Last year I had a choice: getting an ultrasaber staff or some hefty volumes of Star Wars comics from "The original Marvel Years"-series and I went for the saber in a blink.
Still the itch for comics was there and in the past couple of months I thought I'd give a taste of this artistic way of storytelling to see if I can revive that excitement I had as a kid when I opened one up and let myself being lost in a single square of fantasy.
It was a bit of a mind-split to decide if I should go for the older ones by Dark Horse which are insanely rich but now all stamped as "legends" by Disney or I should get a sample of the new Marvel ones threading along the new canon.
Actually it was a heart warming surprise to realize that there's a good bunch of new canon comics (well, it was a surprise to me who didn't follow this layer of SW at all before) and it's Marvel again who had picked up the thread and literally has been pumping out fresh and new goodies since.
So I though I'd give a go for the new canon and bought a few thin thematic volumes for a start. And it was such a good idea! The SW comics section started growing on my bookshelf: a volume of Lando, a full Darth Vader collection, a volume about Kanan's story leading up to where we can see him in Rebels, and Marvel was brave enough to create new characters like Dr. Aphra, and so on. Wonderful reads and so intensively fascinating artwork in all of them, now they are my primary food for new canon stories and I'm so glad that in this matter I haven't aged a bit: my mind wanders off into the world these pictures and text provide like it did when I was 10.
Fortunately I'm quite late in the game so I can pick these stories now arranged into graphic novel volumes and don't have to hunt single comic issues (and chop hands of scum and villany in an outer rim cantina for them) and also the older ones are discounted enough to make me feel I'm eating a multi-storey cake without breaking the bank.
On the other hand I remember there was a hugely extensive Dark Horse-era I never could have delved into but wouldn't like to miss. One day - being infected by my enthusiasm - my wife came home with a smile twelve parsecs wide and pulled out 3 hardcover releases of old anniversary edition Dark Horse stuff. They're weathered a bit and she told she had to defeat a few Ugnaught scrap scavengers for them but she sourced a full Crimson Empire, a Biggs Darklighter and a Jango Fett/Zam Wesell from a charity shop's lower shelf for one pound each! What a trophy! I loved those too, Biggs' story up till he dies attacking the first Death Star is my fav now with many brilliant cross-references to the Ep4 movie.
So I got the idea that I can actually be confident to pick up some of the Dark Horse releases too - although they're "legends", still not interfereing with the canon if I pick the themes carefully. The question was rather how and where I could get them from, I didn't expect angry mothers dramatically depriving their kids from these graphics novels and filling up charity shop stocks with them.
And then I found out that Marvel actually is releasing the reprints of these legend materials rearranged them into massive volumes (400+ pages) thematically! The Force is strong with Disney and their investments in buying off rights from everyone's hands ever got dirty with SW in any ways! A few searches in e-bay and I already have pulled the trigger for brand new Old Republic volumes 1 and 2 (a mere 850 pages and midichlorians know how many single issues in them) for a fracture of the price they costed when they were new years ago.
Over the moon am I? No doubt!
And in a week or so a new release is about to come from these "Epic Collection"-series: the original Thrawn-trilogy! Never have seen it in graphics novel but have read the books several times so it's a must buy for me.
And the comics-section on the bookshelf is growing silently but steadily...
I guess I'm seriously hooked. And I'm happy that there's a massive supply to ease my hunger
