Comic-Con: Del Rey, Dark Horse & LEGO

Friday is traditionally Star Wars day at Comic-Con, and we had a full slate of Star Wars-related panels, and Seth Green returned to crash another one of them. While there was no Star Wars Spectacular, attendees in San Diego got their fill from different Star Wars licensees.

Del Rey’s Star Wars book panel was minimally staffed this year – only editor Shelly Shapiro and Choices of One author Timothy Zahn were up on stage. Shapiro gave a quick overview of upcoming titles (both novels and reference guides) and release dates from Del Rey, with no new title announcements. She did mention that in X-Wing: Mercy Kill there will be two Wraith Squadrons, and neither knows about the other. The original novella being written for Lost Tribe of the Sith print edition was described as a “big chunk” by John Jackson Miller, lurking in the audience.

Tim answered questions about Thrawn’s characteristics. Shelly responded that the canceled Blood Oath is essentially erased and overwritten in the timeline, while Imperial Commando 2 isn’t being pursued for the near future, though they do want to finish the series. Tim talked about having his bits of his EU works overwritten by George Lucas by using Bill Slavicsek’s analogy of working in Star Wars: playing on George Lucas’ driveway when he could back up the truck at any moment. He also gave his views of how the Force works: for power or guidance, with Yoda focusing more on listening to the Force for guidance over using it for power. More questions focused on Tim’s response to Mara Jade’s death (and how Tim would have written Serenity), Shelley’s views on character death and the anecdotal revelation that George Lucas gave the approval to kill off Han Solo when they were developing Vector Prime for NJO (only Luke and Leia were declared no-kill). And, of course, some of the usual questions about continuity and such.

You can check out the Del Rey panel for yourself: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Randy Stradley, in his Imperial officer uniform, started off Dark Horse’s Star Wars panel with some minor announcements (apparently New York Comic Con will get the official announcements): Star Wars comics being finally available digitally (some even for free), a new John Ostrander and Jan Duursema project, a new John Jackson Miller project, and a new Tom Taylor project. He then got all the panelists to reveal their favorite Star Wars comics moments, which led to hoojibs. Some further announcements include the opportunity for The Clone Wars comic story between seasons 4 and 5, and that one The Clone Wars comic story will be adapted an story arc for the show, and a new Vader project by Haden Blackman. Most of the Q&A was directed at Holocron keeper, Leland Chee, but then later went to hoojib zombies, constantly making the galaxy bigger, and another new series – Agent of the Empire, with a focus away from the Jedi or Sith. And Seth Green took the podium in this panel to relate his favorite Star Wars comics: Tag and Bink, and mentioned that his upcoming animated Star Wars comedy series may “smell like Robot Chicken”.

Watch the Dark Horse panel: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

The LEGO Star Wars panel started off Friday morning as a one-stop shop for all things LEGO Star Wars: a little look at the most recent LEGO Star Wars video games, some of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars building sets, including a new TIE Fighter set, and the new Queen Amidala figure, and ending with a few clips of the LEGO Star Wars animated special, The Padawan Menace, which aired last night on Cartoon Network (and will be running a few more times over the weekend). My recommendation: watch this hilarious animated special. While it takes place in the Clone Wars and focuses on C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels) as he manages a group of unruly padawans, while Yoda and a youngling named Ian (or is it really someone else we know that’s just one letter off?) try to keep Asajj Ventress from stealing some plans. Written by Michael Price (from The Simpsons), there is a lot of fun and comedy here for all Star Wars fans. It was revealed after the panel that The Padawan Menace will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 16, to coincide with Blu-ray release of the Star Wars saga.

EUbits: New Lost Tribe, Fate of the Jedi excerpts

Fate of the Jedi. The seventh of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith ebooks, Pantheon, was released today. It features an except of the next Fate of the Jedi book, Golden’s Ascension, which was also the subject of the last mini-except on Facebook. Ascension will be out August 9.

Upcoming. Announced last week, The Millennium Falcon Owners’ Workshop Manual by Ryder Windham with Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff on art. Currently scheduled for a February 2012 release.

SDCC. Del Rey will be giving out Revan masks in San Diego this weekend. (Revan masks? Really?) I seem to recall them promising that the book’s cover would revealed at the con, so there’s that, too.

