Club Jade

Exciting week in releases… Not. All we have is the thrilling Early Victories omnibus, including such 90′s Dark Horse gems such as their Splinter of the Mind’s Eye adaption, River of Chaos and Vader’s Quest.

There’s a lot of io9 in this one… I probably ought to stop saving them up. Anyway, one of their readers spotted some Star Wars folks on Google Street View. Which isn’t that much of a surprise given that they’re hanging out on Hollywood Blvd., but whatever.

• TV The season premiere of The Simpsons features a cameo from sci-fi’s most famous bounty hunter.

• Lists: Skywalkers (and a Splinter of the Mind’s Eye reference) in io9′s most surprising family ties, while Biggs gets one of the twelve coolest deaths. Um, okay. And over at IGN, a countdown of the worst Star Wars characters, including little Ani, Jar Jar, and some “Punk-Ass Jedi Knights.” Just the high level of discourse we can always expect from IGN.
• Something different: This is technically yet another list, but too good for the crowd: Ten reasons why the designs of Star Wars are awesome. Also, you might actually learn something about design.

Honors: The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers has named Star Wars vet Alan Dean Foster their second Grandmaster. Foster was the first novelist to tackle the franchise, ghost-writing the novelization of Star Wars as well as (under his own name) the first original novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. He returned to the GFFA in 2002 with The Approaching Storm. (via)

• Interviews: AM New York talks to author Karen Traviss, who’ll be in town this evening on her The Clone Wars book tour, while EUC nabbed artist Dustin Weaver.

• Gaming: Yoda and Darth Vader trash-talking in Penny Arcade.
• RPG: WOTC’s relaunch of the roleplaying game is up for four ENnies, including Best Game and Product of the Year.
• Comics: StarWars.com has the first look at Dark Horse’s Rise of the Sith omnibus.