Author Aaron Allston talks about attending this year’s Origins gaming convention, where he’ll be Author Guest of Honor. Of his scheduled events, this one on Thursday may be of particular interest:
Star Wars In Novels. “New York Times bestselling authors Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn, and Michael A. Stackpole talk about their Star Wars books and about their future fiction plans in the galaxy far, far away.” Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole
All Aaron’s panels are worth attending, but we can guarantee that we’ll will make an effort to be at that one! Origins takes place in Columbus, Ohio from May 30 to June 3 this year.
Reed has given the Celebration VI website a fresh look, including a few features that give fans input into the con. Be sure to do the programming survey – although I find it’s lack of book/comic content disturbing. (Seriously, can we get a formal track already?)
For fans willing to put a bit more in, there are applications for fan panels (that means you, EU fans,) fan tables, and the art show.
Paula and I (as well as a handful of other Jaders) are going to be at Dragon*Con through Labor Day weekend. It’s not a huge con for news like SDCC, so there may not be much blogging, but we will be tweeting as @rosiewook and @clubjade, connection permitting.
I even dug up some of those bracelets we had at Celebration…
This pretty much means that James is in charge. Are you afraid? Be afraid.
James’ edit: We aren’t going to harm you. We only want to help you.
The VIP packages for Star Wars Celebration VI will go on sale Wednesday at 3:01 p.m Eastern, according to an email sent out today. The prices have increased since last time – the Jedi Master package is $850, while the Jedi Knight is $400. They’re both limited to the same numbers, though – 50 Masters and 250 Knights.
And this is merely the public sale – the packages will first be made available to VIPs from Celebration V for 5 hours, so who knows how many will be left by then…
After announcing last week that Fantasy Flight Games had obtained the licensing rights for Star Wars-themed RPG, card and miniatures games, it seemed pretty natural for them to be demoing their upcoming titles at Gencon this past weekend. Beasts Of War interviewed Fantasy Flight Games on the two upcoming titles demoed the gaming convention: X-Wing, the miniatures game, and Star Wars: The Card Game. io9 enjoyed their chance to try out a demo version of the starfighter combat minis.
Buzz on Board Game Geek for the card game seems to be positive, especially from the fans of FFG’s other cooperative Living Card Games. But a few CCG gaming friends tried it out and weren’t as positive – was it a poor demo experience (not being told that it was cooperative and not competitive)? Several players remarked on the game having some bad artwork. Hopefully the look and feel will get more polished as they finish it up for its 2012 release. But as a co-op game with all players being the Rebels against the Empire, players seeking to play on the Dark Side of the Force will be left unhappy.
It’s the last San Diego Comic-Con 2011 post, I swear! Here’s some different thoughts and recaps on what came out of Comic-Con this year:
DC Comics opened up a new can of worms with their whole universe relaunch in September when a fan asked in Q&A: “Why did you go from 12% in women [creators] to 1% on your creative teams?” – Check out some commentary on ComicsAlliance and then an official reply on the DC blog, and Newsarama does some fact checking.
Tangentially related to the topics of gender and the DC comics universe, LAWeekly has a write-up and photo gallery of the Gender-bent Justice League cosplay group at Comic-Con.
Jill from Newsarama gives her recap of the con, including being on the Oh You Sexy Geek panel, cosplay, and meeting George R. R. Martin.
Big Shiny Robot sums up the Doctor Who panel and finds out why bow ties are cool.
Gamespot takes a look at Kinect Star Wars, bring Jedi adventures and podracing to motion-controlled gaming.
SirStevesGuide sums up the Star Wars collectibles panel. And what’s this? Sideshow Collectibles is bring out a life-size Han Solo in Carbonite.
Missed The Old Republic MMO panel? TORWars has the whole thing online to watch.
The Official Star Wars blog catches some of the best in Star Wars costuming at the convention.
And let’s end our wrap-up with a photo gallery progression of the artwork drawn on the Volkswagen Passat in the Star Wars pavilion by a Sharpie-wielding comic artist, Ken Lashley. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8.
Her Universe hosted its second annual panel at Comic-Con last Thursday, with Ashley Eckstein moderating a panel entitled “What Women Want in their Female Sci-Fi Heroes.” The six announced panelists were Dave Filoni of The Clone Wars, Betsy Mitchell (Editor in Chief of Del Rey), Gail Simone (comics writer, including Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and the upcoming Batgirl), Chris Sanagustin (Senior VP Development & Current Programming for Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (Exec. Story Editor for Smallville, comic writer Batgirl), and Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer- Lost & Medium and Supervising Producer on Touch) . They were joined by unannounced panelist Alison Scagliotti (Claudia on Warehouse 13).
Eckstein started the panel by giving each panelist a question regarding developing female roles in their particular media, especially with the female audience in mind. Watch portions of the panel:
Chris Sanagustin on making characters accessible to the audience, including a bit about Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome
Bryan Q. Miller on character vulnerabilities and breaking down the notion that a butt-kicking heroine has to be either a robot or a sexbot
Betsy Mitchell comparing now to 30 years ago for women sci-fi readers and women writers and editors, and the rise of female-oriented urban paranormal fiction.
Gail Simone on progress in the portrayal of women in comics, moving past the Women in Refrigerators trope, and the industry’s gradual awareness of growing female readership, and developing female characters.
Ashley Eckstein commenting on the progress in recognizing that there is a female fan base in science fiction.
Finishing up with Gail Simone and then Melinda Hsu Taylor on being inspired by sci-fi growing up in Maine, and some of her favorite female characters from science fiction and fantasy.
Dave Filoni on the process of developing a female Jedi character like Ahsoka Tano and also reading Éowyn as a child.
Allison Scagliotti on playing her character Claudia Donovan, the women characters of Warehouse 13 and the issues of being a female actor – and being a role model of the cool smart girl.
In the Q&A, Simone, Filoni, and Scagliotti fielded most of the questions, with Filoni and Simone clarifying how their approaches to writing female characters were similar. Even though the panel went over time, the audience remained and the panelists stayed on stage to answer questions about incorporating female biology into developing and portraying female characters, the differences in creating female villains from male villains, predicting the future of the importance (or nonimportance) of being critical of gender for characters (and for creators), and finally ended with a young fan thanking the panelists for making it cool to be a young female fan.
Joe Schreiber, author of Death Troopers and Red Harvest, was kind enough to sit with me for an interview about his two Star Wars novels and more at Comic-Con.
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”.
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.
Reed has given the 
