Star Wars Annuals

Anyone also have the annuals? I was listening to the podcast no3, and it reminded me of the annuals I had as a kid, I think these might make a nice backdrop to the figures. I like the idea because the artwork is very evocative of my childhood (I specifically remember ESB no 2 annual), I even remembered the name of the main story, and in my mind can even see one of the scenes from the panels in the book (C3P0 and R2 walking over a really high walkway).

They can be got pretty cheap too.

I still have my childhood annuals- both Jedi ones and the movie adaptation Empire one... Still love looking through them and admiring the artwork

I have all the annuals, and they're the original ones from my childhood. Unlike the toys which I decided to sell aged 11 (age is a feeble excuse, but it's my only defence!), the annuals were easier to hang on to, worth a lot less and took up a good deal less space. My favourite by far was ESB #1, despite the McQuarrie Yoda appearing in all his screen-inaccurate purple glory! We saw what we saw on screen, a few bits that didn't make it on screen, and the thing was in glorious colour throughout. As a 5 or 6-year old child, the black and white beginning and end sections of the original Star Wars annual went completely unread in favour of the full colour centre section That problem didn't arise for ESB #1!

Although I also have the non-film annuals (Star Wars #2, ESB #2 etc.), I always regarded them as the poor relations! Even as a child, I was primarily interested in the films and reading about what I had seen on screen. I was never tempted to read 'Splinter of the Mind's Eye' because it wasn't a book of a film and hence (although I didn't know the word back then) wasn't canon. I didn't read the Marvel comics, because it was just 'made up stuff not in the films' , and so I disliked the non-film annuals... even though I bought them!

I must say, that's a rare example for me of buying non-canon stuff. As a child, I was utterly contemptuous of the mini-rigs because they weren't in the films, and to this day I have never bothered buying them and never will. These days I totally respect the right of others to buy, own like, love or loathe them of course (tolerance is a wonderful thing, folks!), they just aren't for me. As a child, I didn't want the 'Imperial Attack Base' because it wasn't in the film (I was a 'Turret and Probot' boy all the way!), and although as an adult collector I did relent and finally buy an IAB, it's never going to be a favourite of mine. My favourite toy, then as now, and by about a million miles, is the Palitoy Death Star. A quite brilliant toy with superb play value, loads of potential for recreating scenes straight from Star Wars, and with a working trash compactor complete with figure chute to quite literally drop them in it! THAT'S what a toy should be like! :mrgreen:

I seem to have drifted somewhat from the subject of annuals! So to conclude then, if you don't own them, grab them from your nearest second hand shop, Forum member selling them, Amazon Marketplace or eBay. They are great to own and read, and even if my favourites will always be the 3 from the films, the other ones have their own charm as well, and as Cymonguk quite rightly pointed out, the artwork is fab!

In general I agree with you! I had little love for the non canon ships or books, but seeing the artwork reminded me of that book. I did love the shuttle mini rig though (as it looked like an imperial shuttle). Plus j never saw a real full size imperial shuttle.

I had a sudden memory today. My dad bought the Empire Strikes Back on vinyl. People forget now, but back before Videos were ubiquitous we had no choice but to find other ways to remember the movies. I remember listening to this at least a dozen times. I am pretty sure this is the version I had (I remember it had an inner dark blue with stars sleeve.

I reckon this will still be in my Dad's collection somewhere! It would make a perfect addition!

I've picked up all the annuals. I used to just 'look at' ( as opposed to read ) the spin-off stories as a kid. I'd stop and read one if they had Fett, Bossk, or 'a Greedo' - things like that.

I have a huge love for them, the storybooks, and even the readalongs. The 'eight pages of fabolous colour' in the novels hit my nostalgia spot too. These are all we had of the films themselves until 1982 and, even then, my family never had a video until later. I'd have been all over the story LPs had I had ever known they existed.

I use things like that as backdrops too - soundtrack LPs being my fave.

Yeah I'm not sure when we got a video it was around return of the Jedi. My mum and dad wouldn't take me to see it in cinema so I had to wait for it to turn up in my video store. I reckon that was at least a year or two after.

In between I got the return of the Jedi novelisation, read it a dozen times and pretended I'd seen the film!

chipsteak said:

I've picked up all the annuals. I used to just 'look at' ( as opposed to read ) the spin-off stories as a kid. I'd stop and read one if they had Fett, Bossk, or 'a Greedo' - things like that.

I have a huge love for them, the storybooks, and even the readalongs. The 'eight pages of fabolous colour' in the novels hit my nostalgia spot too. These are all we had of the films themselves until 1982 and, even then, my family never had a video until later. I'd have been all over the story LPs had I had ever known they existed.

I use things like that as backdrops too - soundtrack LPs being my fave.

Click to expand...

Just realised that the other LP we had was the Star Wars music one with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Well thats final I will be stealing those from my Dads house!

Your Empire LP reminded me of my 'The Story of Return of The jedi' LP which came with a great booklet. For a bit of fun, I have photographed it and thought others might like to see the pics. There's also a special guest appearance by a Wampa doing a fine job of holding pages in place! ;-)

Part 2:

Part 3:

Cool, was it the film soundtrack or the novelisation? The ESB one was the track including actors

It was basically a cut-down version of the actual film soundtrack, complete Hamill, Fisher, Ford, et al, plus narration by Chuck Riley to fill in the visual gaps. In the absence of a video copy of the film, my memory plus this LP made for the next best thing to watching it as a child.

I've got the 3 Buena Vista Story Of's record and The Adventures of Luke Skywalker (ESB) record. I listen to the Adventures one and Story of ROTJ on my iPod at work Haven't ripped the other 2 Story Of's yet but I'd say that the Adventures (ESB) one much better. It even has the "demented wookiee" dialog in it as well.

Still got a few annuals. This is my Star Wars annual I had as a kid. I got it signed by Kenny Baker when I was six or seven. He came to the local cinema. I remember being confused about who he was?!

That's interesting. What cinema did Kenny visit?

OK, since no-one else has done the obvious yet, I am happy to. The title of this thread is called 'Star Wars Annuals', so I think it's about time we see them!

Star Wars:

The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars:

Return of the Jedi:

And on a related note, how about the Storybooks?

Star Wars (front and back covers):