Thursday, December 29, 2011

With apologies to George Lucus



I drew the above poster in 1977 and it was published by T-K Graphics. I believe I drew it three weeks after Star Wars came out. This is something I wouldn't do today but I was young and foolish. I found this poster on eBay today with the starting bid of $19.95. Strange to see a knockoff poster of Star Wars I drew being called rare on eBay.

As far as I know, knock off that it is this is the first poster of the Cantina from Star Wars.

The above photo is by the eBay seller cindy92002

The top photo is by me of a copy someone tried to color in. I don't who tried to color it in or why they stopped. I do know it wasn't me. Desiree I'm redoing this poster for you ( see comments below ). I'm going to take the color out , lower the bar and rework some of the aliens. The original drawing was destroyed years ago and I've always wanted to rework this drawing. I won't finish this poster redo until we finish The Recreators ( a graphic novel Desiree and I are working on ).

The plot sickens. Below is a email exchange between myself and the eBay seller cindy92002

"Dear cindy92002 ,

I'm Bob A Vollrath and I drew the poster you have for sell. May I use your photo in my blog Endangered Truth (Blogspot). I'll list you as seller on my blog."

"Dear (eBay name),

Sure, no problem. We have no idea what it is worth. It was in my collection for awhile. I bought it at a garage sale in Chatham, IL. The woman said her son did it."

I laughed when I read "The woman said her son did it."

Of course I must bid on the poster now, so I can sign my name to it and write Chatham IL.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I didn't know you were a Star Wars fan. You don't have a copy of the poster left, do you?

Robert A Vollrath said...

I haven't thought about the poster in a long time. If I find a copy I'll send it to you out of friendship. I think I have some copies somewhere.

I love Star Wars for many reasons but the fact that it ushered in our current age of super movie effects makes it a favorite of movie history for me.

Robert A Vollrath said...

I found a poster and plan to rework it for you Desiree. See the above reworked post.

Unknown said...

Wow, thank you, Robert. The bigger picture showed a great piece of work.

I'm a Star Wars fan too.

Happy New Year!!!

PacificGrownOrganics said...

Robert, I came across one of the reprints of your design and this one is colored in quite fittingly. I purchased it an auction, waited an extra two hours just for them to finally get to it. I didn't know much about it but figured it might be able to be resold on Ebay, and if I didn't go that way, one of the Star Wars fans in my family would have an appropriate spot for it next to the rest of his collection. I did a bit of research and found your site. I was curious about the story behind it all, it was exceptionally drawn and it's a bummer to read about no original. If you'd like, you can email me at igotpotatoes@yahoo.com and I can send a couple photos of it.