Star Jaws

by Will Eisner

A Galaxy of space cartoons.

Genres: Humor, Science Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[blake]

I just came across this in tidying up my books and was shocked to find Eisner's name so I read it to see how it holds up and...well, I think it holds up in the sense that's exactly as unremarkable as I remembered it. The jokes are not great but fine for that 8-12 year-old level (or perhaps an especially obnoxious teenager?). Some of them are shockingly old, barely dressed up (if at all) with sci-fi/Star Wars themed pics. The Jaws thing...okay, there are a handful of shark jokes (mostly sci-fi shark jokes, tho') so I guess that's all the justification ya needed.

It has the anti-littering propaganda of the day which, fine, but sometimes at the expense of actually making sense. "Earth was destroyed by litter centuries," cries an alarmed alien—while looking at the trash dropped by a recently landed USA spaceship. Hmmm.

Eh. 's okay. Art's okay and reads well. It wasn't the gem I was hoping for, tho'.

[Kyle Vernier]

Essentially a kid gag cartoon book for the Scholastic school book fair market. Filled with gags about sci-fi (mostly Star Wars jokes) and Sharks (because…Jaws). I found this for 25 cents at an estate sale. Eisner did some weird stuff in his later career. I wonder how long a project like this took him? It is a strange thing.

[Shamanjules]

Found this Will Eisner oddity in the clearance bin today. Strange late seventies Schoolastic cheapie, probably book fair fodder. But I’m not going to lie, several of these one page gag cartoons made me lol.

[Jeff Wyonch]

A fairly horrible paperback of site gags combining Star Wars and Jaws. Released just after their theatrical debuts, it's a cash grab only. But, it's weird seeing something from Eisner in the 70's.