And 2007 goes out with a bang — and a crash, and a boom — with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #24, the senses-shattering conclusion to "Knights of Suffering!" There's so much going on, it took the comics truck two extra days to get the issues to you! Check it out!

And speaking of senses-shattering, happy 85th birthday to Stan Lee! There's plenty of tributes to The Man in Comics Buyer's Guide #1639, out now — including my own column on what I learned from reading his comics. Excelsior!

Those who saw the Dark Horse presentation at Star Wars Celebration IV may recall that I brought a guest to the panel: Frankendroid. I told Frank’s story there — but there’s a second part now, so perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Where I’d gotten Star Wars comics right from the beginning, even reading the Marvel adaptation before I saw the movie, it took me a bit longer to get into the toys. The first thing I got was the Kenner X-Wing, some time in 1978 — still have it, of course. (Geez, where did all the stickers go?) But I didn’t have any action figures for what seemed like the longest time. All I had to use were those old green plastic army men. Not a good substitute. The crawling guy always got stuck in the ship’s nose!

OK, flash forward to Christmas 1979. Most of the army men were gone — lost in our intervening move, probably. Or maybe they’d run off to join the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — I know that was all that was on TV that Christmas. At any rate, my grandparents dropped by with their gift: my first three action figures. Excellent, I thought: now, I could imagine some stories along with every other kid.

Of course, my grandparents, may they rest in peace, didn’t know Star Wars from the Star Spangled Banner — so the figure selection was entirely random. Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3PO. The preadolescent mind churned. “Well, we’ve got a couple of good guys here, and it beats the one army guy whose bazooka kept the cockpit window from closing.”

Still, there were serious storytelling challenges in this mix. Every adventure always had to do with Darth Vader stealing the X-Wing. Artoo, well, there was already an Artoo in the ship. Pressing him made the wings open. There were some identity-crisis psychodramas there. And Threepio? Well, Threepio wasn’t Threepio. He was more like the factory second droid they didn’t let out of the Sandcrawler.

That’s because for whatever reason, he emerged from the packaging (yes, kids, we opened the packaging) with his left leg frozen solidly in place. I don’t think it was the paint; looking at it, it’s like the plastic in the molds fused together into a single piece. Whatever the reason, he couldn’t walk — and with the leg stuck, I’d have to jam him into the X-Wing cockpit (as if he ought to be flying).

I limped along (sorry) like this for a while before finally, my father brought the droid into the workshop for reconstructive surgery. He severed the stuck leg cleanly with an Exacto knife and drove a pin through the hip of the leg. The joint held — that particular hip replacement work is intact to this day.

Of course, as soon as the leg ground on the pin for a while, the leg began to loosen up — and before long, Threepio was high-kicking to beat the Rockettes. He couldn’t stand up now, but at least he could more easily slide into the X-Wing and fly off with the fake Artoo, thus humiliating the real Artoo forever and putting the children of some droid therapist into an Ivy League school.



Eventually, more vehicles and figures came into the picture, making the fantasy galaxy a more interesting place. But that early time was my first exercise in Star Wars creativity — which is why I brought Frankendroid along to my first Celebration panel.

There at Celebration IV began, as Paul Harvey said, the rest of the story. Frankendroid: The Sequel.

I finally got around to shopping — and, after buying lots of British Star Wars comics and some die-casts for myself, I remembered I had children of my own. This realization combined with the weighty state of my luggage to form a serious quandary. I’d been on the coast for a week, after all; no small guilt presents were going to suffice. Fortunately, I discovered the USPS was shipping from the con — and immediately knew what must be done.

Old friend, sometime collaborator, and former Star Wars Galaxy Collector editor Marc Patten was set up in the hall with a massive retail booth. I beelined for there and immediately scanned the racks. “What do you want?” he asked.

“What’s the biggest thing you’ve got that you don’t want to take back?”

“That would be one of the giant Collectors’ Edition Han Solos With Tauntauns,” he said, pointing to a row of massive boxes on the highest rack.

“Are they going to sell?”

“Probably not,” he said.

“Then I’ll take it,” I said, pulling the monster off the shelf.

“You’re into Tauntauns now?”

“It’s my daughter,” I said. “She loves horses.”

“But this is a Tauntaun.”

“Do you see any horses in here?” I asked.

“It’s not really a child’s toy,” he said. “It’s more for display.”

“Should there be a lawyer present for this interview? Do you quiz all your customers about their intentions?”
 
“Not really,” he said. Toy buyers liked their privacy, he knew. “So, what’ll you give me for it?”

“The knowledge that you won’t have to take it back,” I said. “You were moaning yesterday about the seven large it cost you to ship all this stuff from the East Coast. I’m lightening the return load, and probably saving your marriage.”

