For those of you that don’t read the phenomenal webcomic Penny Arcade three days a week, like I do, here’s today’s comic. It’s below the jump for language purposes, so if you’re at work or with your kids, give it a pass for now. Otherwise, have a good chuckle.
LFL and Publishers Holding ‘Star Wars Reads Day’
A little earlier today, Nanci and I got an interesting press release in our inboxes from Lucasfilm, Del Rey, Dark Horse, and the other Star Wars IP publishing houses. This fall, you can participate in an event to celebrate literature and Star Wars.
Lucasfilm and its publishing partners announced today a national Star Wars Reads Day to be held this October 6, 2012. Star Wars Reads Day is a multi-publisher initiative that celebrates reading and Star Wars. On October 6, events will take place at hundreds of bookstores and libraries across the United States. Participating publishing partners include Abrams, Chronicle Books, Dark Horse, Del Rey, DK, Scholastic, Titan Magazines, and Workman.
Officially participating bookstores and libraries will receive a Star Wars event kit (free of charge). The kit includes: an exclusive Star Wars Reads promotional item (25-50 per event); raffle prizes; promotional giveaways; a packet of event ideas, reproducible activity sheets and trivia; and more. The events will have the PR and marketing support of the eight participating publishers and Lucasfilm.
If your store or library would like to participate in Star Wars Reads Day on October 6, please sign up athttp://us.dk.com/SWRDevent. Volunteer costumers can sign up at http://us.dk.com/SWRDvolunteer.
Follow Star Wars Reads Day on Facebook!
Promoting literacy and Star Wars? Now there’s something I can get behind.
Petition: Move ‘Scoundrels’ Release Date Up One Week
So, yes, we’re pumped for this book. There’s just one little problem. It’s due to release on December 26th, 2012.
I’ve had some conversations with friends and other bloggers around the EU fandom, and for the most part we’re all in agreement. This is a book we would gift to other fans during the Holidays. It’s a book that fans would put on their gift list. It’s, really, the perfect Expanded Universe gift for that time of the year, but its release date misses that target.
We want to see books like Scoundrels succeed. Moving the date up just one week, we believe, would help bring in new and lapsed readers and would encourage longtime readers to pick up a copy.
So we’ve put together a petition asking Del Rey to slide the release date up just one week. We’d love to have a few days before the Holidays to pick up this book for friends and other fans. It’s just the book for any Star Wars fan and we want to make sure people read it.
Random House Releases ‘Scoundrels’ Cover Blurb
To make his biggest score, Han’s ready to take even bigger risks. But even he can’t do this job solo.
Han Solo should be basking in his moment of glory. After all, the cocky smuggler and captain of the Millennium Falcon just played a key role in the daring raid that destroyed the Death Star and landed the first serious blow to the Empire in its war against the Rebel Alliance. But after losing the reward his heroics earned him, Han’s got nothing to celebrate. Especially since he’s deep in debt to the ruthless crime lord Jabba the Hutt. There’s a bounty on Han’s head—and if he can’t cough up the credits, he’ll surely pay with his hide. The only thing that can save him is a king’s ransom. Or maybe a gangster’s fortune? That’s what a mysterious stranger is offering in exchange for Han’s less-than-legal help with a riskier-than-usual caper. The payoff will be more than enough for Han to settle up with Jabba—and ensure he never has to haggle with the Hutts again.
All he has to do is infiltrate the ultra-fortified stronghold of a Black Sun crime syndicate underboss and crack the galaxy’s most notoriously impregnable safe. It sounds like a job for miracle workers . . . or madmen. So Han assembles a gallery of rogues who are a little of both—including his indispensable sidekick Chewbacca and the cunning Lando Calrissian. If anyone can dodge, deceive, and defeat heavily armed thugs, killer droids, and Imperial agents alike—and pull off the heist of the century—it’s Solo’s scoundrels. But will their crime really pay, or will it cost them the ultimate price?
Scoundrels is due to hit bookshelves on December 26th. Any chance we can talk Random House into pushing the date back a few weeks? I’ve got people I’d love to buy this for during the holidays.
