Post by teridaxxd001 on Jul 16, 2024 6:19:33 GMT
I didn't know this at the time (didn't have home Internet yet), but there was a Star Wars comic series that started in December 1998 (originally just titled "Star Wars" and later retitled "Star Wars: Republic") to promote the then-upcoming Episode I (and later ran throughout the entire Prequel Trilogy), and a preview issue was hosted on starwars.com in Shockwave format. While some people with Shockwave were able to read the comic fine, the DCR file itself was broken, so on most peoples' machines it was buggy, loading incorrectly or going too fast, or possibly some other issues (thread on the Jedi Council Forums from 2002 that details this problem), and they weren't able to restore it, so as a result, it was eventually taken down. The entire Prelude to the Rebellion story arc was reprinted as a trade paperback in 2000, but this short issue was not included, and Dark Horse editor Randy Stradley flat-out said it would never be reprinted.
Despite all this, the comic itself is, in fact, not lost. It was finally reprinted in November 2017 (almost nineteen years later) as part of the trade paperback Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: Rise of the Sith Vol. 2. Additionally, the fansite owner Yoda Jeff managed to read the online version fine, and posted screencaps on his site, found here, giving you a general idea how it looked in a browser, and at what resolution. The original Shockwave version, however, also included very basic animation, like the text appearing as you went along, which is obviously not possible in static screencaps or actual print. The Wayback Machine has captured the pages that hosted the comic (here), but the DCR file that I believe contained the actual comic, ki.dcr (since it stars Ki-Adi-Mundi) has no snapshot until 2011, long after the file was removed. A quick search at the Flashpoint Archive finds nothing.
