#Brian Daley

[legendsliveon]

May 4th Legends Deals

Happy May 4th Legends fans! Here are some discounts on Legends merch I've found around the Internet. I'm sure this list isn't exhaustive, so please add on anything I may have missed!

Books & Comics Merch

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor book cover shirt - available in Boys (S-XL) at Target for $18.99 and Mens (S-3XL) Target $22.99 (through May 4th) or BoxLunch $21.67 (25% off May 4th & 5th)

BoxLunch also has the cover of Dark Horse Comics' 2013 run of Star Wars available as a shirt in Unisex sizing (S-2XL) for $21.67 (25% off May 4th & 5th)

In odd but cool pieces, we have a shirt from BoxLunch (25% off May 4th & 5th) that features the Hungarian cover art for the novel Han Solo and the Lost Legacy by Brian Daley. The shirt comes in Unisex M-XL, for $21.67,

and a Jaxxon statue for $170 at Gentle Giant (regular $200) discounted May 4th - 8th

TeeTurtle has a shirt on final clearance for $10 that shows Kit Fisto and "a padawan." Logically I know this is probably supposed to be his padawan from TCW, but at least to me it reads more as Bant Eerin, his padawan in the Jedi Apprentice chapter books. The shirt is available in Women's XS-3XL and Men's S-3XL.

Rock Love has their entire Star Wars stock 20% off May 3rd-6th, including this Rancor Tooth necklace for $56 (regular $75) that is arguably Tenel Ka vibes.

Chronicle Books has 20% off all Star Wars books and novelty products from May 4 - 20. This includes:

Star Wars: 100 Collectible Comic Book Cover Postcards ($19.96) which covers covers from the 70s to 2023, so it is mixed canon. The description promises Mara Jade, and some of the covers shown are Legends. Common sense (hopefully) dictates that the majority of cards will be from the Legends era since that is ~35 years of publication vs. ~11 years.

They also publish the in-universe guidebooks The Jedi Path ($17.56), Book of the Sith ($17.56), Bounty Hunter's Code ($17.56), and the Imperial Handbook ($17.56). There is also a $64 box set of the four books. These books also straddle Legends and current canon as they were published in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.

More items in the category of "we slapped a comic cover on this" that are 25% off May 4th & 5th at BoxLunch include:

The 1998 manga edition of ANH as a unisex sweatshirt (S-2XL) for $33.67,

Issue #7 of Marvel's 1997 run of Star Wars comics that is available in a variety of shirt styles,

and the Infinities ANH #1 cover as "framed wood wall art," whatever that means, for $18.67.

There are some Thrawn items that are stylistic enough there isn't a hard line in the differences between his Legends and current canon looks.

Funko is Buy 2 Get 1 Free through the 5th and they have Thrawn as a mini keychain ($5) and regular Pop ($12).

BoxLunch also has the regular size Thrawn Pop for $7.74 (40% off with code BLGIFTS). It will be 25% off ($9.67) May 4th-5th, and I don't know if that discount stacks, or if the 40% off will go away.

BoxLunch also has several Thrawn shirt designs that will be 25% off May 4th-5th.

The Triptych Grand Admiral Thrawn design comes in Unisex T-shirt (S, L-2XL) for $21.67, Women's T-shirt (S-2XL) for $21.67, long sleeve T-shirt unisex (S-2XL) for $24.67, unisex sweatshirt (S-2XL) for $33.67, and a Youth Hoodie (S-XL) for $33.67

Long Live the Empire comes as a Women's tank top (XS-2XL) for $22.40, Women's T-shirt (S-2XL) for $22.42, Unisex T-shirt (S-3XL) for $22.42-24.67, Youth T-shirt (XS-XL) for $15.67, Youth Girl's (XS-XL) for $15.67, Unisex sweatshirt (S-2XL) for $33.67, Women's sweatshirt (S-2XL) for $29.17, and a Unisex hoodie (S-2XL) for $41.17.

