy: No, we haven't really discussed that because Howard and I never really got together, but we will...

 

Howard: Before we start, we'll just figure that out first.

 

George: ... because I haven't the foggiest idea how it's going to work.

 

Howard: [to Roy] What I'd like you to do -- because I'm leaving Thursday -- is read it and give me some vague idea of how you want to do it. And call me, or drop me a line and tell me.

 

Roy: Oh, yeah. I will. You mean when you're back east? I get the phone tomorrow, and so forth. Well before we begin, we'll sort of figure out about where we'll be in terms of space. Yeah, I don't think it'll cause that much of a problem.

 

George: It's also tricky, because as a unit it starts slow and builds, so you've got to be really... The first couple of issues you're going to be really scraping to try and make something happen, or you're going to have to skip along -- merrily.

 

Charlie: Why? The first issue's got that whole capture.

 

George: Of the robots?

 

Charlie: No, of the capture of her -- of the ship.

 

George: That's right

 

Charlie: And by the second one you've got the robots being hunted down. You've got something in there that's built-in for a comic. I don't think there's a problem.

 

Howard: Even when there's nothing happening, to see...

 

Roy: Stuff! Yes! To be visually exciting!

 

Charlie: Howard, what about the sky battle at the end? How do you think we can solve that?

 

Roy: You mean the impersonality of the whole thing? Well, there are shots in the cockpit...

 

Howard: Well, by constant dubbing inset panels, cutting back to head shots, the way you do it in a film. I mean, like going for -- again, that'd be a graphic problem. Inset panels, shooting back and forth. We've got plenty of room. That's the good thing, you know, there is room.

 

Roy: It'd be kind of strange for a comic book. I know that traditionally there is this kind of comic, you know, stories about sleek jets fighting. But in this case, it's going to be part of a continued story, and by the last issue, or two, where this is happening on this scale, they're going to be pretty well into it where we can afford an issue of that type.

 

George: Your basic "fighting Air Force" issue.

 

Roy: Something like that, yeah. A lot of big shots and insets and cutting back and forth, yes.

 

Howard: And the ships themselves are neat enough looking. They make nice lines.

 

George: Yeah, well, at least we have a variety of them and stuff like that. We're not stuck with one or two kinds of ships.

 

Howard: Right. That kind of stuff can get real dull real fast. As long as there are interesting designs on the ships, as you say... and a comic book isn't quite the same thing. Because the ships streaking one goes by and then after that it begins to get a little boring repeating those heads

 

Roy: But I think it'll work out pretty well. We started a couple of weeks ago.

 

Howard: You sent me something?

 

Roy: Yeah, it'll be back in New York by about Monday. Several pages there right now. Five or six are waiting for you.

 

Howard: That's what I'll do, then, next week.

 

Roy: And then, I'll call you next week, and we'll work out...

 

Howard: I'll spend my rare moments of leisure designing the calendar.

 

Roy: Right, of course you've the stills and you have to transfer...

 

Howard: Yeah, I'm going to harden certain things up and idealize others.

 

George: Yeah, he's going to go through and get a bunch of stills that he wants. Also we have a book that we've done which I'll send with about fifty stills in it, so that there's a vague

 

Howard: [cutting in] That'll help us let us see --

 

George: Yeah, you know, going through the story thing.

 

Charlie: Shouldn't be any problem.

 

[Marcia interjects something to Charlie who responds, indescipherable]

 

Marcia: [to Charlie] Have you spoken to her lately, since she's come back?

 

Charlie: No, I haven't phoned her since the day before she left. I've been meaning to, but [indescipherable]

 

Roy: There's a lot of doodads about it. A lot of action shots, sketches. People kept coming up and they were -- there was a lot of interest.

 

Howard: Everybody back East who had seen the collection of materials people have all gone nuts. The reaction has been incredible. Because at first it was like "come on, one more, who wants another crummy science fiction movie." Because they're all crummy science fiction movies. And when they see the material they can tell. Scientists in particular with airplanes and blowing up things, they know there's something for a start. All the guys at the studio want sets of those paintings. Even Neil.

 

Roy: Yeah, there's a lot of enthusiasm and I think that it should go over.

 

Charlie: What logo are we using?

 

Roy: There's a couple of good ones. But I was wondering, do you have a regular logo that will be well-known by that time or are we free to design our own if we

 

Charlie: We'll be in the process of designing one. I know 20th wants one.

 

George: Yeah, it's It's hard to know whether we should let them go ahead and do what they want, because I mean, the one we've got is essentially the company logo, which doesn't really

 

Roy: Is that the one like...

 

George: It's the one that's on the t-shirt.

 

Roy: I know they'd be kind of reluctant to use that. It's a little hard to read on a newsstand when a kid's looking to buy it.

 

Charlie: Oh, yeah.

 

Roy: We'd probably be best off if we made something simple -- a two-line thing. It's not THE STAR WARS? You never called it THE?

 

George: We used to, but we took THE off.

 

Roy: I thought you dropped something.

 

George: Yeah, we dropped it.

