God, I ramble soooooo much! LOL...good editing job, Crimebuster. I love the way that you say at the end of this episode how intensive the editing process is. It's like, we've got a team of 30 audio technicians, some of the world's most powerful computers, and R2-D2 all trying to make the Confessor sound coherent!

It works though, my friend; you make me sound like I half have a point and half know what I'm talking about. But only just.

Of course, I wholeheartedly disagree with any of the Infantino criticisms, including the theory that the sales of Marvel's Star Wars never spiked after TESB or ROTJ thanks to people initially being turned off during the Infantino run. That is a theory unsupported by the history of TV and movie adaptations, as the vast majority consistently lost readers as the years (if any ran so long) wore on.

A good case is Charlton's magazine and monthly version of The Six Million Dollar Man TV series; Charlton obtained the rights to adapt the wildly popular TV series in 1975, taking a rather deep dive with two publications, yet despite the TV series being a genuine pop culture phenomenon (with one of the decade's biggest merchandising campaigns) both the monthly comic ended after nine issues, and the magazine with seven. Its important to note that the comics made their debut when the TV series was a hit, and children and teens could not get enough of all things Steve Austin, but that interest (and the faith Charlton had in adapting the property) failed to sustain the comic...

Gold Key's Dark Shadows was based on the legendary gothic horror soap-opera (ABC, 1966-71), with its first issue published in March of 1969, when the show was at the height of its success. Part of that success included hit singles, soundtracks, toys, model kits, role play items, cards, a long running novel series...and series star Jonathan Frid (AKA vampire Barnabas Collins) invited--in character--to a Halloween party at the White House. It was a big deal.

Depending on the resource, the Gold Key title was said to have sold relatively well, but even as the series reached its pop cultural zenith, the comic's early success was fleeting, and like Marvel's Star Wars, the Dark Shadows comic lasted years beyond the run of TV series (its final issue published in 1976), but it never grew in terms of initial reader interest / perceptions of quality.

The central point is that comics based on TV shows or movies tend to work when they merely adapt the filmed production--and not go on and on, milking what is either a limited format by design (e.g., a movie), or simply failing to capture what actors, screenwriters and directors can--literally bringing something to life as we perceive reality (even when dealing with fantasy genres).

I would think Marvel's Star Wars failing to maintain and/or match its 1978 sales--even after the release and subsequent adaptations of TESB & ROTJ--was due to that same failure to maintain or remind audiences of the live source enough, no matter how good some periods of the comic happened to be. Moreover, that 1978 spike is arguably evidence of readers actually enjoying the Infantino period, since they had every opportunity to simply drop the title. Its not as though Marvel hinted that creative teams could change at any moment, and fans were so habitual in their buying habits that they "suffered" through that run (in anticipation of another artist), slapping down one stack of coins after another.

They knew Infantino/Goodwin were there for the then-foreseeable future, and enjoyed their contribution, which--if we're being honest--captured the pure space opera/fantasy feel suggested by the 1977 film more than the post-TESB runs reflected the second movie, which tended to rely too heavily on a single emotional beat from that film, instead of exploring the (arguably) more colorful universe introduced in the original movie.

Yes, TESB changed the game within the Star Wars story, and the Williamson/Palmer/Simonson runs were truly great, but in the end, sales dropping off in comics is due to what is happening "right now"--in other words, what's going on in the books at the point the sales begin to slip. It had nothing to do with an artist and/or creative team that were long gone.

Drebble would be in my Top 3, I think. Along with Jaxxon (natch!) and, yeah, probably Valance or Shira.

Drebble was a great recurring comedy villain initially, but the way things turned out and turned around for him in the end made for a very satisfying, and rather mature, character arc.

That's exactly right. But it backfired in an extremely unexpected and great way. Which we discuss at length in an upcoming episode! Sorry it's taking me so long to do all the editing, hopefully this month I'll be able to really dive into episode 3.