Jabba the Hutt Figural Eraser (Butterfly Originals, 1983)
When I was a child, my parents had an awful habit of bringing me to movies I just wasn't ready for. The best example would be Aliens -- I was barely seven years old at the time, and even my mother's lies about Ripley's exo-suit being "a Transformer" couldn't keep my pants dry on that cold evening. Along similar lines, they brought me to see Return of the Jedi in 1983. I was barely four, and Jabba just scared the holy hell out of me. I never would've guessed how fascinated I'd be with the creature just weeks after the infamous "theater incident," but even to this day, I hold a special place for Jabba.
Looking back, Jabba personifies everything I love about Star Wars -- how every little part of it has been refitted and regurgitated again and again. To casual viewers, Jabba's just the big perverted slug from ROTJ. There's more to love about Jabba if you're a more devoted enthusiast -- he's been the star of entire novels, the focus of paint-by-number sets....heck, on those rare occasions when I was coerced to shower as a kid, I even washed my hair with Jabba the Hutt shampoo. He wasn't a huge part of life, but he was part of it, if that makes sense.
The eraser conforms to the parallel dimension version of Jabba, that being all the relics which portray the crimelord as an all-green affair. Oh well, at least the eyes look like Red Hots.
