SW Timeline Gold & ChronoRadio Announcements

Tonight, something very different:

The new ChronoRadio "The Phantom Menace" film commentary file has been released. Follow the instructions in the episode and play it along with the DVD for a unique ChronoRadio experience.

Clickie

 

Hallelujah! I can talk about it finally.

Butler to Write for Star Wars Tales #21

We've had to sit on this one since early March, but we can finally announce it . . .

Keep your eyes on the stands and the comic book shops in late September (or early October) for Star Wars Tales #21. Fans of Star Wars fan audio will recognize a familiar name in the comic's credits. The issue, part of a new, revised Tales run under the new series editor, Associate Editor Jeremy Barlow, who is taking over for Dave Land, will feature a story entitled Equals and Opposites.

Equals and Opposities, written by Star Wars Fanworks founder Nathan P. Butler, will feature the first individual Star Wars story, outside of those releases that were part of the Dark Forces line (the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight video game series and the Dark Forces graphic novels by William C. Dietz), to star longtime Star Wars fan favorites Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors. The tale will take place just after Force Heretic: Remnant and put the two oft-forgotten heroes on the small Imperial Remnant world of Ord Sedra, facing off with Yuuzhan Vong and Peace Brigade slavers.

Butler has previously appeared as an interview subject in Will Brooker's Star Wars study Using the Force (Continuum, 2002), received an acknowledgement from writer Dan Wallace in The New Essential Guide to Character (Del Rey, 2002), and had the Rebel agent character in Empire: What Sin Loyalty, who went unnamed in the comic but named in the script, named after him ("Krono" Relt for "ChronoRadio").

In fandom, Butler has been the creator and compiler of the Star Wars Timeline Project (since 1997), host of ChronoRadio (since 2002), writer of Second Strike (2002 - 2003), series creator and writer of five episodes of Star Wars: Anthology (since 2003), and has had voice roles in various fan audio and fan film productions. He is also the founder of Star Wars Fanworks.

In being given this invitation to write for a licensed Star Wars product, Butler joins a small group of fans to have been pulled from fan production genres to do so, including Troops creator Kevin Rubio, Ryan vs. Dorkman co-creator Ryan Wieber, Bounty Trail creator Justin Dix, and Planet Guide compiler Dan Wallace.

More details will follow in June's ChronoRadio #15, including information about a forthcoming ChronoRadio: Special Edition that will follow the story's creative process. At present, the final script has been written by Butler and approved by Dark Horse, LucasArts, and Lucasfilm. It now goes to artist James Raiz (Transformers: Armada) for the next step in the creative process.

Who would've thought that a rant about Dark Horse's Star Wars problems in early 2003 would bear this kind of fruit?

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Phat, no?

 

Finally, ChronoRadio #15 (The Fine Arts Episode) is released!

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It features discussion on the SW cartoons (with Jay Mustered) and Brian Daley's Radio Dramas (including a tribute from Michael Mays).

Check it out.

 

Nathan, a question that I've been meaning to ask: Do you have any plans to burn all of your episodes onto CD and ship them out at all? I have dialup, and it takes a loong time to listne.

 

They wouldn't fit, most of the time, on a CD as an audio CD, but as a CD-R archive, they would. That's actually how I archive everything from SW fan audio, be it my materials or others. Drop me an email with your address and I'll mail you out an archive of the full series, and anything else from Fanworks that you want a copy of.

If you want to pay me back, don't worry about the CDs or postage. We could always use reviews of the stuff.

 

Sounds good, I might. How much would it cost?

 

Don't worry about it. Just maybe write some reviews after you listen to whatever it might be. I'll just send you the CDs. No way that'll break more than maybe $5. heh

 

Early on during the days of ChronoRadio, Michael Smith did an interview with me that we released as a "Nathan Butler Interview Edition." It turned out to be a pretty good way for listeners and readers of the timeline to find out a little bit about me in a "behind the scenes" and more personal sense.