The red Thrawn design is available as a Unisex T-shirt (S-2XL) for $22.42, Big & Tall T-Shirt (LT-5XL) for $22.42-25.42, Long Sleeve T-shirt (S-2XL) for $24.67, Unisex sweatshirt (S-2XL) for $33.67, and a Unisex hoodie (S-2XL) for $41.17.

Gaming Merch

KOTOR Light/Dark Box $11.99 at GameStop (regular $36.99)

10" Revan statue $64 at GameStop (regular $80)

Funko is Buy 2 Get 1 Free through May 5th and they have Fixer for $15.

Heritage Games Pack $39.99 at GameStop (regular $59.99) They have many other Legends era games on sale too, check their website.

Revan's lightsaber is available from Fun.com for $269.99 with this extra 10% off coupon.

TV Merch

Ewoks fans, this is your time!!!

The black Ewoks shirt (left) featuring Kneesaa in the background is available from BoxLunch at 25% off from May 4th -5th in Women's S-2XL ($22.42), Girls XS-XL ($15.67), Unisex Youth (grey) XS-XL (15.67)

The green Ewoks squad shirt (center) is also at BoxLunch for 25% off from May 4th -5th, but it is only available in Girl's XS-XL ($15.67)

They also have a third Ewoks shirt (right) for 25% off from May 4th -5th, but it is only available in Unisex Youth sizes XS-XL ($15.67)

There's also this slightly disturbing Galactic Pals Ewok Plush (left) that's 20% off at Target through May 4th that doesn't say it's Kneesaa, but it sure looks like her. ($22.39)

Funko is Buy 2 Get 1 Free through the 5th and they have Holiday Special Chewbacca (right) for $15.

[cantsayidont]

April 1979, October 1979, and August 1980. These novels by Brian Daley were not the first STAR WARS tie-ins, but they were the best of the early phase, and a strong influence on later SW media. The creative success of these exciting, frequently very funny books, which chronicle three adventures of Han Solo and Chewbacca prior to the first movie, had a lot to do with Daley himself. According to Daley's friends and his partner, novelist Lucia St. Clair Robson, Daley was Han Solo, or close to it: a brash military veteran with no love of authority, a fondness for sports cars and motorcycles, and a notoriously sarcastic sense of humor that concealed a heart of gold. Ironically, Daley, who genuinely loved STAR WARS, would have preferred to explore the history of the Jedi, but Lucas declared that off-limits, and imposed many restrictions on what Daley could and couldn't use from the films. For that reason, the novels take place on the fringes of the Empire: The first two books are set in the Corporate Sector, a region administered semi-autonomously by corporate interests with their own ruthless Security Police (an idea that clearly inspired some of the plot of ANDOR), while the third is set in the Tion Hegemony, a remote principality.

HAN SOLO AT STARS' END has Han and Chewie roped into aiding a group of people whose relatives have been "disappeared" by the Corporate Sector Authority, which is quietly rounding up dissidents and sending them to a secret facility called Stars' End. After Chewbacca is captured by the Security Police, Han concocts an elaborate, harebrained scheme to rescue his friend and the other "lost ones" from the galaxy's most closely guarded high-tech prison. Naturally, things don't go quite as planned, leading to a spectacularly ludicrous finale. (Spoiler: Han accidentally launches the prison complex into space.) This novel was subsequent adapted for the STAR WARS newspaper strip by Archie Goodwin and Alfredo Alcala, although the adaptation unfortunately isn't a patch on the original.

HAN SOLO'S REVENGE finds Han and Chewbacca, desperate for cash, taking a job that turns out to involve transporting slaves. This is a line our heroes will not cross, so after dealing harshly with the slavers, Han agrees to help a Corporate Sector Authority auditor named Fiolla of Lorrd track down the ringleaders of the operation, one of whom is her once-trusted assistant, Magg. Meanwhile, Chewbacca is forced to contend with a stubborn skip-tracer called Spray, who is determined to repossess the Millennium Falcon over Han and Chewie's unpaid bills!

