In December, Dark Horse Comics will launch a comics miniseries adapting the first original Star Wars novel, Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Foster's story has been adapted by Terry Austin, who handled the script and the inking, and penciller Chris Sprouse, whose art has appeared in DC Comics' The Legionnaires, Justice League America, and Legends of the Dark Knight. Terry Austin is best known for his stint with penciller John Byrne as inker of Marvel's Uncanny X-Men during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"Splinter originally came out in 1978, and it has the distinction of being the very first of the Star Wars sequels in novel format," said Austin. "Before we began work on this adaptation, George Lucas confirmed that this story is indeed an important piece of continuity that bridges the gap between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back."

Foster's novel tells the tale of an artifact, the Kaiburr Crystal, capable of giving its possessor an invincible mastery of the Force. In the right hands, it could save the galaxy. But in the wrong hands, it could destroy it. With the explosion of the original Death Star still reverberating through the cosmos, Luke Skywalker finds that the war he thought he'd won was only a battle and that the dark side of the Force still stalks the galaxy.

Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a four-issue, comic-book miniseries, coming bimonthly from Dark Horse Comics. The first issue will arrive in comics shops on December 26, 1995.