Next, comes a conversation with Bob Cooper, who also gave generously of his time. Bob supplied the lowdown on Tales of the Jedi - The Sith War and Empire's End. Lastly, Lynn Adair gave me the skinny on a couple of very special Star Wars projects.
#
Mike Martin: Tell me about Mos Eisley. Is the place really a wretched hive of scum and villainy?
Peter Janes: Well, we contracted with Topps to do short stories in their new Star Wars magazine [Star Wars Galaxy], and they were interested in these Star Wars pastiches, eight-page stories, either gag strips or neat little adventure strips, that started out in the Mos Eisley Cantina and would move from there out into the universe. These stories are all tied together by the characters sitting around in the cantina, telling tall tales over exotic alien drinks. Otherwise, they're not too terribly tied in to the Star Wars continuity. This was how the Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina got started, anyway.
MM: What about the creators?
PJ: They're scripted by Bruce Jones, who's pretty well known for scripting some Venom material over at Marvel and a lot of horror work for the Pacific Comics group years before that, sort of pulpy-style, science-fiction stuff. He's been doing a lot of work in Hollywood nowadays. Bret Blevins was the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina illustrator, and he fit in very well with Lucasfilm's visual ideas. He's got a good sense of exotic aliens and he and Bruce had worked together before, so there was definitely some magic there.
MM: So the Mos Eisley Cantina will be populated with all the weird aliens that fans are accustomed to seeing?
PJ: Oh, yeah.
MM: Tell me a little bit about Droids. The first series seems to have been aimed at a younger audience...
PJ: It originally was. The first six-issue miniseries was definitely aimed at a younger audience, and, to be completely honest, I think it suffered for it. The tack that we decided to take with the new series that we've just completed with the "Droids Rebellion" in Droids #4, was to make it accessible to younger readers but to also boost the "intelligence quotient" of the script a little more to give it greater appeal to the more typical, older, comic-book reader. It still has a great deal in it that appeals to a younger reader, and it's a relatively "bright" book rendered in a rather loose, cartoony style with Ian Gibson's artwork.
MM: Ian Gibson does have a sort of cartoony style, but I suppose fans have associated his particular style with sophisticated fare and hard action stories for a long time now.
PJ: Yeah, with Judge Dredd and Robo-Hunter and so on. We get oodles of fan mail complimenting Ian's work, saying that he's perfect for Droids because his loose style is very good at breathing life into mechanical beings. We've been told that his renditions of C-3PO and R2-D2 are now the standards against which all other Droids artists will be judged.
MM: What about Bill Hughes?
PJ: We're bringing him back for the next Droids story arc, in fact. Bill Hughes did most of the work on the first Droids series. His style, in that one, as he was directed, was to aim for a child-oriented audience. For this new story, which is written by Jan Strnad, and is a little more biting and satirical, Bill is now bringing the level of illustration up to a higher level of sophistication.
MM: I understand that there will be a free Star Wars comic made available to purchasers of Apple Jacksreg. cereal later this year. What can you tell us about that comic? Specifically, how does it fit into Star Wars continuity?
PJ: When we took on that project, we were trying to find a particular project for it. Kellogg's gave us a free hand. So we said, okay, let's make the best of this by making it something to do with one of the titles that would be coming out during the time that this book would be made available. The natural choice was X-Wing - Rogue Squadron, which begins in July.
MM: So what happens?
PJ: The X-Wing series follows the adventures of Wedge Antilles, who was one of the popular "dark horse" (so to speak) characters from the Star Wars mythos.
MM: He was one of the guys who was right there alongside Luke Skywalker when the first Death Star exploded...
PJ:...And the Battle of Hoth, and the second Death Star. Wedge is the only other character who's been in all three films who has remained a kind of peripheral character. So we took this opportunity with the Kellogg's book, which definitely had to appeal to a much younger audience, to do two things: one was to promote the X-Wing series, and since kids these days seem very attracted to intensive mechanical detail, we brought artist John Nadeau on board to make sure all the details on every X-wing fighter was perfect (he's a real Star Wars geek like the rest of us). The other thing we wanted to do was give details about Wedge's career with Ryder Windham's script. The art is fabulous and the story refers back to events in the films, which we think is important. We've noticed that in some of our titles that don't refer back to the films, the fans have more trouble relating to them.
MM: Because they're less recognizably Star Wars?
PJ: Right. Fortunately, Lucasfilm Licensing is a hound for continuity and consistency, and rightfully so, since Star Wars is probably one of the most recognizable licenses on the planet. This helps us to keep our focus on producing what the Star Wars fan really wants, which is Star Wars.
