Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Head to your local comic outlet today for Kanan: The Last Padawan #2 (preview) and the ‘remastered’ version of Marvel’s original A New Hope adaption, the one that drops all the charmingly ’70s coloring and makes it ‘modern.’
There are also fifth printings of Star Wars #1 and second printings of Star Wars #3 going out, if you’re still chasing that dragon.
StarWars.com has officially annouced September 4 as #ForceFriday – the day that The Force Awakens merchandise will be unleashed upon us at midnight that day.
They’ve also revealed the packaging, which features Kylo Ren, just as rumored, as well as the First Order logo seen in the new trailer.
The September 4th date was already announced as the launch for the Journey to The Force Awakens books. I wonder if any bookstores will be having special events?
StarWars.com has revealed the cover, release date and short story authors for Rise of the Empire, the “bind-up” that collects A New Dawn and Tarkin that was officially announced at Celebration. The authors who contribute the three original short stories are familiar names John Jackson Miller and Jason Fry, along with Star Wars newcomer Melissa Scott.
Rise of the Empire will be out in trade paperback on October 6, 2015. Check out the full cover below the cut.
Continue reading “Short story authors, cover revealed for ‘Rise of the Empire’ collection”
Writer Charles Soule discusses his upcoming Lando comic with CBR. He talks about a few things we learned at Celebration, like that the story involves a valuable ship (“the reveal of what that ship is a big part of the first couple of issues”) and that Lobot is involved. Lando #1 is due out in July.
It’s the last week of April, and that means Paul Kemp’s Lords of the Sith is out on Tuesday. That’s the same day you’ll be able to pick up Ultimate Star Wars from DK, the first fully canon reference book.
On Wednesday, comic fans will find Princess Leia #3 waiting for them, as well as a second printing of Darth Vader #3.
Our next novel will be Christie Golden’s Dark Disciple, out on July 7. Also dropping that day is William Shakespeare’s The Clone Army Attacketh.
Head to your regular comic outlet today to pick up Star Wars #4, which takes Luke back to Tatooine for some reason.
Alan Dean Foster is writing the novelization of The Force Awakens, Del Rey revealed today at their panel at Celebration Anaheim. It’ll be out in eBook on December 18, the day the movie comes out, with a hardcover to follow on an unspecified date in January.
Foster was the ghostwriter for the original Star Wars adaptation (credited to George Lucas) back in the ’70s, as well as the author of the first actual Star Wars novel, Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. This won’t be his first return to the franchise: He also wrote a prequel novel, The Approaching Storm, which came out ahead of Attack of the Clones.
This was already floating around, but it was confirmed that Del Rey is repackaging A New Dawn and Tarkin together as Rise of the Empire. We learned that that book will contain three new short stories, one of which ties into Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath. (Sadly, that’s just about the most we heard on Aftermath.)
That was just about the only real news out of the Del Rey panel that wasn’t already revealed earlier in the con.
As for Marvel, we got a few things: Greg Weisman will be writing the second arc of Kanan; They will be doing an adaption of The Force Awakens, but not anytime soon. Star Wars #6 is not John Cassidy’s last SW comic for Marvel… And Simone Bianchi will be drawing Star Wars #7, which is a one-shot Obi-Wan story on Tatooine.
A couple of quick updates this morning: We’ve learned at Celebration that Alexander Freed will be writing Battlefront: Twilight Company, the November novel from Del Rey.
(The actual Battlefront game was this morning’s big draw, but more on how that’s relevant to us later. )
Marvel has been dropping their news ahead of their panel as well. First we learned that a Lando Calrissian limited series will follow Princess Leia. It’ll be from Charles Soule and Alex Maleev and issue #1 comes out in July.
And this morning, some Shattered Empire details. The limited series will be written by (as we knew) Greg Rucka, with art and cover from Marco Chechetto. (Is the Phil Noto piece just a variant?)
The Del Rey and Marvel panels are tomorrow, so no doubt we’ll learn more then.
Princess Leia #1 was March’s best-selling comic. Not best-selling Star Wars comic, not best-selling Marvel comic, best-selling comic of the month. Star Wars #3 and Princess Leia #2 also made the top 5, with Darth Vader #3 in the top 10.
We learned today that Del Rey will be setting up in Booth 1211 for Celebration… And they have lots of treats. First and foremost, there’s a 2015 Book Sampler with a cover by Phil Noto. The cover clearly teases Lords of the Sith and Dark Disciple… But what else could be in it? Dare we hope for a peek at Aftermath? Chuck Wendig just finished the first draft the other day, but stranger things have happened… And note how the poster image carefully covers big chunks of the timeline… Battlefront? A novelization, even? (And for those not attending, the last sampler was put online for free, so chances are that’ll happen again.)
There are some nifty book cover pins, too. (Don’t forget Saturday is Aaron Allston Tribute Day!) There’s also a schedule of signings. Authors listed include John Jackson Miller, Christie Golden, James Luceno, Drew Karpyshyn, Alan Dean Foster, James Kahn and Michael Kogge.
Del Rey will also be handing out some Marvel stuff… Does Marvel not have a booth of their own? Curious.