Korra Gets 26-Episode Bump
Take that, Game of Thrones.
It turns out that if you have a wildly successful animated show that manages to beat out Game of Thrones in ratings, your hosting network may want more episodes of said wildly successful animated show. According to EW, Nickelodeon has ordered an additional 26 episodes to be added to The Legend of Korra’s run.
It’s official: The Legend continues! Nickelodeon has picked up a second season of the animated adventure series The Legend of Korra, EW has learned. After averaging 3.8 million viewers for Season 1, Book 1, which concluded June 23, the Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel is receiving a second-season order of 26 episodes that presumably will be divided into two parts called Books 3 and 4, bringing the total number of episodes to 52.
Who says an action show centered around a well-crafted female lead can’t be a winning product?
Science to show Firefly Reunion
Can’t make it to the Firefly Reunion panel at SDCC? That’s okay–the Science channel will be airing a special so we can all enjoy on Sunday, November 11th. It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since we first went into the black, but Browncoats Unite will be the capstone to the Science Channel’s 10-year anniversary celebration of this Joss Whedon classic.
Shiny.
Karl Urban Reveals Star Trek 2 Villain and Thor 2 news
Since possible spoilers abound here, I’ve kept pictures from the movie and all the information behind the jump. Click through for more.
Get Your Mugshot Taken With Han Solo
For those of you lucky enough to be in attendance at San Diego Comic Con and have a camera on them, you can get yourself a rather nifty photo op. The folks at Del Rey and Star Wars Books have put together a Scoundrels lineup stand. You, too, can get your official prison photo with Han, Chewie, and Lando.
And for those of you who will be at Celebration VI…
@LaneWinree yes!We’re bringing it to CVI as well! (Erich)
— StarWarsBooks (@DelReyStarWars) July 10, 2012
X-Wing Retrospective: Iron Fist
Iron Fist is my favorite novel of the Wraith Squadron trilogy, for many reasons. It’s funny, heartwarming, touching, and intriguing. The characters continue to be flawed, fascinating creatures, and you root for them to both survive and thrive. In the meantime, you know that this is war and not everyone will make it out unscathed, both physically and mentally.
This is book has one of my top moments of the entire Expanded Universe. And yes, I warn you now: there will be spoilers. If you’ve already read this book, I’m sure you can figure out what for.
New Dark Horse “Star Wars” Comic Goes Back to Basics
io9 has a first glimpse into a new project from Dark Horse that’s simply called Star Wars. Randy Stradley lets fans know that they have brought in author Brian Wood (of DMZ, Channel Zero, and Northlanders fame) to helm what they’re calling a “back-to-basics” approach to Star Wars comics and narratives.
We — the Dark Horse editorial team and the folks at Lucas Books — felt that the time was right to rack focus back on the core characters of the Original Trilogy. It has been a few years since there had been any comics stories set in the era of the OT, as it’s called, and the time was just right. Both we and Lucasfilm had ideas for how to return to the classic characters, and all told it took us about a year to work out a plan with which everyone was happy.
As for how this series is “different” from past entries in this time period, I guess the answer would be that we’re trying very had to keep everything fresh — as if Episode IV had just come out in theaters. This is the Star Warsseries for everyone who has loved the films, but has never delved into any of the comics or novels. There is no vast continuity that a reader needs to know beyond the events in A New Hope. This is the beginning of the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.
This is probably as close to a reboot of any part of the Star Wars franchise as you’ll see in your life. By the sounds of it, this project is going to be something that’s accessible to new comics and expanded universe fans, something that isn’t bogged down by thirty years of continuity dead weight. Frankly? That’s a good thing. It can be difficult for new fans to so much as set foot in the EU because there’s so many strands of continuity to keep track of. For someone that wants to get their foot in the door, a project like this might be just the gateway needed.
No doubt this is going to cause an uproar among the continuity diehards in the fandom, but I’m not worried. Maybe I’m just at the point in my personal fandom where I don’t care about the continual canon angsting anymore. If this series delivers a solid narrative, I will be more than content.
(via)