The time I brought back a Star Wars character George Lucas hated
Yes, I'm talking about everyone's favourite green space-bunny, Jaxxon!
"We’re looking to fill 12 pages in the Star Wars Annual in April, and with April=Easter, what better time for a big bunny character! Up for pitching a Jaxxon story for that?"
I blinked hard when I saw the above email from Bobby Curnow at IDW. It was 30th November 2017, and I had been working with Bobby for a while on Star Wars Adventures, the then-fledgling all-ages comic for young SW fans. Bobby knew my love for Jaxxon, one of the most ridiculed characters in Star Wars history, as did everyone I was working with at Lucasfilm.
Was I up for pitching a Jaxxon story?
You bet your green furry backside I was.
But why? Why was I so keen to bring a character which George Lucas allegedly hated back to canon?
Because he was part of my first experience of Star Wars.
A LONG TIME AGO...
Long before I saw the film in the late 70s, I was given this issue of Star Wars Weekly, which reprinted the original Marvel SW comics.
Issue 16 featured Eight for Aduba-3, the first Star Wars comic to follow on from the Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin's adaptation of the original movie. It saw Han Solo and Chewbacca putting together the Starhoppers, a new team of misfits including... Jaxxon!
Six-year-old me simply assumed Jaxxon was one of the main cast. I mean, he was no weirder than Chewie. And it wasn't long before he reappeared in the comic, making his last appearance in the Expanded Universe due, it seems, to an edict from Mr Lucas himself.
Of course, I didn't realise George didn't like the long-eared Lepi. I must have read and re-read those issues a hundred times, so he was burned into my psyche. In fact, I was heartbroken when he didn't appear in The Empire Strikes Back.
Fast forward to 2017, and here I was being given the chance to write him back into comics as part of the new canon.
I dutifully sent off two ideas the following week. Lucasfilm picked the first:
It came back with only a few notes. Could we have a different title, there was a request to find a different creature to replace snakes as they had just appeared in Star Wars Adventures #7 and instead of Hoth, it would be better to have Leia in the Rebel fleet?
I got to scripting, delivering what became The Lost Eggs of Livorno in early 2018.
By then, we had an artist – the wonderful Mauricet, who recently shared with me the first sketches he did of Jax when he got the gig.
Our little back-up strip came together with barely a hitch; the only real snag was that the news of Jaxxon's return was revealed on April 1st, meaning everyone thought it was an April's Fool!
Here's Mauricet's inks for page 2, including Amaiza's less-revealing outfit and a Hoojib, another callback to those early days of Marvel Star Wars.
Sadly, the Hoojib didn't make the cut, as everyone thought we should hold them back to their own story...
... which I eventually told four years later in the SWA 2021 Annual.
And yes, Jaxxon was still there. You see, everyone had thought the back-up strip would be a one-off, a nice little tip of the hat to a character of old. But, then something wonderful happened.
Kids loved him. As much as I had loved him back in the 70s. More, even.
The next year, Jax was back, now promoted to the main star of the Annual in a story alongside Lando Calrissian. Soon after, he joined a daring rescue mission in the Ghosts of Vader's Castle mini-series...
...and was back in the 2020 annual which saw me about to repurpose elements of the other pitch I'd made back in 2017, shared here for the first time.
Not much else than the use of Lepi decoys made it into Rabbit Hunt, but it's proof that you should never throw away your ideas!
FINALLY WHERE HE BELONGED....
I was even able to put him in Empire Strikes back in the second From A Certain Point of View anthology, finally giving the guy a surname and the opportunity to complain that no one takes him seriously.
"I'm a Lepi. You know what folk say about us: a bunch of scruffy layabouts. And why? Because we look like giant rabbits. It's not fair, I'll tell you that. Looking like a shoal of walking squids never did the Mon Calamari any harm, and the least said about the Harches the better. Those guys are literally giant spiders for pity's sake."
Jaxxon. Fake It Till You Make It.
From A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back
YEAR(S) OF THE RABBIT
Since then, we've had Jaxxon action figures, statues. I've written him for both IDW and Dark Horse where Mike Mignola drew a cover!
Mike flippin' Mignola!
And he's back next week, taking the lead in Papercutz first Smugglers & Scoundrels graphic novel, this time with the wonderful Christian Colbert providing the art.
I'll share some of the behind-the-scene pages of that next week, but it warms my fifty-three-year-old heart that he's still around all these years later.
The story I've been telling with Jax is how a would-be hero deals with the fact that no-one takes him seriously because he has long green ears and bucked teeth. And yet, time after time, Jaxxon proves his worth. Heck, we even learned in the 2023 Hyperspace Stories Annual that the Duloks worship him as a god on Endor.
Okay, maybe being a deity to a bunch of hairy bullies isn't such a great accolade, but Jaxxon reminds all of us to look beyond first appearances to see the star beneath the surface.
Until next time, look after yourself and each other,
WANT MORE POSTS LIKE THIS?
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Cavan Scott
Cavan Scott
Cavan Scott
Cavan Scott
WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Thanks to pesky NDAs, I can’t reveal many details about what I’m writing at the moment, so I’ve come up with a sneaky list of project names. Keep an eye on future editions. I'll update everything as the work progresses!
Project: Avarice
- A novelisation for a fantasy franchise, currently in copy edits.
Project: Passer
- A graphic novel adaptation of a top romantasy novel. Currently scripting.
Project: Soldier
- A newly commissioned fantasy novel, currently awaiting editorial feedback on the outline.
Konflikt ‘47
- Working with Warlord Games on the lore and creative direction for the weird World War II tabletop game.
COMING SOON
Star Wars: Scoundrels and Smugglers - Race for Jabba’s Bounty
An all-age graphic novel starring Han Solo, Chewbacca, Jaxxon and a host of scum and villainy. On sale 6th October.
Godfather of Hell
My new creator-owned graphic novel for mature readers. Think Goodfellas meets The Exorcist. On sale 27th October.
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE GENESIS #4
The beginning of a new arc featuring Man-At-Arms unravelling a dark mystery with his friend, Prince Randor. On sale 16th December,