 

Roy: I think just putting those two names and perhaps there's... we ought to put a line above the title, too... kind of a lead-in.

 

Charlie: Oh, my God, he liked THE STAR WARS!

 

Roy: No, it's what you'd like to say that could be used in the movie's advertising. You know, like "Frenzy in a far-flung future," that kind of thing. You know, if there is something like that that might go well above the logo in addition, or some lead-in, something or other that ends in the words STAR WARS. Or something like that.

 

George: Well, we're still looking for that.

 

Charlie: I'd like to get that, because some people in this town still think it's the battle between stars at one studio and stars at another.

 

Roy: Well, I guess it could be.

 

George: They think it's about the Elizabeth Taylor - Richard Burton story.

 

Roy: There's a little confusion with using that against the War Wizards

 

George: Also the same studio.

 

Charlie: Theirs will be out before, if they're lucky.

 

George: Maybe.

 

Roy: I just wondered if you wanted to play with stuff like that, and give a call? Check if there's any problems?

 

Howard: Talk to Novak, maybe he'll design something.

 

Roy: He'd design a nice, simple...

 

George: The main thing we're trying to go for is the romantic angle on everything.

 

Howard: The Seahawk?

 

George: Yeah, again the thing that was right on is the Cody Starbuck Arnwold kind of thing. Romantic space.

 

Howard: That wasn't naughty as the one chained to one of them. What was the change of the sword? From a Samurai grip to a rapier. The impression I got from the artwork was really Samurai-outfit and the sword!

 

George: It is very Samurai-ish but the only problem with the poster was the style of the poster and the way it was working was it looked very Kung Fu, which is very popular, but it really read Kung Fu more than anything. And so by taking it down it sort of took away from that a liitle bit. Although in the movie, it is a very Samurai — it's much more a Samurai thing.

 

Howard: Well, the sword seemed too long to use as a rapier.

 

George: No, it is a Samurai -- You don't really see it work that often. The only thing is when Ben and Vader at the end... when they have their fight, that's the only time you see it in any kind of a fight. Hopefully, in the future, I can begin to get Luke into more of a swordsman. But there just wasn't any room in the picture utimately for it.

 

Roy: Particularly when the climax is the space fight.

 

George: Well, also with the sword thing, it got very difficult -- which it always does in a situation like that. Alec Guiness was pretty good with a sword, but the guy who played Darth Vader was terrible. Alec Guiness wasn't a swordsman, but he still could do it. And getting them to actually be good at it was really

 

Howard: That was the one negative reaction -- they look very silly with the swords... Fairbank's shots, even Flynn's stills, look a little silly. But Fairbanks, even the stills of him, are great.

 

Charlie: Oh, well, that guy was an athlete. I mean, he was just beautiful.

 

Roy: Well, luckily, we're not stuck with the stills. In the movie, they aren't stills, but I know what you mean.

 

Howard: Well, I will choreograph the swordplay.

 

George: The other thing is it's hard in real-life, especially if you aren't a swordsman, to actually get it to work.

 

Howard: That's one thing I will idealize.

 

Roy: It never looks as dramatic as the drawings you make of it.

 

Howard: We'll probably be a little bit bummed out

 

Roy: Looking at how it comes out on photographs.

 

Marcia: (garbled)

 

Howard: No, that one's actually a little bit larger. If you draw the proportions as they are in real-life, I mean, in the drawing his head would be larger and he looks like a child.

 

Roy: There's just a slight change.

 

Howard: Ray Morrow draws like that.

 

George: Yeah, they look very odd.

 

Marcia: Will Han Solo still be bigger in comparison?

 

Howard: Yes, oh, yes. Make their heads a little smaller and their hands a little bigger. I've really concentrated on Han Solo.

 

Marcia: I love him. He's really great.

 

Howard: He's the one that looks like my stuff.

 

George: That's why I say when I first read your stuff, you know, I was right in the middle of this, and, oh yeah, gee. And I was like every page, wow! You could really see it.

 

[George is informed that Mike Schultz and co. have arrived and steps out.]

 

Roy: Just one more minor thing... [points to letter in comic pile]... I notice that the word STARWARS and CORPORATION is listed as one word.

 

Charlie: No, that's a mistake. That's Ed's doing. That's Ed's letter.

 

Roy: Oh, because I thought it was really spelled as one word and I wanted to make sure that I had that right.

 

Charlie: No, it's two words.

 

Roy: To see Spider-man without the hyphen... it's little things that throw you off. You can spell things differently in two different places. I was just checking to make sure it was, indeed, a two worded thing. And drop the THE.

 

Charlie: Are there any changes now since that -script, Marcia?

 

[George comes back into the meeting.]

 

Marcia: That was a short meeting. [George shakes head] Wait a minute. There must be something more important.

 

Roy: Well, I've talked to Charlie a couple of times, and Howard and I have talked about it.

 

George: And, of course, we talked about it a long time ago.

 

Roy: Right.

 

END OF TAPE

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

Great stuff Comicwiz

I appreciate the time and effort for you posting this.