of New York City's decline, when poor musicians in Punk and free jazz were making a rising scene out of cheap rents, collective venues, and street throwaways. Kaluta said: "You could build an entire city on the stuff the city throws away, just sitting out there". The resulting sets, designed in the style of classic science fiction serials, used Hot Wheels tracks, walkie talkies, medical splints, medicine jars full of marbles, Bingo chips, coffee lids, and plastic cups, which Kaluta glue-gunned together with help from his colleague, Fantasy illustrator Charles Vess. The Starstruck play received its first national coverage in an article in Starlog magazine #41 in December 1980, which included an interview of Lee and Kaluta, along with Kaluta's design sketches, and stage photos by Sean Smith. Comics The characters and stories of Starstruck have continued in comics form across multiple comic companies, but primarily Heavy Metal, Epic, Dark Horse, and IDW. Background and creation The Starstruck play had been optioned by a producer in 1980, which bound Lee from developing any further stage versions for a year. Kaluta saw a solution but with some reluctance: "Though I did suggest Elaine do a comic book version of the play when all the rest of the rights were tied up by the then producer, I didn't want to draw the comic book". Kaluta had initially made his fame as illustrator of The Shadow comics for DC Comics in the early 1970s, and was now hesitant to take such a big project on. They also assessed that a dialogue-heavy script on two simple sets would not translate well to the big action and quick captions of comics. Kaluta said: "But the material, and, especially Elaine's witty approach to everything she writes set a small fire under me". They found the solution in the backdrop. The stage play had moments where the narrator sketched the backgrounds of each character. Lee and Kaluta had worked out an elaborate backstory of the future time period, the political landscape, the pasts and futures of the characters, and many new characters not seen in the play. This scope of myth-building, inspired by the spirit of Dune and Star Trek, had been beyond their resources to stage or film. Adapting that dynamic epic to comics proved a better solution than simply adapting the play. By 1980, creator-owned comics published by independent comics publishers were now being sold