Tales of a New Republic
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Tales of a New Republic |
| Publisher: | |
| Editor(s): | Mart J. Allard |
| Date(s): | 1995-1997 |
| Series?: | |
| Medium: | |
| Size: | |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | Star Wars |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Tales of a New Republic is a gen anthology of fiction with original characters set in the Star Wars universe.
Issue 1
Tales of a New Republic 1 was published in April 1995 and contains 81 pages. It is subtitled, "Veterans."
From a flyer:
In the tradition of the "Star Wars Adventure Journal," it's a brand new galaxy out there, and suddenly lives and destinies are decided by the toss of a coin. Some people live in chaos, some people live in fear, and some people are having enough trouble just trying to live.
"Tales of the New Republic: Veterans was printed in April of 1995 by Mart's dad. Thanks a ton!"
From the editorial by Mart:
This first issue of Tales of a New Republic is called Veterans for a couple of reasons. First, because no matter where you go, no matter what you do to put distance between yourself and home, where you come from is always with you. And Star Wars is where we come from. Every writer in this Zine is a veteran. We all spent the summer of '77 sitting in a dark theater, at first alone, then as a group. Star Wars is what has bound us together. Even when we don't say it, we feel it. It's the very first layer of our friendship.
Then there are the other veterans, the ones in the stories we tell. They're people who fought and lived through the Rebellion against the Empire. It's a brand new galaxy out there, and suddenly lives and destinies are decided by the toss of a coin. Some people live in chaos, some people live in fear, and some people are having enough trouble just trying to live.
[...]
So let the veterans speak for now. There'll be plenty of time for other stories later.
The afterword by Loren Rhodes:
This was Mart's baby from the beginning. Doing a zine was her idea. Throughout the writing process, she was invaluable to all of us — always able to answer questions, willing to research (even if it meant talking to the Dark Jedi on AOL), able to provide references ("Tocneppil doesn't count...," Star Wars, page 164). She held my hand. She debated Jedi philosophy with me — and clarified a lot of things in my mind. She was supportive and enthusiastic and more help than 1 can convey, which of course inspired me to work long and hard perfecting Raena's story. I had to do it for Mart, to justify her faith in me.
You see, we weren't friends in the summer of 1977. We'd sat in an 8th grade social studies class the previous winter and were aware of each other's existence, but we didn't become friends until she shared a copy of the Star Wars novel that fall. Star Wars made us friends. It's still part of our friendship eighteen years later.
Mart's parents drove us to see Star Wars after my parents refused to let me go any more. After her parents began to balk. Mart convinced me that we didn't have to tell the truth about which movie we were going to see at the multiplex. She encouraged me to collect the trading cards — after my mother tried to convince me I didn't need to support the merchandizing single-handedly. Mart endured mock lightsaber duels in her front yard. She introduced me to my first true love. She published Raena's debut in the 1986 zine. Anthology. She supported me through my first novel.
Our friendship has survived high school, writers' club, college, four cross-country moves on her part, one on mine, collaboration on an unfinished novel, and twelve years without a new Star Wars movie. There is no one else in the world I would prefer to lie on the floor with, drinking diet coke, and passing a notebook back and forth. We already have plans to meet at a midpoint in the country to see Lucas's 20-year rerelease of A New Hope. In a way, it will mark the 20-year anniversary of our friend ship, a relationship we owe to George Lucas and Star Wars. Think of this zine as partial repayment....
- Introduction by Mart Allard (4)
- When Empires Fall by Loren Rhoads (6)
- Redemption by Loren Rhoads ("Imprisoned alive in the Emperor's own tomb, Raena Zacarias discovers that everything on which she has based her life is wrong. How can she live with that knowledge, when there's no way for her to die?") (8)
- Steal from the Rich by Mason Jones ("Reed, a master thief, is caught in a chain reaction of events in which he meets a few old friends, a well-armed new friend, and one old enemy.") (32)
- No Crime, No Time by Kelly Dwyer ("As the Empire falls around them, the Dan family discovers just how binding a blood bond can be.") (43)
- Be Yourself Tonight by Brian Thomas and Mart Allard ("A story of a couple of laser-brained spacers, a villain with a flair for snappy dialogue, and, lest we forget, tough talkin' babes." -- "...the Helles Belles mentioned in this story is a tribute to the real Helles Belles, which is the creation of Paul F. Gault. In our haste to put Tales of A New Republic: Veterans together, I forgot to give credit where credit is due. Sorry Paul, and thanks for letting us use and abuse your idea.") (64)
inside page from issue #1
inside page from issue #1
inside page from issue #1
inside page from issue #1
inside page from issue #1
Issue 2
Tales of a New Republic 2 was published in May 1996 and contains 100 pages. It has the subtitle "Recruits." The art is by Paul F. Gault, K. Russell, and Kelly Dywer.
