A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Cover art: Early concept painting of Darth Vader facing off against "Deak Starkiller" by Ralph McQuarrie. © 2013 Henry N. Abrams (Abrams Books) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On October 15, 2013, New York City-based Abrams Books (a subsidiary of France's La Martinière Groupe) published Star Wars Art: Concept, a 176-page hardcover volume dedicated to concept paintings created by Lucasfilm's artists for various Star Wars projects, including films, TV shows, and video games such as The Force Unleashed and the canceled Star Wars 1313.  In the tradition of Star Wars Art: Posters and Abrams ComicArts' Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series – Volume One, this coffee table art book is heavy on art (125 illustrations) that was used in the pre-production stage of many Lucasfilm Star Wars presentations, including the first six films, the animated segment of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special,  and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Art for the Nelvana/Lucasf...

Cover art by Marvel Comics artist Bob Larkin. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In May of 1980, a few weeks before 20th Century Fox released Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in theaters, Marvel's official comics adaptation hit the shelves at bookstores, newsstands and comic book shops in the U.S. and Canada. There were various iterations of writer Archie Goodwin and artists Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon's take on the story written by George Lucas, Leigh Brackett, and Lawrence Kasdan, including five monthly issues ( Star Wars #39-44, labeled as Star Wars but featuring a  cover "blurb" featuring the logo for The Empire Strikes Back ), a large-format "Treasury" edition, and The Marvel Comics Illustrated Edition of The Empire Strikes Back, which was the size of a mass-market paperback (4 1/8" X 7" size) and featured cover art by Bob Larkin. Of all these, The Marvel Comics Illustrated Edition of The Empire Strikes Back was the first to reach cons...

Cover Art: "Rey and the Island" concept painting by James Clyne. © 2017 Abrams Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On December 15, 2017, Abrams Books, an imprint of New York publisher Henry N. Abrams, released Phil Szostak's The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Published on Opening Day of director Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, this was Szostak's third volume in a series of illustrated books that focus on the concept art created by Lucasfilm's Art Department during the making of the post-George Lucas Sequel Trilogy and the standalone Star Wars Anthology movies. An image archivist who has worked for The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm in the past, Szostak was embedded with Lucasfilm's Art Department almost as soon as George Lucas retired from making blockbuster films and sold his famous production company and all of its assets to Disney in 2012. As a result, he has been in a good position to cover the illustrators, set designers, pre-vis artis...

The cover for the paperback edition. (C) 1998 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Take the artistic talents of the late and acclaimed designer Ralph McQuarrie and the writing skills of prolific author Kevin J. Anderson ( The Jedi Academy Trilogy ) and you get The Illustrated Star Wars Universe , a coffee table book that gives readers a glimpse of the various planets showcased in George Lucas' original Star Wars Trilogy (1977-83). Using McQuarrie's production sketches and paintings for A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and other Lucasfilm projects set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” (including the Endor-based television specials of the mid-1980s plus preliminary sketches for the 1997 Special Edition updates), Anderson takes readers on a grand tour of the most important planets seen in the Original Trilogy of the Star Wars Saga.  A production painting for Star Wars (1977) is used to illustrate the chapter on Tatooine. ...