With a schedule of conventions to attend throughout the summer and fall of 1976, Lippincott turned his attention toward the press on reaching comics fans. His first breakthrough was an interview he gave for Comic Buyer's Guide in 1976. "I realized that they would be a major thing for me to get into because it's what anybody buying comic books read. Since it was both fan and business-based, I really made a point to talk to them. I talked to some other people, such as science fiction fan magazines and such, but they were not as important. Comic Buyer's Guide was it."
The next big break came from an extensive feature in the November/December 1976 issue of Mediascene magazine, a publication helmed by Lippincott's personal friend and renowned comic book artist, Jim Steranko. Mediascene was self-described at the time as "a publication devoted to popular culture in multi-media, from the comics to the cinema". Clearly, this was the perfect forum for Star Wars, and Lippincott granted unprecedented access to the Star Wars production for the issue's multi-page coverage. In addition to a Ralph McQuarrie cover, scores of paintings and sketches by McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and others were featured along with a Roy Thomas interview for the upcoming comic series. Also strategically featured were a series of 22 early storyboards by Alex Tavoularis, which perfectly conveyed Star Wars' comic book style of storytelling. Like the film class lectures he had given in 1970, Lippincott was again using comic style art to tell a cinematic story.
March 1977 finally saw the release of the first Star Wars comic book, which featured a cover by Chaykin very similar to the original poster sold nearly a year earlier. Because the novelization, which had an initial print run of 125,000, had fully sold through the month before, the comic book was the only new way that Star Wars would be able to reach a potential audience in the formative months before its release. Lippincott felt vindicated for the hardball terms he'd had to accept from Marvel -- especially since the comic book was proving to be a hot seller. "I saw the first Star Wars comic at the major newsstand on Cahuenga just below Hollywood Boulevard, which is where I got my comics in Los Angeles. I went down there on Monday to pick up Star Wars #1, and I think there was like five left on the ground. My friend Larry worked there, and I said, 'You didn't order many did you?' and he said, 'What do you mean, I had a stack! They came in Friday. Why didn't you tell me it was going to be this big?'"
