Beginning with issue #21 in September, our quarterly anthology Star Wars Tales undergoes a radical retooling. Though rather than shaking the bag just to see what falls out, the adjustments we're making to the book are focused, precise, and anything but temporary.

Over the course of its five-year run, Tales has presented a large collection of short, non-continuity Star Wars stories ranging wildly in style and tone, careening between the deadly serious and the absolutely absurd, doing its best to cast as wide a net over as broad an audience as possible. Former Tales editor Dave Land's eclectic artistic tastes regularly steered the series deeply into "Indie" comics territory and back again, all the while holding the stories outside of established Star Wars continuity.

All of that changes when I become Tales' new editor and take control of the ship this fall.  I'll be moving Tales away from simply being a compilation of disparate, "what if?" style stories and more in line with becoming a companion to our other Star Wars monthlies (Empire and Republic) filled with longer, in-continuity adventures that span every Star Wars era.

Whether you're a fan of the Old Republic, the Prequel era, the Classic Trilogy, or the New Jedi Order, you're sure to find something to love in the book.  If, on the other hand, you've hesitated picking up a Star Wars comic for fear of drowning in the intricate continuity or getting lost without the back-story, then you're exactly the kind of reader I'm looking for.  I'll be providing era synopses and timeline placements to help make the Star Wars Expanded Universe completely accessible and your first trip there thoroughly enjoyable.

My favorite kinds of anthologies have a cohesive feel and a strong editorial vision guiding them, and I'll be bringing that same approach to Tales. Like a television producer leading their series from season to season, I'll treat each year - each set of four issues - as a whole, and this will be reflected by unified themes, design, and cover art treatments. Each creative team is hand-picked.  Each story is worked and finessed to being the best it can be.

In addition to the content, Tales' format also gets a makeover - The page count remains the same, but it will be delivered on a new, slick paper stock and held together with a new binding and a new cover stock.  Inside, every issue will contain a 22 page, full-length "lead" story, and a pair of similarly sized "back-up" stories, giving each the space and breathing room it needs to fully develop its characters and plots.  Best of all, we'll see the return of something fans have been clamoring for - the Star Wars letter column.

Above all, my goal with this series is to capture that energy and sense of romantic adventure and camaraderie that so permeated the original Star Wars trilogy. That same element that made us all fall in love with George Lucas' galaxy to begin with.  Creatively, the emphasis will be on sophisticated, character-driven stories that add to or expand upon the Star Wars mythos. 

Between the steadily building excitement around Episode III, the consistent top-notch quality of our monthly Star Wars series, and now this revamping of Tales, it's a great time to be a Star Wars fan.  See you in September!

-- Jeremy Barlow