May 3, 2024

NJW&C 13: Episode XIII: Somehow, Neil Kleid Returned

Hey, Kids! It’s Nice Jewish Words & Comics!, the latest installment from Neil Kleid's bi-monthly newsletter with updates and info about his latest projects!

---

Welcome back, dear good-looking readers!

Thanks for your patience as me and mine spend the last two weeks eating matzah, horseradish, and other less-enticing foods during Passover, and also celebrated the NFL Draft which brought out a whopping 775,000 folks to the city of Detroit (including my 15 year old son). We’re back on the bread and Slurpees, friends, and returning to some semblance of a work week, so it’s time we continued chatting about Jews and comics.

Well, maybe we’ll do that next time. Because tomorrow, dear friends, are two more holidays we celebrate with full arms and clear minds in the Kleid household. Yes, tomorrow is May 4th, 2024…and firstly that means it’s the annual Free Comic Book Day at comic book shops across the country (see the bottom of this newsletter for more on that)…but it also means, young Padawans, that tomorrow we say “May the Fourth Be With You” and yes, it’s time for Star Wars^TM.

Take it away, Mister John Williams!

A LONG TIME AGO

Look, I’ll just say this: before the superheroes, before 1980’s cartoons, comics and organized crime, young Neil was obsessed with Star Wars. 

Sure, most kids my age were (and teenagers, adults, etc) but I drank deep from the blue milk early and often, and our house was filled with Star Wars toys, books, trading cards, Trapper Keepers (ask your parents!), band-aids, Underoos^TM (underwear with graphics on them, yes), lunchboxes and more. Lil’ Neil identified with Luke, and his older brother dug on Han. We would re-enact scenes from all three of the original trilogy films (the OT, for OGs) at the pool or in the park, and construct large scale battles in our backyard or the bushes in front of our house—which made for a good forest moon of Endor in a pinch.

Star Wars always reminds me of Passover, actually, because of the afikomen, one fun aspect of the holiday for kids happens during the Passover seder (the ritual meal we partake of at night, in which we retell how the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt, eat matzah and specific foods, and sing specific songs with friends and family around the dining table). The afikomen is a piece of matzah broken early on in the seder and set aside to be eaten at the end of the meal, and some say it is a reference to the Passover sacrifice the Jews used to make in biblical times. For kids, there’s a tradition for them to steal the afikomen from the leader of the seder (usually a father or grandfather) and hide it from the leader who must promise the kids some sort of treat to get it back (i.e., lots of toys). What that meant for lil’ Neil, his siblings and cousin,  was a trip to Toys R Us. 

Back in the day, Toys R Us was an experience—not a small little space, but cavernous to our eyes, with a back wall filled with board games, whole sections for bikes and videos games, and aisles stacked with boxes and boxes of miniature recreations of the characters and vehicles from our favorite TV shows and movies. Of course, my brother and I loved that one aisle filled with figures and vehicles from GI Joe, Transformers, Marvel and DC Comics, and eventually TMNT, Star Trek, and more. But I was definitely a Star Wars kid—back when figures were 3 bucks each—and so that’s where I headed with my Dad to pick out my afikomen present. One year it was the Kenner 12-inch R2-D2 figure; another year a battle-damaged X-Wing from The Empire Strikes Back. 

As I grew, so did my obsession. I’d ride my bike home from school and stop at 7-11 along the way, either to drop some quarters in the Star Wars arcade cabinet along the window, taking my unseen X-Wing out among the virtual stars to fight luminous green TIE Fighters, or to shoplift packs of Topps Star Wars cards (ironic as hell, as you’ll soon discover). I’d pick up the classic Star Wars comics and books—K.W. Jeter’s Bounty Hunter Wars, Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the original Marvel series, the subsequent Dark Horse fare, like Dark Empire…

…but eventually, I got to high school and college, and Star Wars began to fade in my rearview as I got further from the last film or most recent made-for-television Ewok film, and comics, art, design, among other things began to take over my life. Finally, I graduated and headed to New York, to start a new life as a full-time designer…

