Author Archives: Bria

10 Things I Learned Working the Del Rey Booth at NYCC

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DR at NYCCAs many of you probably know, I was lucky enough to not only attend New York Comic Con last weekend but to also spend a fair amount of time behind the table of the Del Rey Star Wars booth. Erich, Tom, and everyone were awesome for letting me help out so much.  Working the booth a great way to see and chat with a bunch of different Star Wars folks (Apologies to Pablo for asking about Barriss again and a weird as heck Legacy question). It also definitely gave me a different view of Star Wars fans as a whole.  Therefore, it only seems appropriate to share a few things I learned during my time behind the table.

1. Nothing gets people’s attention faster than yelling “Free Star Wars! Come and get it!”

Over the course of four days, we handed out about five thousand copies of the sampler and twenty-five hundred of Tarkin. That’s a lot of Star Wars! There are very few people in this world who are going to say no to a free Star Wars book when you hand them one unless they already happen to own it. And when you start handing people copies directly? They will start flocking like crazy. On a related note, people will also try really hard to get you to just give them one of the freebies that are purchase or preorder incentives. (Pro Tip: Asking to have one when you aren’t buying something probably won’t work. You’re more likely to get one when you don’t expect it.)

2. It takes all of an hour before you just start nodding when people ask if you’re Del Rey.

And then it takes you at least a week to break yourself of the habit of saying “we” as seen in Exhibit A above. Mostly, it was just easier to say when you were behind the table for hours each day and it just wasn’t worth the effort to explain that no, I’m actually a Star Wars blogger fan who just happens to be handling your purchase today. The Square reader makes you look super official and people don’t notice that your badge says ‘press’ and not ‘exhibitor’.

3. You develop your selling pitches for each of the books really really quickly.

I now have a great one for Rise of the Empire that can be tailored to include Lords of the Sith and Aftermath depending on what else the person has read. Heck, I’ve even got one for Heir to the Jedi (despite not super digging the book) that’s entirely true, sounds nice, and never once has me say that I love the book. You also learn to adapt them for whoever you’re talking to. I did, however, find it amusing when someone asked whether they should get Aftermath or Heir to the Jedi when Chuck was standing next to me and they clearly had no clue who he was. (Spoilers: They ended up buying both.)

And on a related note…

4. I really enjoy saying “ADMIRAL Rae Sloane” in a way that’s both enthusiastic and, upon further consideration, probably more than a little weird.

So maybe I’m just really excited about the Levers of Power story that Jason Fry wrote and maybe I just really want everyone to read about Admiral Rae Sloane at the Battle of Endor. Okay yes, she was part of my sales pitch but she’s also the coolest and every Star Wars fan needs to know about her. My baby’s all grown up and kicking butt at Endor and I’M JUST REALLY REALLY PROUD OF HER, OKAY?

5. Some people really believe that the fake The Force Awakens promo covers were around an actual copy of novelization.

They were not. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, those were actually around a copy of Aftermath and a Danielle Steel book. So, you know, close. The Aftermath II and III and the Bloodline covers were also fake. I’m pretty sure those books don’t even exist yet but that certainly didn’t stop people from trying to get their hands on them which actually became quite humorous after a while.

6. Most of the people who come to the booth are genuinely excited about Star Wars and at least mildly interested in all the new canon books you have there.

For those of us who mainly exist in the online world of Star Wars fandom, we sometimes forget plenty of fans aren’t a part of those discussions. For every person who loved the Expanded Universe, there are three others who never really got into it or who perhaps had never heard of it but who are now intrigued by these books that are a part of the canon. Those are the people who are really fun to talk to because you can bond over Star Wars things that you both enjoy and then just maybe you can get them excited about new Star Wars books or characters that they haven’t heard of yet. Introducing people to this broader world is a genuine joy.

7. …but there are still people who will come up and express their disappointment about the Legends thing. Some of them will come back multiple times to do so.

This was probably a no brainer but yep, I got to interact with some Legends folks! Very few people will be rude to your face though… they’ll just mutter comments as they walk away or say them loudly as they walk by because either they’re being passive aggressive or because they think you can’t hear them?  Honestly, I can’t say anyone was particularly bad. This wasn’t the Facebook comments in real life. Some folks just aren’t going to move on and that’s just that.

