This is a transcript of the live interview conducted with Nathan P. Butler on EuCast. Nathan has been an active member of the Star Wars community since he started his Timeline project 10 years ago. In wouldn’t stop there, however, as in 2004 he free-lanced the Star Wars comic “Equals & Opposites.” Ever since then, Nathan has been very active in the community of fans, creating his own site to house SW audio productions and even taking the time to post of many different forums and websites.

• Visit Nathan’s Site
• Visit Nathan’s Starwars.com Blog

EU Cantina (EUC): What really made you want to create a comic? Even the Timeline Gold. What was your main motivation for getting so strong in the universe?

Nathan Butler (NB): Well, I guess with the timeline, in that case, what brought me into that was basically that I was doing it for my own benefit, to keep track of stories and whatnot, but at the time it was the only thing of its time. Timetales was really the only thing over the last decade to of been a similar project of similar depth. And, actually, Time Tales was starting around the same time I was, so we didn’t know about each other and we both saw there was a need out there for it. Oddly enough, that’s kinda what has kept me into it at this point because now, again over the last ten years as been only thing compreable to Timeline Gold has been Time Tales. I don’t think Time Tales has updated since late 2005.

EUC: No, it hasn’t.

So really it was all that left, you know?

EUC: Right.

As for the other stuff, I got into the audio stuff predominantly because I had the fun experience of taking part in Chris Hanel and the guys’ Digital Llama Radio; had a lot of fun with that, and just kinda, you know, sparked my curiosity to get into it. I was also a big fan of the old Star Wars Radio Dramas so I thought about creating my own. I had scripts that I had written from fanfilms that there were no way that could be made from a time or money standpoint. The way that I got into the comic story though, was something I never really thought of. I had never considered the possibility of becoming an official Star Wars writer of any kind. But, basically there was a controversy going on in February of , I don’t know, of 03′ when Dark Horse was having some problems with the line as far as not getting them out and on time and editing errors in the comics and stuff like that. Eventually, that kind of erupted on the message boards and what-not and that sorta brought me to their attention. I had done an episode of ChronoRadio, my first podcast-wasn’t called that back then-it went into those problems and Dave Land saw it and brought it to their attention, and Randy Standley already kinda already knew of it, and Jeremy Barlow, associate editor at the time, stepped in and said,”these problems are being address, and here’s how” and blah,blah, blah.

Well, my timeline already had been known because the authors were using for resources at that time because it was a time before their was that holocron continuity database. So, when Jeremy Barlow got the reigns of SW Tales, and he was given the choice to re-launch or cancel it, and he choose to re-launch it. He was given the reigns to re-launch it, and for Tales # 21, which is the first for the re-launch, he wanted new talent for it. He said basically that my timeline showed that I grasped a continuity, and my show, especially the whole controversy thing, showed I had a passion for it. So, he basically just e-mailed me and said that you’re on a list for it, and if I’d like to do it. And once I found out that doing it wouldn’t cause me to shut down my fandom stuff I said,”yeah, yeah, absolutely” and it started the process. But I never looked into you know, writing Star Wars, because there’s always that party that always talk about how you have to have something already published and that sort of thing. I’m just one of those few lucky fans that was able to get my foot through the door in that regard and it’s not something I ever expected.

EUC: Right, because I was listening to the Force-Cast interview with Dan Wallace, actually, and he said that he was another fan like you that was able to be picked up in the early days of the EU.

Because, like you said, right now you need to be a previously established author for sci-fi and you have to a good resume. They aren’t just going to pick you off the street, well not street, but internet anymore. I still think that the talent they got off the internet is good talent, and I thought it was a good idea. But, right now they have an author for everything and everything is taken care of, and it makes it easier for them to get what the fans want.

NB:Right

EUC: The second question is: If you were ever to do an official project for Lucas LTD., what characters would you want to be in it?

NB:You know, honestly, I really,I couldn’t tell you. There’s a lot of characters that I enjoyed;I would almost liked to explore someone completely new in a new situation. Not that there’s a lot of rules to what you can or cannot do with that character. If I did have to pick an expanded character to use, I’d probably try to do something set in the Legacy era and use Cade Skywalker or even one of the many, many Sith out there because it’s actually my favorite era in SW right now.

EUC: Right, and at that timeperiod, like the New Jedi Order even, it’s really hard to visualize it. I know many fans do it themselves, but seeing a comic of it makes it a lot easier. Like, I know many people like Equal and Opposites because it showed them the Vong, and how they worked, and not just read and it visualize it themselves. If you were to do something like that, it might-we have a Legacy Era comic, but even in the book era it’d be nice to have a comic because all we have, visual-wise, are the covers.

NB: Right

EUC: Yep, and the American covers are nothing to the Japanese covers, not to say the American covers aren’t nice, but the Japanese covers, and I’m not sure why, always have more images on them.

EUC: When would you consider ever giving up the Timeline? Would you ever decide to give up the timeline?

NB: At the moment, I’d prefer not to. I think it really just comes down to what’s going on in my life. I think what I’ve been able to do over the last few years is as my life has become more hectic, I’ve been able to just stretch out my work on the Timeline a little bit more. Like it used to be monthly, then it became bi-monthly, now it’s sorta whenever I get around to it.

I try to get it out between 2 to 4 times a year. I tend to aim it now for when right around I’m getting ready to go or back to Con-Carolina in June, one on its anniversary around October, and one in January and another time to fit one in there, is when I got time to work on it. As long as I can keep to a path, then I can see it going indefinitely. But if something were to happen that somehow made life more hectic, then I guess there’s always the possibility I’d have to end it. But then again, I would try to hand it over to someone rather then just ending it. Then again, it is really the only thing really out there any more, and is really almost a necessity for fandom.

EUC: Right, and not just fandom, but like you said authors also use it, as well as the holocron. You kinda already answered this question, but what do you think, besides the fact that its one kind, do you think made the Timeline become so successful?

NB: I think it has to do with having a lot of luck. Early on I was able to work T-Bone who helped get the word out about us. When I had more time I was able to post a lot on the Official Site message boards to help get the name out. It was also able to be cross promoted a lot in other podcast and radio shows that I was doing. And then of course Equal & Opposites help bring some attention to it. I think mainly it’s also benefited from the fact it has a very simple name; it’s not “Star Wars Intergalactic Holocron,” it’s just Timeline Gold. If you Google “Star Wars Timeline” it usually comes up. So, it’s word of mouth, random searches. It’s been luck in that regard.

EUC: Yeah, I use it. I know that our staff at EU Cantina.net use it and I think it’s successful for the reasons you stated, but also because it’s so easy to use. It’s not hard to navigate, the title isn’t hard, and it’s the perfect thing for old-new, coming back again EU fan.