Kismet on a recent outing brought me into contact with an issue of this Star Wars offshoot, published by IDW Comics, which advertises itself in that usual, effective way.

Ghosts Of Vader's Castle #2, which offers a choice of subtitles between "Attack Of The 50-Foot Wookie" and "The Wicked Wookie", is a diversion of a diversion that hit distribution in September. It comes from regular writer Cavan Scott and is illustrated by mainstays Francesco Francavilla and Derek Charm. Permit me to guess your thoughts; no, Disney has NOT purchased Bucky O' Hare.

Perhaps the most famous “fur-suiter” on the planet has left us. Peter Mayhew, best known as the human inside the massive “walking carpet” Chewbacca in the Star Wars series of films, passed away on April 30th at the age of 74. Interestingly, before Mr. Mayhew came to the attention of director George Lucas he appeared as another anthropomorphic character: The minotaur in 1976’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca the 200-year-old wookie from the first Star Wars film in 1977 (Episode 4, aka A New Hope) until 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when he passed on the role to former basketball player Joonas Suatamo. But Peter Mayhew will always be known as the warbling roar that announced Star Wars to the world.

image c. 2019 The Verge

Surely, readers don't need the rules for a simple year end top ten list explained to them, but in case someone does, you can find them in one of the older lists.

Furry fans may have noticed a seconds long clip of crystalline, possibly fox-like critters scampering around the trailer for the latest instalment of Star Wars, subtitled The Last Jedi. The upcoming movie was the subject of a cover story by the magazine Entertainment Weekly, and one of the things covered were these "crystal foxes", which are known as vulptices. The Last Jedi is scheduled to be released December 15 (which technically means it's opening Thursday, December 14 for "previews") in America, and now furry fox fans have a reason to get excited.

So, anyway, it’s June 2017, which is a great time to talk about the movies of 2016.

Preliminaries

I’ve done this five times before, the ground rules should be clear, but a quick reminder for the uninformed: all movies are my choices, not Flayrah’s, choices are not necessarily furry, movies came out theatrically in 2016 and that’s about it. Usually I do a list of preliminaries, but I’ll save that for Twitter; I don’t remember how to code the boxes, and I’ve changed accounts so I can’t just copy and paste the code, anyway.

Now, without further ado, let the bodies hit the floor!

Before we begin, I would like to point out that Joss Whedon totally stole my Captain America joke from last year, you guys.

Pearls Before Swine is a full-color on-line comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis — who was formerly a lawyer in California.  “At its heart, Pearls Before Swine is the comic strip tale of two friends: An arrogant Rat who thinks he knows it all and a slow-witted Pig who doesn’t know any better. Together, this pair offers caustic commentary on humanity’s quest for the unattainable. Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams says that Pearls is ‘one of the few comics that makes me laugh out loud.’” Well there you have it. There have been several paperback book collections of Pearls Before Swine comic strips; the latest one, Rat’s Wars, is coming from Andrews McMeel Publishing this October. Check it out over at Amazon. And check out the comic itself over at GoComics.

image c. 2013 by Stephan Pastis

Love them or loathe them, the Ewoks became a big part of the lore of the Star Wars universe, both during and after the original movie trilogy. Now this October comes a brand-new full-color trade paperback from Dark Horse Press, looking to tie up some loose ends. “Until now, the Ewoks had been able to ignore the arrival of the Empire’s stormtroopers on Endor. But when they discover their rivals, the Duloks, have been enslaved and a legendary beast has been awakened, the Ewoks realize they may have to prepare for war—as soon as they figure out how to survive the beast!” Written and illustrated by Zack Giallongo (with art help by Braden Lamb), Star Wars: Ewoks — Shadows of Endor links up events and characters from the Ewoks animated TV series with the events in Return of the Jedi.

image c. 2013 Dark Horse Press