''Star Hawks'' was a

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

created by

Ron Goulart Ronald Joseph Goulart (; January 13, 1933 – January 14, 2022) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy, and science fiction author. He published novelizations and other work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson, Con ...

and

Gil Kane Gil Kane (; born Eli Katz ; April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) was a Latvian-born American comics artist whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s and virtually every major comics company and character. Kane co-created the modern-day versio ...

, first published on October 3, 1977, that ran through May 2, 1981.Entry, ''Encyclopædia Britannica Book of the Year, 2001''
/ref> It was written through April 1979 by Goulart, followed by Archie Goodwin (1979-1980),

Roger McKenzie Roger McKenzie (22 July 1971 – 25 November 1995) also known under his production aliases of Wildchild or DJ Wildchild, was an English musician and DJ. Biography Born in Southampton, England, he released many singles on labels such as ...

(1980-1981) and

Roger Stern Roger Stern (born September 17, 1950) is an American comic book author and novelist. Biography Early career In the early 1970s, Stern and Bob Layton published the fanzine ''CPL'' (''Contemporary Pictorial Literature''), one of the first platfor ...

(writing assist, 1979). Comics veteran

provided the artwork, with uncredited help (during a period of illness on Kane's part) from

Ernie Colón Ernesto Colón SierraColón in English translation of Via (July 13, 1931 – August 8, 2019) was a stateside Puerto Rican comics artist, known for his wide-ranging career illustrating children's, superhero, and horror comics, as well as mains ...

and

Howard Chaykin Howard Victor Chaykin (; born October 7, 1950) is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker. Early life ...

. Kane received the

National Cartoonist Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

Story Comic Strip Award for 1977 for his work on the strip. Goulart also wrote two ''Star Hawks'' prose novels: ''Empire 99'' and ''The Cyborg King''.

Publication history

In 1978, shortly after the launch of the strip, Kane recalled its genesis:

Format

The daily strip was unique in that initially it was two-tier: each daily was twice as large as the normal daily strip. This format allowed artist Kane great flexibility in layout. Many papers were reluctant to devote so much space to a single strip. It changed to a single tier as of July 30, 1979.Star Hawks
/ref> The strip ran daily and Sunday for three and a half years, for a total of 1,252 strips.Strickler, Dave. ''Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index''. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995.

Reprints

The strip from the start was run in ''

The Menomonee Falls Gazette ''The Menomonee Falls Gazette'' (subtitled "The international newspaper for comic art fans") was a weekly tabloid published in the 1970s by Street Enterprises that reprinted newspaper comic strips from the United States and the U.K. Comic strip ...

''.

Ace An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...

Tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

published two paperback black and white reprint volumes.

Blackthorne Publishing Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986–1989. They were notable for the ''Blackthorne 3-D Series'', their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products. Blackthorne ...

produced four issues in comic book format of black and white reprints. Early issues of ''

Amazing Heroes ''Amazing Heroes'' was a magazine about the comic book medium published by American company Fantagraphics Books from 1981 to 1992. Unlike its companion title, ''The Comics Journal'', ''Amazing Heroes'' was a hobbyist magazine rather than an analyt ...

'' carried reprints of the strip. All of these reprint series omitted occasional bridging strips (the first two strips, which set the tone for the series, were most often not reprinted). In 2004

Hermes Press Hermes Press is an American publisher of art books, comic books, and comic book reprints. The company was founded in 2000 and is best known for their archival reprints of classic comic book and strip series and art books. History Hermes Press was ...

released the entire run of the strip in a single volume.

IDW Publishing IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW), itself formed in 1999, and is regularly recog ...

reprinted the complete series—dailies and Sundays—in 2017–2018, in three volumes.

References

External links

''Star Hawks''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on October 23, 2017. American comic strips Science fiction comics 1977 comics debuts 1981 comics endings {{Comic-strip-stub