Knights Archive was first to spot that Edelweiss has the Random House summer catalog items up. The highlight is a preliminary cover for Pablo Hidalgo’s Essential Reader’s Companion. Here’s the blurb:
A new, never-before-published entry in our extremely popular series of fully illustrated Star Wars Essential Guides. Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion is a book Star Wars fans have been asking for, and will be presented with astonishing full-color artwork throughout!
Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion is the first Essential Guide devoted entirely to published Star Wars fiction, from the original movie novelization, to young reader’s books, short stories, eBook novellas, and the most recent adult novel. This book will cover all the fiction that has built the Star Wars Expanded Universe over the last thirty-five years.
Also appearing are X-Wing: Mercy Kill, which features a very vague ‘blurb’ with no cover, and The Millennium Falcon Owner’s Workshop, which we already know plenty of.
And while we’re on the topic of catalogs, both Mercy Kill and The Essential Reader’s Companion have made their appearances on Random House’s main online catalog as well. They’re currently due out on August 7, 2012 and August 21, 2012, respectively.
The cover for Reader’s Companion is not final, as indicated on the image itself. As amazing as that Michael Whelan Yoda painting is we will not be using it for the final cover. We’ve commissioned an exciting new piece of art from a favorite artist that I know will please people when we reveal it in early 2012.
Ah, that’s a bit of a shame, Erich. I’ve always loved that piece. Used to have a print of it, but it got lost in a move once upon a time. Looking forward to seeing whatever you guys have commissioned, though.
Aww. I love that painting!
But if we can have a Star Wars-themed book painting, that would thrill me to no end.
The Whelan art is nice enough, but it’s been kicking around for ages – and it’s not particularly EUish. Glad to hear there’ll be something new.
I love the Whelan painting as well (I too have a signed print at home that’s been hanging on my wall for about 15 years now). But because it’s so iconic is why I wanted to create something new. Trust me, it’s fantastic. We’re planning to reveal it in January.
Does it feature Jocasta Nu in a superhero outfit? ;-)
I’m excited that we’ll have a new Star Wars artwork around this theme.