DrunkWooky's Star Wars Report for 06/09/2017

Hey, CHU, it’s DrunkWooky here with your monthly HoloNet update from around the galaxy!
I figured I would give top billing to an upcoming publication that has flown under the radar so far. Since, the Star Wars publishing rights reverted back to Disney and therefore Marvel back in 2015, everybody who has wanted to know has been well aware of every new title coming from the lumbering juggernaut that is Marvel’s PR machine.
Marvel’s juggernaut, except the one exception to this rule would probably be IDW’s licensed material. So far they’ve published artifact editions with original art scans:

and Micro Comic Collector Packs reprinting the 1977 volume adaptations of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. These were decently cool packs with 3-d glasses, 3-d posters, and all-sorts inside.

I posted a story almost exactly a year ago about the ability to see through these packs to get yourself a coveted Boba Fett first appearance.
Well, IDW announced on April 14, 2017 at the LUCASFILM Publishing Panel at Star Wars Celebration Orlando that Disney Licensed Publishing, an imprint of Disney Book Group, LLC, granted IDW the license to publish new all-ages comic books.
That’s right, IDW has been granted a license to produce new Star Wars content at an all-ages level. The upcoming book is called Star Wars Adventures and appears to be along the same lines as Dark Horse’s Star Wars Tales except all-ages. Issues of Star Wars Adventures are going to be anthology format and contain a mix of canon and “in-universe legends”. Again, this is much like Star Wars Tales where the door was left cracked open for stories to be later canonized.

Star Wars Adventures #1
Our friends at Jedi-Bibliothek, citing several sources including the Comics with Kenobi Podcast, and IDW Editor Chris Ryall reported today that the series will begin September 2017.
Now, as I stated before, because these IDW Star Wars books have gone relatively unnoticed compared to their Marvel counterparts, there could be spec value here. This is an all-ages anthology, from the lesser known Star Wars licensee. I suspect these will be under ordered and orders will take a while to catch up with demand. Nothing inherently spec-worthy, but there is potential down the road. If a character first appears or some other notable in-canon event first occurs in this book, it will be much lower print than the current stream of Marvel content coming out.
At $3.99, I’d bet on this book.
Below are some as-yet-unidentified variant images for the series. According to IDW, variants are going to be kept to a minimum in contrast to what’s happening over at the House of (yesterday’s) Ideas.

by Chris Samnee

by Eric Jones
We have Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Captain Phasma, coming September 6, 2017

A couple things are going on here. First, Checchetto, who is currently drawing the beautifully moody Screaming Citadel story Arc across Star Wars and Doctor Aphra series is on this “Journey To..” book much like the last one, Shattered Empire. Next, I think these Journey to books are playing the long pay off game. Shattered Empire showed us mama and papa Dameron and their children playing under a force sensitive tree. Will we get more revelations surrounding that as the new movie universe era opens up? If these Journey to books pay off speculatively, expect it to be long down the road and don’t count on big returns.
Star Wars: Droids Unplugged #1 is coming June 28, 2017

This shouldn’t have much spec value at all. This will be a reprinting of a number of droid-centric back up stories that you may remember from Marvel issues past. Unless Star Wars completists (like your resident Wooky here) make a run on this book and it is severely underprinted, don’t expect much in value gain here. Michael Allred has a bad ass cover for your money, though!

Darth Maul #4 gets a variant from CHU favorite artist Francesco Francavilla on June 21, 2017

Charretier, Nakayama, and Zdarksy also have #4 variants:



And finally, love is in the air with this sweet Darth Vader (vol. 2) Issue #2 variant by Del Mundo out June 21, 2017.

Until next time, CHU.
DrunkWooky out!