Marvel is reprinting their first Star Wars adaption next year in hardcover, CBR reports today. The comics by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin will be fully recolored by Chris Sotomayor and feature a new cover from Adi Granov.
While I find the old school coloring charming – the new version just looks super generic, at least in the example provided – I have no doubt this will find plenty of buyers. (Presumably the original versions will be available in January’s Star Wars: The Original Marvel Years.) The ‘remastered’ adaption will be out in April, followed by similar editions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi later in the year.
But how many covers will it have.
Dark Horse did this in 1994 too, if I recall correctly. The trades with the Arthur Adams / Adam Hughes covers.
I vaguely remember the Dark Horse ones – I think I came into SW comics right around the time they were starting ROTJ – but I never looked that closely at them so I thought they were just totally new adaptions for whatever reason.
The reprinting I can understand, but total recoloring? The more I think about it (and look at that example above) the less I like it. I can’t imagine something like this panel would really be improved with modern color techniques.
Then again, I never even picked up the Sandman recolors from a few years back, even knowing there are some pages and issues that were just unforgivably horrible the first time around.
Recolorings are often are worse than the original versions of a comic and can add new errors or change the intent of the original colorist.
I definitely feel more comfortable looking at the neutral/realistic colors of the revised page…but I also have to admit, the blue vs. yellow original is a *lot* more eye-catching. Jarring but eye-catching. 80’s coloring was limited by the printable inks and colors, and it’s always been what I liked least from comics of that age. Probably a matter of taste, though.