Rob Pincombe is a prolific television writer, recovering comedian and sometime comic artist/storyboard artist who just wasn't satisfied with a single blog.
He writes about sci-fi and fandom at rebelalert.com, Canadian comics at comicanuck.com, and shares thoughts and insights on writing at starkravingadventure.com
Welcome to the rebellion. The following book article was smuggled out of an Empire newspaper and cost the lives of eight valued rebels. We hope it helps you make wiser summer reading choices.
SPACE CAPSULE REVIEWS
Aiwha Soup For The Soulby Depak Chewbacca- Another warm fuzzy, love yourself hug from the universe’s most centered creature. If all of us could go through life with the faith and love that this guy has, there’d be no rebellion. We’d just kick back in a hammock with those rebel scum and share a brew. But we’re not, so we won’t. Death to the Rebellion!
In Cold Blood by Boba Fett– The most frightening glimpse into the mind of a killing machine since Abattoir Droid J-101’s children’s primer, See Spot Kill. Fett conveys his sorrow at the loss of his DNA father, Jango, with far more effectiveness and patience than Lucasfilm’s lazy, directionless, wooden, souless, characterless, emotionally bereft, empty movie version of Boba’s life, Star Wars Episode Pi, Attack Of The Crap. But I digress. Love them or hate them, you’ll never look at bounty hunters the same way again. A must read.
Jabba Dearest by Bib Fortuna–(*Spoiler Alert!) A lethal cocktail of avarice, dishonesty and revenge spice up this fascinating glimpse into the psyche of one of the most disgusting, feared creatures in the Galactic underworld. When you’re not throwing up from the graphic descriptions of Jabba’s intimate interactions with his slave trade, you’ll fascinated by the intelligence with which he built his private empire. And it’s all anchored by a surprisingly tender love story with dancing girl, Oola, heir to his empire… until Jabba feeds her to a rancor.
Dune Sea by Frank Herbert- Much more engaging than his previous holo book, Beach Blanket Bongo Party People Of Dune, Herbert has returned to the socio-political trappings of his greatest triumphs. Frank has fired all eighteen editors of his last effort, despite the fact that it made more than all of his other holos combined. An engaging read, at least the parts I stayed awake for.
The Jundland Wasteland by TS-3PE-lliot – A handsome annotated edition of the famous Sith poet’s epic decent into the madness of the Dark Side. Not compelling reading but he Emperor comp-els you to read it. Or suffer the consequences.
The Dooku Codeby Dan Dan Binks – An endlessly readable thriller that follows the secret of the lost Jedi archives buried deep within an ancient holo-portrait. The tale carries you along at such a brisk pace you won’t have time to notice the ridiculous plot contrivances, complete lack of individual characters and plot holes you could fly an escaping smuggler’s Millennium Falcon through.
Postcards From The Dark Side by Lord Vader– What can one say about a book written by one of the supreme powers in the Empire? A power well-known for his long memory and distaste for weak-willed disobedience? Thankfully, it’s a witty self-effacing joy to read. And Lord Vader shows a surprising talent for clever, authentic-sounding dialogue. I wish it were twice as long. And you can tell Lord Vader I said so. Seriously, please tell Vader what I said and beg his forgiveness for losing Solo. He's one tricky Corellian.
Welcome to the rebellion. This Rebel Alert post from Tatooine was just intercepted and decoded:
Yo fellow rebels! We had another Death Star Survivor's reunion here on Mos Eisley Cantina and Wedge Antilles brought his DHD (Digital Holo-disc) of season one of the Skywalkers. Hilarious! Here are some of our favourite moments and quotes from the first season...
“30, 800 degrees and cloudy? Who cares what the weather’s like on Yavin’s second sun? What the Frak?! I’m stuck on the secure weather channel. AHHH! Make it stop!” -Anakin confuses the remote control with his electric shaver.
“He’s not the sort of child who likes to hang out at the mall.” -Padme talks about how sensitive Luke is while we see him in the background, stabbing the bejeezus out of a couch with his Swiss Army Lightsabre.