HAN SOLO AND THE LOST LEGACY has Han and Chewbacca agreeing to help Han's old buddy Badure, Badure's friend Hasti, and an academic named Skynx locate a legendary lost starship, the Queen of Ranroon, the fabled treasure ship of an ancient tyrant called Xim the Despot. (The skull on the cover is Xim's emblem.) Although this sounds like it was influenced by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the book was actually published almost a year before the premiere of RAIDERS.

Although the novels make clear that Han is not overly fond of droids, the books give Han and Chewbacca a pair of droid companions: a laconic old labor droid called Bollux, and a small, extremely sophisticated, disconcertingly enthusiastic computer probe called Blue Max, who "lives" within a compartment in Bollux's chest. Here's how Alfredo Alcala depicted them in the comic strip:

Daley also includes some delightful aliens, including the skip-tracer Spray, who's a Tynnan — basically a sentient beaver with the dexterity of a raccoon — and the Ruurian academic Skynx, a sentient caterpillar who's determined to complete as much of his research as he can before entering the next phase of his life cycle and becoming a chroma-wing who'll have little memory of his former identity.

A useful companion for the first two books is Michael Allen Horne's HAN SOLO AND THE CORPORATE SECTOR SOURCEBOOK for the West End STAR WARS RPG, published in 1993:

Aside from the inevitable game statistics and some quite decent illustrations of the novels' characters, the sourcebook fleshes out Daley's conception of the Corporate Sector Authority, explaining how the Corporate Sector functions and its relationship to the Empire. This is narrated in part by Han Solo himself, which is presented as excerpts of later interviews with an Alliance historian named Voren Na'al (a common conceit in the WEG game books that works especially well here). The sourcebook is best read after the novels, since it explains their plots in detail, but it's a worthwhile supplement. Unfortunately, a planned followup describing the Tion Hegemony was never published before West End Games lost the SW license.

Brian Daley's other major contribution to STAR WARS lore was scripting the NPR radio adaptations of the first three movies. STAR WARS originally aired in the spring of 1981, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK two years later. Daley also wrote the later adaptation of RETURN OF THE JEDI, but he died of cancer in early 1996, at the age of 49, so the final drafts were completed by John Whitman.

[jiminysjournal]

[all-action-all-picture]

1984 printing of Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. An original novel by Brian Daley. Cover art by Willian Schmidt. It was originally published in 1981 and was the third of three Han Solo books.

[blobracing]

Han Solo at Stars’ End, by Brian Daley

Featuring the Quintessential Jerk With a Heart Of Gold, Chewie highjacking a combine, and a literal cat girl.

I’ve taken to skimming Goodreads before I read the next book on the list, usually to try and pluck out something relevant or funny to use as a teaser for the next post– listen to me talk like I’ve been doing this for sooooo long– and that made me a bit nervous about Stars’ End. The resounding and repeating sentiment was basically Now THIS is Han Solo! and perhaps uncharitably and due to the time we live in, that makes me antsy. It’s taxonomically close to I Remember When Men Were Men or Star Wars Used To Be Good Before The Wokeists Got It. Stars’ End isn’t perfect, but it isn’t that, and when I let my guard down, I honestly had a good time with this classic adventure romp. 

Coming up: world’s fastest plot summary, what I liked about it, and, just, you know, the vibes. We're just gonna meander.

So, as quickly as possible:

Han and Chewie are running amok in the Corporate Sector, a corner of the galaxy where the Imperial presence and Rebellion hasn’t reached, and local law is enforced by essentially a corprostate called the Corporate Authority. In return for some ship repairs and upgrades, the lads take on a deal to transport some passengers from one Corporate World to another, and along the way become involved with finding out why some bothersome citizens seem to be mysteriously disappearing. Chewie is captured during the process and so Han leads his allies to infiltrate and then destroy the prison planet where Chewie and all the spirited-away people have been held.

There’s a lot more going on in this book than Splinter of the Mind's Eye, so I’ll leave most of the plot summary to Wookieepedia, as per the usj– although I would say this is a pretty quick and easy read.

