May The Fourth Be With You

Updates on Ben Wolverton

Today a lot of people are tweeting to help Ben out. You can help too by tweeting with #HelpBen. You can even use this tweet:

Help Star Wars author's son on Star Wars Day! Visit http://www.helpwolverton.com/ to learn more. #davidfarland #starwarsday #HelpBen

Get all the info here: http://www.helpwolverton.com/p/star-wars-twitter-bomb.html

Please invite others.

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Today is May 4th, Star Wars Day

Ben had some good news today. He officially passed his "swallow" test, and can now eat things like pudding, jello, and graham crackers. So we're excited for him.

In honor of Star Wars day, my son's fiancee brought over some Rebel Alliance decals that her brother had made in high school, so that we could put one on Ben's helmet.

I was surprised to see that the image for the Rebel Alliance is one that I created in 1992, while writing STAR WARS: THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA. After the novel came out, I got a call from West End Games, which was handling the Star Wars role-playing games. They asked me about spaceship designs for various ships from Hapes, and since I always sketch out my ships when writing a piece (whether it be a spaceship or a sailing ship,) I simply faxed my designs over. The editor there seemed quite taken with the design for the Hapan Star Fighter, and said, "Hey, we can do something with that."

Well, the outline of the Hapan fighter somehow became the symbol for the Rebel Alliance. That's the kind of thing that happens when you're writing in a large movie universe this way. The work is pretty much all done as work for hire, so the creator's get lost. I've seen echoes from some of my other Star Wars middle-grade books in Episode 1, and the costume design there was taken from some of the work done in the comics penned by Kevin Anderson.

Anyway, I got a Christmas card from my daughter last year that had Yoda drinking from a coffee mug that had the same symbol on it. So I guess that it is turning up everywhere. Think I'll get a decal made for my car.

Here is a picture of Ben getting ready for the Rebel Alliance.