“Absolute dictator of the universe – gravy-maker extraordinaire. Oh Frak!! I dropped the gravy boat thingie.” -Anakin tries his hand at cooking.
“I don’t give a scrag what people think about my hair. It’s my hair, so why should they care? Oooh, that rhymes!” -Leia shaves her head.
Padme: “Leia just called from the pet depot.” Anakin:“No! No! Forget it! No!” Padme:“Don’t you even want to know what...” Anakin:“If it’s a living thing, no! She can't bring it the frak home. It’s like a freaking zoo planet around here. They're like animals, and I'll slaughter them like animals! I hate them! -Anakin shares his warm views on nature.
“Dad, you have serious anger-management issues.” -Leia, after Anakin levitated her personal shuttle into the pool.
“Here puss... puss...” -Luke, dressed in ill-fitting, full stormtrooper armour, prowls the house with a pulse rifle looking for the family’s pet womp rat.
“Bubbles? I can't have a bubble bath! Come on Padme, I’m frakking Darth Vader. The D man. I’m the Prince of skragging Darkness. Evil! What’s so frakking evil about a tub full of bubbles?” -Anakin has a bath time breakdown.
Welcome to the rebellion. This dispatch just in from the Imperial NewsSubspace channel:
Reality Shows Rule Roost In Upcoming Fall Holo-Season
Despite cries of foul play from rebel drama producers, reality shows continue to dominate the fall schedules of all the major networks. Troops, the grand-daddy of reality programs, continues to patrol the airwaves on SBS (the Solar Broadcasting Service) while pot-bellied, cackling miscreant and stand-up Kowackian monkey lizard Salacious B. Crumb will once again host The Empire’s Funniest Interrogation Videos.
The hotter than hot, Imperial financed So You Think You Can Commit Galactic Genocide returns for another season of letting average beings power up the Death Star as they answer skill-challenging questions to earn the right to blast their least favourite planetary system from the star charts.
Spurned on by the success of these classic ratings-winners, a whole new crop plans to take the new season by storm. There’s plenty to choose from for those who love watching spoiled rich brats behave like drunken, rebel scum. In addition to the return of The Skywalkers, you can pop the cork on your smuggled bottle of Cristal for Keeping Up With The Calrissiansand see just how badly Lando’s brood can behave.
Star Circusfinds D-List celebrities like Lobot, Captain Panaka and cute as a tribble Wicket the Ewok trying to reboot their careers by learning Jedi-like skills: trapeze flying across bottomless Death Star shafts, tightrope walking above a hungry Sarlaac and playing sabbac with a wookie. Yawn… Zzzzz. Oops, excuse me. I must have dozed off out of er, excitement. Look for that one to drop from the line-up quickly.
Here are some of our top picks for the new reality season:
Sponsored by:
Bounty Hunter Eye For The Straight Guy
Tuesdays at 8 pm on SithTime
Let’s face it, most straight beings can’t tell Egyptian cotton from a pulse cannon. But this hot, new show has the cure – have five bounty hunters work their magic on the poor shmuck and let the results speak for themselves. During each episode, a protocol droid, a demolition expert, a tentacle-to-tentacle combat expert, a hair stylist and an armourer critique every aspect of a style-deficient, straight stormtrooper’s life. With devastating one-liners and a thorough beating, they pinpoint all the inadequacies that keep their charge from hooking up.
You’d think there’d be animosity between these five straight shooters and the straight man, and you’d be right. So far only three contestants in season one have survived the experience. This has got hit written all over it!
Joe Emperor
Wednesdays at 9 pm on GBC (Galactic Broadcasting Corporation)
What’s not to love? The most beautiful species from across the universe compete to arouse the amorous attentions of our Imperial Emperor. But who is really inside that robe? These beauties are in for a surprise when they find out their lord and master is really a disguised Hammerhead terra-farmer from the Outer Rim.
