I'm going to start by apologizing, for being too lazy to get the exact quote which spurred on the rant we're getting into here. I would barely do it when I was coding all the pages myself, when money was involved, etc. Suffice it to say you're going to have to trust me, and go for yourself to www.warrenellis.com, and discover where he talked about Star Wars comics in relation to the failings of the industry.

The quote, once you find it, (and you should be reading all those essays anyway, they build character) says something like, "Putting Star Wars on something is like a license to print money. So why aren't Star Wars comics selling like crazy?" I know full well that's not exactly what he said, but that's what I got out of it, and it started me thinking.

You see, children, if you know anything about me, you should know I am a very devoted Star Wars fan, stemming from the root "fanatic." In 1977, when A New Hope was released, my mother was so enraptured by George Lucas' space opera that she took her four year old son, soon to be taken from her to live in Memphis, to see the film forty times in theatres. Over the course of the next twenty-four years, that ghetto bastard (yours truly) would see that film more than seven hundred times. I'm such a fan, I've even seen Phantom Menace more than twenty times, six of which were in theatres. That's the sort of deep bond that this mythos created within a certain kind of person born in my generation. It's kind of sick, but hey, we love it.

So, with such a deeply psychotic fan base entrenched across hundreds of countries, one already known to have a sizeable amount of disposable income and a voracious hunger for information, even that we know could be tossed out as "non-canon" by an absent gesture from the Lord of Skywalker Ranch...why are there not literally billions being raked in by the comic book arm of the Star Wars empire?

The reasons are several, some of which are larger industry issues and some of which are really just Dark Horse dropping the ball. Now, let's first say that this is in no way an indictment of Dark Horse, a fine, fine company which saved Grendel from the ashes of Comico, which handles licensed properties like Buffy with aplomb and dignity, and which provides a home for properties that would quite possibly not be seen otherwise (Hellboy, Ghost, etc.). But even I must admit, even the truly brilliant make mistakes. Ask me one day about the woman I almost married, and I'll prove it.

Anyway, the industry issues are familiar. Can anybody point me to place— outside of a comics Web site, an issue of Previews or a comic book specialty store—that will show me a way to find out what's up in Star Wars comics? If so, you can get a special prize from yours truly. Anybody? Oh, and Dark Horse employees don't count...

Thought not.

Maybe once in a while a Star Wars fan mag will have an ad—I think the gorgeous Darth Maul mini got one—but normally youÕre just screwed if you're not already well acquainted with the ins and outs of comics consumerism. Which is bad news, of course, for all those little Anakin wannabes. So you can't know there are Star Wars comics coming outÉand if you somehow find out they do exist, where's your nearest comics store? For people, in some states, it's quite a drive. Again, those kids just getting into the franchise are ska-rewed. All around bad and all around indicative of the problems facing the comics industry as a whole.

Next up are Dark Horse's specific issues. Let's start with scattershot quality: for every crisp, enjoyable Darth Maul prequel you get, there's Star Wars: Starcrash (a sloppy, pointless story that is so peripheral to the Star Wars universe that it could have been a bad issue of Scion). For every Star Wars: Jedi Council - Acts of War (whupass lightsaber swingin' fun), you're gonna get something as muddled and confusing as Infinity's End. There's no real standard of quality for the books to measure up to, so when you start having fun (Emissaries to Malastare) you get whopped upside the head by something that's a vastly more challenging read (Star Wars: Twilight), at least in terms of familiarity. Sometimes you want new characters, and sometimes you want to see what you know (such as the very fun Star Wars: Underworld). In Star Wars, the books that worked best had characters we knew—Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Boba Fett, Yoda, etc.—in conjunction with new characters who knew when to step aside. The best Star Wars comic is Star Wars Tales, and who knows when the heck that'll be on the stands. ItÕs regular, but somehow not regular enough to be reliable.

Then there's the art. Most of the backgrounds in Twilight were washed out and indistinct. The portrayals of Quinlan Vos in Infinity's End, as well as those of the "witches" he fought, were plain awful. Then again, every second of Jedi action in Acts of War rocked the party. Again, you find no clear standard for quality, and that's a longstanding way to lose regular readers.

So, overall...we've somehow failed to capture the magic of the Star Wars myth on the printed page the way even the Marvel forebears did in those heady days of the 70s and 80s. How can we make it work? Thoughts on that next time...right before I smash open that tired and overused cliche of "chosen ones."

Until then -- be good, children, or I'll eviscerate you all.