From a flyer:
In the tradition of the "Star Wars Adventure Journal," life is still a coin toss. The New Republic has reclaimed the core of the galaxy. For the heroes of the Rebellion, the War is over and the task of building a new government has taken its place. But when the Empire fell, it shattered into a thousand pieces, all of which scattered. There are still places where beings are choosing sides.
[This issue] contains seven illustrated stories about people who fought and lived through the Rebellion against the Empire. There are some new voices in this zine, raw recruits who are taking up the cause for the first time. There are familiar voices, too. New challenges lie ahead, and veterans who thought their tours were over and their dues paid find they're starting all over again.
From the comments by Mart:
Life is still a coin toss. The New Republic has reclaimed the core of the galaxy. For the heroes of the Rebellion, the War is over and the task of building a new government has taken its place. But when the Empire fell, it shattered into a thousand pieces, all of which scattered. There are still places where beings are choosing sides.
There are some new voices in this zine, raw recruits who are taking up the cause for the first time. There are familiar voices too. New challenges lie ahead, and veterans who thought their tours were over and their dues paid find they're starting all over again.
From the comments by Brian:
Just a few thoughts, then straight into the zine. Star Wars, real Star Wars, circa 1977, as many — if not most — of us knew it, is for all intents and purposes, gone. It lives now only in our hearts, memories, and imaginations. I’m not sorry though, and I’ll tell you why. It’s time for the new generation of fans (hence this edition’s title), ones who weren’t even born when Jedi came out, who might’ve had some of us as baby-sitters. There we were, watching the “Ewok adventure” TV movies, because hey, it was Star Wars, and any fix would do. It had to.
Our first Anthology came out in 1986. Remember ‘86? Jedi was three years gone. People had taken to regarding it as a Muppet-strewn embarrassment, and you could get Kenner action figures for under a buck on close-out at Circus World. Remember? Kenner tried to boost sales by issuing the ‘Power of the Force’ series, with collector’s coins. Priced ‘em lately? ‘Yak Face’ is going for upwards of seven HUNDRED bucks. Go figure.
And something else — a lot of folks won’t admit it, but Star Wars was just plain out of fashion in 1986. Hell, even the comic books had finally (mercifully) ground to a halt. The cartoons were canceled. No fanfare. No funeral. Never mind, George Lucas had a new movie, you see, about this duck... But let’s not go there.
In time, most everyone seemed to drift away, except for that sliver of fandom that went to ground and kept the universe going. Outside the occasional summer revival, the video screen, and the dealers’ rooms, fanzines became the new realm of where the Journal of the Whills grew, line by chapter, character by event. Which brings us back to Anthology.
Along with a bare handful of other zines, we enjoyed the very uncrowded distinction of stories designed not to feature Uncle George’s already overworked main characters, but characters that grew to be as genuine as the authors who lived them.
It’s ten years later and Star Wars is about to become the biggest thing in the popular culture all over again: comics that become overpriced collectibles before they even hit the stands; more than a dozen new novels; a role-playing game of mind-boggling detail, craftsmanship, and intensity; and CD-ROM games that make the Falcon’s holo chess set look like a bunch of rubber stop-motion aliens. And after 10 years, our original Anthology gang is still at it. We never went away....
Next year, the original films come back bigger and better than ever, with new state of the art SFX and sound. But it won’t be our Star Wars. That one still lives in the theaters and drive-ins of that summer in ‘77. There Aunt Beru still has her voice, stormtroopers wish they hadn’t yelled “close the blast doors,” and a some of us just know they saw that scene with Luke and Biggs.
You can get still go back ‘77, ‘80 or ‘83. It’s never too late. Just turn the page.
The afterward by Kelly:
Star Wars is a retelling of a mythos so deeply ingrained in human life that it is instantly recognizable. We've all been alone in one way or another, waiting for those droids to come into our lives. We've all had someone open our minds to the bigger picture, prove to us that we can be more, see more, do more, live more. And we've all had betrayal, loss, and maturity sneak up on us and hit us with everything it has. We've all tuned a nice little story into a part of our lives. A part, I'm sure, I couldn't do without.
Without it I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have the most important things in my life: my friends.
It was all quite innocent, really, my first convention — a brand new world, and me without a parachute. I was there to see a comic book writer and I met them. I got sucked into a game of 'Kidnap the Admiral' and one of them "killed" me. He's been my best friend ever since. Through him, and his roommate, I have met the best group of friends I will ever have. These friendships have endured now for over ten years. Sure we have our ups and downs — sometimes the downs take awhile to get over — but we get over them. We've come up together, through long Michigan winters without heat, long drives in the middle of the night, college classes, liaisons, marriages, cross-country moves, even through grandchildren. We've been split apart, sewn together, and split apart again, until the patches make up more of the friendships than the original garment.
These people are the most important things in the world to me. Loss of money is frightening, loss of love devastating, but loss of these friends would mean the loss of the best part of me. Star Wars brought these people to me. It was the common thread that tied us together. It is the thread that binds us, in all our eccentricities, together. So pass the Ambersi, here's a toast: 'To lost money, lost love, and best friends. May time make us rich, find us warmth, and keep our friendships learning to be strong."
