Forum:SH:New Spanish Droids and Ewoks comics

Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:New Spanish Droids and Ewoks comics

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Advanced Jedi Training Droid 6 (Talk to my master) 00:34, June 18, 2013 (UTC)

Hey everyone,

Abel G. Peña has recently translated some old and obscure Droids and Ewoks comics that were published exclusively in Spanish in the eighties. He's going to make them available for download soon, and it looks like it'll be a totally OK download thing, too, as Rich Handley will be writing an article on sw.com about the whole thing.

In this TFN thread, Eddie van der Heijden --- who also played a role in the translation project --- states "Lucasfilm has no records of these being licensed, so Dark Horse will not reprint them..."

Since they're apparently unlicensed, are we cool with including info from them in our articles under an ambiguously canon tag? Like what we do with the Challenge and Polyhedron material? Menkooroo (talk) 00:50, March 26, 2013 (UTC)

  • Seems like the right thing to do to me.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 01:04, March 26, 2013 (UTC)
    • I'd say go for it, Abel Pena is freaking awesome.—Jedi Kasra ("Indeed.") 16:41, March 26, 2013 (UTC)
      • I'm excited to read these! Yeah, it makes sense to treat them as ambiguously canonical until some official document can be procured. ~SavageBOB sig 19:13, March 26, 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ And this is where I have to pick an ancient bone with you guys. I frankly don't understand the concept of "unlicensed source == ambiguous canon" at all. Put simply: If a source was not licensed by Lucasfilm, then that means somebody wrote it simply because they (or perhaps their boss) happened to be a Star Wars fan and/or wanted to write their own story set in the Star Wars universe. Which leads me to the key question: Exactly what is the difference between that and this? The answer: nothing! Unlicensed source == fan fiction, and we explicitly do not include fan fiction. As far as I'm concerned, ALL unlicensed sources should be required to comply with the fan project notability policy, with all of the rules thereof, including the limit of one article per project iff the project is actually notable. Can someone please explain to me why we do this the way we do now????? —MJ— Training Room 05:27, March 27, 2013 (UTC)

  • Because no one listened to me. :-p Seriously, I think the thrust of the other side's argument was that Leland Chee, regarding some of the ambig RPG magazine articles that make up most of our ambig pages, said that he could find no evidence they were officially licensed; ambig proponents took this as a failing of early LFL's record keeping or his research ability, rather than as conclusive proof that they were actually unlicensed. That said, I'd say any work that was published in a for-profit publication should count as having "mainstream recognition" for our purposes. Moreover, in the case of these specific comics, being presented in a blog on The Official Site might make them genuinely ambiguous; heck, they might wind up as canon if Leland vets them for the blog and puts the newfound info into the Holocron. jSarek (talk) 06:20, March 27, 2013 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I think it depends on the attitude of LFL to the ambiguous source. In the case of a random fanfic online, there is likely to be no recognition whatsoever, and we ignore it. In the case of Polyhedron and the other RPG magazines, I probably would have voted to reject material from them way back when. But nowadays, they have impacted canon in that planets (or systems named after planets) in them are included in the index of The Essential Atlas. And these Droids/Ewoks comics are going to be given an "official" release of sorts on the official Star Wars site soon, it seems. These official nods of recognition put these sources into a different level of notability in my opinion, keeping them from falling to the pits of most fan fiction. (For what it's worth, I highly suspect the Droids and Ewoks comics must have been licensed, but that's just my hunch.) ~SavageBOB sig 11:01, March 27, 2013 (UTC)
      • And according to Abel, the issue isn't as cut-and-dry as it might have at first seemed, with "strong circumstantial evidence" of licensing. jSarek (talk) 05:27, March 28, 2013 (UTC)
  • And they've arrived! Check out Rich Handley's article here, and download PDFs of the Droids and Ewoks comics here or here. Time for us to get crackin' on making new articles and updating old ones. Some FAs, such as Tig Fromm and Kea Moll, will need to be updated.

    A few things to figure out --- should we treat each two-page comic as an individual appearance? For example, in the case of the Droids comics, make separate articles for Neutralizing the Trigon I, Kea Kidnapped, etc? I think that's best, since they're treated as different stories that take place in different parts of the timeline (some of the Droids comics feature Thall, Jord, and Kea, while others feature Jann Tosh).

