Star Wars - Portugal : 2018

2018-Mar-23

Star Wars 40th Anniversary

 

Star Wars - Droids : 2021 United States

 

2021-May-04 Nicasio CA (Skywalker Ranch)

Ten forever stamps from the United States Postal Service celebrate 10 popular mechanical androids from the Star Wars film franchise and media empire. Lucasfilm, the studio that created the Star Wars franchise, is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2021.

Each stamp in the set shows a single droid that has appeared in one or more feature films in the fictional Star Wars media franchise, or in an offshoot television or streaming series. The droids are each depicted against an indistinct background representing “settings of memorable adventures,” according to the Postal Service.

Representing more than four decades of innovation and storytelling, the droids featured in these stamps are IG-11, R2-D2, K-2SO, D-O, L3-37, BB-8, C-3PO, a GNK (Gonk) power droid, 2-1B surgical droid and C1-10P (Chopper)

R2-D2 and C-3PO, were featured in the first scene of the first Star Wars movie in 1977, are shown on two adjacent stamps in the 2007 pane of 15

Digital Color postmarks were available for each of the stamps:

Commemorative postmarks: 

Tom Travers - Boba Fett

2019.10.26 Suffolk Comic & Art Expo, Brentwood, NY

Tom Travers is the creator of the fantasy/action hero Battle Skull. His 1980/90s childhood fueled his creative fire, along with an unwavering desire to create unique, entertaining characters, stories and worlds. Tom is looking forward to self-publishing a Battle Skull comic book

Tom also has collaborated on External Underpants with writer Dan Phillips, a ten-page post-apocalyptic short story

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Brianna Renee - Padme Amidala

2018.01.21 Jersey Shore Comic Con, Toms River, NJ

Brianna Renee is a student artist, who set up a table at the Jersey Shore Comic Con. Brianna's tumblr stated she has been drawing since the age of 12, and is ready to share her art. I was impressed by her art and enamel pins, which were heavily influenced by Star Wars.  Therefore it was  a no-brainer that I would request a sketch of Padme..

Matt Buttich - Darth Vader

2017.03.26 Manahawkin, NJ

Matt Buttich is a freelance artist, who specializes in sketch cards and comic book covers. He is currently providing art for Topps Star Wars Galactic Files series 5...

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Jan Duursema - Aayla Secura

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Jan Duursema is an artist known for her work on Star Wars, for which she created the characters Denin and Vila from Naldar, the Twi'lek Jedi Aayla Secura and the Kiffar Jedi Quinlan Vos.  However her work goes far beyond the Star Wars Universe. 

Duursema's first published work appeared in Heavy Metal in July 1979, followed by Sgt. Rock art for DC Comics.   With writer Paul Kupperberg she co-created the character Arion, who first appeared in The Warlord #55, March 1982. The character of Arion would eventually have his own book Arion, Lord of Atlantis, which ran from 1982 - 1985...

Star Wars #92 from Marvel Comics, featured Duurema's first work for the franchise, which continued through the Dark Horse titles, including Star Wars: Darth Maul mini-series, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi..

Other titles that feature Duursema's work include: the Outsiders, Saga of the Swamp Thing, Hawkworld, Detective Comics, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, X-Men, X-Factor, Spider-Man Unlimited, Elric and many others....

Aayla Secura is a Twi'lek Jedi appearing in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars (TV series)...

Duursema is currently working on Hexar Dusk with John Ostrander, which is being funded through Indiegogo!!!

Paul Harding - Star Wars - Rancor

2016.04.17 East Coast Comic Con, Seacaucus, NJ

From Marvel Legends to DC Collectibles' Icon line, sculptor & illustrator Paul harding had left an indelible mark on the action figure and statue world.  That being said I usually glance at tables with statues and figures trying not to make eye contact with the vendor, so I don't get their hopes up thinking I might buy something.  I simply do not collect statues or action figures. I appreciate the work that goes into them and the beauty of the piece, so when I turned the corner and saw Paul Harding's table with a few figures in boxes I had planned on passing him by. Then I noticed he was working on a wash of Kylo Ren. He had a couple of sketches on the table he had been working on.

I stopped and watched him work and asked about his doing sketches. He stated he was, but preferred to draw villains. Since he was working a a Star Wars sketch, I asked if he could draw a Star Wars related character on the C3PO first day cover. He agreed, but wanted to do a villain. My response is usually a simple go for it.  And he did with this excellent Rancor

Harding has created figures for Batman Black and White, Sideshow Collectibles, Hasbro, Gentle Giant (Star Wars, GI Joe, Star Trek, Pacific Rim)

Eryk Donovan - Luke Skywalker

2015.10.09 NY Comic Con, NYC

Eryk Donovan is a comic book creator and illustrator. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, his work has been featured in Boom! Studios series Memetic, Thrillbent's series The House in the Wall and Super Mario Bros. 2 the Movie Sequel webcomic...