…and this was 1999, right as the trailer for Episode I: The Phantom Menace exploded into the cultural eye. Suddenly, I was a kid again. New Star Wars? Who are these characters? Young Darth Vader and Yoda? New ships and planets?! Sign me up, George Lucas. I hit New York City right around the time FAO Schwartz, the superstore on Fifth Avenue, constructed a larger Star Wars room to display all the upcoming merch, with an AT-AT on display, along with a giant N-1 starfighter hanging from the ceiling. I had begun to work in the city, and would stop in that room to admire the toys and vehicles nearly every single day leading up to the film. And yeah, I bought a few (I still have a packaged Mace Windu somewhere in my attic!), but mostly…I was excited about Star Wars again.

And yeah, I was still excited even after the movie came out. Look, I know some folks hate it and here’s a secret about me: there is not one single Star Wars movie or TV show that I “hate”. Sure, I dig some more than I do others. But I’ll watch them all, if asked. I can find something or someone I enjoy or enjoyed from every single one. And I ate them all up — from Episodes 1-3, including the Clone Wars cartoon TV movie and series—as well as the new books and comics that came along for the ride. They had me again, did Lucasfilm, and I was all the way in.

As the years have gone by and I’ve been married, had kids, started my writing career and moved from house to house, my relationship with Star Wars has definitely changed. Sure, I wanted to share my love of the franchise with my kids, and starting at age six, each Kleid child was welcomed into a galaxy far, far away.

We’ve seen the new movies, watched every cartoon and show, and have visited Galaxy’s Edge in Walt Disney World several times by my last count. My career has also dovetailed nicely with a thing I love, as I not only helped found a very successful Star Wars digital trading card app— Star Wars Card Trader—for the Topps Company when I worked there as an art director from 2011-2017 (no longer did I need to shoplift trading cards! More on that in a bit), but I also was lucky enough to write some articles in 2018 for StarWars.com, and you can read them all right here (including a fantastic career interview with Ira Friedman, formerly the head of Licensing at Topps, who started his career helping found and fun Bantha Tracks, the original Star Wars fan club newsletter!)

I’ve attended Star Wars Celebration as a professional (anyone want to pay for my trip to the Celebration in Japan next year?) and met and shared stories with folks like Steve Sansweet of Rancho Obi-Wan (though I’ve yet to visit the museum), and all the wonderful folks at Del Rey Star Wars who put out some amazing novels and anthologies. I have been to Lucasfilm HQ in San Francisco twice, once to take photos at the Yoda fountain with my family and the other to attend a licensing summit for Rogue One (as part of the Topps team, I was supposed to have attended one for Episode VII: The Force Awakens and heard the film’s first Act before anyone else, but my son was born a week later and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving. Yeah, I know. I mean, he’s okay, I guess.)

My life has aligned with Star Wars in so many ways since those early days wearing Luke Skywalker Underoos^TM. The one thing I’ve been unable to crack so far, is writing any Star Wars fiction—either a book or comic set within the canon. I’ve been approached a few times in the last few years, and have even pitched some ideas, but nothing has yet to pan out. I’m hopeful, though, that we’ll get there. One day, Neil will write a Star Wars (#LetNeilWriteAStarWar - get it trending, friends!) and then I will cross off an item on my literary bucket list (and also high five my nine-year-old self). So tell any editors you like or know—I’m hoping it’ll happen one day. (Like my ideas The Besalisk that’s set in Dexter Jettster’s diner after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and is basically Star Wars meets The Bear. Yup; bringing in the deep cuts.)

But in the meantime, I’m truly enjoying the books and comics from the talented Star Wars authors out there making great fiction (some of whom I’ve been lucky enough to have met, known and admired over the years), like Charles Soule, Greg Pak, Ethan Sacks, my good pal Marc Bernardin, Kieron Gillen, Timothy Zahn (again), Claudia Gray, Delilah Dawson, Cavan Scott, Alex Segura, Justina Ireland, E.K. Johnston, James Luceno, Beth Revis, Chuck Wendig, Jason Fry, Jeffrey Brown, Katie Cook, and so many more. One day, hopefully, I’ll get my story or stories in amongst the greats. For now, I’m content to read and re-read them, and recommend them to my kids and friends.