Han And Leia: The Newlyrebels
Friday at 9:00 on the Rebel Network
Everyone loves a train wreck and despite heavy odds that this couple won’t make it through the first season, The Newlyrebelsis garnering respectable ratings. Turns out living with a princess ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Without droids to clean up after her, Leia is a complete slob. And Han’s love of partying all night on Coruscant with his co-pilot isn’t winning him any points with the old lady. Expect this marriage, and this show, to crash and burn within three seasons.
The Jedi Apprentice
Thursdays at 8:00 pm on the Rebel Network
The reclusive Jedi Master Yodi steps out of retirement and proves that despite hisdiminuative size, he’s one badass mother*$%#er to work for. Contestants compete for the prestigious position of Yoda’s apprentice. Jogs through swampland and bikini-waxing challenges will keep each contestant on their toes, assuming their species have toes. But the backbiting and competitive atmosphere will take each creature tantalizingly close to the Dark Side.
Each week Yoda meets the contestants outside his hovel and fires one of their alien asses without mercy. “There is only do or do not.So fired you are!”
We predict this one will be a blockbuster. An Empire-based follow-up edition, The Appren-Sithis already before the cameras.
Survivor: Hoth
Fridays at 8 pm on Holovision One
One competing network exec has said you can't kill this franchise with a lightsaber. And he's right. Don’t expect any bikinis in the follow-up to Survivor: Degobah. The latest installment, Survivor: Hoth, will maroon two tribes of competitors in nothing but parkas and moon boots. With temperatures reaching negative 200 degrees Kelvin, any exposed, nubile flesh will freeze, atrophy and die within milliseconds. The best we can hope for is some fratic coupling inside a warm and cosy, freshly-killed tauntaun.
The Miss Intergalactic Beauty Pageant
GBC (Galactic Broadcasting Corporation)
The Miss Intergalactic Beauty Pageant returns, stronger than ever. The perennial favourite celebrates it’s 6oo th year with a live extravaganza from Jabba The Hutt’s Pleasure Palace overlooking the Spice Mines of Kessil. As usual, Jabba plans to make it a night to remember. The evening will feature commentary and stand-up by Kowakian monkey lizard Salacious B. Crumb. Galactic Idol winner Clay Fortuna – no relation to Bib we’re told, yeah right – is scheduled to perform his hit single, Tonight Is A Night Like No Other Night Unless You Count The Night I Had Last Night (Which Was A Pretty Good Night).
Due to recent uproar over chauvinism, the pageant is undergoing some progressive changes. Several of the surviving rebel protesters from last year have been sold into slavery and will actually be doped-up competitors this time around. Also, contestants and the live audience will not be informed of the scoring as the night goes on. For a small fee, home viewers will be able to keep tabs on the progress of the ladies. The duel to the death cage match between the top ten ladies will be replaced with a fake firing squad. Only one of the laser rifles won’t be charged, leaving the winner a completely random choice.
Host duties this year will be handled by Lando Calrissian (Late Night With Lando and the sitcom hit, Full Detention Block). Calrissian is a last minute replacement for the recently deceased Greedo. A short video tribute to Greedo, the event’s host for 42 years, will kick off the Environment Suit Competition. Former Miss Intergalactic, Oola the dancing girl, is scheduled to sing Greedo’s theme song, Solo Shot First.
The Skywalkers
Saturdays at 10 pm on Holo Box Office
Last cycle, the universe’s first family of the Force allowed holo-cameras into their home and billions of viewers were hooked. Normally the Jedi and Sith live in a galaxy far, far away. This show definitely brings their dysfunctional world too, too close for comfort.
Prepare for another season with the ‘Prince Of @#%king Darkness’ and his brood. This season, Luke returns from rehab after his speeder bike accident, Leia dyes her hair plaid and records a punk-polka album, Padme shoots her own cooking show while Anakin goes on tour, wiping out audiences and populations across the solar system on his You Resist You Die tour.
Welcome to the rebellion. Much of the feedback we received on the Death Star Repairmenwebsite centered on a particular aspect of the original Imperial News: the comics. Obsessed with celebrating the mundane aspects of life in the Star Wars universe I was determined to parody today's comics as they might appear in a galaxy far, far away, complete with the philosophical underpinnings of both the Empire and the Rebellion.
