The movie Star Wars became an instantaneous smash hit after it came out in May 1977, breaking box office records and initiating a movie and merchandising franchise that is still unmatched by any other film series. The fan films and movie parodies began almost immediately, with the short film Hardware Wars leading the way in 1978 and continuing unabated to this day.

J. Michael Leonard's Star Weevils was published by Rip Off Press in 1978 and offers a compilation of "Star Weevils" comic strips that were issued on a weekly basis by the Rip Off Syndicate in 1977 and '78. While Star Weevils is a Star Wars parody, it doesn't replicate almost any of the movie's characters or plot, save for R2-D2, who appears as U-2-ME-2.

Star Weevils is about a small band of weevil astronauts who fly on a space ship from the dark side of the moon (where their colony lives) to planet Earth, where they intend to attack the human race with laser guns. Their mission immediately goes awry when their space ship arrives on Earth and lands in a toilet bowl. The astronauts and their ship tumble through the sewer system until they crash on a dump site in a forest (it wouldn't be much fun if they ended up in a waste treatment facility).

The weevils remain undaunted in their mission and proceed to set out to hunt for some "Earthies," though they really only have a vague idea of what they're looking for. Through the course of this adventure, they encounter various other bugs, a statue, an actual human being, and a renegade band of other weevils who escaped from the moon generations ago and serve as the main conflict in the story.

Star Weevils is well executed, featuring solid characters and an evolving plot that allows for several funny scenes and decent jokes. J. Michael Leonard, who produced Fresh Blood Funny Book and (research) is an accomplished cartoonist.



HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATOR:
J. Michael Leonard - 1-52