    Speaking of the timeline --- let's figure out when they take place. It seems to me that the first three Droids comics should be slotted in between Escape Into Terror and The Trigon Unleashed, since the heroes know about the Trigon One but haven't yet destroyed it. #4 and #5 could conceivably take place between just about any two of the Jann Tosh episodes. #6 sees them return to visit Kea Moll, and since they don't have a Master, it must take place in between the Jann Tosh arc and the Mungo arc. Ditto #7. Since Mungo hasn't acquired them yet, it must also be before they're dropped off at the hotel on the planet Manda (see this for an explanation of what that means). I'll ask Green Tentacle if he has any wisdom on the matter. Bob, what say you on the Ewoks comics? Menkooroo (talk) 23:36, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
    • As regards your first question, I already created a page for the two-pager Princess Kneesaa's Birthday. In its current state, the article looks rather clumsy and heavy-handed, and this may not be the way we'll end up treating these stories, but I decided to give it a try a few hours ago. --LelalMekha (talk) 23:43, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
      • Looks good. Save for the Behind the scenes section, of course. ;) For shame! Menkooroo (talk) 23:50, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
        • Oops. Mea maxima culpa. By instinct, I followed the old system that existed before that CT was accepted. But I'm too tired to amend it tonight. I shall attend to it tomorrow. --LelalMekha (talk) 23:56, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
      • Hey, guys! I haven't had a chance to read through all the "new" comics yet, but I'd argue the Ewoks ones should probably go before the animated cartoon since Morag is still alive. In fact, it might be a good idea to slot all the Ewoks comics (both Spanish and English) before the TV show, since Morag shows up in them. Whether to put the English ones first or the Spanish ones first in Appearances lists is a crapshoot. I'd put English first just because they began publishing earlier. I'll chip in again once I have a chance to read more of them. :) ~SavageBOB sig 00:30, April 11, 2013 (UTC)
      • Uh, so that took 10 minutes. :P
      • As for the Droids ones:
        • Neutralizing Trigon I can't fit in anywhere that I can see. Thall doesn't even find out about Trigon 1's existence until after he's attacked during Escape Into Terror. He sleeps off the attack and the next morning sneaks aboard Sise's ship back to Ingo to steal the Trigon 1. When Tig gets it back in The Trigon Unleashed Thall's being held captive at Sise's stronghold and the ship's destroyed before Tig gets it back there.
        • Kea Kidnapped could only fit in between Escape Into Terror and The Trigon Unleashed since the Trigon 1's been stolen at this point. Jord was still on Annoo at the end of Escape Into Terror while Thall and Kea were aboard the Trigon. The Trigon Unleashed starts with Jord still on Annoo and Thall and Kea on Ingo with the Trigon, but they could conceivably have all met up in between. The Fromms evidently aren't very imaginative; they try to get the Trigon by kidnapping Kea and when that doesn't work they kidnap Jord and Demma.
        • The Stolen Ship doesn't relate to any of the episodes other than Vlix's appearance, which would suggest before he got turned over to Jabba. Rich Handley says it's Thall's hotrod, but I can't see anything in the comic to indicate that and 3PO seems to suggest they haven't got a master at the time.
        • Sabotaged Droid and Troublesome Outing could fit in between any of the Jann Tosh episodes like Menk said, or even after since he took the droids with him when he left. I'm guessing it's a different Koong. And Tosh was off to a fancy dress party. Had they ever actually seen the cartoon?
        • The Secret Disk could be between any of the arcs or after the whole series. It only couldn't be before the series because of Kea being in it. Wherever it goes it would be the first indication that the Fromms somehow got away from Jabba.
        • The Cloud could also go anywhere where they don't have a master, so between any arc or before or after the series. Green Tentacle (Talk) 21:18, April 11, 2013 (UTC)
          • Abel also had this to say:

            There’s some question here as to whether the events depicted in the first two Spanish Droids comics must be considered alternate retellings of events in Droids series TV episodes (in the tradition of the children's book adaptation Escape From the Monster Ship: A Droid Adventure) or if they are simply similar but distinct events. In the cartoon, both Jord and Kea are captured by the Fromms and the Trigon is destroyed, while here only Kea is captured and the Trigon is put out of commission, but not destroyed. (And while it may be splitting hairs, the Trigon One vs. Trigon I distinction may be useful.)

            I plan to add info from these comics to both C-3PO and R2-D2, and GT, I know you'll have to do the same for Tig Fromm—how about detailing the Neutralizing Trigon I stuff during the events of Escape into Terror? That may be our best bet. With ambig tags around it and a BTS note about Abel's suggestion of it being a retelling, readers will get the picture. The Stolen Ship --- how about between the Thall Joben arc and the Jann Tosh arc? Vlix's presence isn't really an issue since the Fromm Gang will have ambiguously canonically escaped from Jabba anyway. The next four I'll probably slot in between the Jann Tosh arc and the Mungo arc, with a qualifier like "at some point" leading the paragraph to indicate the ambiguity. Seems like a good estimation. Sound good? Menkooroo (talk) 00:03, April 12, 2013 (UTC)