In celebration of today's release of Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, StarWars.com invited celebrated cartoonist Jeffrey Brown to take us behind the scenes of his contribution to the book. We're honored to host this look into his creative process, starting with basic panels and abandoned ideas and moving all the way toward finished comic, complete with Brown's own commentary. Enjoy.
I was super excited to be part of the From a Certain Point of View anthology. Like all my Star Wars projects, I started out doodling in a little sketchbook. The only problem was I had a little writer’s block -- there were too many possibilities. Where to start?!
After going back and watching A New Hope a half dozen times for inspiration, I came up with six scenes to sketch. I started out with the scene that could probably be made into a TV miniseries and still not cover all the characters: the Mos Eisley cantina. I thought it’d be funny if Kabe was upset about getting the wrong drink while Ponda Baba’s arm is flying across the bar and Han Solo is shooting lasers everywhere. Or seeing the cantina patrons try to explain what happened to the stormtroopers.
I always enjoy making Vader and the Emperor bicker like an old married couple.
I like to imagine the troops on the Death Star with more personality, so it would be great to see them get frustrated with each other. Or watch the underlings have a better sense of self preservation than their leaders!
In the end, we picked the Imperial troops who had to search for the rebel base. I drew up a full size sketch, loving the chance to give a nod to my Darth Vader and Son series -- the rebel kids have apparently constructed their fake base out of cardboard boxes.
The final version didn’t change much from the final sketch, except of course the detail of making the lead officer General Tagge, who was sent to search Dantooine. The last element was a title -- I wrote a list of quotes and phrases from the related scenes in the movie, and everyone agreed “Far Too Remote” fit best.
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View is available on now in hardcover and ebook from Del Rey and as an audiobook for download and on CD from Random House Audio.
Jeffrey Brown is the author and illustrator of the bestselling Darth Vader and Son series. His new book, Lucy & Andy Neanderthal 2: The Stone Cold Age, was just released and also takes place a long time ago.
