The New Essential Chronology features all new artwork by Mark Chiarello, Tommy Lee Edwards, and John Van Fleet. Some characters have never be appeared before beyond their text descriptions in the books. Here are just a few of my notes on some of the artwork.

p.48 Granta Omega
"Now he had the feeling he was seeing the real Granta Omega. His hair was dark and flowed to his shoulders. His eyes were a dark, deep blue, not brown as they'd appeared before. His body was slim but strong. And he looked younger, too, perhaps even younger than Obi-Wan."

p 63 Kar Vastor
"Huge: his sweat-glistening bare chest could have been fused together from granite boulders. His shaven skull gleamed more than two meters above his bare feet. His pants were crudely sewn from a vine cat's pelt. He raised arms like a spacescraper's buttresses over his head. To each forearm was strapped some kind of shield: elongated teardrops of a mirror-polished metal. Their widecurved ends extended around his massive fists, and they tapered to needle points a handspan behind his elbows.

Veins writhed in his forearms as his fists tightened. The edges of the shields blurred, and a high evil whine resonated in Mace's teeth. The akk dogs turned to the man as though this were some kind of signal. As one, dogs and man together lifted their heads to the smothered stars and unleashed another dark blood-fever howl. It hummed in Mace's chest, and he felt the echoing answer it drew from his own rage, and he finally understood. The rage wasn't all his."

p.84 Darth Vader's black Eta-2 starfighter.
We knew we wanted something from the upcoming Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, but we had to be careful of spoilers. This seemed like a logical choice.

p.88 Theft of X-wings
This is actually a new event based on the upcoming Empire at War video game.

p.96 Greedo's funeral
Author Dan Wallace wanted to show all the bounty hunters but it may have been artist John van Fleet who suggested it be Greedo's funeral. I thoroughly enjoyed the internal "What exactly remains of Greedo's body" discussion we had on this one. (Greedo losing his head is from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.)

p. 99 Young Lando (without mustache)
A young version of Lando also appeared in Star Wars Tales #20.

p. 134 Lord Shadowspawn
There was a sketch of a possible Lord Shadowspawn that was done for Gamer magazine that was never used that Dan dug up to use for inspiration. Note the black stormtroopers in the background.

p.228 Raynar Thul
"Han turned around and found the imposing figure of Raynar Thul standing in the tunnel-house entrance. A tall and imposing man with regal bearing, he had a raw, melted face with no ears, hair, or nose, and all of his visible skin had the shiny, stiff quality of a burn scar. He wore purple trousers and cape of scarlet silk over a breastplate of gold chitin."

The Essential Guides, second edition thread