Star Wars: The Comics Companion
by Ryder Windham and Daniel Wallace

Whether you know who Quinlan Vos, Ulic Qel-Droma, or Lt. Janek Sunber are or not, fans of Star Wars comics have cause to celebrate. This hefty 144-page volume, which retails for $19.95, is due in stores today, and should serve to catch readers up on fifteen years of Star Wars tales and adventures.

Organized chronologically, The Comics Companion, examines each series published by Dark Horse comics since 1991's Dark Empire, providing a brief (and sometimes quite detailed) synopsis of the events of that series. They also provide the creators of the series, with cover artists (usually for the collected edition, or trade paperback only), the original issues that the collection was derived from with publication dates, the major characters, locations and a note on the timeline. As necessary, or events warrant it, there are also Continuity Notes scattered throughout. These provide insight on events that may take place in other media (like characters from novels appearing or the crossover with a video game) or demonstrate apocryphal events that have been contradicted by later films (such as Boba Fett having been a stormtrooper).

Daniel Wallace (The New Essential Chronology, The New Essential Guide to Droids) and Ryder Windham (The Ultimate Visual Guide, Droids: The Kalabara Adventures) are no strangers to the Star Wars Universe either. Having helped chronicle the Expanded Universe separately over the last decade, they have their share of familiarity with the timeline and characters. They manage to condense close to 800 comic books (that's approximately 17,600 pages of comic material) into concise, easy-to-read, synopses that will inform or remind readers of a particular storyline.

But this book is not all boring text. No! It's about comics, and comics are about art. Hundreds of images culled from the aforementioned tens of thousands of pages grace the text. Panels, splash pages and cover shots reflect the issues being described. Unfortunately there cannot be more art, but the art that is represented is a great sampling of the long list of artists to work on the Star Wars titles. Examples include Darth Maul by Jan Duursema, Killian Plunkett's Droids, or Boba Fett by Cam Kennedy, just to name a few. Fans still hungry for more of the Dark Horse Star Wars comic art, should check out Star Wars Panel to Panel (Dark Horse Books, 2004).

The book is divided into seven chronological sections that match up with Lucasfilms publishing timeline. These include The Old Republic Era, The Rise of the Empire Era, The Rebellion Era, The New Republic Era, The New Jedi Order Era, and then Manga Editions and Anthologies. All of the sections are pretty self-explanatory from the standpoint of a collected set of stories, with Anthologies holding the Marvel reprints, Star Wars Tales and the Infinities line (all of which are considered "non-canonical").

Initial advertised as a June 2005 release, fans on the Dark Horse message boards have been waiting a long time for this book, speculating what information was to be contained, or omitted. Granted this is published by Dark Horse, and it contains nearly ever comic published, there are some omissions that are noticeable. The Ewok and Droids series published by Marvel comics (and yet to be reprinted by Dark Horse) don't receive even a footnote, River of Chaos (1995), Tales from Mos Eisley, Devilworlds & "This Crumb for Hire" (1996), The Dark Forces Trilogy (Graphic Story Albums - 1997, 1998, 1999), The Jabba Tape (1998), "Walkabout" (1999), Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan - Last Stand on Ord Mantell (2000) and Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan - The Aurorient Express (2002), Jedi Quest (2001), Starfighter - Crossbones (2002), A Valentine's Story (2003), the Dark Horse Extra strips & Tag & Bink Are Dead (2001) are not included. Obviously a conscious decision was made to contain this volume to Trade Paperbacks that were available and will remain available for people wishing to discover these comics for the first time.

As a fan of the comics, I feel this is a disservice to the handful of titles that were omitted. The issues listed above would constitute a minor addition to the book, adding several pages at most, and would serve fans with synopses of hard-to-find stories. Surprisingly the one Rogue Squadron adventure that has never been printed in trade paperback form, "The Rebel Opposition" appears here with a note that it has not been collected. That's the sort of extra step that would make this already great volume, truly special.

Not to make it seem as if the omissions detract from the overall flavor of the book, as only a seasoned and avid reader would notice them, The Comics Companion is must have reference for readers that need an easy to grasp encyclopedia of the comic Expanded Universe. Start checking your local comic book stores, brick and mortar book stores or you can order it directly from Amazon.com.

Fans wishing to find out more about a particular individual comic issue (including non-collected issues), be sure to visit Rebelscum.com's Jedi Journals.