MM: It's noteworthy that Lucasfilm carefully coordinates its licenses in various media. Lucasfilm insists that all the ancillary Star Wars stories, whether from Bantam Books or Dark Horse Comics, all fit together and never contradict each other from a continuity standpoint.
PJ: Right.
MM: Now how about the X-Wing series itself?
PJ: I think it's one of the most exciting Star Wars launches we've had in a while. The first series is being edited by Ryder Windham. I can tell you that the first arc will have a Mike Baron script and Alan Nunis art. I'm editing the second story arc, which will be written by Darko Macan and drawn by his fellow Croatian Edvin Biukovic. Edvin is up for a Russ Manning Award for new talent, and they're both nominees for an Eisner for Grendel Tales: Devils & Deaths. They've been itching to get into the Star Wars universe ever since they first started getting published in America. They're both from Zagreb, Croatia, and both of them are the most thoroughly dedicated Star Wars fans you can imagine, which is remarkable for being from such a far-off place.
MM: How does their stuff read?
PJ: I've already read two of Darko's scripts, and he really turns in scripts that have meat on them. He's not just doing the bare minimum to satisfy the licensor. Darko communicates a lot of feeling in his scripts, and we've received a lot of praise for that from our liaisons at Lucasfilm. I hope to keep him on Star Wars projects well after this four-issue arc ends. And the entire X-Wing - Rogue Squadron series is based on plots by Michael Stackpole, the novelist who is writing the X-Wing - Rogue Squadron series of novels for Bantam. He is providing ideas from the novels that the comic will tie into, creating a greater degree of continuity between the novels and the comics than we've ever had before. It's very exciting.
#
Bob Cooper shared a few secrets about Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - The Sith War and Star Wars: Empire's End.
Mike Martin: You're part two of this Star Wars celebration editor interview. Can you clue us into The Sith War and its significance to the expanding mosaic of Star Wars continuity?
Bob Cooper: Well, it's interesting you ask, Mike. The Sith War is the latest of the series of the Tales of the Jedi, a cycle of miniseries set four millennia before the time frame of the Star Wars movies.
MM: A long, long, long time ago.
BC: Yeah. We started out with Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, which primarily tells the story of Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel-Droma. Those two characters crop up again in the Freedon Nadd Uprising and Dark Lords of the Sith, and now, at last, in The Sith War. The storyline mainly revolves around the problems inherent in staying on the straight and narrow. The dark side of the Force is hard to resist and it's easy for a Jedi to fall under its influence if he isn't careful.
MM: You're talking about avoiding "absolute power corrupting absolutely."
BC: That's very much the thrust of this story. In fact some of the Jedi that were first introduced earlier in Tales of the Jedi have by this time become quite corrupt with the dark side. The Sith War focuses on a couple of those that have fallen mightily and are now in the process of trying to pretty much take over the galaxy.
MM: What about the creative teams?
BC: The creative team has changed a bit since the last series, Dark Lords of the Sith, which was co-written by Tom Veitch, who until that time had pretty much been Dark Horse's lone Star Wars writer. He co-wrote Dark Lords of the Sith with Kevin J. Anderson, who was at the same time producing the Star Wars: Jedi Academy novels for Bantam, which chronicled the more familiar Star Wars post-movie era.
MM: The period following the first film?
BC: After all three, actually. Kevin had introduced some concepts and characters in the Jedi Academy novels, providing a bit of back-story for the Tales of the Jedi universe, and Tom had similarly introduced some stuff into the Tales of the Jedi storylines that Kevin ended up using. So by the time we got to Dark Lords of the Sith the two of them had figured that they ought to pool their resources and dovetail these concepts to bring together all these various threads of continuity into one grand story. At this point with The Sith War, Kevin J. Anderson has taken over the writing completely, and we have a new penciller to replace Chris Gossett, who I think did a wonderful job on Tales of the Jedi and Dark Lords of the Sith. The new penciller, who might not be familiar yet to a lot of comics fans, is also wonderful and his name is Dario Carrasco, Jr. I think he's going to blow most people's socks off. Dario lives in British Columbia and Diana Schutz discovered him at a convention a year or so ago. She brought him to my attention, I had him do some try-out pages, and the rest is history. He's building on what Chris Gossett began, a sort of "devolving" of the Star Wars look.
MM: "Devolving?"
BC: I mean that what you see has to look very similar to what you're familiar with in the movies, but everything has to look old. Four thousand years old. The ships and the technology have to look as though they're from a period four millennia before the Star Wars universe that everyone knows. I think Dario has really built upon that concept and taken it maybe a step further. In addition, I think he's very well suited to providing the kind of detail that Star Wars fans really clamor for.