From Eryk's blog: "I make my drawings with the intention of the ink being the final work, not the pencils. If no-one ever sees my pencils I'm fine with that was long as they think my inks are sexy."

Since I didn't have any first day covers that related to the Boom Studios Memetic, I asked what his preference was, to which he quickly responded science fiction. When he noticed the Star Wars FDC that became his choice...

Donovan's lastest book with James Tynion IV (signed by both) from Boom! Studios - Cognetics

Joe Eisma - Darth Sidious

2015.10.09 NY Comic Con, NYC

Joe Eisma is the artist co-creator of the Eisner nominated and New York Times best selling series from Image Comics - Morning Glories. The story focuses on a group of students at the Morning Glories Academy, which hides sinister and deadly secrets. The series is written by Nick Spencer...

Eisma has also worked on Hoax Hunters, Existence 3.0 and Dynamo 5 from Image comics, Higher Earth from Boom! Studios and Cobra from IDW Publishing...

After a brief discussion Eisma chose to do Star Wars related sketch.  If i had a Higher Learning or other educational related first day cover, I would have went with a character from Morning Glories. 

His Darth Sidious captures the evil expression nicely...

Outside of artist alley Jelly Belly had a booth with 2 paintings made from jelly beans - Darth Vader and Yoda, while artist Kristen Cummings was working an a Batman. I don't know how she avoids eating the jelly beans while working. Cummings uses an acrylic drawing to serve as a guide to the final product. Cummings began working for Jelly Belly producing her first works in 2010..

The Vader postcard was available at the Jelly Belly booth...

Marki Wolfson - C3PO

2015.07.26 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

Marki is currently a student at the Kubert School, provided a comic perspective of C3PO

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2015.10.20 -  Royal Mail honors the Star Wars Universe with 12 character stamps and 6 vehicle designs. 

Royal Mail also had different postmarks for cancellations for different types of covers being produced. The Alliance Starbird cancel from Elstree, Borehamwood was used as the traditional first day postmark,

the  Imperial cancel from Tallents House, Edinbrugh was used on the Prestige stamp book first day cover,

Millenium Falcon postmark used on the Vehicles medallion (PNC) cover 

AT-AT walker used on the Battles medallion (PNC) cover

Star Wars logo from Sithney Helston; Planet from Leicester Square London; Star Jump from Leicester; Empire Way from Wembley

Science Fiction from Wells; Planet attack from Ealing London; Good vs Evil from Bristol; Planet from Elstree Borenham

Yoda from Pinewood Road Iver (2015-Oct-31 to 2016-Oct-30); Darth Vader from Elstree Borehamwood (2015-Oct-31 to 2016-Oct-30); Stars from London; Science Fiction - Empire Way from Wembley (2015-Oct-20 to 2016-Oct-19)

2013 - Dutch artist Stefan van Zoggel produced fantasy art showing stamps that might have been used in the Star Wars universe. The stamps were featured on the site Damn Cool Pictures.

van Zoggel used some very old stamp designs to bring these stamps to life. Although in the futuristic setting of Star Wars, there had to be a past on all of these planets where they had a more archaic form of sending messages.

Space Travel, Science Fiction and Other Worlds...

2015 - my tribute to Wally Wood. I had just finished reading the Fantagraphics book Spawn of Mars and other Stories by Wally Wood, when I decided to attempt the above sketch, which was based on Wood's self-portrait from the story Rescued!..

Although I did not specifically follow Wood's work, I have always been a fan of science fiction and fantasy in any form. Reading these stories was a special treat for me in that I had a chance to step back in time and see what people were reading in the 1950's. The designs of the space suits, the Twilight Zone feel of each story.

Wood also provided work for MAD magazine, Marvel's Daredevil (he created the red suit!) and long time science fiction an fantasy stories for EC Comics.

Since I have always been a fan of science fiction, especially space travel..I endlessly watch any space movie good or bad. I can remember watching the John Glenn launch. I was in grade school. All of the students were brought into the auditorium, and a black and white TV was rolled onto the stage, so we could all watch history unfold. I dreamed of being an astronaut, and I still do... 

While researching some retro rocket designs, I came across a ship that look similar to the one I drew. My thought was to have droplets of flame instead of a giant plume. Since it was October I was probably eating candy corn at the time, and like the idea...

