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EUbits: Obi-Wan stares into your soul, not in a good way

Chris McGrath's alternate Kenobi cover. (Detail.)Death is but a door. Time is but a window. Artist Chris McGrath tweeted an alternate cover for John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi. I get kind of a Vigo the Carpathian vibe from it, so I can see why the more heroic final version won out. On the plus side, if they ever decide to do an Infinities ‘Dark Kenobi’ novel, the cover’s all done!

Short stories. Star Wars Insider #142 will feature a Christie Golden story set between Apocalpse and Crucible, ‘Good Hunting,’ Del Rey says. It stars Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka, and Allana Solo and will have new artwork from Joe Corroney. The issue will be on sale June 11.

Chats. The Star Wars Books Facebook chat had a pair of Dawn of the Jedi centric chats this week. Tuesday was comic writer John Ostrander (Roqoo Depot recap) and Wednesday was Into the Void scribe Tim Lebbon (TFN recap.) Lebbon also chatted with Fangirl Blog and TFN since we last checked in.

Reviews. James thinks that Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin #2 ups the scope with a boom.

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Kyle Newman’s The Return of Return of the Jedi now online at EW

ReturnofReturnoftheJediAfter teasing us earlier in the week, Entertainment Weekly has posted Kyle Newman’s tribute film, The Return of Return of the Jedi, online at ew.com for all Star Wars fans to enjoy.

Originally screened at the EW CapeTown film festival in front of the Return of the Jedi showings on May the 4th at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theater, the ten-minute film has various celebrity fans commenting on their favorite parts of the thirty-year old film. Plenty of reminiscing about Salacious Crumb, Ewoks, the Emperor, and “It’s a trap!” by such folks as Kevin Smith, Donald Faison, Jaime King, Chris Hardwick, Seth Green, Sam Witwer, and Pete Wentz.

Apparently EW can only have the short film online for 48 hours, so go watch it!

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Amazon wants to pay folks to write fanfic

Sorry, no threesome fic.
Sorry, no threesome fic.

There’s a long history of fans monetizing their fanfic – but generally they do it by filing off the serial numbers, changing the names, and repurposing it as ‘original’ work. Fifty Shades of Grey may be the most infamous example, but it’s hardly the first.

Now Amazon wants to cut out all that work to get your fanfic published: They’ve launched Kindle Worlds, “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so.”

How are they not getting their asses sued? Well, they’re actually licensing the stuff. First up is Alloy Entertainment, the Warner-Bros. owned book packager responsible for such book-series-turned-TV as Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars and Vampire Diaries. Not your bag of blood? They plan “to announce more licenses soon.” (For what it’s worth, I really doubt that Lucasfilm or Disney would sign on to something like this – at least not this early on.)

Naturally, they’re not allowing porn or crossovers, which disincludes plenty of fandom right from the start, but it’s still pretty troubling – and something that could end up very disturbing precedent.

The first and only rule of fanfic fandom is you don’t sell your stuff. I firmly believe that the line between fanfic and profic is something that should only be crossed very carefully and with great caution. And, let’s face it – most fanfic is awful, porn or no porn.

The idea of actually monetizing fanfic is no real surprise – it’s been tried, and failed, a dozen times over, and the runaway success of 50 Shades made this nigh-inevitable. To have the Powers-That-Be actively involved in fanfic has a real potential to change this very specific fandom activity – and not for the better. Part of the point of fanfic, to my mind, is the complete lack of tether. It rarely pays off, but when it does, those are the moments that make the whole enterprise worth it.

This alone is no great shakes – Alloy and a couple of writers making a couple bucks off some PG smolderfests is not going to change the whole landscape of fandom. But it’s a very dangerous first step that could lead to more corporate policing in the fanfic realm, the making such a thing mundane – and that’s something I am not in the least comfortable with.

UPDATE: Scalzi looks at the fine print… He raises a few good questions, but for our purposes: What does it mean for the ‘official’ tie-ins?

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Kitbashed and the origins of Star Wars

With all the movie and TV news coming out, it’s easy to get caught up in the future.  Because the future, as a wise man once said, is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.  But if you’ve got an even passing interest in the past, you should definitely check out Kitbashed.

Writer and designer Michael Heilemann has been on our radar for years, but with Kitbashed he’s delving deep into the origins of Star Wars – not the saga, not the franchise, but the movie.  Heilemann connects Star Wars to everything from famous documentaries to Star Trek to a baffling magazine ad.  He’s also especially good at analyzing George Lucas’ student films and early works.

Even when his observations are relatively familiar, Heilemann presents them in a novel way.  For example, don’t miss his spellbinding video on the war movies which influenced the Death Star trench run.  Citations are included for further reading, and the site itself is gloriously easy on the eyes, clean and straightforward and uncluttered.  Kitbashed is an absolute joy.