MM: The challenge of science fiction usually involves extrapolating forward. You had to sort of extrapolate backward for these books.
BC: That's right.
MM: Next up is Empire's End. What happens?
BC: Dan Thorsland, who was the original editor of Dark Empire II, noticed that the plot of the sixth and final issue of that series left several minor and major plot threads untied. We decided to compromise between just wrapping everything up in issue six of Dark Empire II and launching a third whole miniseries: we decided to do a two-issue follow-up called Empire's End. This title was picked rather than, say, Dark Empire III, because one of the plot points involves the final and absolute death of Emperor Palpatine. He will not be revived again or brought back in any way. This is it. We won't be seeing him anymore.
MM: Sounds like the final coda at the end of a two-act opera, after the fat lady dies.
BC: And the curtain is not coming up again, at least not for him.
MM: And the rest of the creative team?
BC: Well, in addition to being written by Tom Veitch, we've employed the talents of artist Jim Baikie, a fellow Scotsman and a close neighbor of Cam Kennedy's on the Orkney Islands. Jim lives about fifty yards away from Cam, by a strange coincidence. Jim also has a style somewhat similar to Cam's, although I think both guys would disagree with me there. But they both paint their work using the same process. Jim's work on Empire's End will be fully painted, also.
MM: Where exactly does this piece fit into the overall continuity?
BC: Tom Veitch has been very concerned with bringing the Dark Empire saga to a close, with tying up the loose ends for Dark Empire and also those threads that then tie directly back into Kevin's Jedi Academy trilogy from Bantam. For instance, we're using Empire's End to explain Leia and Han's third child, Anakin Solo, who doesn't appear in Dark Empire but does appear in Kevin's Jedi Academy novels. So Anakin Solo does not only appear in Empire's End, but also plays a major role -- but that's as much as I'm going to say about that.
MM: I'm looking forward to it.
#
Lynn Adair presides over Dark Horse's many special trade paperback collections. Among these is a special re-release of the Classic Star Wars comics, reprinted from the original Marvel Comics movie adaptations. Lynn also set aside a generous amount of her time to bring me up to date on these and other special Star Wars projects.
Mike Martin: Let's start with the unusual.
Lynn Adair: I think this one qualifies: we're doing a Star Wars pop-up comic book, called The Battle of the Bounty Hunters.
MM: What is it that makes Dark Horse's pop-up comic different from a standard pop-up book?
LA: We're bringing classic comic effects, speech balloons, sound effects, and actual sequential panel-to-panel storytelling, to this project to differentiate it from regular pop-up books. There are a lot of two-page spreads. It has the feel of a comic book.
MM: Who is creating it?
LA: We don't yet know who's going to be illustrating or writing the final script, but I'm working on that right now. We're trying to price this between sixteen and twenty dollars, although the price isn't firmly set as yet. It should be available in July of 1996, or just about a year from the moment this was recorded. Stay tuned.
MM: What about the various Star Wars collections?
LA: In July, we're releasing Classic Star Wars II: The Rebel Storm. In September, Dark Empire II will be released in trade paperback form. In November, we're re-releasing all the movie adaptations in re-formatted editions. Originally, we released these collections as two volumes per movie, for a total of six volumes. In November, these six volumes will become three collections. The three movie adaptation volumes are titled as per the films: Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. These will be sold both separately and as a boxed set.
MM: Will there be any new material?
LA: We were able to get our hands on some gorgeous new cover art, commissioned by Fox for use on their new video packaging. We can't advertise with it so as not to steal any of Fox's thunder for the video re-release, but we can and will use it on the books, since they'll be coming out well past the August debut of the videos.
MM: It's worth mentioning here that Dark Horse isn't going to offer these movie adaptations again after this, at least not in quite the same form. They'll be available until Lucasfilm re-releases Star Wars theatrically in 1997, with restored footage. Then, Dark Horse will do an all-new adaptation of the movie.
LA:...!
MM: Sorry, I got a little long-winded there. What other trades and collections are coming out?
LA: Let's see. In December we will release the Classic Star Wars III trade paperback, collecting the next set of re-formatted Star Wars newspaper strips with a new Al Williamson cover. We're hoping to get a special introduction from him for this book. And lastly, although this does bring us into 1996, we are bringing out a Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - Dark Lords of the Sith collection, with a new Hugh Fleming cover, in keeping with his earlier ones for the comics series. And that's about it.
MM: That will be a pretty impressive Star Wars bookshelf. Thanks, Lynn.[A parting note, out of earshot of Lynn: getting to line the shelves in my office with miles of nifty trade paperbacks is another one of the truly groovalicious things about this job.]