But uhhh… folks? I know you miss Legends. I miss Legends. But uhh… don’t try and Kickstart the EU. I can’t even begin to explain all of the reasons why that won’t work.

8. Alexander Freed is the master of working a signing line.

While I’ve never been on the signing end of things, I imagine that it’s not an easy task to repeatedly say hi and have a brief conversation with someone while also signing your name on a poster or book for the dozenth time. Freed not only moved the line along quickly but also took the time to actually talk to everyone. It’s doubly impressive that he even did so on Sunday afternoon when everyone was tired. Honestly, the mastery is difficult to describe unless you got to observe it. It’s an art form.  (By the way, you should all get excited for Twilight Company!)

9. Luke Skywalker is going to die at least 20 times in Aftermath: Life Debt and they will all be Nanci’s fault. Or N4N-C1’s fault.

It’s confirmed news. Sorry, Nanci. Right out of the Wendig’s mouth during his Saturday signing. Just wait until we get to Aftermath: Empire’s Electric Boogaloo! HE’S GONNA DIE A HUNDRED TIMES. AT LEAST.

10. Working on the other side of the book table is a hell of a lot of fun and the Del Rey folks have the best jobs in the world.

Need I say more?

Review: Chewbacca #1

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Right on the heels of the Lando finale, Marvel launches its next limited series in the Star Wars book.  Chewbacca #1 by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto launches today, giving readers one of their first looks at a Chewie adventure without his sidekick Han Solo.

First, it definitely should be said that Duggan choosing to leave Chewbacca’s dialogue untranslated to readers was a bold choice.  Selling readers on a book where you can’t actually understand what the main character is saying is tough.  To help counter this, Duggan introduces a young girl named Zarro who can fend for herself but needs Chewie’s help to save her father from the mines.  It’ll be interesting to see how the pair end up working together in future issues.

The lettering work of Joe Caramagna (who has lettered most of the other Star Wars books) definitely should be called out here for what a lovely job he’s done.  You can definitely tell that he had fun with finding ways to communicate Chewbacca’s wookiee roars.

Because of how the story’s told, Phil Noto’s art definitely has to do a lot of the heavy lifting.  If for no other reason, the book’s worth picking up for his art which is, as always, gorgeous.  He’s able to do a heck of a lot with Chewie’s body language and facial expressions.

All of that said, Chewbacca #1 is far from being my favorite Star Wars comic.  It just didn’t grab me like so many of the others have thus far.  But then again, not every comic is going to be everyone’s preferred cup of tea and I strongly suspect that plenty of other people (especially the big Chewie fans) will get a real kick out of this book. Was it enjoyable? Yep. Life changing? Nah. Should you pick it up? Sure, why not? Marvel’s done a darn good job with their Star Wars stories so far including pulling more than a few surprises out of the bag.  It’s certainly worth reading this one to see where they go.

Review: Darth Vader #10

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Following up on last issue’s mic drop, Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca show no signs of slowing down or lessening the quality of this great book with the release of Darth Vader #10 today.

Darth Vader #10 is the issue that really lets Dr. Aphra shine. Readers have certainly gotten to know her for the last six or so issues but this is the one where it really made sense to me why she is the way she is. Or, in other words, why she continues to work for Vader. We’ve known that her character was grounded in the idea of a darker version of Indiana Jones but never has it been more evident than here. Not only do we get some of her backstory but we get a little more clarity into how she views the galaxy. Her conversation with Than is absolutely fascinating. My only question is how Commodex Than knows everything that he knows. (It’ll make more sense when you read the issue.)

Larroca clearly had a ton of fun with getting to design a Naboo house and it makes me wish we could see more of the planet more often. My only artistic complaint is that there’s one really weird panel with Aphra’s butt that just looks… odd and unnecessary? Oh. And I’m pretty sure that taking selfies is canon in Star Wars now unless I interpreted a panel completely wrong. So that’s cool. (Not a complaint, just a comment!)

