With about two months before the new Star Wars movie is released, Antarctica might be the only place on Earth you can escape the film’s mammoth marketing machine.

But the global reach of Luke, Leia, Han and Vader that we now take for granted wasn’t always the case. During the Star Wars heyday of the late ’70s and early ’80s, foreign filmgoers—especially those living under oppressive Communist regimes—sometimes had to find inventive ways to get their fill of the cultural phenomena that had been unleashed.

Recently, pages from a 1980 Chinese comic book adaptation of Star Wars have been popping up on Tumblr, and Reddit user ejhdigdug posted about the illegal bootleg earlier this year.

This historical artifact gives a glimpse of what an American creation like Star Wars looks like from the vastly different social and economic frame of reference of late-20th century China. In most cases, the illustrations resemble the classic 1977 film, which premiered in China in 1979.

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But there are definitely examples of the artist going “off model.” Such as the case of Princess Leia’s sexier-than-the-movie hologram SOS:

Or Obi-Wan Kenobi’s late-in-life decision to join the Tatooine chapter of the Hell’s Angels:

And what needs to be said about this shot of Darth Vader and a triceratops? Besides the fact that someone in the late ’70s should’ve airbrushed that image on the side of his van.

China wasn’t the only Communist country that adapted Star Wars in comics form. Hungary—with its own long, rich comics history—probably pulled off the most successful unlicensed re-creation of the original trilogy. Which makes a certain amount of sense given that the country also created some of the strangest movie posters for the films.

The 1979 Hungarian poster byTibor Helényi for the original “Star Wars.” (Budapest Poster Gallery)

Artist Attila Fazekas began adapting the Star Wars films in 1982, working off the screenplays, as well as countless theater viewings. That caused the illustrations to either be incredibly accurate or slightly generic.

Cover to the Hungarian comic book adaptation of “Star Wars.”

About 300,000 to 500,000 copies of the Hungarian comic book versions of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were sold in the country. But Marvel Comics, which had the license at the time to publish Star Wars comics, found about them and forced the artists to stop before The Return of the Jedi could be adapted.

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In 2012, however, Lucasfilm allowed Fazekas to complete and release his version of ROTJ, but only 500 copies could be printed and were only made available to members of the country’s Star Wars fan club. Not a club member? You can still check out scans of the comic—along with the adaptations of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back—at this Facebook page as long as you can read Hungarian.