Online Endeavors
Our online team is small. I often joke you could fit us all in a van. This small team is responsible for all the online endeavors of Lucasfilm, which means a handful of official sites outside of Star Wars. Starwars.com, with its size and traffic, is clearly a priority to us, but every now and then it has to take a back seat to other ventures. So, if you've noticed that the size of updates have been a bit uneven this past week -- some days late, some days normal -- then rest assured it's because many of us are working on something cool... and we've got several new faces to show for it, as well as some even bigger projects coming down the pike in the next few years. I hate to be a tease, but just you wait...

For a Good Cause
On July 16, I will be walking to raise money to benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Please click the link below, and make a donation if are able to. Any amount is greatly appreciated.

http://aidswalksanfrancisco2006.kintera.org/infinata

Moonlighting for Models: Sculpting a Galaxy
That title sounds saucier than I intended it.

Anyway, if you've read this story about Comic-Con, you may have noticed I was given a peculiar credit. I am project editor for Sculpting a Galaxy, Lorne Peterson's amazing book that's coming out later this year.

This, like Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels, is not part of my day-to-day job. Rather, it was a freelance gig that I landed to help out the folks in publishing to get a project in on time. In this case, as Project Editor, I worked with Lorne to develop a structure to this book, collected anecdotes and stories from Lorne and other model makers, and helped to put it all together as a cohesive book that makes sense. I have to say, it's pretty amazing, thinking that I got to get so closely involved with the model-makers responsible for creating so many of my cherished childhood memories. Lorne has so many stories that it's a wonder one book can hold it, but this book is unlike any other. Imagine Dressing a Galaxy, but EVEN bigger.

I can't wait to talk about it in more depth. The people at Palace Press are really outdoing themselves, and I'm going to be so proud to be involved in this project. Lorne will be doing a presentation at Comic-Con, which I will moderate -- though I warn you that my plane arrives that morning, so here's hoping there are no delays!

These freelance gigs are always a challenge, given how all-consuming my day-to-day job is as Content Manager. Then, I gotta come home and work even longer hours on a book. But it's hard to complain, because I've managed to turn my passion into a fairly successful career. Not many get to say that.

Name Dropping
Bonniegrrl and I had lunch today with the folks behind Robot Chicken. Tried desperately not to be too gushing a fan. Hopefully succeeded...

Chewbacca's Bicentennial
A lot of fans are "timeliners," my term for those of us who struggle over the EU's many tales to make them fit in a cohesive timeline. It's strange, it's obsessive, but it's fun. Given the numerous dating conventions established in the SW universe, it sometimes seems that any two timeliners are speaking different languages. A convention I adopted for my own amusement was ascribing a real-world date to events, rather than a fictional SW date. So, for example, the events of A New Hope occur in May 1977, while Attack of the Clones occur in May 1955.

In going through older EU, I came across The Wookiee Storybook, and somewhat arbitrarily put it as occuring in the summer of 1976 -- that is a year before the Battle of Yavin. It occured to me that this was the U.S.'s bicentennial ... which made it rather perfect, since the story is about Chewbacca's 200th birthday. And it's all the more fitting when you read this passage on page 9.

"When he returns this time, he will be honored with a special kind of party. It will be a bicentennial celebration just like the ones they have on planets far, far away." Then he told Lumpy about one celebration that had a parade of great, tall sailing ships on the sea and fireworks in the sky.

Probably one of the most overt references to earth in the EU. I admit, as a kid growing up in Canada, I missed the reference. But now as an adult living in the U.S., I couldn't miss it.

Rookies: No Turning Back Weekly Annotations

Monday, Strip 9 Here's a tip: if you ever need to completely diffuse a tense argument scene, have a Squib look directly at "camera", like on panel 3. Works like a charm.

In panel 1, Kestrel is just kicking over some crates, if it's not clear.

The datapad that Kestrel mentions is the one she left aboard the Old Timer's ship, the one now in Barezz's possession.

What sparks Smiley into action will become apparent on Wed's strip.

Tuesday, Strip 10 Sammie and Kestrel aren't exactly getting a long, but to fair, I doubt anyone of these folks are trying very hard.

Wednesday, Strip 11 Smiley comes running back. Where did he go? Why, back to Raal's ship, which is docked with the relay station. He went and fetched Sammie's version of Tiree's datapad, and is using it to search for any clues left aboard the station. He's not all blue fur and buckteeth. There's actually a brain in there.

Thursday, Strip 12 I love writing Squibbish dialogue. I know the Squibs in the novels don't talk with this peculiar accent, but the Squibs I write all do -- it's based on the way they were first presented in Scavenger Hunt, the old adventure that debuted this alien species.

Smiley, with the largest ears, has the most sensitive hearing, so it's likely only he could have picked up the signal.

Friday, Strip 13 What I'm trying to get at here is, when these Rookies stop bickering, they can actually get a few things accomplished... and even get kind of cozy, as they all crowd around Smiley here. It's fun with staging, really.

Now, with the saga complete, I'm free to pepper in prequel references in a classic trilogy-era story with abandon, so I couldn't resist having a "roger roger" appear in a more 'modern' source.

Kestrel has a good idea. If the droid transmission could only be acquired with the datapad, then telling the droid to stop transmitting will stop the Empire from following them. Or, at least, that's the plan.

Though whatever Raal sees off-camera might derail said plans.

Note that originally, this was not the week-break in the story structure. Being a five-days-a-week strip, I usually try to put in some cliffhanger element on the Friday strip. Well, this one was not originally planned as a Friday strip (strip 15 would have been) but the July 4 holiday has thrown off my schedule. Still, it definitely works as a cliffhanger.

More next time. See you at Comic-Con! If you see me, say hello. I look different than most online pictures of me show. I've grown my hair back, so don't go looking for a guy with a shaved head.