When the 1977 Motion Pictures stamp was release I had written to several production companies to ask for a corner card envelope I could use to create a first day cover. I received responses from MGM, Disney, and Paramount. Besides their routine envelopes, Paramount sent this Star Trek the Motion Picture envelope, which thrilled me. The Star Trek movie would be released in 1979...

The official cachet from the Motion Picture Association of America - Committee for the Celebration of the Talkies. The reverse of the envelope contains the following text: The cachet depicts six landmarks films in the history of talking pictures: The Jazz Singer, first feature film with synchronized dialogue; Fantasia, optical stereo sound; The Robe, magnetic stereo sound; Oklahoma, six-track 70mm sound; earthquake, low frequency sound; and Star Wars, stereo sound with noise reduction, using the present state-of-the-art in sound technology

Amazing since Star Wars was only released in May of 1977. In several days the latest installment of the Star Wars saga continues with the Force Awakens....

Alex Sanchez - Star Wars

2015.06.06 NY Special Edition, NYC

Hammerhead (Momaw Nadon) was an Ithorian who was exiled from his home world, Ithor, after he revealed secrets of Ithorian agricultural technology to the Galactic Empire. He spent musch of his exile on Tatootine and was seen in Chalmun's Cantina...Wookieepedia

Hammerhead was the idea of Ironhed Alex Sanchez, who wanted to pick a Star Wars character to draw. I thought since most artist would choose Darth Vader or Princess Leia, Hammerhead was a nice change of pace... salute

Alex Sanchez illustrates Star Wars: The Old Republic, for Marvel as well as Marvel Age Hulk, X-Men, First Ride, Elektra; Dark Horse - Tale of Vampires; IDW - 30 Days of Night; DC - JSA Classified, Katana, Batman Joker's Asylum; Top Cow - Fleshdigger; Dynamite Comics - Raise the Dead 2 and many others

Kevin Greaves - Chewbacca

2015.04.11 East Coast Comic Con, Secaucus, NJ

Kevin Greaves - Kevtoons

My inspiration for obtraining drawing of Chewbacca on the Negro Leagues Baseball cover, is the celebration many minor and major league baseball teams have been having over the years to honor Star Wars on May 4th...

Since 2011 several teams have taken to wearing Wookie inspired jerseys, these teams include the Toledo Mudhens and the Kane County Cougars. Other teams honoring Star Wars which witnessed several characters throwing out the first pitch (Ewoks, Darth Vader, and others) include Sacramento River Cats, the Pawtucket Red Sox, Brooklyn Cyclones, West Michigan Whitecaps, New York Mets, Cincinnati Red, Atlanta Braves spring training at Disney and this great picture of Chewbacca....

The Negro Leagues stamp and  first day cover commemorates the times when baseball was segregated on the field (owners were sometimes white). but on the field black Americans could not play along side white Americans, until Jackie Robinson stepped on the field for the Brooklyn dodgers in 1947. The Negro Leagues would continue for w few years past this time, but integration of Major League Baseball saw the end of the segregated leagues. One of the stamps features Rube Foster, a player and manager in the Negro Leagues from 1902-1926, called the Father of Black Baseball...

Lee Kohse - Star Wars

2014.10.11 New York Comic Con, NYC

Lee Kohse has worked as a freelance artist for Aspen Comics, Lucasfilm, Dreamworks, Topps, Marvel, 20th Century Fox, IDW, Indiana Jones, Nike, Reebok and Speed Racer...

Contributes to Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit as well as a regular contributor to sketch cards for Topps and Rittenhouse Archives..

Kinergoth a webcomic by BloodFire Studios, with lots of ass-kicking...

Mickey Fiedler - OctoTrooper

2013.11.03 Jersey Shore Comic Con, Forked River, NJ

Mickey Fiedler, his Dad's Cartoons facebook page states he is a proud father of 2 awesome boys, loves science fiction, comic books and video games. During the day Fiedler teaches 4th grade, and by night he mashes comics...

I took some time looking through his portfolio of images before requesting a sketch. Many of Fiedler's drawings were humorous mixes of animals and fictional characters. These include Electrophant, Breaking Bad Papa Smurf, Symbiote Mickey Mouse, Yoda Stewie, Boba Fett Elephant, Mega Man Green Lantern, Dr. Suess' X-Men and the drawing that really had me was a Cyclops Mike Wazowski from Montsers Inc.

As we discussed the sketch concepts the decision was made to draw an octopus Storm Trooper. When Fiedler was done another of his customers comment that the drawing looked a lot like the Hydra emblem. Neither one of us realized this at the start. In any case, I like the concept of the OctoTrooper...