When I drew Jedi Brown, several pieces were meant to be longer, as if they were Sunday pages. But I had to draw them in two parts and dang if Mr. Gold didn't post them as separate pieces. And to my surprise they work surprisingly well!
But you can decide for yourself. Here are the two Jedi Brown strips posted in two parts each. Which way do you think works better?
In the first comic, Jedi Brown has far more moral dilemmas than any young Padawan should bear...
Naturally, I took an established pattern fromCharles Schultz(you simply can't top the master) and his own philosophy works surprisingly well in Lucas' universe. Though Jedi Brown's final concern in the first half isn't a gag per say, it could be considered a big enough about face to wrap up the comic on an unexpected but there's something more satisfying about the two put together as a whole. Pure Schultz.
Here's the second split up 'toon...
These ones really do work equally well together and separately. If I had planned it better I would have swapped the order of the final two panels in Part One. The Jabba line is a better blow than the current last panel, which feels unfinished. But doesn't Boba Fettmake a heck of a Pigpen?
Check out more of the Imperial Newsoriginal comics section and explore the rest of the issue. There's lots of fun stuff.
“Hey Rob. I have an idea.” When I hear those words come from my friend Darryl Gold, he of the immensely inspiring and very funny Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival, I always feel a tingling in my scalp.
Am I implying that Darryl gives me a rash? I don’t think so, though I really should get that checked out so I can cross it off my irrational fears list. No… Darryl and I share a synergy around ideas. When we combine our ideas and move forward on them together, they always morph into something much bigger and stranger and more joyous than anything we do on our own.
Powered by soda, chocolate and nacho chips, Darryl and I disappear, combining into a mighty, bickering Uni-Mind that rises up from the spot we used to be in, turns it’s mighty floating brain and fires intense lasers of creativity down at the earth. As debris and bubbling lava flow out, some great new thing ascends from the depths and floats aloft. A wondrous thing that ne’er existed before. We stare in pride and awe, often unable to identify where his contribution ends and mine begins.
Or something like that.
In this case his idea wasDeath Star Repairmen, a subtly hilarious take on the real reason theDeath Starblew up. The cheesy effects highlight the dry lead performances. Darryl ran with that on his own, though I took some behind-the-scenes footage on his green screen set.
When Darryl decided to build a website around his film to help advertise it he lamented the fact that he didn’t have time to create one as the post production was taking up so much of his time. Blissfully unaware of the consequences of my rash decision, I offered to create one for him.
We agreed that I would create all the content and Darryl would then transform to HTML. He wanted to avoid graphics as they were time consuming to create so I suggested a newspaper put out by the Empire that you could get from any old back-talking newsdroid in a galaxy far, far away. And since Darryl’s film took place during the original Star Wars movie, I set my paper in the same time and place in space.
I watched the available movies, determined to play fair by keeping all references from the movies everyone had seen and created far more stuff than Darryl’s site would ever need, including hand-drawn logos and presto, The Imperial News was born! I was pumping out so much stuff Darryl finally had to grab my hands, lift them from my keyboard say, "Stop Rob".
But why stop there? What about the other ideas that got left out? and the ideas that were written down but never finished?
Never fear, fellow Star Wars junkies, this blog will be bringing you updates of the Imperial News regularly as well as excerpts from the rebel newspaper, The Rebel Alert.
In addition, I’ll use this space as a forum to talk about science fiction and pop culture (Star Wars stock in trade), writing (since that’s what I do to pay the rent) and ideas (since rebels could never aspire to new ideals without starting with ideas).
Wow... You can't have ideals without ideas. That is so profound. Profound in much the same way getting stoned while watching The Wizard Of Oz with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon as the soundtrack is a transcendental experience. Seriously head spinning.
Of course, such semantic sleight of hand doesn’t work in any language but English, rendering the concept inert in a global sense. But it was definitely enough to impress my drunk pals at the university pub for all of five whole minutes.
