With Knights of the Old Republic returning to comics with War starting tomorrow, Dark Horse had writer John Jackson Miller take questions via Twitter today. We sum it up so you don’t have to try to read answers before the questions on Miller’s twitter (catch it all on #KOTORWarChat). War was intentionally made as a good starting point into the era, so while there’s Easter egg type connections to the previous fifty-issue run of the KOTOR comics, reading the earlier works is not necessary to understanding the story. And it’s Sith-free!
Are you a new reader to the Knights of the Old Republic era? Miller’s got a short primer on what’s going on in War. If you’re familiar with the other KOTOR material, this five-issue comic takes place several weeks after the events of the last story arc, and six years before the first Knights of the Old Republic video game (and several hundred years before The Old Republic MMO).
Key reasons to read: Zayne’s a different kind of Jedi – he’s not great with the Force, but makes up for it with cleverness and optimism. And there’s humor. Miller is a fan of the classic trilogy humor, especially the bickering among the heroes, even during firefights. And did I mention: no Sith! The war is between the Republic and the Mandalorians, and so it’s not exactly good vs evil, although I’m sure the Senate sees it that way.
Regarding appearances by video game and comic characters: Though probably unseen, Revan’s presence will be felt (at this point, he’s still a Jedi recruiting other Jedi to fight against the Mandalorians), and Zayne is assigned to the frigate that once belonged to Saul Karath, and is now commanded by Karath’s former junior officer, Dallan Morvis (who regularly has clashed with Zayne). Jarael is in the picture, though we may not see her at first.
Behind the scenes: Miller started working on KOTOR comics back in 2005 (KOTOR #1 came out in January 2006, while KOTOR #50 came out in February 2010), and says that the seeds for War were laid as early as 2007, when developing the KOTOR Campaign Guide for the role-playing game. When asked about his inspirational sources, he pointed out that he frequently draws from real world history and politics, and frequently blogs about them ( for example, the destruction of Serroco in Issue #15 and the Knight Errant novel). War will dive into the relationship between the Jedi Order and the Republic, and as Zayne is no longer part of the Order, he may keep onto the Jedi tenets more freely than those stuck in the hierarchy and politics.
As a format for author Q&A, I’m gonna pick Facebook over Twitter. While Facebook (where Del Rey does author chats) is not exactly designed for it either, at least an answer doesn’t get broken into several lines because of the 140 character limit. I’m sure Dunc may have feelings otherwise.
No, it sucks for chats like this, though at least you don’t have to dig through the more facepalm-worthy questions. (Well, not if there’s only one account doing the answering.) Not that Facebook is all that much better… Cover it Live, people! Cover it Live!
It is a tricky format — it was my first one of these, and I had to get used to refreshing and finding the “oldest new” questions in the middle somewhere.
That said, Facebook also has issues — I think we found that it limits a poster to a certain number of comments in a thread before it locks them out. I guess that is some kind of troll-control, but what it means is when you get to threads of 150+ comments, eventually you can’t comment in them any more.
There’s a link in the search (‘top’ is default, so click ‘all’) that lets you see them in real time.
If y’all do this again, you might also want to try putting a period in front of the @ replies so that everyone can see them… I honestly missed most of the chat because I couldn’t see the responses. Granted, the flip side of that is you might annoy your non-SW followers….
I did click “all,” but it still hid them under the “20 new replies” button.
Didn’t know that trick with the @ replies — not sure whether I would want to do that or not, for the reason you suggested. I think part of the cachet with Twitter is the direct personal response, versus Facebook, which is more about responses where all can see.
We’ll see. Funny to realize that Twitter didn’t exist when KOTOR started!
yeah, facebook is not that great either, especially with that 150+ comment anti-spam thing. but think of it this way: it’s a way to keep the Q&A from going too long ;)
why can’t we all just go back to IRC. those were the good ol’ days. could even have moderated questions…
JJM: Hrm, weird. Works fine for me.
Yeah, the lack of moderation is one reason why I’m anti-Facebook. Well, that and people asking the same questions of authors that they’ve already answered multiple times on their own pages…
Cover It Live is very IRC-like and has moderation options.
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