I went back and listened to that recently, and the information seems way out of date to me. So, as part of the whole fun summer when I'm focusing on more with ChronoRadio, the timeline, the sourcebook, and getting hyped for the comic book release, I've talked to a few other fan audio folks and we thought it'd be interesting to do a new "getting to know the creator/host" interview, but this time, we want to do it so that the questions come directly from you, the readers/listeners/community.

So, if you have ANY questions, on ANY topic, that you think you'd like to hear me answer on an upcoming ChronoRadio special, post them here. I'll try to use as many as possible, though certain types of questions may have to be discarded (depending on my mood, heh).

 

How cool is this?

Clickie

 

I must have missed something.

Sourcebook?

 

Oh, nothing official. We've started work on a d6 and d20 RPG sourcebook for the characters, locations, events (etc.) of my first six audio dramas (Second Strike, Doubts Cast, Dreamscape, The Mob, Addiction, Responsibility). We've been working on it for a while, and I want to finish this summer.

 

And and update: There'll be two new ChronoRadio episodes on July 1. The first is a Supplemental Edition, featuring the fan audio Q&A panel from ConCarolinas, an update on various projects, and one listener letter regarding Second Strike. The second will be an interview with Joe Corroney, SW Insider (et al) artist.

Requiem of the Outcast (another radio show) will also have a new episode on July 1 (#10), which will have a recording of our live combined ROTO and CR radio show broadcast from ConCarolinas.

We'll be putting up a 2-part interview with Alan Dean Foster probably in August.

Also, I just got some art pages for the Dark Horse Kyle Katarn story. All I can say is wow. James Raiz rules.

 

James Raiz rules.

Tell me. Is his work on your SW story anything like his Transformers work? Because if it is, my interest in the story has increased.

 

In my opinion, it's better. It doesn't do that whole "semi-cartoony / semi-anime" type of feel that Rad, Alexis, and Carlos had in Armada. It's very detailed, very dynamic. He does a lot of those panels where it overlaps some. Very dynamic, moreso, I think, than his Armada work.

Also, I just found out that the colorist is the same guy who did Empire #19.

 

It doesn't do that whole "semi-cartoony / semi-anime" type of feel that Rad, Alexis, and Carlos had in Armada. It's very detailed, very dynamic. He does a lot of those panels where it overlaps some. Very dynamic, moreso, I think, than his Armada work.

That's good news. The second I heard that Raiz was working on a story for Star Wars Tales, I was immediately skeptical, since I knew that, from his work on Armada, he can't draw humans. He can do mechs pretty well, though, so I'm very much interested in how he handles the ships of the GFFA.

I might just have to pick it up.

 

Oh, his humans in this one are really well done. Kyle looks older and kinda gruff. Jan . . . hey, I'd boff Jan.

"What did I say?"
--See-Threepio

 

Jan . . . hey, I'd boff Jan.



Can you say that?

 

Can you say that?

Just this once, but don't make a habit of it...

 

Heh, at least I didn't say Kyle, right?

Or Tarneel.

Or Pallin.

Or the...Vong...

 

Heh, at least I didn't say Kyle, right?

Or Tarneel.

Or Pallin.

Or the...Vong...

Dude, you are freakin' me out here.

 

Raiz draws some sexy Vong.

:: gag ::

 

Raiz draws some sexy Vong.

You're sick. You know that, right?

Oh, and do you have any idea when we might be able to see some preview artwork?

 

We'll be putting some preview art up once we get it colored, which should be fairly soon.

 

Sweet. Yeah, I was hinting at Jeremy yesterday. "Hey, think any of those panels could be previewed on DH or Fanworks, hmm?" or something to that effect.

It's kind of odd being able to do a sort of media ramp-up release through the fan-site. But hey, that's what comes with all the radio show stuff, I guess.

 

I have been working on a "listener Q&A" episode of ChronoRadio, where readers of the timeline or listeners of ChronoRadio can post questions on any topic they want and I'll answer them on the show.

Today is June 27. I'll stop taking new questions the night of June 30, so if there are other questions still, get them in ASAP.