Classic SW: Han Solo At Stars' End TPB

Story: Archie Goodwin (adapted from Brian Daley)
Art: Alfredo Alcala
Colors: Perry McNamee

Reprints the old Goodwin comic strips which adapted Brian Daley's novel. The pre-ANH Han Solo and Chewbacca try to rescue prisoners from the Stars' End. Reviewed 06/03/97 There are two reasons that one might pick up an issue of Dark Horse's "Classic Star Wars" reprints. The first is obviously to read a story which expands the Star Wars universe beyond the films. The second is to own a copy of rare or expensive SW history. I think the three issues of "Han Solo at Stars' End" fails in both respects. At some point around the late-70s, Archie Goodwin adapted Brian Daley's novel into a series of daily newspaper comic books. Dark Horse has taken these original comic strips, cut out some of the redundant frames, colored them and reprinted them as three comics. While the original "Classic Star Wars" reprints were ground-breakingly creative in their work in taking a newspaper strip and laying it out like a modern-day comic, the HSASE series is about as uncreative as can be. Every frame has been enlarged to the same height, with only minor variations in width. This really feels like you're reading a long newspaper comic strip. The colorization effort is largely inconsistant. Occationally, various gradient and shading effects are used to make up for the lack of background that's characteristic of 70s comic strips. Most of the time, the effect is little more than flat paint by numbers. The Goodwin script is pretty good at telling the story of the novel. (I'd particularly recommend these issues to anyone wanting to cheat during the novel discussion of this book.) However, the story seemed sillier in comic form than the novel I remember. The aliens are particularly uncreative in light of the SW film visions we've seen. These are "Star Trek" aliens. If you're a serious collector of old SW material, I understand that these comic strips were once sold unedited in hard cover form. I think that's the real hot item. If you're a collector on more of a budget, this will get you a basic look but without the value-added from previous "Classic" series. If you're looking for a good story, read the novel. (More on that during the novel discussion.) Summary 6/10 as an archive, 4/10 as a comic. Not recommended.
"EnsViews" are copyright ? 1997-8 by Paul Ens. They are posted to rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc, emailed to Dark Horse Comics and archived on theForce.net. With the exception of Dark Horse Comics Inc, they may not be reprinted without permission. Titles, Cover images, Dark Horse Comics, and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics Inc. and its respective Licensors.