So, given that there are a lot of similar constraints on Stars’ End as Splinter– limited canon character use and availability, had to be set outside the plot (not totally applicable to Splinter, as it was originally ordered as a potential sequel to Star Wars [fuckin yowza]), relies a lot on original creation– Stars’ End is better. 

CHARACTERIZATION’S OKAY?

Yeah! I’d say pretty good, actually. 

Prose-wise, there’s something a little silly going on with the vocabulary that makes it feel more charming than annoying (thermocline, dipsomaniacal, insuperable) and Han’s dialogue and narrative voice is OOZING with Coolguy Spacebro. It dips into goofiness now and again– there’s definitely a sense of yeah, Harrison Ford could probably make this work that I respect in terms of characterizing Han, but sometimes you just gotta laugh. Picture Harrison Ford, your gruff, weed-dealing carpenter, getting out something like this:

“An Authority Data Center?” Han exploded. “And how do I get into a place like that? It’ll look like the Espos’ Annual Picnic and Grand Reunion. Listen, toots, I want that stuff from you, but I want to live to a ripe old age, too; I plan to sit in a rocker at the Old Spaceman’s Home, and what you’re suggesting will definitely exclude that option.”

(Immediately obsessed with the implication of the Old Spaceman’s Home. This is not the last time he mentions it, either. Where is this Disney+ miniseries.)

This is definitely not the last time I’m going to opine on what makes a successful Star Wars characterization? because so often that’s the thing that will pull me out of a tie-in novel or fic. To me, the gold standard of characterization is being able to slow down and feel instinctively that dialogue and behavior suit how a character is portrayed in the movies. Characters that don’t appear in the movies at all, or who do but don’t get a lot of attention, face a double-edged sword: they’ve got to be interesting enough to kind of generate their own force of personality, but they’ve also got to feel authentic to the setting.

That’s especially true where we are in terms of Star Wars novels– we have ANH’s Han to go on, and go through Stars’ End knowing that’s who we’re going to meet at the end of it. There are constant references to how much he doesn’t want to get involved with any causes, he’s looking out for number one, goddammit! There are more than a few moments where Han’s cynicism is pointed out or appealed to by characters in a way that ranges from hamfisted to Oh Man That Droid Just Read You To Filth, but I don’t necessarily think it needs to be subtle– Han’s not a subtle guy, after all. 

I’m worried that point might get a bit long in the tooth knowing there are two more Han Solo Adventures before ANH, and Han is essentially stuck in the same role, the same moment of his life before tipping over into throwing his lot in with the Rebels. By the same token, it does retroactively add a little flavor to that moment when he shows up at the first Death Star battle, knowing how hard he fought against his better nature before giving it all up for Luke’s big blue eyes the Rebellion. 

AND THE SUPPORTING CAST?

It feels fucked up that I’m including Chewbacca as a “supporting” cast member, but the man’s not getting any dialogue and doesn’t do much beyond act as a living sounding board for Han to exposit off of. His main move is getting captured by the bad guys and Han just about gets himself killed trying to save him, and the intensity of that relationship is always really fascinating when played out. Also, Chewie being a damsel in distress is cute. 

A lot of the other supporting characters feel very stock, like a fiery woman leader of an outgunned rebel faction (Jessa, leader of the outlaw mechanics who buck the man), or evil patrician badguy who loves droid bloodsport (we’re still saying ’droid in the text, somehow)-- but a couple of notable exceptions.

Bollux is a Goodreads fan favorite, an old droid who has a counterpart with a “younger” droid who lives inside him, Blue Max. Bollux grows on everyone who meets him– even me… he’s just a good guy…– and Max is essentially a portable plot-solver who can do whatever’s needed at the time. 