REBELLIONS ARE BUILT ON HOPE

As I’ve mentioned, back in the mid-twenty tens, I worked for the Topps Company.

I was an art director for their start-up digital division, and we’d had some mild success with a trading card app for our sports cards—baseball, football and soccer—in which fans around the globe could trade digital images of our cards (new designs and vintage) with other fans and then use them to play in daily or weekly contests, in which they won virtual currency or new packs of cards. Yes, these were actionable NFTs before NFT’s were a thing—the grandpappy of NFTs, as it were—and we were doing all right. My job was to design all the cards based on a content schedule, and also the visual design of our apps, partnering with our development team and producers to evolve the user experience based on feedback and data. 

But the question always remained: could we make an app that was just about trading and unlocking / finding rare or unique digital cards? What if we removed the real-time contest aspect, the fact that you can play these cards and win, and instead it was about building sets and collecting—returning to the original spirt of Topps physical trading cards? We tried to invent some kind of editorial narrative, in which playing cards was less about what was happening in the world, and more in reaction to a role-playing game invented, written and overseen by our producers…but our entertainment licensors weren’t as interested in that, and more intrigued by the experience simply being about collecting and trading cards.

So, we built a Star Wars app. Or, as the story goes, my boss walked into a staff meeting and said, “Neil, I’m about to make your year.”

We spent months designing the app, figuring out card lists, researching and exploring the visual re-branding of our platform to make it appealing to Star Wars fans. I spent weeks gathering a press list—every Star Wars fan site, podcast and reporter I could find—and helped make inroads between out team and the Star Wars fan community, trying to show them we were fans first, app designers second. This was a labor of love, and we wanted it to show in the cards, the app design, the language we used, the tabs and navigation…this was about the details, you know? And we left no mouse droid unturned in our quest to get it right.

I conceived and implemented the UI design for Star Wars Card Trader alongside our development team, overseeing the work of content designers to build cards, headers, banners and marketing materials. To establish the visual language, I conducted a round of surveys among members of the established Star Wars fan and professional communities (on social media, at conventions) to identify key visual touch-points for an expansive franchise; we needed to find the most recognizable, all-encompassing visual that could appeal to all ages of fans. The solution: the iconic opening crawl.

Though the UI and content design for the  app (and the Topps Digital platform overall) has changed over the years, the original offered a personalized, intimate experience for avid Star Wars fans; unique icons (Death Star for Home, Cantina for the market), tailored profile header dependent on your faction, unique and desirable content and pack flourishes, like the blast door seen below. We set a color palette rooted in black, white and yellow with reds, blues and tans for accent. The original body font was Franklin Gothic, the font used in the crawl and on early Star Wars packaging. The display font is always based on Lucasfilm's current global branding font (to avoid someone using that atrocious “Star Wars” font you see floating around on birthday cards and bar mitzvah programs). 

Then came December. We were maybe a few months from even announcing our app, still working through some of the onboarding screens and finalizing certain chase card sets, hoping to align its release slightly before the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens…when our partners at Lucasfilm reached out to say that J.J. Abrams—director of the film—wanted to reveal some of the new characters via seven stills from the film through Entertainment Weekly, and he also wanted to do it in the classic 1977 Topps trading card frames…and might we a) help him design the cards, and b) could we maybe release the app in the next week or two so that fans could collect and trade J.J.’s cards?

Needless to say, we scrambled.

In the end, we agreed to help design J.J.’s cards and release them via EW, and move up our launch slightly, promising to include those seven cards in our first wave of releases. Truthfully? We still didn’t know if this was going to work, if fans were going to turn up and support this app, and come just buy cards to, you know, buy cards without having a game to play or a contest to win.

The timing was perfect. Star Wars Card Trader launched as the first wave of trailers and photos were released, and the resurgence in nostalgia coincided with excitement for the film and created a groundswell of support, not only gaining our apps coverage in traditional and online media, as well as going viral on social media, but also rocketed our app to the top of the iOS App Store rankings for entertainment games and tripled our team’s original revenue projections for 2015. The team working on the app became well-known in the fan community over the next year or two—we all appeared on podcasts, and half my time was spent answering emails and direct messages from fans and players seeking a certain card, asking about the next wave of content, wondering whether or not I might trade them some of my valuable cards (yes; these cards had a secondary market established by fans—not us—and were selling for big bucks on eBay…again, two years before NFTs would gain traction with the arrival of Crypto Kitties). 

