Around the Web

August 23, 2013 at 7:17 am | Posted in Around the Web, Books, Comic Books, Contest, Conventions, Interview, News, Regular Feature, Star Wars, Star Wars News, Video Games | Leave a comment

Here is this week’s news roundup of Star Wars and beyond.

Art

If you missed out on Chris Trevas‘ Star Wars Celebration Europe II art print, you can now buy them in his online store while supplies last.

Star Wars artist Tsuneo Sanda is raising money for the Japan Large Earthquake Reconstruction Aid Project with a pre-order for a special art print and t-shirt. Click here to check it out. T-shirts are $45 and art prints are $60.

Star Wars comic artist Jan Duursema shared some interesting concept art of what Aayla Secura could have looked like (hint: she’s the fish girl).

PREVIEWSworld posted an interview with Star Wars artist Dave Dorman from San Diego Comic 2013.

Finally in art news, for those with really deep pockets, you can own the original Alex Ross cover for Star Wars #3…if you have $15,000 to spend.

Books

John Jackson Miller fans can enter several contests to get free books. John is giving away free signed copies of Overdraft: The Orion Offensive on Goodreads, and a copy of Kenobi via Twitter. You can also get a copy of Kenobi from Coffee with Kenobi.

John also did an interview with WPR which you can download free right here.

Star Wars author Tim Lebbon shares his thoughts as a first time Star Wars author on the Star Wars Blog.

There’s an excerpt of Aaron Allston‘s short story “Defenders of Beeman County” which will be included in the Rayguns Over Texas anthology available at Worldcon. Aaron also posted that Five By Five 2 is out, though finding it may be a little tough. You can get a physical copy if you’re going to Dragoncon, or you can get an eBook copy via Baen. Amazon listing should be following shortly. Aaron has a novelette which is included in Shadows of the New Sun: Stories In Honor of Gene Wolfe, but that won’t be out until August 27th.

Pete over on Lightsaber Rattling has an early review up for John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi with *minor spoilers*. Click here to check it out.

Comics

Jawa James with Club Jade posted an interview from San Diego Comic Con 2013 with Dark Times writer Randy Stradley and Dark Times artist Doug Wheatley.

Dark Horse teased another variant cover for The Star Wars #1. Looks like this one will be a black and white cover, but with slightly different art as the Death Star definitely looks more detailed.

Comic writer and artist Gabriel Hardman did an interview with Multiversity Comics about his upcoming one-shot for Dark Horse Comics called Station to Station. Like the Legacy series, this one is also co-written with Corrina Bechko.

Tom Taylor‘s motion comic for Mad Max now has parts one and two online.

Convention News

John Jackson Miller will also be at Geek-Kon this weekend in Madison, WI. You can check out his schedule here.

Last weekend at Gencon, Troy Denning was put to the chopping block by some disgruntled Drow in service to the Spider Queen.

“You will write more Forgotten Realms books or else!”

R.A. Salvatore was next.

…he went out with a smile.

In other news, author Martha Wells has posted her schedule for Worldcon (aka Lone Star Con) which you can check out here on her official blog.

Drew Karpyshyn has also confirmed that he will be heading to New York Comic Con. John Jackson Miller will be there as well, so it’s looking like there might be a decent gathering of Star Wars authors in attendance.

For those heading to Dragoncon, you can check out Timothy Zahn‘s schedule here on Facebook.

Dave Dorman confirmed that he’ll be heading to New York Comic Con, thus adding to the ever growing list of Star Wars celebrities.

Fandom News

Dark Empire Radio posted a complete recap of all their “Deep Thoughts” on Facebook. These are well worth a laugh. Here are some of my favorites.

When Wedge Antilles was a youngling, I wonder if his childhood friends ever referred to him as “Wedgie.”

If I were Emperor Palpatine, seated in my throne room up there on the Death Star, I think I’d order out for pizza. Just once. That way, I could zap them for being more than thirty light-years late, and my dinner and live entertainment would be completely cooked and free of charge.

It’s pretty cute how Ewoks consider protocol droids “deities.” I wonder what they would think of one of those rolling “destroyer” droids.

If I had a credit for every time someone had a bad feeling about something, I could almost buy my own ship for that. But, I’d probably have a bad feeling about it.

If I had mitichlorians in my laundry detergent, I bet my brights would be brighter and my darks would be darker. And its power of binding things together would also help keep me from losing anymore socks.

If Talon Karrde were a Jedi with a seat on the Council, he’d be known as Jedi Master Karrde.

The 501st Florida Garrison posted perhaps the best wedding ring ever.

Elsewhere, Shane Zalvin has shown that he makes the most awesome Star Wars lunch bags you’ve ever seen.

Kyle Newman revealed on Twitter than Smuggler’s Gambit II is in the works.

Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew has a kickstarter to help raise money for his double knee surgery and he’s looking for help from fandom to make it happen. You can check out the details here.

FANgirl Blog has a very detailed piece on Star Wars and speculation that’s worth checking out. Part II will be out soon.

Movies and Television

Entertainment Weekly has reported that the Phineas and Ferb Star Wars cross-over episode will take place during Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and according to the show’s creators…

“All of [the plot of A New Hope] happens exactly the way it did, but we find out that Phineas and Ferb are Luke’s neighbors on Tatooine and become embroiled in the adventure,” Marsh said. “Our story all takes place as if you had a slightly wider shot, you could see our characters. Or if you just waited around five minutes after this [Star Wars] storyline, our characters would pass through, which was really really fun to do.”

Pete over at Lightsaber Rattling also did a really nice write up on the possibility of Star Wars Episode VII being shot on film instead of digitally and who the cinematographer will be.

Video Games

Ending this week’s news, EA shared a few comments on Star Wars Battlefront that may interest the early awaiting fans.

“We just announced the license and showed a sneak peek of Hoth. The speeder and the AT-AT will be in [the game] for sure…We didn’t toss anything out. We’re looking at the old games. We have access to everything that was done during the LucasArts era. But we do want to take our own stance.” -Patrick Soderlund, Director of DICE and Vice-Director of EA.

Via Polygon.