Well, that’s handy. (via)
Ashley Eckstein to host geek girl fashion panel at SDCC
Her Universe is hosting a panel celebrating geek girl fashion at San Deigo Comic Con, MTV Geek reports. They’re on the lookout for “custom-made cosplay ,” but I have the feeling other geek custom-wear will be welcome as well!
the panel will feature a lineup of experts — made up of fashion buyers from Hot Topic, designers, and stylists — who will be on-hand to judge the best outfit! So don’t miss out on the chance to win great prizes, see awesome fashions, and talk all things Geek Fashion!
The panel will be Saturday at 6:00pm in Room 25ABC.
Kevin Smith is coming to Celebration!
Finally, a surprise!
Director and fanboy extraordinaire Kevin Smith will be heading to Orlando for Celebration, The Orlando Sentinel reports.
“I took my fandom of ‘Star Wars’ and kind of made it one of the cornerstones of what I do,” Smith said Thursday. Mentions of the films were worked into “Clerks” and “Mallrats,” two early Smith films.
“It kind of became expected that anytime I was making a flick there would be some sort of ‘Star Wars’ joke or reference,” said Smith, 41. “I kept it up for a long, long time.”
Smith will be hosting “An Evening with Kevin Smith” on Thursday, August 23rd at the Orange County Convention Center. Tickets (which, yes, will have to be purchased separately) will go on sale to current attendees on Monday. (via)
UPDATED: The Ticketmaster page for the event (Thanks to Justin!) gives it a starting time of 7pm. The TFN/FanForce Party is the same night, at 8pm. Will Kevin Smith speak until midnight? If so, there’s a choice to be made…
The buck is passed in new Mercy Kill mini-excerpt
It’s Thursday afternoon, and thus we are treated to our second mini-excerpt from Aaron Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill.
A young human woman in clothes styled to resemble a starfighter pilot’s jumpsuit and jacket but made of crinkly gold cloth, her hair a more striking and unnatural red than Face’s, bumped into Face, made a vague noise of apology, and hurried past, continuing onward toward the exit.
Voort scowled at Face. “I saw that.”
“Of course you did.”
“What did she slip you?”
Face reached into a suit coat pocket and drew out a datapad. It was small, its once-gleaming surface scratched and dull. “This. It’s wired to overheat and ignite in about three minutes.”
“Well, then, don’t hold it in your mouth.”
Mercy Kill is slated for an August 7 release.
Celebration plays coy on the Closing Ceremonies
StarWars.com is pimping out the Closing Ceremonies today, saying “there’s something really special planned.” You realize you can’t make us promises like that, right? Because we will way over-guess it, and even if it’s something we wanted anyway, end up cranky because it’s not as huge as what we expected.
So I’m just going to work on the assumption that it’s cake. Seems like the safest bet.
Karen Miller on being a female Star Wars writer
Tor’s Liz Bourke has a great interview today with author Karen Miller, where she addresses some of the harsh realities of writing licensed fiction and, in particular, Star Wars and the differences with a female-dominated fandom like Stargate.
The Stargate fan audience is small, compared to the Star Wars audience. The Stargate fan audience is also, overwhelmingly, female—which means that it is far, far more accepting of a female writer and a female writer’s particular POV (and I think there is one). The Star Wars fan audience, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly male. At least as far as I can tell. The vast majority of writers who do the tie-in novels are also male. There is a definite predominance of male voices and male POVs in Star Wars novels. And that makes a huge difference in the reception of the material.
Everything I write is grounded in character. Everything. It’s the people that make a story for me. So my Star Wars work is as much a character study or exploration as it is an action adventure romp. For some readers, that was brilliant. For others, it wasn’t. For a lot of Star Wars fans—the guys in particular—the story is about fighting and space battles and stuff like that. For them, that’s the whole point. For them, the intricacies of psychological investigation are boring and unwelcome. And I completely accept that. But it’s not what floats my starship—and I felt strongly that I can’t be the only one who is in love with the story because of the characters, not despite them. Or who wants to take a breath and spend some time with them as human beings, who wants to explore what makes them tick, the relationships between them, the strengths and fragilities they contain and share.
She goes on to defend Karen Traviss, among other things, though I really must disagree that gender was the only aspect which garnered Traviss venom from fandom. (Though I’m sure some of it was, I’d hesitate to call it the main issue. The lesson one should take away from Traviss’ tumultuous time in this fandom? Don’t feed the trolls, and be respectful of your audience.)
But that quibble aside, it’s so refreshing to hear a Star Wars author actually be in it for the characters. There is nothing else here I have any issues with – it all needs to be said. Though not so much to label it as a niche, even though it’s probably true. Club Jade has been fighting that fight for so long…
Kotobukiya’s Jaina Solo is finished?
Plastikitty spotted what looks like a finished version of Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo Jaina Solo on Big Bad Toy Store, and it certainly looks ready. The statue is 9 inches tall and is on pre-order for $54.99 – not all that bad a price, considering how much collector stuff usually goes for.
We first heard about the Jaina Solo Bishoujo statue at last year’s San Diego Comic Con. Still waiting on that Sideshow Mara figure, though…
UPDATE: You can see some other looks at the statue on io9.
#NubProbeCVI is coming: Last week’s best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets
I think we should change the hashtag #StarWarsCVI to #nubprobeCVI
— Bryan Young (@swankmotron) June 16, 2012
I believe this is what we’ll be calling the group trip to the Big Boy. There’s a Big Boy in Orlando, right?
I’d love to hang out but I’m busy going through Star Wars and digitally replacing all the lightsabers with metal swords.
— Bee Stapler (@BeeStapler) June 9, 2012
Last night I dreamt Starbucks named their drinks after Star Wars characters for a day… What can I say, I have exciting dreams.
— Amy Ratcliffe (@amy_geek) June 12, 2012
Macchiato the Hutt!
Watched the “extended” Return of the Jedi last night, and I woke up with the original closing song in my head. You know, Yub Nub. #starwars
— Jared Phillips (@JaredLPhillips) June 17, 2012
In the Archives, reunited the first few SBs of the original SW opening–scattered in diff. places–to be rescanned for upcoming TBA.
— J. W. Rinzler (@jwrinzler) June 15, 2012
SBs…? Yes, I am including this because I need a translation and I didn’t think to ask at the time.
You’ll also want to check out all the suggestions on #StarWarsOrlandoFantip – we were on quite a roll the other day. More tweets below the cut!
Continue reading “#NubProbeCVI is coming: Last week’s best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets”
Out this week: Dawn of the Jedi, Ghost Prison
It’s yet another comic-only release week, so head to the comic shop on Wednesday for Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm #5, which concludes the new series’ first arc, and Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison #2.
Book folks, you’ll finally have something to pick up next week – the paperback of Tim Zahn’s Choices of One. After that, we’re looking at the mostly-reprinted Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories by John Jackson Miller (July 24) and, finally, Aaron Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill (August 7.)
Celebration VI: First art prints revealed, Temuera Morrison added to guest list
StarWars.com rolled out the first set of reveals for the Celebration VI art prints on Friday. 10 down, 25 to go! My picks are the 3 above, by Stephen Hayford, Russell Walks and Ken Phipps, but Legacy fans will find something from Jan Duursema as well.
In other news, Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett) is coming, bringing the con guest list up to the maximum number of Fetts.