Butler to Write for Star Wars Tales #21
(source: starwarsfanworks.com, 05-11-04)

We've had to sit on this one since early March, but we can finally announce it . . .

Keep your eyes on the stands and the comic book shops in late September (or early October) for Star Wars Tales #21. Fans of Star Wars fan audio will recognize a familiar name in the comic's credits. The issue, part of a new, revised Tales run under the new series editor, Associate Editor Jeremy Barlow, who is taking over for Dave Land, will feature a story entitled Equals and Opposites.

Equals and Opposities, written by Star Wars Fanworks founder Nathan P. Butler, will feature the first individual Star Wars story, outside of those releases that were part of the Dark Forces line (the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight video game series and the Dark Forces graphic novels by William C. Dietz), to star longtime Star Wars fan favorites Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors. The tale will take place just after Force Heretic: Remnant and put the two oft-forgotten heroes on the small Imperial Remnant world of Ord Sedra, facing off with Yuuzhan Vong and Peace Brigade slavers.

Butler has previously appeared as an interview subject in Will Brooker's Star Wars study Using the Force (Continuum, 2002), received an acknowledgement from writer Dan Wallace in The New Essential Guide to Character (Del Rey, 2002), and had the Rebel agent character in Empire: What Sin Loyalty, who went unnamed in the comic but named in the script, named after him ("Krono" Relt for "ChronoRadio").

In fandom, Butler has been the creator and compiler of the Star Wars Timeline Project (since 1997), host of ChronoRadio (since 2002), writer of Second Strike (2002 - 2003), series creator and writer of five episodes of Star Wars: Anthology (since 2003), and has had voice roles in various fan audio and fan film productions. He is also the founder of Star Wars Fanworks. Butler also picked up Best Writer for an Audio Drama awards in both the Fan Audio Academy Awards and People's Choice Awards this past year, and his Dreamscape won the 2003 TFN Fan Films Scriptwriting Contest.

In being given this invitation to write for a licensed Star Wars product, Butler joins a small group of fans to have been pulled from fan production genres to do so, including Troops creator Kevin Rubio, Ryan vs. Dorkman co-creator Ryan Wieber, Bounty Trail creator Justin Dix, and Planet Guide compiler Dan Wallace.

More details will follow in June's ChronoRadio #15, including information about a forthcoming ChronoRadio: Special Edition that will follow the story's creative process. At present, the final script has been written by Butler and approved by Dark Horse, LucasArts, and Lucasfilm. It now goes to artist James Raiz (Dreamwave's Transformers: Armada, DC/Wildstorm's Tokyo Storm Warning) for the next step in the creative process.

Who would've thought that a rant about Dark Horse's Star Wars problems in early 2003 would bear this kind of fruit?