WonderCon: George Lucas's The Star Wars Headed to Comics

Dark Horse Comics announced today at WonderCon that they will publish an eight-issue miniseries based on George Lucas's The Star Wars--that is, the original treatment that later became Star Wars as we know and love it--beginning in September. J.W. Rinzler, executive editor at LucasBooks, will write and Mike Mayhew will provide the art. "I'm not sure where I first read about The Star Wars—it was years and years ago—but the idea of Luke Skywalker being an older Jedi General, and Han Solo being a six-foot-tall lizard, turned my Star Wars fan brain on its side," said longtime Star Wars editor Randy Stradley. "I always assumed this would be one of those stories that would be 'lost to history,' so getting to work on bringing it to life is kinda like a dream come true." "While researching in the Lucasfilm Archives I've found many treasures—but one which truly astounded me was George's rough draft for The Star Wars. His first complete imaginings were hallucinating to read—mind blowing," said writer J.W. Rinzler. "While working with George on another book project, I once asked if we could adapt his rough draft. He was hesitant. Years later, with Dark Horse's invaluable help, we showed him a few drawn and colored pages of what it might look like. He gave us the okay." The story centers around Jedi Annikin Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker, an alien named Han Solo, and evil Sith Knights. An edited version of the script is available here, cobbled together by Brendon Wahlberg, who has written fan fiction set in the universe of Anakin Starkiller. An unedited rough draft is also available here.