“You have a point,” he said. “It’s not a good one, but it is a point.” He’d been stuck in the hall all Friday night during the bomb scare listening to the soundtrack on the PA — at this point, I knew he’d agree to anything. “You’re standing on an actual paying customer,” he growled. “Take the beast and leave.”

The expense, of course, was in shipping La Monstra — along with the other trinkets and incidentals I found for myself in my not-very-straight traverse of the hall. Building the gigantic box, the postal employee asked where she could get such a Tauntaun. I happily pointed out Marc’s booth. “They’re free, madam,” I said. “Be sure to tell the gentleman I sent you.” And with that, the giant Collectors’ Edition Han Solo with Tauntaun entered the postal stream.

Two thousand years passed.

Wait, that was the movie A/I. No, three weeks passed, but when it comes to kids wondering where the gifts are, the comparison’s about right. Sometimes one forgets with Priority Mail it’s important to ask whose priority is involved. Anyway, the boxes did eventually show up.

And little Josie loved the poseable Tauntaun so much she broke its poseable leg in less than a half hour.

The equine (for want of the proper Hothian term) autopsy will show that, in truth, it was not her fault. Like its diminutive cousin-by-Kenner, Frankendroid Threepio, One-Leg was doomed from its plastic birth. The grommet attaching its leg to the body was shoddily formed, disintegrating into little shards after minor use by a minor. Five years on the shelf; three weeks in the mail; twenty minutes on the floor.

After some choice words out of the child’s earshot, the first of a number of reconstructive surgeries ensued. But no cocktail of glues would get the leg joint to reset. After a few weeks, I thought about sending it to my dad, from whose workbench Frankendroid had high-stepped.

But, in a burst of paternal can-do-ism, I resorted to the most sophisticated and delicate instrument in my kit: The Phillips screwdriver.



































Thus was born Spawn of Frankendroid. No, the Tauntaun’s leg doesn’t move any more — I’m a writer, not a plastic surgeon — but she sure as heck ain’t falling over. Han Solo has, if not a ride, a place to sit. A child is happy. And a strange tradition continues, to be taken up again in another twenty-eight years by the next generation, and their lunar-produced collectible figures.

Or perhaps sooner. It’s Christmas 2007, and she’s just broken the other leg…

Happy holidays — and keep the toolbox handy!

Wizards of the Coast's Summer 2008 retailer catalog is out — prompting reports online and a number of questions to me. I am cleared by the publisher to confirm that, yes, there is a Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide scheduled for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game next August — and yes, I collaborated on it with Rodney Thompson, Sterling Hershey, and Abel G. Pena.

And that, as they say, is all I can say. There's some detail on the story linked above — and there's a page on Amazon already. I am sure this will generate some interesting questions, but look for more info from Wizards when it's available.

Readers of my past work as editor of Scrye and Comics & Games Retailer know my game-playing roots go a long way back — back to the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set with B1: In Search of the Unknown. (Yeah, I still have to stop myself from writing S-I-W-C-D-C on my character sheets!) I really enjoyed working on the guide — whether you're new to the game or an experienced player, I think you'll enjoy it, too.

I really enjoyed the signing at Kowabunga Comics a couple of weeks ago; an article from the signing and talk are up at The Pullbox. Thanks to everyone there!

And I have finally gotten around to posting some notes for Knights of the Old Republic #23. Follow the link...

The news that Comics & Games Retailer is heading online after 190+ issues in print is circulating -- bittersweet news to receive as a longtime editor of that publication, but something that, as an outsider, I've expected since editor James Mishler departed this past summer. The truth is, in one way or another, similar repositionings to deal with the realities of the markets it served were a part of every single year for the publication. Producing a free magazine for shop owners for more than a decade and a half required a readiness to adapt the product to follow opportunities, wherever they happened to lead.

The initial Comics Retailer concept, back in 1992, was to capitalize on the strong retailer mailing list Krause Publications had generated through its consumer magazine, Comics Buyer's Guide with a trade magazine inspired by Kalmbach's Model Retailer. During those boom times, the idea was swiftly copied by Wizard with Entertainment Retailing and Sendai (publisher of Hero Illustrated), with Comic Book Business. The latter title actually hired away Comics Retailer editor Don Butler, whom I was hired to replace. (Don eventually returned to the company, where he now edits log homes magazines.)

I signed on at the end of 1993 -- just as the comics market began to collapse. (Just a coincidence, I assure you!) While the competing publications folded, we coped with the introduction of an industry directory issue which became an annual event. (As did the total loss of my weekends surrounding its production. It was always a massive undertaking!)