Fiedler is working on his own comic book to help children with life issues, such as bullying and health...

Katie Cook - Star Wars

2013.04.06 Comic Geek Speak Supershow, Reading, Pa

While I was looking over Katie Cook's table I was taken in by all the really small cute mini paintings she had available. I kept going through my covers trying to decide what to choose, Supergirl, Batgirl, Tinkerbell, lots of images with tiny hearts, cats and other animals. Then I saw the mini Jawa  and the mini Boba Fett from Star Wars and my mind was set. After explaining what I was looking for Cook quickly said Jabba the Hut and the carbonite Han Solo. Without hesitation she went to work. Cook's mini paintings are wonderful,  she even made Jabba look cute!

Cook has done licensing work for DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, My Little Pony, Fraggle Rock and others..... Cook is also the writer for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic...

Cook has provided the cover for Hellheim by Cullen Bunn, Joelle Jones and Nick Filardi, draws and writer a web-comic Gronk a Monster's story, has a terrific Cursed Pirate Girl pin-up on her website. A grouping of her mini paintings can also be seen on her website (I purchased the Koala for my wife!) You can not walk away from her table without feeling happy!

As for the Supershow...I was surprised by the low turn-out on Saturday, as it featured an excellent group of creators. Anyone unable to attend missed out on an excellent opportunity to meet some of the top names in the industry...Timothy Truman, Joe Staton, Fred Hembeck, Tom Raney, JK Woodward, Jamal Igle, Erica Schultz, Dawn Griffin, Nick Makoviak, Art Baltazar, Franco, Ian Glaubinger, Don Smith, Andrew Charipar, Dave Wachter, Chris Flick, Mike Norton, Jim Califiore, Rudy Nebres (I am amazed he doesn't get more of a crowd at his table - he is excellent!), Julian Lytle, Danielle Corsetto, Scott Derby, Mark Mariano, Tom King and others I did not get to... I am glad I had the opportunity to attend, great job guys!!!

David Quiles - Yoda

2012.03.31 NY Comic Book Marketplace, NYC

David Quiles was listed in the show directory as a underground artist. He has worked on projects for Mimi Rodgers - Zombie  Killer, Bare Knuckled Fighter, Fur By Night, 10,000 Miles Through Exile and Hauntmares for Infinite Line Comics. Quiles has also provided illustrations for Now Comics, harris Publications, Nova Star Studios, Argo Comics, Jam Packed Productions, GB Studios, Crazee Comics, Blazer Studios, FBMFM Books and others...

Quiles' art is utilizes a dark gritty macabre ink sketch technique, which when seen in person has more impact on the viewer than does any reproduction. At first I hesitated to ask for a sketch. I was drawn to the style, but I was not sure his technique would work on a small piece. I was wrong. We discussed the cover, and Quiles did not hesitate. The art is dark and effective. The shades of black force you to continually look at Yoda's features. The light effect from Yoda's hand is cool...

Check out David Quiles work on deviantART...

Chandra Free - Princess Leia

2011.11.05 Wild Pig Comic Con, Somerset, NJ

Princess Leia and Salacious

Chandra Free is the artist and author of The God Machine graphic novel from Archaia. Chandra is also the reative director at BLAM! Ventures, was an artist on Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock comic, Archaia and Sullengrey by Ape Entertainment and contributed two digital panels to the illustrated novel Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes...

Chandra is intensely interested in the incorporation of psychology into her art, focusing on the unconscious and human aspects of her characters. I find her art to be exceptional. ..

The God Machine is a graphic novel about lost love, monsters and crazy gods. It's the story of Guy Salvatore, who after his girlfriend's death, has difficulty making sense of his world. Excellent story, fantastic art.

Whilte looking through some of my first day covers, Chandra was immediately taken by the Princess Leia stamp.  Princess Leia and R2D2 were featured on one of the USPS Star Wars stamps issued in 2007.

Girls Read Comics Too

Sanjit Choudhury - Darth Maul

2011.10.08 Garden State Comic Con, Cherry Hill, NJ

Sanjit Choudhury is a concept and vector artist, you can see his concepts at sanjitchoudhury.weebly.com, his inspirations come from Tim Burton and Gris Grimley. Loves the beauty of nature but has a twisted style whose cute but evil characterizations has big mournful eyes...

Sanjit choose to draw Darth Maul, Sith Lord apprentice of Darth Sidious. Darth Maul first appeared in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  George Lucas' idea for Maul was being a figure from your worst nightmare. The character was originally designed by Ian McCraig. The design was a combination of a flayed flesh face, face painting in African tribes and a Rorschach experiment.
The character of Darth maul was portrayed by Ray Park.