The issue isn’t all Aphra though. Inspector Thanoth is going to be a problem and that in turn is going to be a problem for him. Just wait… I can feel it.

Gillen and Larroca continue to knock it out of the park and #10 gets a very strong recommendation from me this week.

Review: Lando #5

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When I talked to Charles Soule last week, he said that he didn’t think everyone was going to be happy with the end of Lando #5 but that he was. That should be, like, a giant neon warning sign when a writer says that. A warning sign that you’re probably going to have a lot of feelings. Lando #5 by Soule and Alex Maleev is out today and boy howdy do I have some thoughts on it that can’t be fully expressed without diving into lots of spoilers. Continue reading →

Review: Star Wars #10

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The best way to describe Star Wars #10 is that it’s fun. To be fair, ‘fun’ has been a great way to describe this entire run on this book thus far but there was something about this particular issue that just felt really really fun. Star Wars #10 by Jason Aaron and Stuart Immonen is out today and definitely takes readers for a ride.

It’s hard to say what’s more fun: Leia dealing with both of the Solos or Chewbacca and Threepio on their adventure on Nar Shaddaa. While we still don’t really have tons in terms of answers of who Sana is and whether or not she and Han are actually married, it’s entertaining to watch Leia be 100% done with their crap within mere minutes and be far more focused on getting herself out of there alive and in one piece. Chewie and Threepio, on the other hand, was the team up that I didn’t know that I’ve always wanted. There’s something humorous about pairing the character who talks to much with the one who we can’t understand and prefers to cut right to the chase.

Stuart Immonen is amazing on this book. While I was content with John Cassaday’s work, Immonen is taking things to a whole new level. There’s nothing about his work that I don’t love and I think that the Luke lovers out there will have a particular appreciation for some of his panels. It’s the little things that really take this work to the new level from the facial expressions to his design work on Grakkus the Hutt with the lightsaber necklace and the spider-leg walking… things.

Oh. And those last few pages? While they’re probably just the creative team broadening the galaxy, I’m choosing to interpret them as Aaron trolling everyone.

Star Wars #10 gets a strong Hell Yeah! from me this week for being such a fun read.

Go/No-Go: Rise of the Empire

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nasa-mission-control-3Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Star Wars: Rise of the Empire.  It’s a unique book we’re looking at today as its a compilation of A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, Tarkin by James Luceno, and three brand new short stories by Miller, Melissa Scott, and Jason Fry to link them all together.  We’ve reviewed both books in the past but is this compilation worth your money? To mission control for the verdict!

Bria: First things first, this book is huge.  It’s about the size of Game of Thrones for reference but it’s absolutely worth every page.  One of the complaints I’ve seen about the new canon is that nothing really links together.  The three short stories in this book should remove that complaint as one could easily sit down and read Lords of the Sith, the entirety of Rise of the Empire, and then Aftermath and it would flow awesomely.  Can we discuss how rad it is that Rae Sloane has become the cohesive glue that ties together to many of these stories in addition to being a kickass character?  Reading about her at the Battle of Endor was just spectacular.  Melissa Scott does a great job of writing a younger Hera who’s not quite the confident rebel we know from A New Dawn and Rebels but definitely shows her leadership potential and doesn’t forget about her amazing pilot skills.  I even found John Jackson Miller’s story about Tarkin and Vidian to be delightful in its own way.  It’s like watching a chess match between two very confident chess masters from different schools of strategy.  The book is absolutely a must buy if you haven’t picked up one of the two novels yet but is it worth it if you already have? I say yes. Not only its it a nicely put together compilation but the three short stories are just so fun. It’s a strong GO from me.

