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Canons Fired - 00001 - HD
🕑 Added 2021-08-31 03:00:01 +0000 UTCNERRRRRRRRDs
Commentary
Carp. I didn't have either of them say their name. Okay, you probably know this, but no-glasses man is Justin, and glasses-man is Luke. Cool? Cool
Speaking of names, even if I actually do know the person's name, that's me in the last panel. I worry about getting names wrong and/or mixing people up, and it's not without merit, as I've done both more than I'd care to admit. The thing is I can be very certain and genuinely correct, and I'll still prefer to double check.
Justin's not like me in that regard, however. He's just genuinely forgotten.
Tedd might double-check, though.
WHAT BOOKS?!
There are a few reasons they're not being specific.
First, it's not actually relevant what books they're talking about.
Secondly, what they're discussing is inspired by the Star Wars expanded universe. Due to talking about what order to watch the "six" Star Wars movies in, EGS has canonically established a lack of a sequel trilogy to talk about.
Given that the sequel trilogy rendered the expanded-universe non-canon, I felt it best to just not get directly into it, as it introduces timeline concerns, and I would like this storyline to work within established EGS canon.
It's not super important in the grand scheme of things that it be canon, but I like having short storylines like this fit in the canon. I also like showing Justin and Luke disagree on something geeky without it being a catastrophic threat to their relationship or something.
I guess that's a minor spoiler, but no, this doesn't end with them becoming sworn enemies.
Thirdly, I haven't read all the books I'm using as a basis for their debate. If I were more specific, it might be unfair.
The inspiration for Justin's position was my learning of events in books past a certain point, resulting in me saying "NOPE" to reading past that point. For all I know, it's not as bad as I've assumed.
Thrawntastic
Were I being more specific, the author Justin was looking up would be Timothy Zahn, and the revitalization Justin referenced would be the original Thrawn Trilogy. Thrawn is such a big deal that they added a new version of him to the new official canon, and he's basically why I've read two of the more recent books.
The 2017 Thrawn book, also by Timothy Zahn, was excellent in my opinion, and features another character whose journey is equally fascinating and terrifying.
The other one I read was Outbound Flight (yet again by Zahn), which I was less into, but it was still interesting. It just wasn't as much for me. If I remember correctly, this was in large part due to it getting into some of the ways the Jedi order was creepy, and me being creeped out by said creepiness.
The "last book" Justin referred to would be the second book of The Hand of Thrawn duology. It is my understanding that Zahn had story conditions that had to be agreed to before he'd write it (which I will not elaborate on, because they're major spoilers), and wasn't happy with where things eventually went from there.
But That's Just Trivia
Again, none of this actually matters for this storyline. They could be arguing about whether Season Four of the TV Show Community counts, and it would be pretty much the same (except Justin would be looking up show creator Dan Harmon in the last panel, and yes, I double-checked that name even though I was sure about it).
Comments
Based on the numbering, it looks like we should expect between 10,000 and 100,000 comics in this arc ;)
Michael Chui
And honestly, that's better. One of the things I've thought about saying if I ever actually published multiple novels in the same universe is that none of them are canon but all of them are true. I.e., don't pore over them looking for trivia. There should be an encyclopedia for that kind of thing, or appendices. Like with Tolkien. The names of the four hobbits are wrong. They're deliberately wrong. You find out in the appendix, because no one actually cares and it makes for a better story if it's wrong. It's one thing if your goal is building a universe, but if your goal is telling a story, then tell the story and damn the canonized timeline. Otherwise you get Zelda.
Harmony Petersen
I'm not sure if you're talking in the Shiverse or if you're talking irl. IRL, Star Wars was 3 movies before it was ever books (although scripts were written, six in total). Then the rights were loaned out to authors who made a bajillion books under the restriction that they only covered the future and the distant, distant past as the prequals were already conceptualized. Then a demonic mouse intent on owning all ideas in the world threw massive amounts of money at the original author telling him it could go to charity in order to buy the series. The author, trying to be a decent person, did so under the good-faith agreement that the mouse follow the script outlines for the next three movies that were planned. The mouse promptly ignored the following scripts which expanded an intensified and deeped the story, and created new plots that ignored existing canon and amounted to little more than a soft reboot with much worse writing and pacing.
Some Ed
I am feeling so confused about this. Star Wars was a bunch of books, which were made into three movies. The movies covered basically the middle of the set of books that were initially released. There were more books written later, but no more movies. If I recall correctly, there were nine books in the first set, but they weren't put out as a sequence of trilogies. It was just nine books, right? Anyway, I'm tired and I should probably just go to sleep rather than thinking about this. G'night all.
Some Ed
I'm reminded of my introduction to {redacted work not relevant to the tale}. I started reading other works by the author of a web comic I'd recently found. The first I encountered was a fairly impressive series of novella-length posts. It was an engaging story, so didn't take too much to get through all 68 or so of them. I then went to the associated podcast. I'm not sure how many podcasts I listened to before I figured out, actually, the stories I read were all slash fiction, and the podcast was the original source. I'd had the impression that slash fiction was similar to porn, but this was almost entirely just sexual tension, and when it finally climaxed, there was no description of the act, as if it'd been written by a lesbian with no actual interest in imagining naked men, just thought the idea of men in a happy, supportive relationship was really neat - just not as interesting as them encountering all sorts of unimaginable problems before getting there.
Latency
Interesting tidbit about the "canon" of the star wars expanded universe is that every book that was accepted for publication under the official Star Wars logo was considered to be canon, even if they contradicted each other. It's similar to the way that the old Dragonlance series was more or less handled. This leads to several situations where there are direct contradictions between books but apparently it's all true :) Or at least it was until Disney
John Trauger
If it's a movie or TV show, books are never canon until and unless incorporated into a later movie or TV season. I also reserve the right to de-canonize *anything* sufficiently poor or otherwise shark-jumping.
Rachel Greenham
There is no canon after Alan Dean Foster. PAY HIM YOU CHEAPSKATES! (not you, Disney, but you know that...)
Narzain
I agree, Zahn's original trilogy was magnificent. It was the sequel trilogy Lucas didn't need to film.
Damian
Timothy Zhan?
Applestone
If it hadn't been about books, I would've assumed it was about Game of Thrones. :-)
Harmony Petersen
"...EGS has canonically established a lack of a sequel trilogy to talk about." You are the hero we wanted, and the hero we needed.
Foradain
Well, it was being talked and twitted about a bit since last November. Last I heard was that the Mouse's people were actually talking seriously about paying what was owed to Alan Dean Foster.
AstroChaos
Wow... Kudos for that nerdtastic reference!
The first three book series that came to mind as possibilities before reading the commentary were Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (really enjoyed Eoin Colfer’s sequel), the James Bond series, and, oddly, Boxcar Children. (I didn’t even think about Star Wars because I haven’t even seen half of the movies, let alone the EU. But in retrospect, of course it is.)
Kenneth A Graves
Wait, there were Star Wars novels after A Splinter of the Mind's Eye?
Cyrus
The EU is de facto better than the crappy Disney timeline anyways.
