February 2021 - schedule

[colls]

Welcome to our first official month of swbookclub!!!

Thank you for joining and I hope this is a fun way to read some Star Wars material along with other fans.


As announced, our first Book of the Month is Queen's Shadow by E.K. Johnston

We'll have 4 read-along discussion posts spread through February starting next weekend. Each post will be about approximately 1/4 of the book - so beware if you get ahead/fall behind.

Feb. 6/7 first 1/4 of the book
Feb. 13/14 up to first half
Feb. 20/21 up to first 3/4
Feb. 27/28 the whole thing
This is a test of the format, we'll see what works best and adjust as needed in future months.


Also on the horizon is our first Comic which will be Star Wars: Darth Vader (Vol 1-4) by Kieron Gillen. We'll tackle one volume of the comic every 2-3 weeks. Expect our first discussion post to be in approximately 3 weeks from today. Thank you to justanorthernlight, pedanther & orangerful for the input.

FYI - Once we get a rhythm down, I'll be soliciting input for future books/comics (just so you don't think I plan to always do the choosing).

Please feel free to invite your friends and promote the comm. And if you have ANY questions, please don't hesitate to ask!!
Happy reading!!

Comments

[brokenmnemonic]

I'm going to be running a little behind with the novel I'm afraid - it's not available in ebook in my region, so I've ordered a hard copy, but it's going to take a week or so to get here.

I recently read the first four or so volumes of Vader, so I'm ahead of the game there :) Will we be reading the Star Wars issues that go with the Vader issues to make up the Vader Down crossover? And should we include the Annuals that were released and are not a part of the main run, but feature background events? (Vader Annuals 1 and 2, I think it is).

[colls]

Thankfully it's not a long book, so hopefully you'll be able to catch up swiftly?

Are you talking about the 'Vader Down' trio referenced in the wiki page I linked? I wondered about those and thought we could drop them in as optional. They're not in the bundle I got from comiXology and they seem separated on amazon, but the goodreads series shows it as 'Book 2.5'.
Maybe I could do a poll/comment thing with the first post and see what folks want to do.
What are your thoughts?

[brokenmnemonic]

I started reading the comics because Doctor Aphra was recommended to me, but it took a bit of pre-reading to keep the narratives straight, so I was given a handy summary of the reading order of the comics running up to (and crossing over with) Doctor Aphra.

The reading list I was given was:

Darth Vader #1-12
Vader Down One-shot
Darth Vader #13
Star Wars #13
Keep alternating Darth Vader and Star Wars issues through to issue 19 of each

Doctor Aphra didn't get her own comic until (I think) just after Darth Vader #24 and Star Wars #24, although after Doctor Aphra #6, there's a crossover with Star Wars that starts with the Screaming Citadel One-shot, followed by Star Wars #31, Doctor Aphra #7, etc, up until the end of Doctor Aphra #9.

The two Darth Vader Annuals are an ok read, and I think the first one is used to flesh out the background behind a secondary character who appears in the Vader comic, but I read them out of sequence and didn't feel I'd missed a huge amount.

So, as best as I can work out, if we want to read the stories as they came out, with the crossovers in the right places, the reading order would be something like:

Darth Vader Vols 1-2
Star Wars Vols 1-2
Vader Down crossover

And then there are no crossovers to worry about until after Darth Vader Vol 4 has finished, so Darth Vader Vols 3-4 can be read.

I think narratively, Doctor Aphra is more closely linked to the Darth Vader run, although it's more his impact her storyline than the other way around (there's an ongoing plot point in Doctor Aphra about how she comes tohave to work for Vader, knowing that he's going to kill her anyway, because of what she's learned about him - but she learns what she learns about him via her role as a secondary character in the Darth Vader comics).

[colls]

Interesting. this highlights is why comics are hard and I think I've just given up in the past - LOL
Thank you for the input as I did want this to be a place where people could discuss the different ways they've approached all the SW material that's out there and help guide some of us comics-newbies on suggestions for personal reading.

Since we've already worked out which volumes we'll tackle for the first couple read-alongs (FAQ post where we were sorting it initially), rather than add some issues from other volumes in the middle, I think it makes most sense to note/suggest them as we discuss and people can supplement with added material before we get to Doctor Aphra (assuming that's their goal).

I'm not sure I know where to slot them in otherwise for a read-along structure like this without taking a lot of time to work through one storyline goal. Some people might not be interested in a particular storyline, so moving to different storylines helps keep this place more accessible. And people who are interested, can dive in. (I may be one of them, as I'm interested in getting to Doctor Aphra)

[brokenmnemonic]

Of the Star Wars comics I've read so far since Marvel took over the Star Wars licences, Doctor Aphra was the one I've enjoyed the most. She's kind of a terrible person. Well, actually, she's definitely a terrible person. But she also does things that are occasionally good? And her compulsion to seek out archaeology is understandable, and she's very consistently written. It helps that two amazing murderdroids are regulars in the series and are evil and terrible and hilarious all at the same time.

I think I'd be happy to read the Star Wars and Poe Dameron series as standalones, but Vader and Aphra definitely worked for me as a parallel read. I'm going to check to see how many of the Star Wars titles are on Marvel Unlimited - those that aren't, I may have to wait for Comixology sales to get.