Legacy Collection Bane Malar Figure by Hasbro
The character of Bane Malar is a bit of an odd case. He only appeared in Return of the Jedi in a deleted scene, and I believe he was just someone standing in the background even then. His first real appearance was in Decipher’s Jabba’s Palace expansion set for their Star Wars Collectible Card Game. I dug out his card just for you, gentle reader. Personally, I think his name is a bit too “on the nose” for a bad guy, although Savage Opress from the new Clone Wars cartoons is even worse in this regard. I’m surprised they didn’t call him “Baddius Evilor” or something.
Basically, he’s a mysterious telepathic bounty hunter who appears to be armed with a twentieth-century machine gun. The figure is not bad, although the gun is of the super soft and floppy variety. This is the only time we’ve gotten a figure of this character, and given how minor he is, I would assume it will be the last. Still, I guess he fits in well enough with the other denizens of Jabba’s palace.
Rainbow Foil (Chase) Version of Topps Clone Wars Jabba the Hutt Dog Tag
I got the regular Jabba dog tag last year (it’s the one on the right), but this is the super-rare rainbow foil (or “holo”) version of the same tag. Click the link for the full story on these tags, but in short they come in cases of 24, with 24 different characters. One random character among these will be the rainbow foil version instead of the normal one. That means that for every case you open, you have a 1 in 24 chance of getting the rainbow foil version of a particular character. Pretty dismal odds if you want a particular one. And to be honest, it’s not really that impressive. Depending on the angle, it can be difficult to even see the rainbow effect. I had to take several photos in order to get one that made it obvious. Anyway, I picked this up from a Rebelscum.com forum member, and I’m glad to get it. But I’m even gladder that I don’t feel compelled to try and get all of the rainbow versions.
Max Rebo Band Pin by Hollywood Pins
This metal pin was made in 1993 by Hollywood Pins (the pin itself reads “1993” while the backer is dated 1994).. They also made a Jabba pin, as well as several others than I don’t have yet. It’s about an inch square.
Update: Vintage R2-D2 Eraser Added
I wrote about my set of vintage Jabba the Hutt-themed erasers back in September of last year, but I hadn’t realized that there was an R2-D2 eraser in the same series that had art of Jabba and Salacious Crumb on its card, so I have added that as well. I love how each eraser has different art — they could’ve easily cheapened out and used the same generic background for all of them, but they didn’t. I also added an out-of-package shot of the Gamorrean Guard eraser, so click the link above to see the updated entry.
69th Imperial Dewback Cavalry Patch (“The Pleasure of the Desert 2011”)
This embroidered patch was made by the “69th Imperial Dewback Cavalry” — a group of Star Wars fans who like to dress up as sandtroopers for fun and charity events. I can’t say that I really know anything about them, but it sounds like they’re a sort of unofficial branch of the 501st Legion. It’s a fairly large patch, at nearly 4″ on a side, and the design is attractive. Obviously what drew me to the patch was the image of Oola, who is quite nicely portrayed in embroidery. I’ll have to make sure I keep this one a safe distance away from my Jabba the Hutt boyscout Jamboree patch. 😀
Cartoon Jabba the Hutt Drawings by Me and My Son
It’s been a little slow here in the last few days, as I am waiting on a few things to arrive, so I thought I would share a couple of drawings that my 5-year-old son and I did. For mine (the one above in case you couldn’t tell ;)), I tried to simplify Jabba as much as possible while still leaving him recognizable. I suppose he does look a bit like a cross between Jabba and a marshmallow or ghost, but I like how it turned out. My son’s drawing below features Jabba holding his son Rotta. 🙂 They’re both done in pen and green crayon.
This poster was given out in late 2007 by Gentle Giant to members of its Premier Club (a paid yearly membership that gets you access to some exclusive products and other perks). The reaction by most members was… muted. Which is to say that they hated it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the poster itself, but I think most were expecting a mini-bust or something similar, so to get something that is essentially a poster-sized advertisement for the company’s Rebo Band statue would be a disappointment.
It’s kind of cool though. It was made so that it will glow if subjected to a black light. I don’t happen to have one, but I appreciate the idea, which seems to be to recreate a 70’s-style concert poster. If you click the image above, you should be able to make out the details, which show various dates and locations. I’m not sure why they included several Earth cities in the mix. It kind of ruins the illusion that this might be an “in-universe” tour poster. But I do like how the concert date on Alderaan has been canceled. 😉
I neglected to measure it when I had it out, but it’s quite large. I think it’s probably a full-size 27×40 poster. Special thanks go out to chicanodom at the Rebelscum.com forums for giving me this for the price of shipping.
Jabba the Hutt Starble by Marble Vision
Starbles are Star Wars marbles that were sold in vending machines at theaters in Southern Ontario in conjunction with the re-release of the “Special Editions” of the Star Wars trilogy in 1997. For whatever reason, they never saw a wider release. As you might imagine, this makes them rather rare, and in fact many Star Wars collectors have never heard of them. They made 12 different marbles as you can see below (although I personally only have the Jabba one).
They’re quite big for marbles, at about 1.5″ in diameter. This completely dwarfs the Jabba the Hutt Marb that was recently released (the Marbs are more like 3/4 of an inch in diameter). Like the Marbs, I think they’re made of some sort of plastic rather than glass, but they certainly have a more substantial feel than the tiny Marbs. Anyway, I’ve been on the lookout for one of these ever since I first heard about them, so it feels good to finally check this off of my list.
Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars Special Edition Theater Standee
I saw one of these for the first time many months ago, when I had just started actively looking for Jabba items. Someone had listed a group of several cardboard cutouts on ebay, claiming that they were used in theaters for the original release of Return of the Jedi from 1983. They wanted too much for them so I passed, but I had always regretted not being able to get the Jabba standee. Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago, when another seller listed many of the same cutouts, this time individually and with reasonable starting bids. I contacted them and finally found out where the standees were from. They were actually used in theaters during the re-release of the “Special Editions” Star Wars trilogy in 1996. This may be common knowledge among Star Wars collectors, but I was living in Japan at the time and I wasn’t an active Star Wars fan then either, so I had never seen the display before.
The picture to the left is of the entire display (the image is from the Star Wars Collector’s Archive, since all I have is the Jabba section). Jabba is 27″ wide by 16″ tall, so you can imagine how huge the full display is (9 and a half feet wide). They only made the visible parts of each character, so Jabba’s lower half is incomplete, but as far as I know this is the only Jabba standee that has been made. And that’s a little strange since they make ones of almost all of the other main characters. I suppose it’s due to his size — standees are generally meant to be life-sized versions of what they represent.
One interesting thing about the display is that all of the characters are actually paintings rather than photos. Most of them appear to be poses taken either from movie stills or promo shots, so it’s interesting that they went to the trouble to make paintings of them all rather than just use photos. They’re very well done, so with some of them you might not be able to tell the difference from a distance. With Jabba, though, I was able to tell immediately that this wasn’t a shot from the film. The coloring is different, and his overall appearance is a bit different from what you see in the films. Since this was to promote the “Special Editions” of the movies, I find it interesting that they didn’t decide to use the CGI Jabba that they inserted into A New Hope, but I’m grateful they didn’t.
Jabba the Hutt and Slave Leia Pen & Ink Drawing by Tim Tyler
This is a pen and ink drawing by comic book artist Tim Tyler. At 11″x16″ it’s too big for me to scan, so you’ll have to get by with a photo, but the detail is very impressive. I really enjoy black and white art like this. Click the image for a larger view.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 