We’d go on to have a fantastic run over the next two years (I left Topps in 2017) and I miss working with that team and with Lucasfilm and the Star Wars fan community as a whole. The podcasters and fan site folks were great, as were the authors and artists working on the franchise in various areas. I got to meet a lot of the folks who played characters in the films, and did voices for the cartoons (shout out to Ashley Eckstein, Vanessa Marshall, and Steve Blum, all of whom were wonderfully nice to me). I was the one who advocated for Topps’ partnerships with the folks at Del Rey Books and Electronic Arts, when we did our Battlefront cards, negotiating those with the help of Lucasfilm’s licensing teams, and I was also working to create a relationship between us and Marvel so we could not only use art from the at-the-time new comic books (and the vintage ones, from the late seventies and early eighties), but also create a Marvel Comics trading card app…which was finally launched after I was gone.

Also I'm going to go on the record and say that while people loved the “Vintage” sets or the classic 1977 frames, the original “Nightbrothers” digital micro-set was one of the best card designs I built during my tenure. I still wish I had a physical version of it.

I am proud to have been one of the many talented individuals there at the start of Card Trader and it remains one of the best products and most enjoyable experiences in my design career. For those of you who played, collected, traded and enjoyed…thank you for being there with us and supporting our efforts. You really did make a difference.

DRINKS FOR SCUM AND VILLAINS

One of my favorite things about Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, not only a Disney dad but a Star Wars fan, is how immersive it is. If you haven’t had the chance to visit—either in California or Orlando—its a section of the park where you can walk around Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu, interacting with folks in a “real” galactic outpost during the First Order era of Star Wars (the sequel era, as it were). Sure, there are rides and souvenirs and shops and stuff, but what I love about Galaxy’s Edge is the food.

I’m a sucker for a unique culinary experience, and the moment I learned I could visit and order drinks in an actual Star Wars cantina, I knew we were gonna make it happen. At the only Star Wars Celebration I attended, they had built a replica of Chalmun’s Cantina (the one from Episode IV: A New Hope) but you had to be a VIP or know someone to go inside, and so I never got a chance to belly up to the rounded bar and order something from our pal Wuher the bartender. At Galaxy’s Edge, though, you can make a dining reservation and visit Oga’s Cantina, where DJ-RX (who used to pilot the old Star Tours shuttles, yo, and boy do I have a story about that—#LetNeilWriteAStarWar, friends! Get it trending!) spins all that Star Wars music you enjoy, and patrons can order Jedi Mind Tricks, Rancor Flights, Jet Juice, Bespin Fizz, Fuzzy TaunTauns and more. It’s all delicious, and there’s something to enjoying drinks (or food, I guess, but I keep kosher and most of it isn’t) designed specifically for an immersive universe set inside a canon that’s been growing and evolving since 1977.

So a few years back, during the pandemic, I decided to make one of my own.

It was May 4th, 2020 and I was stuck at home during COVID, but wanted to celebrate Star Wars Day not only with my poor kids who were stuck with me (we watched movies, played with Legos, that sort of thing) but also connect with my fellow Star Wars fans around the globe. I had recently purchased a Star Wars cookbook, and was debating whether or not to make Yoda Sodas in honor of the day…when I had an idea.

See, I was working at Girl Scouts of the USA at the time (remotely, still) and one of my close friends there, the super talented Hailey Workman, moonlighted (and still does) as a bartender at Nightingale Cocktail in Des Moines, Iowa. One day, with May 4th looming, I asked Hailey if she’d want to invent a drink with me and see if maybe they’d let us introduce it on StarWars.com (they passed, but that’s okay). Haley and I would conceive it together—the narrative for the drink, its main ingredients or flavor, and then Hailey would go off and be the brains behind the mixology. Together, armed with copies of the Ultimate Star Wars sourcebook from DK Publishing, we crafted a fun little drink I dubbed the “Therm Scissor-Punch.”