Nanci: Disclaimer: I have not read Tarkin, nor do I have any plans of doing so soon. (There are way too many other books I haven’t read yet before I play catch up.) A New Dawn is excellent, though, enough to warrant picking up this bind-up if you don’t already have a copy. The short stories, though, are what make this book worth the price of admission. “Mercy Mission” by Melissa Scott ties more into Lords of the Sith (another book I haven’t read, oops), than either of the novels in this bind-up, but it features a young Hera learning the importance of working for the good of the galaxy. You can definitely see how she becomes the young revolutionary we see in A New Dawn and the awesome pilot we see in Rebels. “Bottleneck,” by John Jackson Miller, features characters from both novels forced to work together against their will. Miller does a great job with both Tarkin and Vidian; I found I liked the latter character a lot more in this story than I did in A New Dawn. (Also, the cameo from another A New Dawn character made me very happy.) Last but not least, “The Levers of Power” by Jason Fry makes this book an insta-buy. Rae Sloane at the Battle of Endor is everything you ever expected: bad-ass, in charge, and taking no shit from anybody. Definitely GO and get it, now.

Brian: Right from the start, let me say that if you don’t have either A New Dawn or Tarkin in your library, you should pick up this compilation. That said, I imagine most folks who are reading this review are far more interested in the all-new short stories that are appearing in the book. Mercy Mission is a solid look into a much younger Hera. While there were points where it felt like an incomplete short story that was taken from a larger work, it was still an engaging read. Bottleneck, however, was classic John Jackson Miller. It’s really the Tarkin and Vidian buddy cop story you never knew you needed in your life. The real winner though, and the reason this book is worth every penny, is Levers of Power. I’ve made no secret that I think that Jason Fry is one of the best talents creating Star Wars literature these days. Now, combine that with one of the greatest characters to appear in the new literature canon in Rae Sloane. This is an incredible short story, and it’s one you’re definitely going to want to read. The book would get a go from me just for that, but when everything else is factored in it’s a huge GO.

Flight Director’s Verdict: Rise of the Empire is GO for launch!

Baltimore Comic Con 2015: Interview with Mark Waid

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Leia_Dodson1Given what a fan I am of Mark Waid’s Marvel work, briefly chatting with him about his work on the Princess Leia series was one of the highlights of my Baltimore Comic Con this year. I loved the heck out of those five issues and was excited to have the chance to ask him all the questions the book left me with and to talk Star Wars in general.  And hey!  It’s not every day that you get to interview someone who just won the Harvey for Best Writer the night before.

Bria: The first question we always ask everyone is how did you become a Star Wars fan?

Mark Waid: I’m old enough to say I was there on opening day. I was there… all right, I have a story. This is a horrible, horrible story that makes me look like an idiot. So… it’s not true. I was not there on opening day. My friends and I got together that weekend and there were six or seven of us and we were having the same argument that you always have when you get six or seven people together on a Saturday night in a car with no direction. They go “Okay, we need to see a movie.” Okay, well there’s a couple of movies opening up this weekend. What do we see? Everyone wanted to see this one movie and I fought really hard to see this other movie because I said, “Look, this is going to be amazing. It’s going to be awesome. It’s going to change your life.” So because I fought for it, we went to see… You Light Up My Life. And I never lived it down. The next weekend, we all saw Star Wars and they were all like, “You idiot! What is wrong with you?” Then that was it. Like everyone else, I saw it a dozen times that summer and it was amazing.

Which is your favorite film?

The second one by far. It just… to manage to take all the stuff that made the first one cool and then add some gravitas was really awesome.

Favorite character? (I know that’s a hard one.)

It is a hard one! I really do think it is Leia.

Mine too! So did you pitch Marvel to do Star Wars? From what I hear, everyone and their mother were calling the editors and saying “I really want to write it!” or did they come to you?

They actually came to me and they said, “We want a Princess Leia series. Are you interested?” While I love the character, I didn’t have a story. I didn’t know where we wanted to go with it and I was on the verge of saying, “Look I appreciate this but this is not for me.” And then I started thinking about… if you let me do it the day after A New Hope ends; if you let me do it the day after and you get a chance to really delve into what it’s like for her to have lost everything? Then I’m in and they totally bought that. That’s really where it stood; the idea that in first movie, there’s no time for it to sink in for her. Continue reading →

Baltimore Comic Con 2015: Interview with Charles Soule

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This weekend at Baltimore Comic Con, I was lucky enough to chat for a few minutes with the awesome Charles Soule. You may know him as the writer who’s also a lawyer who wrote a fantastic run on She-Hulk last year (amongst other things) but Star Wars fans currently know him as the guy who’s writing the rad Lando limited series for Marvel. We sat down and talked all things Star Wars and about his great work with Alex Maleev on the Lando book.