Rekkon is an extremely capable university teacher-turned-investigator who leads the cause to try and find where the Corporate Authority Guys are stashing the people they’ve stolen. He’s jovial, Han likes him almost immediately and respects him about as much as Han respects anybody who isn’t Chewie, and demonstrates a confidence and self-assuredness that I found really refreshing in a book where a lot of people just seem to defer to Han to move the plot. Rekkon is also Black, the only other Black character in the novel besides his missing nephew, and he does also get murdered by a traitor among the party in the second act and his body is dropped out the airlock. It’s really a “oh, nice!” to “oh… nice :/” thing that feels emblematic of Star Wars’ relationship with Black characters, even in these early days. A bizarre mirror is Star Wars’ relationship with the Black Hollywood executive who championed its original release, Ashley Boone Jr. 

As always, Rekkon’s death is an important motivating factor for Han, and he even gives Han the means to figuring out who the traitor is among the party, but his body is still very much dropped out a fucking airlock.

There’s a lot to talk about there, and I’m not sure I’m qualified to talk about it. But I noted it, and I noted myself noting it.

To brighten your spirits, I bring you the other two interesting characters left in the party: Atuarre and her son, Pakka, who are the only aliens that matter besides Chewie. They're Trianii– CAT PEOPLE THAT’S RIGHT WE GOT A FURRY MILF YEAHAHAHA BABY LET’S GOOOOOO MEOWOW!!!!!!! Star Wars actually has a ton of cat people variants. Despite being a trained warrior and pilot, she ends up pretending to be a dancer and leader of an entertainer troupe– Han’s idea.

WAIT, WHAT

Yeah– Han gets really excited about dressing everyone up as a circus troupe in order to infiltrate Stars’ End, to replace a troupe that couldn’t make it. Pakka, Atuarre’s traumatized-by-the-Authority-to-silence son is an acrobat, Atuarre is the troupe’s leader and skilled in the “dances of her people,” Bollux gets a paint job, and Han poses as a sharpshooter. I cannot emphasize enough how excited Han is by this idea. The word “exhilarated” is used. I’m now integrating this into my view of him as a character– between this and dressing up as a stormtrooper to get around the Death Star, Han Solo lives for the theater. The deception… the prestige. The making of props and wearing of capes. 

LOWKEY KINDA SOUNDS FUN…

Yeah! That’s how I’d characterize Stars’ End– fun. Not really breaking any molds or blowing my tits clean off, but certainly a step up from Splinter of the Mind’s Eye in… every conceivable way, likely. It still suffers from some tired genre conventions, and as always your own mileage may vary, but it’s a very readable adventure story that’s just cheesy enough to not take itself completely seriously. 

BEFORE YOU GO:

Bollux is described as having been programmed with sewing and “necessary skills” while serving under a regimental commander in the Clone Wars. Obviously at the time of writing there was no way Daley was told that commanders in the Clone Wars were traditionally Jedi, so for me today it calls forth the image of Obi-Wan having a droid on hand specifically to tailor the cloaks that he throws away on every mission. 

Hours are referred to as ‘Standard time parts,’ implying some galactic agreement on measurement. As an American, this is outside my ability to conceptualize. 

Stars’ End also contains our first detailed dogfight, and introduces the Headhunter starfighter, which is kind of the X-Wing’s homely older sibling. I’ve been imagining an entirely different shape all my life. Bah oui… 

NEXT TIME

Han Solo’s Revenge, by Brian Daley

[legends-expo]

Panel Announcement: Authors Geeking Out

Hear your favorite creators talk about all things Star Wars... except for their own contributions to the galaxy far, far away! Join us on Saturday, September 9th at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank, CA for a discussion with Michael Kogge, Jason Fry and Abel Peña on favorite stories in the Expanded Universe.

Get your tickets now at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067

[kissmywookiee]

Normally I love the Star Wars EU/Legends books, but I’m seriously struggling with the Brian Daley Han Solo Adventures.

