Sex Criminals, Rat Queens, the Dial H swan song, and the strangest Star Wars tale ever told?

We are right in the middle of the dog days of summer and, before you know it, the school bells will be ringing again. Here are a few books coming out in September you might want to add to your pull list.

Let's start with a story which almost didn't see the light of day:

THE STAR WARS
Writer: J. W. Rinzler; Artist: Mike Mayhew; Colorist: Rain Beredo, Brad Anderson; Cover Artist: Nick Runge
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Before Star Wars, there was The Star Wars! This is the authorized adaptation of George Lucas’s rough-draft screenplay of what would eventually become a motion picture that would change the world.

Annikin Starkiller is the hero . . . Luke Skywalker is a wizened Jedi general . . . Han Solo is a big green alien . . . and the Sith . . . Well, the Sith are still the bad guys. High adventure and derring-do from longer ago, in a galaxy even further away!

* Official adaptation of George Lucas’s original screenplay for Star Wars!

Apparently the idea to adapt it has be floating around for years, but Lucas was adamant this would not be made. That was until Dark Horse showed him 10 pages of art and he relented and signed off.

It's an 8-issue limited series, so the commitment isn't huge if you're curious to see how Star Wars might have looked.