Club Jade

Diamond’s site was down all day, but the usually trustworthy Midtown Comics isn’t showing any Star Wars releases this week.

Instead, gaze into the future of May and July 2010 comics. Highlights include a very Palpy-looking Luke, Cade continuing his ride in the plot hamster wheel and Poser.

Our first rumor of the new year! Rich Johnston of the comic site Bleeding Cool claims that Lucasfilm, Dark Horse and DC Comics will be “getting into bed for crossovers with epic proportions.” Okay? It certainly seems like Dark Horse has been keeping something under wraps, but that could mean anything… (via)

They’re just not finding an audience, says Randy Stradley. (Shocking!) The bookstore-friendly digests will continue. And this might have changed somewhere along the way, but wasn’t the monthly series supposed to be a limited one anyway?

No books, no comics, just the Obi-centric Star Wars Insider #112. In more forward-looking news (or at least stuff you didn’t read last month,) the official site has December 2009 comic solicitations.

A few things I’ve been micro-blogging @clubjade lately. (300 followers and counting…)

Wowza. Danny Choo discovered Cho Woong’s incredible Star Wars room. I’m not normally a fan of collector chic, but for this guy I’m willing to make an exception.

Lists. Empire Strikes Back comes in at #6 on Empire’s list of the top 50 movie sequels, while Return of the Jedi clocks in at #21. Meanwhile, Star Wars is one of Geek Tyrant’s five films that changed the way people look at sci-fi movies. And Cracked checks out the five strangest post-Star Wars careers.

Tee. The environmentally-correct way to handle those lightsabered droid remains. Also: Hans Solo! (via)

Protip. It’s highly unlikely that Dark Horse was inspired by your fanfic, and saying so is your one-way ticket to a mass mocking.

Get with the now, man! Oh, USA Today. Why are you trying to fan the flames of Prequel vs. Original Trilogy rivalry? Protip: It is no longer 2002. We OT fans can (mostly) roll with it.

Party like it’s 2010. Hey, TFN came back! On the Celebration V note, the rumor mill seems to be favoring Chicago and this pleases me. Midwest represent! No Florida!

Bookstuffs. Check out the cover for The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. And perhaps today someone will enlighten us on this Star Wars: Visions thing. There’s also a panel report on what has to be the most ridiculous visual dictionary so far. And yes, Pablo you are shameless.

New Robot Chicken: Bonus segment from the DVD. Down nerds, down.

Phototacular. StarWars.com and Rebelscum don’t stop snapping.

But wait! It’s a comic con! Dark Horse is bringing select issues of Empire, Legacy and The Clone Wars to the iPhone and will be producing two Star Wars one-shots.

Nerd-spotting. Great White Snark has a Day 1 costume gallery.

Facepalm. Fans say Avatar will be as game-changing as Star Wars. Please stop feeding James Cameron’s ego. Don’t you remember what happened after Titanic?

Galactic Binder nabbed Dark Horse Star Wars editor Randy Stradley to talk comics (mostly Invasion, naturally.) I’m particularly approving of this bit:

Do not recycle dialogue from the motion pictures (unless, of course, you’re flashing back to an actual scene from one of the films). There is no need—ever—for another Star Wars character to say, “I have a bad feeling about this,” or “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” etc. Ditto for insertions of the “THX-1138” designation. After thirty years this sort of thing has been done to death.

Be sure to read through to the end, though, as there’s a hint down there that’s sure to make a lot of folks happy.

StarWars.com has the Dark Horse solicitations for September 2009, including Legacy #40, The Clone Wars #9, Knights of the Old Republic #45, Invasion #3 and two trade collections: Knights of the Old Republic volume 7 and The Clone Wars: Slaves of the Republic.

As announced last December, Dark Horse Comics is releasing Star Wars comics as part of their annual freebie book for Free Comic Book Day, which is on Saturday, May 2, 2009.  A preview of the book is up – and it contains a Kit Fisto story, ‘The Gauntlet of Death‘. The free 28 page comic will also contain stories of Emily the Strange, Usagi Yojimbo and other Dark Horse properties suitable for all ages, and has a flip cover. Dark Horse also had a second freebie book for 2009, with a flip cover, helping to relaunch their Aliens and Predator comic tie-in series – check out the preview.

StarWars.com has cover art for the upcoming NJO series, which was revealed at WonderCon today. They also ask editor Randy Stradley a few questions.

UPDATE: Tom Taylor says it’s Luke on the cover, but I have some doubts.