EUbits: New Rebellion-era miniseries coming from Dark Horse

Rebel HeistNews. Dark Horse revealed a new miniseries by Mind MGMT’s Matt Kindt, Rebel Heist, on Comic Book Resources last week. The four-issue series starts with a Han Solo issue in April and will feature art by Marco Castiello (Purge.)

Excerpt. There’s a bunch of Maul: Lockdown available at Random House’s catalog.

Interviews. John Ostrander and artist Jan Duursema are also on Comic Book Resources, talking Dawn of the Jedi, while Ostrander talks to Eleven-ThirtyEight.

Notes. John Jackson Miller has added production notes for Kenobi to his site.

The blogside. Abel G. Peña and Daniel Wallace continue their look at the Imperial Warlords at the official blog, while Mike Cooper at Eleven-ThirtyEight asks fandom to stop trying to quantify everything.

EUbits: Upcoming books, the blogside and more

SWEARHAT!Upcoming. Del Rey has revealed the back cover of Honor Among Thieves and posted another mini-excerpt for Maul: Lockdown.

The blogside. For the detail oriented, StarWars.com has Imperial warlords from Abel G. Peña and Daniel Wallace and Xim the Despot by Jason Fry with Paul Urquhart. From the fan side, Eleven-ThirtyEight has Alexander Gaultier looking at the lost books of the EU and Ben Crofts defends implausible victories, or, welcome to the wonderful world of Space Opera.

Interview. Roqoo Depot talks to artist Chris Trevas about the Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual.

On the Tumblr. Mirax Terrik art from Tony Foti for the RPG.

EUbits: Ewoks, excerpts, and bugs. Lots of bugs.

ewoks-comicAlready used up my yub yub quota this week, sorry. Heard some things here and there about an Ewoks comic through the recent cons, but not enough to go much on… But here’s a Newsarama interview with writer Zack Giallongo. The TPB is due in October; Start planning your celebratory buffet now. (via)

Officially… From the Del Rey folks, we have a Kenobi mini-excerpt, what other excerpts Razor’s Edge will contain, aand, on StarWars.com, Troy Denning writes about Crucible and his other Star Wars work. And bugs. Prefer not to think about any of that? Rich Handley and Abel G. Peña are exploring the Empire’s alien henchmen.

The blogside At Tosche Station, Nanci addresses the issues with the EU’s Jedi in recent years, but also takes the time to thank Del Rey for having so many women in the recent and upcoming lineup. And MTV has been doing a series on things that the new movies ‘need,’ most of which have been borderline ridiculous, but at least Jaina Solo and Lumiya made it.

Reference. The cover for Death Star: Owner’s Technical Manual

New blog. Check out Eleven-ThirtyEight, which focuses on EU-based meta and opinion pieces.

EUbits: Movies are not wikis, or why backstory doesn’t mean that book characters can’t be in Episode VII

Mara in 'Vector Prime' art by Darren Tan from the Essential Reader's CompanionThe blogside. Nanci at Tosche Station points out how backstory isn’t an impediment to Expanded Universe characters appearing in the sequel trilogy. (If you really want to make that point, there are plenty of more legitimate reasons!) Meanwhile, on the Star Wars blog, editor Jennifer Heddle talks a bit about editing the roleplaying books.

Upcoming. The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi has a blurb now, and Kevin Hearn’s outline for his Rebels book – the Luke one – has been approved. Making of is due in October, while we’ve got a tentative January 2015 date for the Hearns. And while we’re on the topic, the first Rebels novel, the still-untitled Leia one by Martha Wells, has moved up a week to October 15. (via)

Excerpts. And on that note, the first chapter of Tim Lebbon’s Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void has appeared in the Random House catalog. That one is out in May. (via)

Podcasts. Our own Jawajames guested on the second episode of Star Wars Bookworms.

Conventions. Dark Horse will be selling a limited edition cover variant of the new Legacy at WonderCon.

Translation. Abel Pena will be translating some vintage Droids and Ewoks comics from Spain into English.

Reviews. James gives Dawn of the Jedi: The Prisoner of Bogan #4 a big thumbs-up, while he’s ‘intrigued’ by the new Legacy #1.

EUbits: Jedi Quest audio, interviews, comics

Surprise audiobooks! A couple days ago, Zee Zee spotted audiobook listings on the Random House catalog for the first four Jedi Quest books: Way of the Apprentice, The Trail of the Jedi, The Dangerous Games and The Master of Disguise. All four are listed as $9.99 unabridged digital downloads with spring release dates.

Audiobooks years after the fact? Plus, the original books were published by Scholastic, which isn’t a Random House imprint, though the audio versions are listed under Random House’s Imagination Studios. (Del Rey’s Star Wars audiobooks are Random House Audio.) Lucasbooks is clearly trying something new here, but we’re still awaiting some kind of confirmation…

Expanded Universe at random

It was a busy week on the VIP blogs… First, a slightly defensive Drew Karpyshyn Rule of Two update (seriously fanboys, lay off the guy already,) then John Jackson Miller pondered keeping things unexplained, and we were favored with an Abel G. Peña double-punch on Darth names and, of all things, The Crystal Star.