Out this week: Blood Ties

Only one Star Wars comic is rolling into stores come Wednesday: The first issue of Tom Taylor’s Jango and Boba miniseries, Blood Ties.

The rest of us can console ourselves with last week’s release of Year by Year OR (jumping fandoms for a second) are chopping at the bit for the final novel in Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, in bookstores tomorrow.

Legacy comics to continue with miniseries

The last issue of the Legacy ongoing series will be coming out later this month, but MTV has broken the news that John Ostrander and Jan Duursema will continue the popular storyline in Legacy: War. The six-issue miniseries is due to begin in December.

But is it the end? Looks like that’s up to us:

“Legacy—War” stands alone. I’m making no guarantees that anyone will survive the end of it. That’s usually hype, but readers should take that very very seriously. Could there be a successor? Depends on sales, response, and Dark Horse’s plans. However, Jan and I are taking all the stops out in this story. There are no plans for anything “Legacy” after this. That’s how we’re creating it.

StarWars.com has the full cover for issue #1. Looks like we’ve got our hot EU topic for Celebration!

SDCC: Eight Star Wars comic series coming in 2011, including Blackmen on Vader

So much for there being no EU news out of Comic-Con… Comic Book Resources reports that editor Randy Stradley revealed that there will be eight new Star Wars series in 2011, including something Vader-centric from Hayden Blackmen:

Most will be revealed at Star Wars Celebration, but Stradley said Blackman will be writing a Darth Vader series. “It chronicles one of Vader’s greatest failures ever,” the editor said. Vader then lit up his lightsaber and choked Stradley using The Force.

I suspect most of those – including the Vader one – are actually mini-series, but time (and Celebration) will tell.

EUbits: The Jedi Path falls to Earth in September; Your Imperial Commando is dead, son.

First look. The Jedi Path comes in a vault. What? Yeah. Or: “Passed down from Master to Padawan, the pages of this venerable text have been annotated by those who have held it, studied it, and lived its secrets.” Since we’re living in the real world, I like Dan Wallace’s explanation: ” It’s supposed to look like an in-universe artifact that fell through a rabbit hole from the galaxy far, far away.” It is an interesting concept, but mostly I just fear what the Jedi Church will make of it.

Hey hey hey, goodbye. Yes, it’s official: There will be no Imperial Commando 2. (It was probably a lose-lose sans Traviss anyway.)

Namesake corner. Sideshow is teasing about a Mara Jade figure again. They like the Adam Hughes painting! (Sigh.) At least she’s not doing laundry?

Comics! Preview the October solicitations, including Knight Errant #1. Which just so happens to be on the cover of August’s Previews.

Interview. Paul Kemp (Crosscurrent) on Fictional Frontiers

A few upcoming comic hints from Randy Stradley

We haven’t heard much on the comic front since the cancellation of Legacy, but DarkHorse.com has a few hints today:

  • John Ostrander has “already begun work on the scripts for the next very top-secret thing.”
  • Tom Taylor has proposed “a semi-regular series” based on Blood Ties, aka the Fett comic. However, it “will not be what you expect it to be!” So… Not Fett, then?
  • A “well-known” writer has a proposal in for a series that could launch Dark Horse’s twenty-fifth anniversary year. We’ll hear more about it towards the end of July.

Could one of these items be the big news for Celebration. We can only hope.

Oh, and there’s also a peek at the Legacy #50 pencils.

EUbits: Al Williamson, Heir to the Empire, and September comics

RIP. Artist Al Williamson, who illustrated the Star Wars comic strip and adaptions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, passed away this weekend. He’s remembered by editor Dave Land at DarkHorse.com

We read it uphill, in the snow, with no boots. Suvudu salutes Heir to the Empire — with a little help from Tim Zahn, editor Tom Dupree and art director Jamie S. Warren — as part of their 25 years of Spectra features.

Solicitations. Look ahead to September comics from Dark Horse, with new issues of Invasion, The Old Republic: Threat of Peace, that Fett thing, and a $1 reprint of Legacy #1.

Blogside. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on mistakes.

For the nitpickians. A new Essential Atlas appendix – in PDF form. Prime your hole-punchers!