The Rise of Skywalker

I saw my first Star War in a theater at age twelve. It was Return of the Jedi. I immediately became obsessed, mostly with all the vehicles. Those speeder bikes!

During those summers I would spend days at my dad’s machine shop in Williamsburg, Ohio. Mom did accounting in the office and I would putter around and try and stay out of everyone’s hair.

They let me use the photocopier—within reason—and that led to my first commercial art and entrepreneurial experience.

I drew a collage of all the major characters from Return of the Jedi, complete with logotype treatment of the movie title in black and white and made a bunch of photocopies. I’d take those prints and color them in by hand.

Then I set up a table outside the shop with my wares and tried to sell ’em. I sold one, maybe two? I’m sure my parents put friends up to it. I took the money from the sale and went up the street to the ice cream place and got a soft serve cone.

I tried to find one of these drawings or a copy to no avail. Seriously, I’ve been through about 6 boxes in storage and gone down so many rabbit holes. One path led me to a box of toys and the image below.

How’s all that for a tangent?!

Fast forward many years and I still love this silly space cowboy show. (Let’s ignore the prequels for the moment.) I loved The Force Awakens and thought The Last Jedi was excellent. So I was pretty excited for this “last” installment of the Skywalker saga.

It was a sprawling, dense, visually thrilling, hoot. Spoiler with my favorite part? (You’ve been warned.) Chewy’s moment at the end. Totally ridiculous and lovely.

One last tangent. When I got a toy Jabba the Hut back in 1983, it looked very different than what was on the box. The color was all wrong. He was… ochre.

So I painted it.

Don’t believe the ochre? Check out the first image on this comparison of Jabba toys over the years. (Now that’s dedication.)

Hand-painted Jabba Kenner Toy

Nope, one more tangent! What up, movie posters?