Solo: A Star Wars Story, is one of my top three Star Wars films. For those who don’t know, it’s the tale of a young Han Solo (as played by Alden Ehrenreich) as he escapes the streets of Corellia, takes flight into the universe and—alongside his navigator and best friend, the Wookiee Chewbacca— steps toward becoming the smuggler and scoundrel we all know and love. I know a lot of folks have mixed emotions about Solo, but I dig the vibe: coming of age tale meets heist flick, with road trip/buddy film undertones and a cast of wonderful characters played by a talented ensemble. 

One of the things I love about Star Wars is the distinctive planets, cities, and locales that populate the universe, filled with a variety of creatures enjoying galaxy-specific food and beverages (as mentioned above). Solo gives us that via the sabacc card game at the Lodge at Fort Ypso, the place where Han meets and plays sabacc with a young Lando Calrissian (played by the inimitable Donald Glover) alongside a tableful of creatures and scum… including one “Therm Scissorpunch.” The crustaceous Therm, according to his listing in the Ultimate Star Wars sourcebook, was reputed for intimidating his opponents…but was in reality a mediocre card player who insisted on being addressed by his full name— say it with me: “Therm Scissorpunch.” Let’s quote directly from the Official Guide to Solo: A Star Wars Story, shall we? 

“Therm insists you call him Therm Scissorpunch, though it is unknown if this is a nickname he’s earned or one he’s desperately trying to create for himself.” 

Aside from the fact that Therm Scissorpunch may simply be the coolest name you’ve ever heard, the notion that it may be one the fearsome-looking Nephran gambler made up in hopes it will catch on elevates it to high art. If true, this author would love to discover ol’ Therm’s actual, given name. At any rate, Hailey and I invented the “Therm Scissor-Punch”: a drink that appears tough and bloody, but is in reality light and refreshing. You can enjoy it with alcohol or not, or with a side (of course) of crab-seasoned chips at your local cantina, anywhere from Des Moines to Batuu. The recipe is below—enjoy it, and May the Force Be With You!

THERE IS ANOTHER

I'm musing that perhaps Episode VI: Return of The Jedi may be my second favorite Star Wars movie. Here's why: See, Empire was the first one I saw in theaters, and sure Episode IV: A New Hope is the fount from which the waters run, but ROTJ was the first Star Wars movie I was old enough to fully experience as a fan and collector. Yes, I had Kenner toys from the first two films, but Episode VI is the first I can clearly recall walking into Toys R Us and picking them out.

I remember being in the theatre with my family, ducking my face when Jabba died (spoiler whoops), falling love with the Rancor, desperately wanting a speeder bike. Every moment is etched in my head...and it will always have that memory of being a kid, being excited, loving Star Wars.

It transports me almost physically back the Youngworths’ pool, standing up on their diving board and facing Jabba the Hutt, waiting to be dropped into the Rancor pit. My fingers can vividly feel the packaging of an opened Wicket figure (or Nien Nunb, or Lando in Skiff Guard costume, or...). My nose recalls the scent of a freshly opened pack of Topps ROTJ cards & stickers, and I remember collecting them all. That year was the year I truly became a fan — not after seeing Empire, but only once I fully immersed myself in Return of the Jedi. The toys, the clothes, cards, collectible glasses and lunchbox. Our neighbor, Kevin, got the Ewok Village play set and I hated him with a fiery, jealous rage.

I dogeared my ROTJ storybook, ran through the woods as if on a speeder bike...it felt sweet & sugary, bright and magical, but it was less about the film, more about recreating it with pals, with toys, trading cards, quoting lines. Laughing at poor Malikili (he’s the Rancor Keeper, yo.) Staging lightsaber battles. Those will always be, for me, the moments that made me Star Wars for life. Sure, I'll claim that Empire is my favorite installment in the saga...but as I said above, Return is wrapped up in all that nostalgia and childhood and coming of age I did in a galaxy far, far away. 

