Slow weekend

Not much going on – fandom as a whole is too busy speculating on next week’s new Harry Potter, we expect.

San Diego Comic-Con starts on Wednesday – starwars.com has an Insider’s Guide and a list of kid-approved stuff. Vader: The Ultimate Guide will debut there, but can also be ordered online.

There’s also an announcement of the latest Hyperspace feature – an ‘audiocast’ – interviews, event coverage, and archival audio. No dates, but it’s “coming soon.”

And finally, Douglas Brown of the Denver Post explores our need for modern heros.

Only six weeks ’till JadeCon!

Turn to the Yarn Side

More with the yarn! If you like crochet, patterns for afghan squares, including the Alliance logo, an X-wing, A-wing, TIE, and AT-ST. These are graphed out, so they could also be used for anything else worked from “square” graphs.

Scroll *aaaaallllll* the way down the very long page to get to the pattern links.

A look at the War of the Worlds web

Personally, I’m informally refusing to go see Spielberg’s War of the Worlds in the theatre because Tom Cruise is insane. (Although mostly it’s because I’m cheap and lazy and already spent too much time in the theatre watching ROTS.) You can’t hold an actor’s Scientology-induced dementia against H.G. Wells, but you can read the entire text of the original War of the Worlds online for free, since it’s out of copyright. Dark Horse, the folks who bring us SW comics, are also getting in on the public domain action with an eComic adaption. This book cover collection of the various editions of the sci-fi classic is also worth a peak. For a more classically flavored take on the definitive alien-invasion tale, I’d also recommend Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2.

For those inclined towards a more modern era of WOTW, War of the Worlds Invasion: The Historical Perspective is a great resource for info on Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio broadcast, as well as many other adaptions and historical information. They even have a blog.

Fall to the Craft Side

Club Jade is fully stocked with crafty types, but we’re so not alone. I promised Dunc a year ago that I’d post some about craft sources/ideas/what have you. Even on my schedule it’s time to get started!

Over at LiveJournal, onelittlestar has posted graphed Leia. Scroll down, because she’s in the comments to the original post. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the individual squares are actually squashy little rectangles. That means that this chart is designed for knitting rather than cross-stitch or needlepoint.

Sarah Bradberry at knitting-and.com has a page of Star Wars knitting charts that I really like. Hers are designed to be knit using fair isle technique. I’ve used some of these for socks, with great results.