Club Jade

Andy Helms has embarked on an illustration product to draw a Dude A Day, last year, and several Star Wars characters showed up in November. (via)

Daala, of course. It honestly wasn’t much of a contest - everyone’s favorite KJA-spawned Imperial psycho and her new job as (LOTF spoiler) the Galactic Alliance Chief of State (aka President of the Galaxy for our less EU-oriented friends) took an early lead and kept it, although Ahsoka made a strong showing. But she’s young, and while it’s hard to imagine that The Clone Wars could top a surprise apprentice for Anakin, this is Star Wars. George will certainly think of something! Hell - she might even survive.

What will the 2009 hold for the Warus? Not much… We hope. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, tell us why you voted for, why, and what would you have nominated for the 2008 Warus?

So, the Twitter is pretty smoking, in that there are 300+ postings in the space of about a month and a half. And while most of the stuff over there does make it over here eventually as promised, not all of it does. Consider that a bonus for Twitter users. I am looking into a way to get it on the sidebar of the blog here (it takes a bit of research: there are about a million plugins to do it) but nothing annoyingly Loudtwitter-esque, I promise.

And since so many of you are on Facebook, well, there’s something for you, too: The Networked Blogs app, which lets you ID yourself as a reader of Club Jade, or any other blog you might fancy. (Livejournalers, which came #2 in the poll, have long had cj_rss to friend. All the LJ feeds have been a bit sluggish lately, but they get the job done.)

Bookspot’s Jay Tomio talks to author Joe Schreiber about his upcoming Star Wars horror novel, how he got the job, and his history with the franchise. I believe this is the first interview with Schreiber focusing solely on Deathtroopers.

In other EU news, the preview for Legacy #32 went up on Friday.

The perfect companion (introduced at DragonCon!!) for bartenders everywhere. If only it could drive you home… (via)

According to TFN, Gus and Duncan’s Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles is now shipping. Galactic Binder has an interview with Lopez, while the official site has a few pieces (Action figure stands, Smarties, Imperial Troop Transporter) from him and Jenkins.

Wait. Seriously? No wonder Time Lords get only 13 incarnations - at this rate the Doctor is going to be prepubescent before 2018.

A couple months ago, the LIFE photo archive went up in Google, fully searchable. Plenty has been done with them since then, but it didn’t occur to me to look for Star Wars until today. There isn’t a ton there - the bulk of images that come up are from The Phantom Menace premiere - but there are a few things of interest, like Time covers, some vintage toy pics and this shot of Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill at a party celebrating the tenth anniversary of A New Hope. You get about the same amount of shots searching for just George Lucas, and even more for Harrison Ford, but clearly Sir Alec wins. (Wait! Was it really a party for ANH? Now I doubt.) But perhaps most amusingly: Jar-Jar and Madeline Albright? Or Peter Cushing in Hamlet?

Off the fannish track, two of the more interesting uses I’ve seen around the web have been Jezebel’s The Way We Were features and Typophile’s book cover meme.

The first episode of 2009 aired, and StarWars.com has the updated episode guide and commentary. (Filoni seems to be channeling Ric Olie this time around.) And next week? More Jar-Jar!

I honestly just plumb forgot to do one last week. Can’t imagine why. Luckily there have been about fifty billion holidays and things have been slow. On that note, I’m reminding you to vote in The Warus, again. The poll expires Sunday evening, and then you’ll all be able to rate Shadows of Mindor.

• Expanded Universe: December was really all about Mindor, but some other folks got in on the action as well.

• The Clone Wars: TFN has a length interview with Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy, featuring questions from the fans.
• Fandom: The world’s most impressive Lego Hoth diorama; Papercraft Millennium Falcon; More and yet more My Little Ponies.
• TV: Memorial for Majel Barrett Roddenberry this weekend; What shows will thrive in 2009?
• Movies: Disney unhitches Narnia from their wagon; Win a trip to Hogwarts; List of fifty best special effects is a must-read.
• I have a bad feeling about this: Andrew Lloyd Webber reviving Phantom for a jaunt to Coney Island.

Really. I actually thought it was Monday until about 3pm. Anyway, The Clone Wars returns tonight with ‘Dooku Captured’. StarWars.com has comments from director Jesse Yeh and a new webcomic, ‘Bait.’

I really like this Star Wars clock - it’s ultra geeky but also totally low-key - if this was an official product it would be black and the logo would be 500% bigger and I would wince every time I looked at it. Alas, it’s been blogged all over so YOUgNeek is probably swamped with orders. (And the logo is even optional! Swoon.) Be sure to check out the rest of her store, there’s some pretty neat stuff in there.

StarWars.com has their Best of 2008 up. Of course there’s the obligatory geeking out over the obligatory Big Events like The Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars. All the Expanded Universe stuff is together for easy access (Plus Frames, because it is a book, sort of, so where else can it go?) On the fandom end, Rusty Miller gets a nice chunk and DIYers get a highlight.

As for Club Jade, this was a pretty good year. We had our first JadeCon since 2006 and it was fabulous!

And this was a very good year for the blog. We’ve been doing this long enough that we’ve hit our stride. Big thanks as ever go out to Paula, for her fantastic Gate Geek posts and boundless enthusiasm. JawaJames did a great job on the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coverage. Eliz hit it out of the park with her posts and photos covering JadeCon’s Project Runway. Additional thanks to Yav, SirRogue, SithSpit, HollywdLiz, SueD, NanLuz, Blu, and Hlynn!

And also? Our readers. There are a lot more of you this year (hits have doubled!) and a lot more of you commenting. I continue to be amazed by you guys! Thanks also go out to everyone who linked us - StarWars.com, TheForce.net, Wookieepedia, EU Cantina, Jedi News and everyone else!

And just for the hell of it, under the cut are out top ten posts of 2008… [Read more →]

Den of Geek’s top fifty movie special effects shots is a hell of a list. It willingly embraces all eras, movies that you might not expect (Hitchcock?!?) and hell, I think I learned a thing or two. (And all the scenes have a video. That’s some serious dedication.) It probably goes without saying that A New Hope and Return of the Jedi get entries.

Plus I’ll take any excuse to lead off with Harryhausen.

They also have a list of the 24 worst special effects of all time, which includes that horrible Special Edition Jabba scene. (Which I still hold is worse than Han shooting first.)

• Smooth. Lando, the cologne. Because, why not?

• Fanmade: Look, I’m usually all over the My Little Pony mashups, but Mari Kasurinen’s Chewbacca pony scares the living daylights out of me. It wants your soul. Much less terrifying is Boba Fett.
• Lists: Topless Robot has the ten best action figures based on real people. Jorg Sacul is #7. Also, you can’t make a top five space cowboys list without Han Solo.
• Video: Attack of the Clones in 5 seconds. Obvious spoof is obvious, but worth a giggle.