My kids...I wonder what their favorite Star Wars movie will be, what they'll remember in the years to come. Will it be Episode VII, The Force Awakens, the movie which introduced them to the whole thing and got them into paying attention to the mythology? Will it be Episode VIII: The Last Jedi for my second oldest, the first he saw with me in a theatre? How about the OT, because those were the first they watched with me, their Dad? Or something else, something new? Hopefully it'll be the Star Wars films that they will eventually watch with their kids. What they pass on, like I've tried to do. Hopefully it will all be wrapped in the same sense of childhood, excitement, family and friends. 

I look forward to finding out and hopefully being there to see it.

DRAW OR DRAW NOT; THERE IS NO TRY

Let’s close out our Star Wars Day celebration with a small galley of lil’ Star Wars drawings I’ve done every May 4th for the last few years. It started by me doodling a tiny Lobot (WE LOVE THE LOBOT here in Kleid HQ) during a meeting one May 4th, and every single year since I’ve done a lil’ Star Wars drawing of a character I enjoy. Below, please enjoy a selection of all the drawings I could find and also today’s new one, for May 4th 2024. This year, in honor of the new Disney+ series, Tales of the Empire, I scribbled one of my favorite clasisc Imperials, Grand Moff Tarkin as played by the late, great Peter Cushing. You may fire when ready, and May the Fourth New With You!

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY

One last thing: May 4th, this year, is also Free Comic Book Day at participating comic book stores (find your store here)—if you want, visit your local shop and get some free comic books provided by most of the publishers in the industry, and get a taste of what you could be buying and reading on a weekly or monthly basis! 

My local shop, A&S Comics in Teaneck, NJ, usually limits folks to 5 free books a person but your store may vary. Sometimes they’ll bring in writers or artists to sign comics and do sketches, and sometimes they’ll offer sales on back issues or graphic novels. In any event, it’s always worth attending, especially if you have kids. Since FCBD is always on a Saturday, I’ve never been able to sign comics or sketch…but we always walk over to A&S after synagogue services on Shabbos morning, and the kids love it. Additionally, I always of the store on Friday to buy something from the shop, my way of saying thanks to Tony, Alex and their team at A&S for hosting Free Comic Book Day; I encourage you to pay it forward to your local comic shop, as well, and purchase something you normally wouldn’t if you’re heading over to celebrate and pick up your free comics.

THE BUSINESS

Not much else this installment—as always, you can read all five digital issues of Nice Jewish Boys now via the Comixology app on your Amazon Kindle. The collected digital trade paperback will be out May 14th from Comixology Originals, if you want to read it all in one file at a single go. We’re still working out a print publisher, but are closing in on some options. Maybe I’ll have some news about that later this month?!

You can also vote for Nice Jewish Boys in this year’s Ringo Awards, as well as this year’s JewCE Awards, to be awarded at Jewce: The Jewish Comics Experience in November. The JewCE Awards honor comics and comic book creators devoted to highlighting Jewish stories - last year I won the 'Writer Honoree of The Year', but it'd be great if our little Jewish crime comic could be nominated this year and score a win for one of the book categories. Anyone can nominate a book or creator, so please do so HERE.

Right now I’m just working on my Sherlock Holmes prose story, powering forward with the prose for Project Vigilant, beginning the pitch for Project Dog Day, and also working on a fun eight page comic I’ll tell you about shortly which returns me to some of my favorite characters. Additionally, I just realized that September 2024 marks TWENTY years since I put out my first full graphic novella—the Xeric Award-winning, self-published graphic novella Ninety Candles. Should I do a 20th anniversary annotated edition? Maybe just digitally, via Zoom? Anyone interested in helping me publish it? Time to plot…

…in the meantime, you have a wonderful two weeks and I’ll see you back here for Jews and comics. Happy Free Comic Book Day tomorrow, and May The Fourth Be With You!

—Neil

---

MIGDAL: Neil Kleid's Nice Jewish Words & Comics is free! Tell your friends, enemies and interested dragons. If you enjoyed this email, you can show Neil that his writing is valuable to you by checking out his books here and supporting independent comix: https://bookshop.org/shop/neilkleid