But when the comics distributors went to war with each other in 1995, the model was challenged again. In this wholly ad-supported publication, support from the competing distributors was as important as advertising from comics publishers. Now, the distributors themselves were going away -- and as publishers signed exclusives with the survivors, their needs to advertise were similarly eroded; the distributors handled the job of reaching retailers for them.

We responded with a change that not only helped the magazine survive the next decade, but prosper as it never had during the comics boom. We had noticed the popularity of Magic: The Gathering right away in 1994 -- and carved room within the magazine to report on that gaming phenomenon. With the addition of more gaming stores to the readership, the magazine had full access to a field that had, as comics once had, multiple players at the distributor level. That gamble paid off -- with issues going into 1996 and 1997 regularly surpassing 100 pages. The 1998 Industry Directory was the magazine's largest single issue, with something like 180 pages. I didn't sleep that month at all!

But every successive year required a recalibration editorially, reflecting the state of the readership and the balance of its advertising support. If anything, comics got far more coverage in the later years than it might have warranted just by the sector breakdown of advertising -- but I was adamant that, in the late 1990s, the comics industry needed information like never before. To "Market Beat," the monthly retailer reporting column I had added in 1994 at publisher Greg Loescher's suggestion, I worked to get comics sales figures into the magazine merging information from the two remaining major distributors. That reporting continues to this day, having carried over to CBGXtra.com and my own Comics Chronicles site.

By 1999 — during the pre-Pokemon lull in the game market -- I had been redirected to other projects. Where I'd done time-intensive things before in the magazine — like a study with Rutgers and the University of Kentucky on retailer attitudes toward distributors and publishers — I increasingly shifted my efforts toward Krause's consumer products. The company's purchase of Scrye magazine in late 1999 was an important complement for the trade magazine — giving us a consumer-publication arm in the games field — but it also took me almost entirely away, as I edited the magazine and its subsequent book price guide. The magazine's final print reinvention with my inovolvement came in this period, with the change in the title from Comics Retailer to Comics & Games Retailer.

While the game publishing market thrived in the early 2000s, contraction in the game distributor market impacted one of the markets the magazine had depended upon. And with the Internet, controlled-circulation periodicals in general faced challenges — access to retailers, a list that used to be protected like gold by distributors and us alike, was no longer so limited. I didn't take part in any of the further reinventions, though: In 2001, I was moved in the publishing hierarchy — and Brent Frankenhoff, Joyce Greenholdt, and James Mishler increasingly handled the production of the comics, anime, and games sections of the issues respectively. That triumvirate (with Jason Winter in place of later editor Mishler) was officially named in 2003, ending my association — except for the sales analysis, which I continued to contribute. (So, I guess, in that, I've been in every issue since #23 — even now, long after I've left the company!)

The magazine continues online, but the print version leaves some legacies behind. A lot of starting retailers and publishers took ideas from the publication's many columnists. Free Comic Book Day resulted from Joe Field's column with the idea. And I met my wife, then a retailer from Seattle, through the magazine. "Market Beat" worked in strange ways!

It was a positive experience for me  — and for the hobbies it served — in a lot of ways. I wish the company and its staff luck on their future plans for the franchise. 

Very sorry to learn of the passing of another of my childhood heroes, Evel Knievel — as iconic a figure as there was for the 1970s. Watching Wide World of Sports, playing with the Ideal Stuntcycle — even nearly killing my eight-yaer-old self trying to leap my bicycle off a ramp — Evel kept this young fan pretty entertained.

I never got a chance to see him in person, though I did see his son, Robbie Knievel leap some trucks in a casino parking lot a few years ago...

And "Knights of Suffering" earns its name here in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #23, on sale now — as Zayne Carrick matches wits with "the wild one," Raana Tey!

There's still time to get the Knights of the Old Republic Handbook! If your retailer doesn't have it in stock, all you need to do is ask your retailer to reorder from Diamond the following item:

SEP070093 STAR WARS KNIGHTS O/T OLD REPUBLIC HANDBOOK $2.99

That item code up front is all they should need. It is available through newsstand distributors, I have found.

For those in the Southeastern Wisconsin area, I have a signing at Kowabunga Comics in Oconomowoc, 102 N. Main St., from 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 17. Directions are here. Drop on by!

I am pleased to report that, according to Diamond's shipping list, this Wednesday you'll see not just Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #22, but also the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook — and even an issue of Star Wars: Legacy!

So the TV and movie writers may be on strike, but you'll still have comics to keep you entertained!

Incidentally, with the late night shows in the U.S. going into repeats during the strike, you might check out the Canadian comedy Corner Gas, which is now airing nightly at 11 CST on the cable channel WGN. Dry wit and sarcasm from Saskatchewan — reminds me of where I live!

The November Worlds of Westfield catalog is out today, and includes an interview with me and Randy Stradley on "Vector." You can find it here.