The Very Worst Comic Book Serial in the World, for All Time

... is Marvel Comics' Star Wars, 1977 release, vols. 1 through 10. With vol. 11, they changed artists and the artwork was somewhat improved---but not by much.  At least it was neater.

But here, let me show you a few samples, reproduced in Marvel Comics' Star Wars: Skywalker Strikes.  At least in this reprint, they did a major recolorisation of the cover and the interior pages. In the original 1977 volume, the coloring was totally different, making the artwork appear even worse---and the volume and its nine successors look totally amateurish.

Recolorised version.

Original version.

Here, you'll notice that right off the bat, on the front cover of vol. 1, that their illustrated version of Luke Skywalker does not even look like Mark Hamill. Note the price: 30 cents, cheap! (MAD Magazine reference.)

And here the artwork within the original volume, the artwork was really, really bad. It's bad enough that everyone is portrayed as superheroic with superheroic proportions (even C3PO), but because everyone at Twentieth-Century Fox thought Star Wars was going to be a sure-fire flop, everyone in the cast and crew thought the whole thing was just ludicrous, and George Lucas himself though the film would only break even, Marvel Comics apparently assigned the comic book adaptation to their very worst and least capable artists, because it really shows! For example, in the lower left hand panel Luke Skywalker looks like a German soldier of Nazi propaganda.

And Princess Leia was made to look like a superheroine, too. She looks more like a Playboy Bunny (do they even exist anymore?) than like Carrie Fisher.

Now we are back with Luke Skywalker and appearing here is his uncle, Owen Lars, who does not at all look like the actor who played him, Phil Brown.  Neither does Luke Skywalker resemble Mark Hamill. Notice also that both Luke Skywalker and Owen Lars look different in each panel as compared to the others. And the sound effect for the breakdown of the R2D5 "Red" unit? It the movie it doesn't go "SPROING!" when the unit breaks down, it goes, "BANG! BADANG!!"

And this is the scene where Luke is cleaning up the two droids. The artwork makes the garage appear completely dark, not dimly lit as in the movie.  And again, Luke Skywalker looks totally different from panel to panel, and not like Mark Hamill in a single one of them.

Well there you have it... a big fat Star Wars ripoff from 1977. But today, the surviving copies are collectors' items.