- Introduction by Mart J. Allard (4)
- A Few Thoughts, comments by Brian Thomas (5)
- Drifter by Loren Rhoads and Mart J. Allard ("Kelly Phalfa thought he'd seen it all in the year after the destruction of the first Death Star. That is, until Raena Vader drifts into his life.") (7)
- What are Friends For? by Mason Jones ("Famed thief Reed is a man who prefers to work alone. At least, that's what he thought until he met up with the right partners.") (30)
- The Reeve Kaya Regal Affair by Kelly Dwyer ("Choosing the wrong side is always dangerous. In the chaos after the Empire fell, it can even be deadly.") (40)
- A Contest of Nerves by Brian Thomas and Loren Rhoads ("Ariel Shaad thinks that it should be easy — one last run and she'l get out of the arms business. Then she walks into a bar and meets Sano Tocneppil.") (50)
- Vex Bex Box Broke by Kelly Dwyer ("The Dans have learned to expect the worst from the galaxy. But they didn't expect this...") (73)
- Planting Standards by Kelly Dwyer ("Kolar Dan finds that the answers are harder to accept when you don't know you've asked the questions.") (75)
- Going After or: Finders Keepers ("Take two highbrows, two lowlifes, add one diehard Imperial and a girl who's in it for the percentage, then divide by a bauble that can decide the fete of the galaxy.")
- A Little Guidance by Ian Springer ("Jai Kask learns that even though the War is over, the galaxy can still be a pretty hazardous place.") (90)
- Afterward by Kelly Dwyer (126)
from issue #2, Kelly Dwyer
from issue #2, K. Russell
from issue #2, Kelly Dwyer
from issue #2, K. Russell
from issue #2, Kelly Dwyer
from issue #2, Paul F. Gault
from issue #2, Kelly Dwyer?
from issue #2, Kelly Dwyer?
Issue 3
Tales of a New Republic 3 was published in May 1997 and contains 96 pages. It has the subtitle "Battles."
The art is by Paul F. Gault and Kelly Dywer.
Comments by Mart:
I don't want to talk about what George did. People smarter than me will be arguing over it for years. Did the new stuff improve the movies, or did it just change them? You know, was it like cloning, or putting a smile on the Mona Lisa? Just because we can do a thing, should we do a thing? What I'd like to do is apologize to George Lucas.
I'm like a lot of original Star Wars fans. I'm a twenty-year veteran, who spent the summer of 1977 in the dark, watching Star Wars over and over again. You know me — I was sitting down in front? Yeah.
Then Close Encounters opened. No more Star Wars. Except in our heads.
Of course, I live with the videos, the soundtracks, the novels, the toys from Taco Bell. It's gotten to the point where Star Wars is everywhere. Again. It's so visible that the re-release of the movies seemed almost mundane. And Uncle George was threatening to "fix them up." Great. Another piece of my childhood mangled by the '90s. I wasn't happy.
But I was there, opening day, first show. And, like most pieces of childhood revisited, I expected to be thoroughly disappointed. Then the lights went down. And the music came up. And I was thirteen again, and it was okay.
I looked into Ben's eyes the first time he looks into the camera, heard — for the first time in fifteen years — Stormtroopers yelling, "Close the blast doors!" and watched Luke running his finger along the underside of his X-wing as he walks across the hangar on Yavin. How could I have forgotten what this was like? Somewhere along the way, I'd lost my faith. Worse than that, I never even missed it.
I'd spent years making Howard the Duck cracks when anybody brought up the "Special Editions," and only got louder when the conversation turned to prequels. I'd worked up a healthy cynicism about Star Wars. It couldn't have been like I remembered it. Nothing could be that good, that wonderful. That was a mistake. It was that wonderful. It was more.
So I'm sorry, Uncle George, for forgetting what you gave us, that you made being thirteen okay.
Thanks for giving it back to us.
- Close the Blast Doors by Mart Allard (4)
- Just Another Day in Paradise by Brian Thomas, Mart Allard, Loren Rhoads ("For Ariel Shaad, Sano Tocneppil, and the crew of the Plague—at the battle of Echo Base, survival would be victory enough.") (6)
- As Luck Would Have It by Mart Allard ("In his first adventure after leaving the Plague, Kelly Phalfa learns that redemption is a hard thing to come by — and no one's survival is assured.") (45)
- Smuggler's Blues by Kelly Dwyer ("The Dans have always known that timing is everything. On Bespin, it's the only thing that stands between them and Lando Calrissian.") (41)
- A Curse is a Curse, Of Course by Paul F. Gault ("The Doctors Belac, Lyn Dasarian, and Calandria are just having one of those days....") (59)
- Strays by Ian Springer ("Jai Kask finds out that the Force is indeed more than a dead religion.") (82)
from issue #3, Paul F. Gault
from issue #3, Kelly Dwywer
from issue #3, Paul F. Gault
from issue #3, Kelly Dwywer
