KOTOR Countdown #1: The final hours!

Concluding a sequence of short pieces on the Knights of the Old Republic comics series, which ends Wednesday with #50.

This is it! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #50 goes on sale in stores in just a few hours.

Thanks to all the readers who’ve followed along my “KOTOR Countdown” here on the site these last few days. It’s a good way to wrap things up, and get online some of the commentaries about the series that I’d been planning to do over the years, if only time had been available. It was also fun to get to flip back through some of the issues looking for answers to your questions; there were scenes I’d forgotten about, and so much great art from the team.

We were trying to do a lot of different things, and so there are several types of moments that will stay with me. Dramatically, Brian Ching‘s depiction of Zayne and Jarael’s discussion in the rain in “Destroyer” and Dustin Weaver‘s presentation of Carth’s speech after Serroco in “Days of Fear” are among the favorites. On the humor side, Harvey Tolibao‘s depiction of a Moomo Brother trying to actually think always levels me. Plus many of the Gryph moments, from Brian’s “death-of-a-houseplant” sequence to Scott Hepburn‘s frenetic “that’s-because-it’s-a-WALL-Gryph!” shots. We’ve been gifted with great art all along; half the fun has been getting the issues to see how everyone’s improved on my ideas.

I’d like to say a few words as well about colorist Michael Atiyeh and letterer Michael Heisler, as well. The Michaels have worked on almost every issue of the series, and you can tell — there’s a consistency that’s there in every story. You can see the role of color in issues like #49, where we’ve got a space action sequence in three different ships at once; the color really contributes to the sequence. And I love that Michael Heisler was able to harvest some of the sound effects we used in earlier issues when we wanted to give a scene a familiar feel — as well as negotiate some of our wordier passages. (Best news for M.H.: Loquacious Lord Adasca is still dead!)

And thanks again to our wonderful editors at Dark Horse over the years — Dave Marshall, Freddye Lins, Randy Stradley, and Jeremy Barlow — and, certainly, everyone at Lucasfilm for their guidance and support. As creative experiences go, this has been spectacular.

So be sure to hit the comics shop on Wednesday— and head back here to share your thoughts. My hope is that as we move toward the Star Wars: Knight Errant comics and novel, I’ll get a chance to hit the blog more often than I have in recent years. (Certainly not as much as this week, but anything’s an improvement!)

See you tomorrow!

View all the countdown posts!