Category: books and comics

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EUbits: Last-minute Celebration updates and more

Celebration VI Lots of schedule-posting has been going around. Leland Chee has his at the StarWars.com blog, while the official CVI site has the Barnes & Noble booth signing schedule. Troy Denning, Drew Karpyshyn, Jason Fry, and John Jackson Miller have their schedules up as well.

The blogside. Miller wrote a nice post on Star Wars things you probably don’t remember for the TOS blog, including a version of Heir to the Empire that came with an overwrap. Meanwhile, Pete Morrison goes into Encyclopedia Brown mode to deduct what Jason Fry is working on now.

Interview. Linda Hansen-Raj talks to Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro at the Fangirl blog.

Reviews. A couple more looks at Mercy Kill from Brian at Tosche Station and Kirkus. And James reviews the Bruce Lee vs Darth Maul smackdown of The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters digest.

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Pablo takes on Del Rey and Brian Daley Friday at CVI

Pablo Hidalgo looks at Day 2 on the Behind the Scenes stage, which starts off with the Del Rey panel and ends with a tribute to Brian Daley. Also, Warwick Davis, Hasbro, the Ralph McQuarrie retrospective, and model making. You know where we’ll be next week!

Not that Pablo says he expects the Del Rey panel to “be dominated by audience Q&A,” so start thinking up some good questions… I’ll have a few general Q&A tips early next week.

And Aaron Allston has posted his signing and panel schedule. We got Zahn’s the other day. UPDATE: And here’s Del Rey’s full Celebration VI schedule.

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Celebration VI roundup: A week to go!

We’re now just a week away from the official start of the con. A WEEK. Crazy. As you might expect, it’s been a veritable glut of Celebration VI news lately, and as such I’ve fallen a bit behind. Here are some of the highlights:

History lessons. Dan Madsen remembers the first with The Celebration That Almost Wasn’t.

Expanded Universe. Tim Zahn has posted his Celebration schedule. He has three autograph sessions in addition to his panels, if you were wondering about that – including one on Sunday that he shares with fellow authors James Luceno, Aaron Allston, Troy Denning, Drew Karpyshyn and John Jackson Miller.

Guests. Matt Lanter (The Clone Wars) and Sam Witwer (The Force Unleashed) are the latest additions. And for the few, the proud, the VIP badge holders, here’s the Meet & Greet schedule.

Booths. I’m so happy that ThinkGeek is coming to Celebration! They’ve even posted a few hints at what new products we can expect from them. Also on the con floor? Disney Parks. Muppet merchandise, you WILL BE MINE!

El Rancho. Steve Sansweet writes about picking and packing up a fraction of his massive collection for exhibition at the Rancho Obi-Wan Experience.

Events. Kristen Hidalgo runs down the docket for the Star Wars Family Room; Patrick T. Gorman on how Star Wars Saga in 60 Minutes came to be; Stefan Cembolista talks about the props, new and returning, that we’ll see; John Scoleri highlights the art of Ralph McQuarrie and the many tributes to him; Art Andrews on the As You Wish Helmet Project; And our own James Floyd chats up The Bounty Hunt.

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Her Universe: Only 300 Mara Jade shirts at CVI

The Mara shirt, featuring art by Cat Staggs, is one of HU’s two Celebration exclusives, and there will only be 300 available. Similarly limited will be an R2-D2 charm. For those not attending, 50 of each will be available through the Her Universe site on August 23rd. The good news: They’ll have the shirt in sizes all the way up to 4X!

The Rebel and Imperial tank tops will also be debuting, though those appear to be part of the permanent line.

Also among the announcements is for the con are Her Universe photo shoots and the Bullied panel.

So why is the Mara shirt a limited engagement? Ashley explains:

Huh. Who knew?

UPDATE: Cat Staggs has posted the Mara art to her DeviantArt account, if you want a closer look at it.

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EUbits: Even more Mercy Kill reviews

Mercy Kill. Everyone loves this book! The reviews continue to be overwhelmingly positive. Here’s the latest batch: EUCantina, Roqoo Depot Fangirl, Knights Archive and Tosche Station (twice!)

Celebration VI. Pablo Hidalgo counts down his Thursday slate on the Behind the Scenes Stage. And there’s another edition for EU fans on Friday: Holocron 101. One problem: It directly conflicts with the Del Rey panel.

Interviews. Mark at Jedi News chats with new author Tim Lebbon, who’s writing the Dawn of the Jedi novel Into the Void for next year. Meanwhile, John Jackson Miller chatted with fans on Facebook last week. There’s another chat this afternoon with Leland Chee.

Street date shuffle. The release of Reaves and Bohnoff’s The Last Jedi has moved up by a month on the Random House catalog. It’s now scheduled for February 26, making it likely to be the first release of 2013.

Comics. James reviews Knight Errant: Escape #3 and Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #1 at Big Shiny Robot.

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Del Rey reveals final Crucible cover art

Del Rey posted the finished version of the Crucible cover on Facebook today. It hasn’t changed all that drastically since the first version revealed at SDCC. (Click on Luke over there to see the whole thing.) They’re also calling it for Summer 2013, as opposed to the original announcement of Spring, but until we get a more specific date I’m not going quibble over that.

The book is still by Troy Denning, and it’s still a hardcover. We’re pretty much guaranteed to hear more about it next week at Celebration.