That would be Hilena’s dad, of course; Jeff Nelson.

And there you have it! Hope you enjoyed this retrospective. Look for the next one August 15th.

Also inevitably, here is Scavina’s first appearance in the Salmagundi edition of Galaxion, back in 1993. Her introductory scene didn’t change much over the three different versions, though when I read her last word balloon what pops into my head Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think it was Ford’s line? “I can’t help what you may personally be in orbit around…”

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I never really did a lot of ink washes, but I liked this one. It accompanied what was probably my very first story to appear in print (…in my high school yearbook. But hey, that was a big deal for me!).

That there is old-version Vanguarthe again, confronting Scavina is what was supposed to be the big dramatic showdown of the whole series. But to be honest… I haven’t the slightest idea anymore what that was.

“GSC”, by the way, stands for Galaxion Star Cruiser, which was the full name of the ship back then. It was the shorthand for this story for so long that I still use the abbreviation as file names, just out of habit, even though it stopped being relevant some fifteen years ago!

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Following in the tradition of the Galaxion Holiday pictures, here is the Mothers’ Day version!

I don’t think the fact that Scavina is in fact a mother has come up yet in the webcomic? It was mentioned in passing in the periodical version, but I don’t know how many people remember it. Her daughter’s name is Hilena, and she used to live on the ship with her mom. Not so much another Wesley Crusher, believe it or not– no, her primary occupation was to be a nuisance, and run onto the bridge at inappropriate times. Hmm, that seemed so much more comical when we were in grade 9!

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For most of her existence, General Scavina Nelson was the undisputed commander of the Galaxion. Must be nice, eh? She still had to watch over her shoulder for disgruntled crew, though. And it wasn’t Fusella she was watching out for, either! Back in those days, Scavina’s first officer was a crankypants lady by the name of Sandy LeMay. Her defining characteristic was that she was a grouch and nobody liked her very much. Neither did we, I guess, because we dropped her out of the story completely.

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Here, of course, is the inevitable page of character heads. You can see the shift from Star Blazers influence to Robotech influence right there, can’t you?

Over the years Scavina’s hair got shorter, bit by bit. (She also appears to have gotten happier. Wha–?) But like so many other visual details, her current hairstyle gelled (wow, that’s almost a really bad pun there) in the early pages of Salmagundi.

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Wendy and I nearly killed ourselves laughing when we read the caption on this one.

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Here is the very first picture of Scavina, and quite possibly the very first Galaxion picture ever, as drawn by Wendy. As you can see… well, things have changed somewhat since then. It’s probably fair to say things changed almost immediately after this picture was drawn, starting with ditching the Star Trekkish uniform.

She was the hero of the story when we started, like a female Captain Kirk, but the other characters quickly got too interesting to leave in the subplot doldrums, and started hogging her spotlight. Isn’t that always the way.

I wish I could tell you the origin of her name, but I really haven’t the foggiest. For that, we will have to apply to Wendy!

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July 19th is Scavina Nelson’s birthday! Cheers, Scavina!

(If you’re new to Galaxion and are wondering where the actual comics are, you can go to the beginning or you can see the latest installment.)

This is the sixth in a series of Galaxion Retrospectives, celebrating 25 years since Wendy and I first began telling the story of these characters, and also 15 years since the Galaxion comic first appeared in print, in the pages of our minicomic Salmagundi. The first five retrospectives were: Fusella, Alex, Darvin, Aria, and Galaxion itself.

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