….. and a few sneak peeks of the art and exhibits on show….

All the art will be available to purchase on a first come first served basis, plus vintage collectibles. Live music will be supplied by the Cantina Band and the evening will cumulate with a screening of Star Wars.

Saturday and Sunday it’s pay on the door, but Friday night’s opening party is limited to 100 tickets.

Full details at the Hang Gang site.

“What if Darth Vader took an active role in raising his son?”

That’s the concept behind Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader And Son book, out as an officially licensed Lucasfilm product from Chronicle Books, complete with a You Tube trailer featuring James Earl Jones. The world is a strange and wonderful place that something like this comes out…..

“What if “Luke, I am your father” was just a stern admonishment from an annoyed dad? In this hilarious and sweet comic reimagining, Darth Vader is a dad like any other—except with all the baggage of being the Dark Lord of the Sith. Celebrated artist Jeffrey Brown’s delightful illustrations give classic Star Wars® moments a fresh twist, presenting the trials and joys of parenting through the lens of a galaxy far, far away. Life lessons include lightsaber batting practice, using the Force to raid the cookie jar, Take Your Child to Work Day on the Death Star (“Er, he looks just like you, Lord Vader!”), and the special bond shared between any father and son.”

(Hat-tip to Heidi at The Comics Beat for the nod)

Hugh Shug Raine writes to tell us about what looks like a fun thing happening in Leeds, starting on May the 4th, a date beloved by all Star Wars fans the world over.

“To commemorate Star Wars day ‘May the 4th’ FullCircle Gallery Leeds, The Hang Gang and Leeds Alternative Comics, have got together to host the ultimate celebration of the greatest films ever made! FullCircle will be transformed into a gallery not so far far away, hosting not only a huge display of vintage Star Wars toys including over 100 carded figures and boxed vehicles, but a contemporary / lowbrow look at the Star Wars universe supplied by over 30 amazing artists”

All the art will be available to purchase on a first come first served basis, plus vintage collectibles. Live music will be supplied by the Cantina Band and the evening will cumulate with a screening of Star Wars.

Saturday and Sunday it’s pay on the door, but Friday night’s opening party is limited to 100 tickets.

Full details at the Hang Gang site.

“His genial contribution, in the form of unequalled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘do it like this‘,” George Lucas on McQuarrie’s visual influence on Star Wars, quoted on the BBC site.

Goodbye, Ralph, you designed some of my generation’s greatest childhood fantasies, thank you. I think rather than say anything else I’ll just leave you with more of Ralph’s wonderfully imaginative artwork that set the standard for some of the movies we’ve loved so much in an Art For Art’s Sake style:

(original Galactica concept art with the classic Colonial Viper, below a Battlestar in desperate fight against the classic Cylon Raider; all art here by Ralph McQuarrie, (c) BSG, Star Wars to original studios/creators)

(Lando and Wedge in the Falcon and X-wing destroy the ‘fully operational’ new Death Star in Return of the Jedi, below the original Death Star and the famous trench sequence. Switch off the targetting computer, use the Force, Luke…)

(Ralph’s concept for redesigned USS Enterprise bridge for the reboot movie that was then to be a new series but eventually went back to being a film after the success of Star Wars at the box office)

(Buck Rogers starfighter – I still have one of these sitting on a shelf at the parental home. I’ve heard originally it was a concept for a Viper in BSG but wasn’t used for that, but was used for the contemporary Buck Rogers series instead. Either way, still a cool design; below, concepts for Star Wars’ great double act, R2D2 and C-3PO, Threepio clearly showing the influence of Metropolis’s Maria robot)

(Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father… that first dramatic duel between father and son in The Empire Strikes Back – still the best of the SW series? I think so – visualised once more by the one and only Ralph McQuarrie. Could you imagine these worlds being created without Ralph’s visual flair?

We’ve seen pieces of the Star Wars Uncut project surfacing from time to time in the geek community and it looked like a pretty cool fan-film project inspired by one of the biggest movies of all time. Well now we get to see the entire film, over two hours of it, amazingly, uploaded by Casey Pugh, Aaron Valdez and many more. Quite clearly the Force was with them – and how funky are the lightsabres in place of the famous searlights in the 20th Century Fox Logo?!