Page Spotlight - Star Wars Dark Empire II Issue 1 Page 1

This post is to shine a spotlight on a specific page of art. It is the page I recently purchased directly from Cam, so is not available for sale, though some great pages still are over on the art for sale page. My buying this page started the process for me to put this site together to help other collectors in obtaining this amazing work!

The page in question is from Star Wars Dark Empire II # 1 "operation shadow hand" published by Dark Horse in 1994 and is the opening splash page. Art and colours by Cam Kennedy from a scipt by Tom Veitch.

Synopsis: The Empire in retreat, Luke Skywalker has begun a quest to rebuild the Jedi. Although dead, the Emperor's presence still haunts him, and Luke still feels the taint of the dark side from his time as the Emperor's thrall. The dark shadow of Palpatine seems to creep across the galaxy once again, and the Empire awaits his return. Enslaving a weapons factory to design a device more deadly than the Death Star, the Empire sets its plans in motion -- to destroy the New Republic once and for all!

Below is the page that I bought. Without the speech bubbles/ captions it feels like a big splash page, and the art can really breathe and stand alone on its own merits outside of the context of the overall story.

It is just a little smaller than A3 or the standard comic art board size and measures 27cm by 40.5cm.

Colour pages such as Star Wars Dark Empire are painted using Rotring waterproof watercolour inks similar to acrylic ink with touches of gouache paint. These paints age well and the colours still remain vibrant 25 or so years on. These pages really need to be seen in person to be believed!

You can see from this side by side comparison with the printed book (in the smaller page Trilogy edition)

Here's a panel detail. The reds create a contrast to the main splash and make the panel pop. Love the typical Kennedy use of shadows around forehead and eyes.

This imperial gunner looks incredibly vibrant, with the reds and blues poppING against the black background.

And look at the details on this Star Destroyer., painted in the early 90s, back before all today's digital tools were available.

Below is the back of the page. An interesting feature is that a window has been cut out for the bottom right hand panel, with the actual art taped so it shows through. Looking at the front of the page this is pretty invisible though. Presumably Cam or someone wasn't happy with the panel as it appeared on the original board and had to redo it.