Excerpt. The official site has a PDF except of Paul S. Kemp’s Riptide, which is due in October. The cover painting is up on eBay… I never would have guessed it was Dave Seeley, but it does look a little better here. (He also has Blood Oath and Mindor up.)

Namesake corner. I have a Choices of One post coming up, but for now, just know that Mara took the top two spots in the Expanded Universe category of Rebelscum’s Hasbro wishlist poll.

EUbits: A quick peek inside Shadow Games

Two smugglers walk into a bar… Today on the official forums, editor Sue Rostoni shared a brief excerpt from the proof of Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s Shadow Games. Black-barred for the paranoid spoilerphobics:

“In case you haven’t noticed, Captain, there are Imperials all over the place. It would be in our customer’s interests to be discreet.”

The Wookiee said something, to which Han replied, “Of course I’m discreet. I’m always discreet.” To Dash he said, “What’d you have in mind?”

The proof, for those of you keeping track, is 338 pages. Shadow Games will be out in paperback in the fall.

Interview. Lightsaber Rattling talks to Paul Kemp about his just-released Old Republic tie-in, Deceived.

Blurbs. In other Kemp-related news, there’s a summary out there now for his September paperback, Riptide. (via)

Comics. The Crimson Empire story that will be in Dark Horse Presents #1 will feature Kir Kanos in a standalone tale that will both recap some of the earlier CE and set things up for CEIII, according to Randy Stradley.

First look. The next in the Lost Tribe of the Sith series, ‘Pantheon,’ will hit July 18th.

Updates on Knight Errant, Lost Tribe of the Sith and more from John Jackson Miller

While it has been previously announced that John Jackson Miller’s ebook novella series, Lost Tribe of the Sith will be collected in a print anthology, more details emerged about the series in an author chat hosted by Del Rey’s Star Wars Books Facebook account. Both Miller and Del Rey reps confirmed the following schedule for the (free) digital releases:

  • Part Six: “Sentinel” – Februray 21, 2011
  • Part Seven: “Pantheon” – July 19, 2011
  • Part Eight: “Secrets” – March 8, 2012
  • Print collection – August 2012, and it will contain an additional “long” story.

The concept of the overall series is that the first four form the Founders tetralogy (how the lost tribe started from some stranded “middle-managers in the cause of evil”), and the second four fit into the Darker Times, while the new material will help show how the tribe evolved from to closer to what is encountered in the Fate of the Jedi series.

And in very early phases of Knight Errant, there might have been some sort of Twilighty romance between Kerra Holt and Lord Daiman, but scrapped as the characters developed – since Daiman’s really only in love with himself, and Kerra is just way too busy trying to stay alive and help those around her. Pitched from Dark Horse to Miller as a “lone female Jedi”, Miller envisioned Kerra traveling solo like the Lone Ranger, even without a sidekick or droid Tonto.

Going back to Miller’s work on the Knights of the Old Republic, he mentioned that the charming con artist Gryph was originally supposed to be an Ortolan, like Max Rebo, before being changed to a Snivvian. Zayne Carrick’s last name connects back to Miller’s college dorm room.

Street date shuffle: Realigning the novels for 2011/2012

We got a number of schedule updates from Sue Rostoni today. There were a few notable delays – Riptide, Shadow Games and (sigh) Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse have all been pushed back a few months. There were also a number of additions: Drew Karpyshyn’s contribution to The Old Republic tie-ins set for October. Looking forward into 2012, Luceno’s Plagueis novel is up for January, and Allston’s new Wraith book for July.

We also got what is perhaps our first conformation that John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith is set for print. Head on over to our book schedule for all the details.

Download Del Rey’s complete Star Wars novel timeline in PDF

Are you one of the dozen or so EU fans deeply invested in timelines and whether the ones that are published in the books are complete? If so, it’s your lucky day: Suvudu has posted a PDF of the new one which includes everything an novel obsessive will need. (Theoretically, anyway. But my slavish attachment to informed opinion about reading in publication order is another post entirely.)

I’m no timeline junkie (clearly) but there does actually seem to be news in there! Head on over to EUC to see why the future installments of Lost Tribe of the Sith are exciting. (I guess?)