Bria: So the first question we always ask everyone is how did you become a Star Wars fan?

Charles Soule: Oh man, I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was a little kid. I went to see the movies with my family. I must’ve seen a release of A New Hope at some point because I would’ve been a baby.

The ’96 ones?

No, it would’ve been before that. I don’t know—they kept rereleasing them for the first ten years or so and I must’ve seen it at that point but I remember very distinctly seeing the AT-ATs come out of the fog in Empire Strikes Back and all the Cloud City stuff which was so amazing. I had all the toys and stuff like that. So I was a fan from pretty young and my whole family was pretty into it so it was something that I could share with my brothers and sister and it was great.

Do you have a favorite one of the original films or any of the movies really. I’m not a Prequel hater. Continue reading →

There Has Been… An Uprising.

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UprisingStar Wars Uprising was officially released on September 10th. I refrained from downloading it until September 12th. I maxed out my XP and the storyline 11 days later.  This is weird.

Unless it says KOTOR on the box, I’m not much of a gamer. I enjoy playing video games when I have the opportunity but I rarely lose an entire weekend to a new game and I don’t even have a system besides my laptop. So you can see why I was so surprised that I was able to go through the game so fast even with my obsessive and competitive personality.

Uprising is addicting and not what I expected. On the game play front, it’s fairly simple once you get the hang of it and doesn’t require much skill. Essentially, you select which opponent you want to attack and then your character does so. Things get a little more interesting once you can train in skills that take your attacks up a notch. I’m a fan of the dodge and roll and the spray of blaster fire for efficiency. The only planet that keeps giving me trouble is Anoat thanks to the poison and the never-ending onslaught of nek dogs.

At a certain point, the game does tell you in a not so subtle way to chill the hell out and take a break. The main story missions are locked depending on your character level; something that comes into play once you’re closer around level 18 and it’s harder to level up. Every day, you’re offered a Daily Opportunity mission, 5 Assault Missions (that eventually trigger a Sector Battle which is basically a day long free for all that makes you gape at the Victory Points totals some people rack up), and a Daily Credits mission for each planet that you’ve completed the story for. While you can play repeatable missions as often as possible, they don’t offer nearly as much in terms of gear and nothing for XP. Granted, the XP part doesn’t really matter once you hit Level 40 and don’t get XP anymore… (No, I’m not bitter. Why do you ask?)

Continue reading →

Review: Kanan #6

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It’s another issue of Kanan but there’s no puppy dog padawan in sight. We’ve jumped forward in time again to rejoin the crew of the Ghost as they land on Kaller—the first time Kanan’s been back in over a decade. Overall, the issue is a fun read and a nice way to tie things back to the rest of the Rebels crew that we all know and love but I often found myself missing the Clone Wars era story about Kanan. There’s still so much that we don’t know about how Caleb really ended up becoming the Kanan that we met in A New Dawn.

One of the really fun things about this book is that Greg Weisman writes it in addition to having been an instrumental voice in creating Rebels. More than a few times, I silently marveled at how I could hear the voice actors reading the lines in my head and then subsequently chuckle at myself since obviously Weisman is going to have a damn good handle on who they all are.

Pepe Larraz takes a well-deserved break this issue and so we have Jacopo Camagni on art this week with colors by David Curiel. He draws a very nice Sabine and the colors of her hair stand out nicely without falling into anime territory thanks to Curiel’s good work. Camagni definitely seems to have fun with facial expressions and why yes, I do believe I caught a hint of puppy!Caleb in a panel or two.

At the end of the day, this was an enjoyable issue and a nice way to tie up Kanan’s history with everything that happened on Kaller. It’s definitely not an issue that you should skip simply because of the time jump. Your enjoyment level depends entirely upon personal taste. That said, I’m definitely looking forward to going back in time to the adventures of young Caleb… especially given the cover for issue #7!