Starstruck (comics) - Publication History - Dark Horse Comics, 1990

Dark Horse Comics, 1990

When Dark Horse Comics contacted Kaluta for a job, he thought they were approaching him for continuing Starstruck. Editor Randy Spradley was delighted by the idea, and the first Starstruck revival began. Dark Horse had noted that Epic Comics series which, like Starstruck, had not sold well in the limited release of comic stores were finding their audiences as collected trade collections, such as Moonshadow and Elektra: Assassin. They felt the time was now fortuitous to do a new graphic novel collection.

Lee and Kaluta unveiled Starstruck: The Expanding Universe. Instead of starting with new stories or just collecting the finished ones into a trade paperback, the two creators decided to essentially start over: the initial series would actually be the original graphic novel and Epic issues, but with huge expansions of new story and art inside of them, to be followed by all-new material encompassing the remaining stories they had not done yet. They envisioned three printing arcs, each a volume in the total history of Starstruck.

The first four issues were published as "Volume 1" from August 1990, to March 1991, with over 100 pages of new material that substantially redefined and expanded everything printed before. "Volume 1" included the Graphic Novel, the expanded material, and ended after the first Epic Comics issue.

In the editorial page of the premiere issue, the publishing plan was outlined: there would be twelve total issues, divided as three volumes; each volume would be four issues each, separated with short publishing breaks between, and would include a total of 320 pages of new material, "Volume 2" would have continued into the Epic issues, expanding greatly on the Harry Palmer storyline. It was left undefined in the press release whether the third volume would also consist of the remaining Epic issues with new material, or instead be all-new material following those stories, such as an adaption of the stage play itself, or a dramatization of the "Great Change" event that the series' Glossary often refers to as the ultimate fruition of the narrative.

The four issues were printed this time in black-and-white. This was the first time that the initial 80 pages of Graphic Novel material had been printed in the smaller comic book size. Because that art had originally been formatted for a magazine medium with squarer dimensions, these pages now had about 20% white space at the bottom of the more rectangular comics format pages. This evened out in the latter part of the fourth issue, with the reprinting of the first Epic Comics issue, which was originally done in the regular comic size dimensions.

Todd Klein returned, supplementing his original lettering of the Graphic Novel era stories by completely relettering the reprint of Epic issue #1, which had first been lettered by Ken Bruzenak.

The second issue began the introductory story summaries by fan Lee Moyer, who would later renovate the series with his lavish color for the IDW remastered revival.

The Dark Horse issues ran ads for purchasing the two Starstruck t-shirts, the portfolio, and the stage play script. Dark Horse also used a Starstruck character on the cover of their anthology series, "Cheval Noir" #18 (May, 1991); a painting by Kaluta of the fighter droid Veep 7.

Kaluta did the cover and some amount of new interior art for the unpublished fifth issue which would begin Volume 2, but -while simultaneously doing production design for various TV shows- a state of exhaustion wore him down. Dark Horse printed no further issues after the fourth, leaving the series revival in hiatus.