Yak Face Mini-Bust by Gentle Giant
As you may know, the character of Yak Face made an appearance on Jabba’s sail barge, but was another one of those “blink and you’ll miss him” types of characters that Star Wars is famous for. Kenner made a vintage figure of the character, but it came right at the tail end of their action figure line and it ended up never being released in the US. This made it relatively rare and valuable. The rarity of the vintage figure has caused several other Yak Face collectibles to be released as limited editions, such as the rare Kubrick chase figure or this mini-bust.
It was released in 2009 as a PGM (Premier Guild Member) exclusive, so you could only get one if you were a member of Gentle Giant’s club, which involved paying yearly fees and wasn’t something that I was that interested in at the time. I was only just starting my Jabba obsession then, and I figured I would wait and get one of these when I found a good deal. Unfortunately, that time never came. Being a PGM exclusive and limited to only 800 pieces seems to have kept prices high on the secondary market. I finally decided I had waited long enough and bought one on eBay, but I ended up paying several times the original price. 😦
I’m pretty pleased with it, though. The sculpt and paint are good, and the “real” hair that they have applied really works better than I had expected. It’s also a bit taller than most other Gentle Giant busts. This was Gentle Giant’s holiday bust for 2009, which means that it comes with some parts that you can switch out to make it a Christmas version. The normal version of the bust has him leaning on the top of a weapon (vibro-axe?) but you can swap this out for a candy cane. He also has a set of antler that attach to his head via magnets. It’s pretty cute, but I don’t think I’ll be going to the trouble to dig out these parts each Christmas. (They also made a version of the bust with the Christmas parts permanently attached that was only given to friends of clients of Gentle Giant.)
This is the last of the Jabba’s Palace-related mini-busts from Gentle Giant that I needed in my collection, with the exception of Boba Fett, which is unfortunately even more expensive than this one. I hope to get one eventually, since I have space for it in my display, as you can see below. Still, I don’t like spending large amounts on these busts. Of course, I got all of my other busts for well under retail, so I guess it evens out in a way.
Link: Parka the Hutt Sculpture Made from Parking Stubs
My sister told me about this sculpture that a Chicago-area artist made out of (among other things) used parking stubs — little tickets that are used by the city’s new automated parking meters. Click the link below to read the whole story.
I’ve wanted one of these ever since I first read about it in one of my Star Wars collectible guides. Dairy Time in the UK put out a number of flavors of Star Wars-themed yogurts, each corresponding to a different character, including Jabba, Admiral Ackbar, and Yoda. (You can see a photo of what I believe is the entire lineup in this thread on Rebelscum.) Jabba’s flavor was “Peach Melba.” Not sure how they arrived at that choice, although I imagine its color more or less matched the illustration of Jabba. I like that it’s “low fat” — maybe Jabba is watching his girlish figure. 😀
On the front of the cup you can see the line drawing of Jabba that adorns so many pieces of vintage merchandise, and on the back is another picture with Jabba, Leia and Bib Fortuna. It’s funny in a way, but items like this are often the hardest to track down, even if they aren’t really all that valuable. Most people tossed their yogurt cups in the trash when they were done, so there is a limited number of these left. There’s also not much in the way of Jabba-themed foods. About the only thing I can think of at the moment are the vintage cookies from Pepperidge Farm.
I recently posted about a store display for the Adam Joseph Return of the Jedi photo buttons. This is a proof sheet that would have been used as part of the production process for those buttons. It’s about 10.5″ by 12.25″. It’s not entirely clear if this was an alternate set of buttons that they considered making before settling on the ones that they actually produced, or if these were a second series that they were thinking of making. The fact that there are several duplicate buttons between this and the actual released series makes me think that these were alternate button designs that they decided to scrap in favor of the ones they did end up releasing, shown below. The buttons that are the same between the sets are in the same positions in both photos, to give you an idea of what changed.
The proof sheet designs would have been a lot more of a Jabba-centric series than the one they eventually did release. That one only had three characters from the palace (Jabba, Max Rebo, and a Gamorrean Guard). Here they have two shots of Jabba (one with Slave Leia), a closeup of Slave Leia, Salacious Crumb, Boba Fett from the battle over the Sarlacc pit, a different shot of Max Rebo than was used in the released series, and finally a shot of Beedo (Greedo’s cousin) with a jawa in the palace. While I like the prototype version because of all of the Jabba’s palace characters, I think a combination of the designs from the proof and the final designs might actually have been best.
