KOTOR Countdown #8: Fandom-palooza!

Continuing a sequence of short pieces on the Knights of the Old Republic comics series, which ends Wednesday with #50. More reader Q-and-A coming tonight — and you can still ask questions, by posting here)…

One of the fun things about writing Knights of the Old Republic was the impression it had on many readers, inspiring them to create things on their own. It was entirely a new experience for me to see readers creating costumes, action figures, and fan art based on characters from my stories.

It was a rare thing in the beginning. There were two Jaraels and a “Dark Lucien” at Star Wars Celebration IV — and I wondered how many people in the hall knew who they were portraying. It’ll be interesting to see Celebration V this year in Orlando, and what’s happened to the number of KOTOR costumers. 

The wildest thing without a doubt was Tim Brown‘s Gryph muppet, from 2009’s Midsouthcon. Not only did I do a partial reading of “Labor Pains” with a puppeteer acting out Gryph’s role, but the Gryph puppet came home with me. He now sits atop one of the bookcases in my library, scaring my daughter. (Gryph, not Tim!)

Zayne and Jarael’s fans are a committed bunch. Nicki and Traci made their own Zayne-and-Jarael shirts — and said they considered making shirts with Shel’s face crossed out. (Poor Shel…) And Nicki recently named her cats Zayne and Jarael…

And SithFire30 created a whole bunch of hand-crafted KOTOR action figures, including Rohlan, seen here…
 

This is just a sampling of some of the images I had on file; there are many more I wasn’t able to find. But I really do appreciate all the effort people have gone to on behalf of the series. Hopefully, I’ll have some new springboards for folks in my next series!

View all the countdown posts!