Webcomic Review: George Jurard's STAR WARS in 365 Days or (Darth Days!)

Escape from Mos Eisley

I missed "May the 4th be With You" but while its still "Revenge of the 5th I wanted to share a Star Wars webcomic with you.

While not a webcomic in the traditional sense, nor holding an original narrative of its own George Jurard's A scene a day of the original Star Wars trilogy, or "Darth Days", acts as a countdown clock to the release of Episode VII.

Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter

It captures all the pivitol scenes and dialogue of the original trilogy in beautifully rendered landscape panels. Each panel varies in its portayal, some with detailed colors while others use a monochromatic or limited color palatte. Seeing a new panel everyday will have your mind wandering back to your multiple viewings of the OT, and hungering for the newest chapter.

The below panel, a scene which portrays the first meeting of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in person, (that is outside of the new Star Wars comics continuity). This pane while my least favorite in the nostalgic inducing series still has some remarkable intuitiveness to it. In the films the scene was rich in color, powerful warm red reflections off of cold metal interrupted with pillars of blues; I still feel anticipation when rewatching the as Luke slowly walks into the room. Here its rendered almost as if those colors were inverted and desaturated. You would almost say that the image doesn't capture the elements of the original. That is also why I love this piece, because Jurard seems to do three things in creating these art pieces.

1) He never repeats a patter, if you look at the over 100 images he's created so far you'll notice not one is colored or rendered the same as another, and you can imagine the struggle it is to think outside of a linear pattern of production. Perhaps the reason this room isn't red and blue as image 19/365, which I've also included above in this blog, already has these color elements.

2) This is his own telling of the original series, in this way he's become the director, and created these thumbnails that are reminiscent of the film while unique in their presentation.

3) He captures the emotions of each scene plucking those most memorable instants to retell the whole of the trilogy in only 365 images!

These are not easy tasks as trying to create artwork that properly homages a creation that has become a classic and legendary in itself, bears with it a fear of misrepresenting that franchise and angering a ferocious fanbase. Something that this franchises own creator has encountered. Its been a work that I've thought about for a while, and how he overlays his own vision onto a scene without stealing that emotion you felt when first watching the films. If anything his portrayal is more accurate to how we see images in our memory, similar to what is but not clear or exact to what was.

I  look forward to every new update and as George Jurard is almost 2/3rds into completion of his project I hope that he is able to encapsulate it into a book, that is simple to flip through, so that in a glance one can return to a galaxy far far away...

Sir Thomas J. Gryphon is no Padawan to Star Wars lore, he has enjoyed the EU and is looking forward to the retelling of  the series including the prequel remakes Disney has planned. In the Meanwhile he is telling his own sci-fi on Gryphonknights called the WOW Signal!