Book Crazy

It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I went from being a casual comic book fan to a serious collector. I recently looked back at my large collection on my books and comics from this year, and I tallied it up. I suddenly realized how much I had spent this year on comics and books alone. More than four hundred dollars. While that might not be much to some people, to me, a more low-budget collector, this is a substancial amount of money.

While there are a lot of Star Wars comics, when you break it down, only two or three, sometimes even less, come out every month. Other than a few issues of Knights of the Old Republic and Legacy that have slipped through my fingers, I’ve picked up almost every single issue.

As for books, this year I’ve bought and read up the first four Legacy of the Force books, Allegence, Destiny’s Way, Outbound Flight, X-Wing: Isard’s Revenge, and X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar. As usual, these are in addition to re-reading older books with the Star Wars Action News book club.

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Comic Book Review: Splinter of the Mind’s Eye

Originally published in comic book series in 1996, this volume of the 30th Anniversary Comic Book Collection contains the entire series of comic adaptions of the book Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. Originally written and released in 1978 by Alan Dean Foster, it was re-adapted by comic book writer Terry Austin.

When Luke and Leah crash-land onto the mysterious world of Mimban, they find themselves in the middle of an Imperial mining outpost. Desperate to escape before being notice, they offer their help to an old Jedi Halla in exchange for transport of Mimban. Halla tasks Luke and Leah to retrieve a powerfull Jedi artifact from a temple deep in the jungles of Mimban: The Kaiburr Crystal, a device used to magnify one’s power in the Force.

After escaping an Imperial prison with the help of two native Yuzzem, Luke, Leah and Halla trek through the jungle to the old temple, where they confront Darth Vader and a legion of Stormtroopers in a race to obtain the crystal. After a quick duel with Luke and Leah, Vader plomets through a hole in the floor of the temple and the three ride of into the sunse.

This must of been a tremendous job for Foster to write a Star Wars story with just the original movie as a reference point. That said, I think he did a great job. The story was clean-cut and straightforward. Unlike some other EU from the early days, there weren’t so many throwbacks and references to the movies that it started to get old. And while the Kalibur Crystal is a bit out there for Star Wars as it goes, the overall story was fast-paced and entertaining.

The art was reminiscent of the old days of Marvel, but overall Chris Sprouse did a good job portraying our original characters. It fit the feel of the story perfectly, and Sprouse does a wonderful job designing the world origanally created in the novel.

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