According to an interview RebelScum did with Amanda Burns of Gentle Giant, the Mara Jade mini-bust is a convention exclusive for this year’s GenCon, aka the traditional site of CJ’s annual gathering. How did they know we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary this year?
From the Blogside
Imadra_blue ponders fan fiction and fandom thinking and the two great loves of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life. She also considers Anakin/Obi-Wan, canon, and believability, an issue Shoiryu has some thoughts on as well.
Pablo mocks the masses with 1977 Blog Titles. If you actually read blogs.starwars.com, this is hilarious. On a more serious note, annotations to week 3 of the Rookies webstrip. Paul joins in on the webstrip action with a update on Evasive Action #3.
Another interesting VIP blog: Dan Wallace on the never-published Clone Wars Sourcebook.
Rabidfangurl rants on fanfic and fandom. To which I say, hell yeah. Fangirl beatdown posse meets on Tuesday.
The Dark Moose considers Star Wars… with lawyers. Been there, done that.
Rive Caedo on returning to the roots of Star Wars. On a similar note, 101 Reasons Firefly is better than Star Wars! Funny because it’s true. Or not. Your choice.
Lazypadawan has a ‘fair and balanced’ review of Outbound Flight. It looks like she subscribes to the theory that every second Zahn character is a Mary Sue, but I found most of her points pretty on target. (I myself have harbored Suerific thoughts re: Thrawn and VOTF Mara, so to each their own.) EU fans may also be interested in Suzanne’s overview of the Dark Nest trilogy.
Convention updates
AICN reports from WonderCon. Not much news, but confirmation that Celebration 4 is still in consideration for 2007.
Of more interest may be RebelScum’s coverage of Toy Fair – they have galleries of many of the new toys coming out, including Gentle Giant’s super cool Star Wars Animated line, which are original trilogy figures done in the style of the Clone Wars cartoon. The chioces are a little odd – Vader, Leia, Boba Fett, and… an Ithorian?
It also appears there’s a Mara Jade mini-bust coming out, the first Mara figure over an inch tall since the POTF2 figure back in ’98.
Duke and Tara wipe out the competition
In the latest issue of Bantha Tracks, Union is topping the comic Top Ten list, with Tales of the Jedi trailing behind. Not being Dark Horse’s biggest fan (Tales! Tales! Damn my non-voting self!) I blame our very own Paula, who got quoted. Or maybe not. ;)
Not that Union is the worst thing DH has ever done or anything, but… well. Maybe it’s just my knee-jerk reaction to the series’ awful, awful covers. You can pander to the females without making it look like a romance novel folks – it’s okay.
That and more smushy stuff in the latest edition of Bantha Tracks.
Oh joy, another Padme figure.
Remember the Sideshow Collectibles’s Choice poll for an EU figure? Guess who won?
Arctic Suit Padme from the Clone Wars cartoons. As for the actual EU characters, Mara Jade came in at #2 (losing by just 54 votes,) followed by Kir Kanos, Quinlan Vos, Asajj Ventress, and Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Oh Star Wars fandom, will you ever stop making me go WTF?
ETA: In this interview with RebelScum, Sideshow’s Licensing Coordinator Brock Otterbacher says:
“The way that Expanded Universe Poll stands, the winner is going to get made, that’s not say that we might not take another figure from that didn’t win and make that later on. It won’t be like ‘second place’ or ‘third place’, it would just be a figure that we all like as a group internally here further on down the line. If it proves successful, yeah we’d consider expanding it into its own line or maybe just peppering it into the whole line here and there.”
So there’s still hope for an actual EU character figure. I expect this leans on how many collectors are also EU fans, and how many EU fans are willing to spend $50 on a ‘collector’s item.’
You’ve seen what we’ve done to Obi-Wan, right?
Sideshow Collectibles is having a poll for fans to choose what EU character will be made into a 12-inch figure.
The choices are rather limited. I can see Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Asajj Ventress, and Quinlan Vos… But Kir Kanos and arctic suit Padmé from the Clone Wars cartoon? Kir Kanos? And don’t they have already enough costume changes in the movies for 50 Padmé dolls?
Oh well. Voting is open until November 4th.
TFN Thread of the Week
What is Mara Jade’s Canon Length of a SSD in Vergere’s Potentium? If you’ve ever spent any time at all on an Expanded Universe forum, this is hilarious. Although sadly the thread on the whole fails to live up to the title when people actually start taking things semi-seriously. Oh TFN, will you ever change?
The Great Father Speaks
The creator of Star Wars may be Uncle George. But the real family member at Club Jade is Timothy Zahn, father creator of Mara Jade.
(Club Jade. Mara Jade. Get it?)
New Year Comics
The official site has posted Star Wars comics for January – including Empire #28, which is not, as previously reported, a Mara Jade story. But it is the start of a Luke storyline, with some tie-ins to the Clone Wars mini. So, not a total loss – give me a Luke story over BoShek (Who? Exactly.) any day.
Emperor’s Hand back in comics?
Mara Jade is coming back to comics in Empire. According to Randy Stradley of Dark Horse, she’s set to star in issue #28 of the ongoing series. Issue #28 would come out in January 2005, so the information is still quite tentative at this point. Previous comic storylines involving Mara are By The Emperor’s Hand, Union, and a handful of short appearances in the early issues of Star Wars Tales.
Also in comic news, the next issue of Star Wars Tales (#21) starts with an overhaul of the book with a new editor and format. Hopefully this doesn’t mean an end to the humor and offbeat stories, which is (IMO) the main reason to pick up Tales. Detail-oriented fanboys are NOT the only Star Wars fans, Dark Horse!