[craitluke]

it’s thinking about anakin and luke hours

[tonguesofdestruction]

"Dungeons And Dragons: Ehre unter Dieben": Neuer Trailer online

Im Verleih von Paramount Pictures Germany kommt bald der Film “Dungeons And Dragons: Ehre unter Dieben” in die Kinos. Dazu gibt es auch einen neuen Trailer, den ihr weiter unten sehen könnt. Paramount Pictures präsentiert den Film in Zusammenarbeit mit eOne. Es ist ein Film von Jonathan Goldstein und John Francis Daley, die auch Regie führten. Das Drehbuch schreiben ebenfalls die beiden sowie…

[dolerme]

tom daley photographed by szilveszter makó and styled by brian conway for numéro netherlands fall/winter 22

[ardenrosegarden]

rewatching Paranormal Home Inspectors but only the parts with Certified Home Inspector Brian Daley™ like here's how the little guys in the bunker can still win-

[cantsayidont]

July 1988. An art book for a show that never quite came to be, ROBOTECH ART 3 is also the official account of how the planned sequel to ROBOTECH fell apart. if you've heard of ROBOTECH, you're almost certainly aware that it was an amalgamation of three similar but unrelated Tatsunoko anime series, tied together with a new storyline by American producer Carl Macek as a multigenerational saga with enough episodes for American TV syndication. The dilemma this presented (other than for aggrieved weebs insisting that the new storyline was a bastardization of the presumptively superior original series) was that characters from the different generations couldn't really interact, and some important plot elements could only be presented through exposition. ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS was to be a 65-episode original series that would chronicle how the survivors of the first generation (adapted from the popular SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS) set out to make peace with the Robotech Masters of Tirol (the villains of the second generation, adapted from SUPER DIMENSION CAVALRY SOUTHERN CROSS) and ended up embroiled in a war with the Invid, the villains of the third generation (adapted from GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA), who eventually conquered the Earth. This was to lead up to the finale of the original series, which would be the starting point for a subsequent series.

For various reasons chronicled at length in the book, the project collapsed after only a handful of episodes were completed. (The surviving footage was later released on home video.) Macek's story outlines were then adapted in several similar but distinct ways in a series of prose novels by "Jack McKinney" (a pseudonym for the writing team of Brian Daley and James Luceno), in the Palladium roleplaying game, and later in American comic books by John and Jason Waltrip. There was also a fanon take that mostly rejected all of the other versions as incompatible with the actual scripts and footage of the original show, which eventually led Harmony Gold, the American production company, to retroactively declare the entire project apocryphal. Harmony Gold then hired the Waltrip brothers to create a five-issue comic book prelude to its truly dire 2007 direct-to-video animated sequel, ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, which is heavily reliant on the events of the SENTINELS storyline without being entirely compatible with any previous version of it, and is frustratingly unsatisfying to anyone who actually liked any of them. (Nobody won, in other words.)

THE SENTINELS is often derided for no particularly good reason. The basic storyline has its clunky aspects (in addition to the continuity issues the RRG contingent identified), but so do the original Japanese shows, and the Japanese MACROSS franchise has subsequently gone a lot of weird places that tend to undercut the claim that ROBOTECH is categorically inferior. Both have their flaws, but ROBOTECH and THE SENTINELS are hardly without merit. (The dismal SHADOW CHRONICLES is another matter …)

[astrophysicist-guitar-god]

Calling all Freddie-philes, and in particular anyone familiar with pre-Queen/verrry early Queen Freddie...

So! This comes from Part 5 of the fabulously information-packed Queen Before Queen series transcribed and posted by @melisa-may-taylor72. 

From Queen Before Queen, The 1960’s Recordings - Part Five: Ibex, Wreckage, and Sour Milk Sea, here. I’ve included the entire section for context, but the last paragraph is what has me...curious. Pertinent bits bolded by me.

Why did Freddie ask another guitarist to come play with Queen, specifically to “jam a bit” with Roger and John? 

This guy didn’t have his own guitar, so he tried to play the Red Special (and couldn’t). Were they (Freddie) thinking of adding another guitarist? And if so...why? 

The group was set by that point, so...why? 

I am unendingly curious about this, and I’ve never seen it mentioned outside of this article. I think I did a few half-hearted Google searches, but nothing came up. If you know, hit me up with that sweet, sweet, knowledge. Thanks!