I posted about the three Jabba-related buttons in this series quite some time ago, but I just recently managed to acquire an original store display filled with buttons. I haven’t counted them all, but it apparently contains 12 sets of 12, for a total of 144 buttons. That’s a lot of buttons!
I actually got the box unopened in the shrink wrap (as shown above), and yes I did hesitate a bit before opening it. But there was already a large tear in the plastic, and with this kind of product it seems to me that there’s little point leaving it sealed. You can’t really appreciate it unless you see it as it would have been in a store. As you can see, once opened the top of the box folds over to form the backer of the display box.
One thing I found pretty interesting was how the box only shows drawings of buttons — and not even of the actual buttons that are included in the set (there are no Bib Fortuna or Salacious Crumb buttons in the actual series, for example). Without opening the box, you wouldn’t know what the buttons actually looked like (see below).
Stay tuned, because I will be posting about another item related to the Adam Joseph button line very soon…
This birthday card from 1983 features the Max Rebo Band, with the message “Droopy, Sy, Max, and I hope your birthday strikes a happy note!” Drawing Board Greeting Cards also put out the Jabba and Rebo Band school valentines I posted about a while back, and a number of Star Wars stickers sets. I like how the top of the card is cut out to match the outline of the characters. Interestingly, they give credit to the artist (Charles Brannon) which isn’t something you see all that often.
Jabbacat Polymer Sculpture by Ash Cairns
I got this one-of-a-kind polymer sculpture from UK-based artist Ash Cairns. Representing Jabba as a cat isn’t a totally new concept, but I think she did a great job with both the sculpt and the paint.
It’s roughly 2″ tall by 3″ wide.
Link: Jabba the Hutt-shaped Wild Mushroom on eBay
If you’ve ever wanted to own a wild mushroom that looks almost nothing like Jabba the Hutt, now’s your chance! This eBay auction is just the latest in a line of questionable items that are supposed to look like Jabba, including a Jabba-shaped cookie and Jabba in a piece of wood.
These two cards are part of a much larger series of cards released in Sweden in 1983. As with most sets of trading cards, there are quite a lot of them, including a number of other characters from Jabba’s palace and Jabba’s sail barge, etc. But I don’t really feel the need to collect all of them. These two appear to be the only ones primarily featuring Jabba, so that’s good enough for me.
The most interesting thing to me about these is that they are so much smaller than American trading cards — less than 2″ by 3″. They’re also quite plain. There’s nothing whatsoever on their backs, and just a picture and some text on the front. (“Stjärnornas krig” means “Star Wars” in Swedish.) The quality of the photo on the bottom one is better in person, but I had some trouble getting my scanner to pick it up.
Jabba’s Palace Archway Environment by Sideshow Collectibles
I think there were a lot of confused reactions when Sideshow announced this piece alongside their “Gartogg the Gamorrean Guard” figure in late 2010. I know I was a bit underwhelmed, which explains why it took me so long to get one. There’s so much potential for “environment” pieces in Jabba’s palace. They could do the steps on the sides of Jabba’s throne, the barbecue behind it, or even the archway going over the throne if you want to get ambitious. So at first glance it’s hard to understand why they went with this broken archway. I don’t think there’s anything like this in the palace. If someone showed me a picture of it, I wouldn’t have known it was supposed to be from Jabba’s palace, or even from Star Wars overall, although I guess it does have a bit of a “Tatooine” feel to it.
The archway has a light-up feature which is activated by a hidden button on the top and takes 3 AA batteries. Honestly, I think it looks better with the lights off, so I just removed the batteries after taking these pictures. The buttons on the bottom look pastel in color when lit up, and the light at the top just blinks on and off. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to look like a malfunctioning light that flickers, but having it blink on and off with such regularity doesn’t really give it that effect. See the video below.
One of my favorite parts of the piece is actually one that you’ll almost never see. Â On the bottom of the base is a cool illustration of Jabba’s Palace, similar to the one on the bottom of the “You’re Going To Regret This” diorama.
As you can see below, the archway does work pretty well as a base for the Gamorrean Guard figure.
And I also think that it gives my Sideshow 1/6 scale Jabba’s Palace display some symmetry when paired with the Han Solo in Carbonite environment, so I’m glad that I got it even though I’m not in love with it.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 