Dark spud of the Sith
You know, back around 1999, in a discussion about the tie-ins for Star Wars Episode One just coming in, I made an idle remark on Peter David’s then-current America Online message board.
I said, “What I want to know is, how I supposed to take Darth Maul seriously as a villain when I’ve already eaten his head as a fruit snack?”
Mr. David, a fine writer of books, films and comics and a columnist for the Comics Buyer’s Guide, found that funny, and asked permission to quote it in his column. He then gave me pride of place, actually wrapping up the column that week with my line.
Not only that, the editorial department used it as a “pull quote” on that issues cover, complete with my name. It’s not the cover of Newsweek, but one takes the ego strokes where one can.
Now, in the spirit of “I told you that story to tell you this one,” I also wanted to say that when it comes to diluting your villain’s creepy potential for the sake of merchandising big bucks…
…I couldn’t never have seen anything like this coming.