SCHEMER

“When Sour Milk Sea broke up it was a terrible shock,” admits Chris. “It was fairly acrimonious. Rubber had basically bankrolled the band by buying all the equipment, so he took back his Gibson SG Standard that I’d been playing and my Marshall stack, and I was pretty fucked. I was just eighteen. Our drummer, Rob Tyrell, went off with Rubber in another band, and I went off to work in Huntley & Palmer’s bakery in Reading for months on end to get the money to buy my own guitar.” And, as Chris revealed to Mark Hodkinson, “I was planning to form another band with Freddie, but not having a guitar and not having much money put the kibosh on the idea”.

“We liked Freddie,” admits Rob Tyrell. “He was fun. But he was quite a schemer in a way. He had other things cooking. I could feel it in my bones he wasn’t really interested in us. He knew he was good. He kind of used us as a stepping stone.”

Freddie had been through three different groups in less than seven months. What next? “He finally persauded Brian and Roger to form that band,” recalls Mike Bersin. Having known and observed each other for a while, Freddie, Brian and Roger were more compatible than Freddie had been with relative strangers like Chris Chesney and Jeremy Gallop. All the new band needed now was a name.

The previous summer, members of Ibex, Mike Bersin in particular, had began to refer to Freddie, and indeed to Roger Taylor, as “queens” or “old queens” — as Freddie’s letter to Celine Daley shows. And Freddie was obvi­ously far from averse to the term. Brian and Roger put forward the Grand Dance (from C.S. Lewis’ ‘Out Of The Silent Planet’ trilogy) as a suggestion for their new outfit. “But they decided on Queen as being more direct,” adds Mike Bersin. It had, of course, been Freddie’s choice. By this time, Freddie had changed his own name, too. Bulsara was too exotic, too Zanzibar. The explanation of his replacement comes from Chris Chesney. “Freddie was a Virgo,” he reveals, “and Mercury was his ruling planet.”

“Later on,” concludes Chris, “when they auditioned John Deacon, Freddie made some overtures for me to come and play with Queen. I hadn’t played for a few months, but they wanted me to jam a bit with Roger and John. It was really awkward, because Brian’s gui­tar was unplayable if you’re used to playing a proper, commercial guitar. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. And anyway, by then, I felt they had the chemistry in Queen just right.”

[all-action-all-picture]

Buddy's Super Personality Series No. 86. A two page feature on George Cole, from the pages of Buddy No. 90, 30 October 1982. Art By Brian Delaney.

George Cole (1925-2015) is pictured here as Arthur Daley from the TV show Minder which ran from 1979 to 1994.

[pinesource]

A Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves sequel gets a promising update from Paramount CEO Brian Robbins, who teases that it might still happen on one condition. Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves serves as an adaptation of the beloved table-top role-playing game. The film was released in theaters earlier this year to strong reviews, but it underperformed at the box office, ending its theatrical run with only $208 million on a $150 million budget.

Now, in a recent interview with Variety, Robbins reveals that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 2 isn't actually off the table, despite the first movie losing money. If a sequel does happen, the CEO reveals that there's one condition that must be met: "We’ve got to figure out a way to make it for less."

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has plenty of bombastic, CGI-heavy, fantasy action sequences, but also really nails it when it comes to comedy. The film's humor, which is reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, might actually be key to making a prospective sequel work. To keep the budget down, a sequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves could potentially curtail the big action set pieces somewhat while doubling down on the comedy that works so well in the first film.

[lonniemachin]

tagged by @anurarana! :)

Mutual Icebreaker Questions

Last song listened to:

it hurts

Favorite place: it changes, but right now probably the cafe i study at and the movie theater next to it. both are like a second home to me and i’ve got pleasant memories associated with them

Favorite book: i don’t really have a favorite book anymore but the book i’ve been thinking about the most lately is Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

Currently reading: Just gonna list my current storygraph reads

- Tron by Brian Daley

- Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe

- At the Cafe: Conversations on Anarchism by Errico Malatesta

- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

Favorite movie: yepppp

Favorite tv show: do i even want to say bojack horseman. hm. max headroom?

Favorite food: chicken fried rice