My Time Working on Star Wars Comics
Reminiscing on great times + pages from our stories + new YouTube video!
Some long-overdue Star Wars content this week!
We’ve got a new video out on YouTube—an interview with the Great Charles Soule about developing the future of Star Wars and his wonderful novel The Light Of The Jedi— that got me reminiscing a lot about my Star Wars days.
Between 2017 and 2019, with Pierrick Colinet, I co-wrote and drew stories in Star Wars Adventures, Star Wars Forces of Destiny among others, and drew Si Spurrier’s Dr.Aphra Annual. I’m generally not a big franchise fan. I was not even a Star Wars fan before IDW reached out to us, but man, I quickly got into it!
Working with Pierrick on this was definitely a big part of the fun. We have a studio together and work side by side. The whole Star Wars experience felt a lot like creator-owned in the sense that once we’d cleared with Lucasfilm’s story group what characters we could and could not use, we were pretty much free to create. I drew some pretty bold storytelling bits, especially for an all-ages comic. Lucasfilm was always very supported of our ideas and that’s something I had not been expecting. They were really down to play.
Before I quickly go some of the stories we put together, here my conversation with Charles Soule. We dig very deeply into the process, like very deeply and I love Charles for indulging me and being so generous with his answers. You’ll love it.
Star Wars Forces of Destiny: Leia
The whole idea with this one was to use snow as negative space whenever I could and use a playful grid. Do keep in mind that all the pages pictured were drawn 5 years ago (digitally, back then) so my art has changed quite a bit! Gorgeous colors by Sarah Stern.
Star Wars Adventures #10 and #11 (with Lando!)
I thiiiiink these pages were my very first time going back to paper after five years working digitally. This is as Godfather-y Star Wars will ever get, as the last panel shows :)
Once thing I remember is the editor asking me to make Lando’s mustache “less French” which you’ve got to admit is pretty hilarious. Can’t take the French outta the French cartoonist.
Star Wars Adventures #12 and #13: (with Padmé and Anakin!)
Sunset Boulevard is one of my favorite movies and Pierrick and how somehow found a way to do a Norma Desmond hommage in this series with this new character we created, Risha Synata a former actress that’s way passed her glory days. Writing and drawing here was so, SO much fun. Pierrick and I have a very fluid way of working especially when we write together. We build up on the initial plot with sketches, thumbnails, go back to the script, adjust panels, lines of dialogue…it’s extremely fulfilling, creatively, and I do miss working on Star Wars!
As a bonus, here’s an actual Sunset Boulevard piece I drew in 2018.
Looking back and re-reading them, I’m pleased to see these episodes really hold up! The one thing we insisted on doing throughout was not to take kids for idiots, as sadly it’s so often the case for books targeted to this audience. They understand a lot more than we give them credit for, and worst case scenario, they have to ask their parent and read along with them!
I’m grateful I got to work on these with Pierrick.
That’s it from me for today! Remember to check out our new YouTube channel (and subscribe to our channel if you’re not already) and I’ll be around next week!
Much love,
Elsa
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Excellent breakdowns! Thanks for sharing. The SW stuff looks great in your style and now I really want to read that Lando story!