Jabba McInch

1977

In the summer of 1977, I was working the late shift in a factory job when the Star Wars film started getting absurd amounts of coverage in the mainstream media. The money I was earning was supposedly being saved towards college expenses, but I was in the habit of prowling stores in search of science fiction novels and anthologies.

There are no swords in science fiction.
Intrigued by the hype and publicity associated with the film, I bought a copy of the Star Wars novelization that had been written by Alan Dean Foster. I didn't like the book. It struck me as a story that was about Earthly mobsters, a story lifted out of some 1940s film and translated into lame Hollywood Sci Fi with a few spaceships and latex aliens. I had no interest in seeing the film, but at the end of the summer my parents talked me into going to see it... I did not like the film either.

C-3PO, Jabba the Hutt and Leia Organa of Alderaan, shown at Jabba's HQ on Tatooine, in Return of the Jedi.

On film: Jabba version 1.0

Many years later, my son enjoyed watching the Star Wars films, so I got to repeatedly see Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. That Jabba of film and fame is not at all like the Jabba depicted by Alan Dean Foster. Foster's Jabba was the type of gangster depicted in Lucas' original script, the kind of large criminal (with plenty of "muscle and suet") who would lead a gang of thugs into the storage hanger of the Millennium Falcon in order to demand payment of an old debt by Han Solo.

Another version of Jabba the Hutt, from Star Wars trading cards. The Princess making her escape.

version 2.0 - Jabba model

How was the humanoid Jabba transformed into the slug-like Jabba? Apparently Phil Tippett (and LSD) played a significant role in crafting the latex Jabba of big-screen fame. Look at the Jabba model to the left that was approved by Lucas and set everything in motion for crafting the huge Jabba that appeared in Return of the Jedi. There is no obvious way for this worm-like Jabba to walk around.

Inch Worm

Interior artwork for "The Unspeakable McInch". 

In "The Unspeakable McInch" by Jack Vance (Startling Stories, November 1948), McInch is an alien creature who ultimately meets the fate depicted in the image to the right on this page. Good ol' Joe, the fire-chief, is stamping on McInch's eye.

The setting of "The Unspeakable McInch" is the city of Sclerotto, which Vance described as a "wretched maze of cabins and shacks". The economy of Sclerotto planet seems to be built upon the seaweed that can be harvested from the "sluggish" ocean.

This is a Magnus Ridolph story.

1948 in an alternate Reality.
Original cover art by Earle Bergey

Magnus is trying to earn a paycheck by investigating the evil McInch, Sclerotto's only famous citizen. McInch is a murderer, "a self-seeking scoundrel", and the undisputed boss of Sclerotto City. Anytime he needs money, McInch goes to Town Hall and steals some of the city's tax receipts.

McInch is obsessive about hiding his identity. Nobody even knows if he is a human or a member of one of the many alien species who live in Sclerotto City. Anyone who learns who McInch is, or threatens his control of Sclerotto City, is quickly killed, and the cause of death is always reported as "unclassified disease".

Magnus Ridolph does not need more than a day to figure out the identity of McInch and Ridolph survives McInch's attempt to kill him.

The Golespod Garbage Gambit
and other stories of far worlds.
Magnus always gets his man alien.

Now realizing that McInch has been living among them and serving as their garbage disposal system, the people of Sclerotto City attack McInch and they quickly cut him to pieces with their knives, ending his reign of terror.

McInch was a Golespod, from the world 1012 Aurigae. McInch lived and worked in the ruins of the city's one stone building, a structure built long ago by the original settlers (a colony of Ordinationalists). Here is how Vance describes McInch: "... a wide, rubbery creature, somewhat like a giant ray, though blockier, thicker in cross-section. It had a double row of pale short legs on its underside, a blank milk-blue eye on its front, a row of pliant tendrils under its eye." Below the eye was a mouth. As a Golespod, McInch was happy to have the people of Sclerotto City bring him their garbage, which he would eat.

Solo and the slimy piece of worm-ridden filth.

Slimy piece of worm-ridden filth
The worldly Magnus Ridolph knows that the alien Golespod ferment their food using carefully-crafted bacteria that they hold internally. McInch could kill his enemies by exposing them to deadly bacterial strains and poisons that he brewed in his gut.

I wonder if Vance's evil McInch had any influence on the later crafting of Jabba as a Star Wars character.

Mi-Tuun

Related Reading: the start of my 2020 celebration of Jack Vance
                            Jack Vance and the big trees
                            Mike Gray on Magnus
                            Magnus and The Kessel Run

Next: Magnus Ridolph and the resilian monopoly of Naos VI.

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