Club Jade

Blast from the past. Tom Dupree, who was an editor at Bantam, writes about his time editing Star Wars novels on his blog as part of a larger series on his career. Old-timers like yours truly will remember him dropping little hints of book news on the AOL Fan Forum, or perhaps such hints being reported in a so-called ‘fan fiction’ newsletter.

Interview. Michael Reaves talks Shadow Games over at Suvudu. Iffy on the book? Take a test drive with a 50-page excerpt.

Excerpts. A little bit of Luceno’s Darth Plagueis.

Comic reviews. Over at Big Shiny Robot, James reviews Knight Errant: Deluge #4, Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost #2, and Dark Times: Out of the Wilderness #3.

Pretties. Flickr user Sith_fire30 creates custom figures based on Star Wars games and comics. Be sure to check out his Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (based on an issue of Invasion, Cade Skywalker, Savage Opress and more.

This dude built a Venator Class Star Destroyer out of LEGO. (For my fellow non ship-nerds: Clone Wars era.) It’s apparently not the first ever, but it is the first to only use LEGOS. It’s impressive, basically.

Superstar customizer Sillof’s latest set of reimagined Star Wars action figures are out, and this time he’s looked back to the “retro sci-fi serials of the 40′s” that helped inspire Star Wars in the first place.

Dannu Choo – aka the Tokyo Dance Trooper – got himself cloned! Sort of. On his blog, he documents his visit to the Clone Factory.

Somehow I missed the ‘Skylark W.E. Flyer’ last year, but StarWars.com did a full feature on the Empire Strikes Back-inspired bicycle for yesterday’s Bike to Work Day.

Photo courtesy of Matt Hofmann.

The StarWars.com folks need our help. They’re creating a retrospective of fan photos with Steve Sansweet. (You know you’ve got ‘em.) It’s as simple as finding and/or scanning your pictures, uploading them to your (free) Flickr account, and adding them to the group Steve Sansweet & You.

Speaking of Steve… He featured a Jader creation as one of his Facebook picks of the week: Chris Cassidy’s Tickle Me Emperor.

Customs. Sillof’s latest action figure set reimagines Star Wars in the old west. Cowboys! Indians! Bartenders!

Fun on Hoth. The snow here in Detroit is melting as I type, but a few weeks back we had more than enough for Sweet Juniper’s Jim and his kids to create a snow wampa and taun taun.

Ask Metafilter. Why is Boba Fett so popular? I don’t know or particularly care, but I’ll hazard one guess: Fanboys.

Crafty corner. The Han in Carbonite throw pillow.

Upcoming. StarWars.com has a look at some of DK’s 2011 offerings, including Secrets of the Jedi, which sounds like a kid’s version of The Jedi Path. Also up are the December 2010 comics, including Knight Errant #3 and Legacy: War #1.

Interviews. Nathan P. Butler and Andrew Lupi talk to Shannon McRandle.

Column. EUC’s column this week, about death in the EU, is… gigantic.

Fanmade. A custom Mara Jade Mighty Mugg.

This Himalan vinyl toy customized by Leecifer photographed by zincsaucier442 seems very much in the spirit of the season. There are more shots at his Flickr.

The internet’s favorite Star Wars cake – this week. As impressive as this Tauntaun grooms cake is, I’m not sure I’d want to eat it. Still, props to the folks at Cake Nouveau for really capturing the moment. And by moment I meant slimy tauntaun guts. (Their dazed-out Luke is amazingly good, too.)

Artoo found in Transformers 2. Are there enough oil baths in the world to get the poor droid clean after this?

Seriously? Someone is taking their dedication to authentic costuming a little too far.

Quack Vader. This unauthorized ’70′s Vader light looks like something Robot Chicken would come up with. Maybe Seth Green had one, too?

And finally… Sideshow has a site up for the customized stormtrooper figures they showed off at SDCC.

At least for one particularly dedicated gamer. PopSci recently spotlighted Brian De Vitis’ customized Artoo cooler, which holds the relevant technical bits of eight consoles, a sound system, and a projector. (via)