San Diego Comic-Con International 2003 is racing along with usual fever pitch, notable wardrobe choices and sensory overload. Friday is unofficially "Star Wars Day" at the convention, spilling over this year to some activity Thursday and Saturday.

Here is just a taste of some of the major Star Wars activity. Don't forget to keep checking the Comic-Con picture viewer for colorful sights from the convention.

Fan Film Awards and Star Wars in 30 Minutes
Over two thousand fans packed room 20 to capacity for the second annual Star Wars Fan Film Awards hosted by Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett in Episodes V and VI) on Thursday night. Winners were announced in seven categories. The envelope please...

• Spirit of Fandom Silent But Deadly 2
• Best Commercial Parody Dark Side Switch Campaign
• Pioneer Award Hardware Wars
• Best Animation Trooper Clerks
• Audience Choice Award Jedi Hunter
• Skywalker Sound Award Carbonite
• George Lucas Select Award Pink Five

For a full run-down and to view the winning films, head over to the Official Star Wars Fan Film Network. Congratulations to all the winners!

After the awards, the crowd was delighted by a performance of the stage play Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes. The troupe played to its largest audience ever to seemingly constant spontaneous cheers and laughter, culminating in a well-deserved standing ovation.

Lucasfilm
Steve Sansweet of Lucasfilm lead the large general Star Wars panel with well over 4,000 fans in attendance. After a somewhat teasing sneak of the Indiana Jones DVDs coming this fall, Steve introduced a video segment with greetings from Sydney.

"I'm currently in the Emperor's throne-room," said George Lucas, "on the set of..." followed by a high-pitch beep and the words "title censored". "I guess I'm not supposed to say that," George shrugged sheepishly.

Next Rick McCallum sent greetings and handed off a Fox set tour to Anthony Daniels who took the camera through a number of returning sets and teases of new ones.

Cartoon Network
Making a splash at Comic-Con were the creative team from this fall's Clone Wars micro-series, including creators Genndy Tartakovsky and Paul Rudish. They appeared first at the Lucas Online starwars.com booth to sign autographs for eager fans in the early afternoon.

Later, the team presented the final animation for the entire first episode, accompanied by a temporary audio track. The episode introduces the major players and their motivations in the Clone War through a thrilling montage of Republic versus Separatist action, featuring Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, Kit Fisto, Count Dooku and others, ending with an emotional encounter between estranged lovers Anakin and Padmé.

At the Cartoon Network panel, attendees were treated with a booklet collection of sketches used by Genndy Tartakovsky to help create the look of the animation for the series.

The first 10 five-minute chapters that detail the battles between Episode II and III will begin weekdays at 8:00 p.m., premiering November 7 on Cartoon Network and online through starwars.com Hyperspace.

Dark Horse Comics
Of course, what would Comic-Con be without some news about comics? Randy Stradley, Vice-President of Publishing for Dark Horse comics walked the crowd through its summer and fall lineups, including the expected continuations of the monthly Star Wars: Republic and Star Wars: Empire titles, quarterly Star Wars Tales with the dark side on tap for the next issue and two editions of the Jedi mini-series that expand the Clone Wars story.

To fan delight, Dark Horse also announced that they would be adapting the anticipated Cartoon Network Clone Wars microseries into comic form later this year.

Hasbro
Along with the many upcoming products on display in Hasbro's booth (see our preview earlier this week), Hasbro made a number of important announcements for Star Wars toy collectors.

Long awaited by fans, Hasbro announced the creation of Jedi Master Points Auctions. Since 1999, collectors have been asking about and saving up points tokens found on toy packaging, and Hasbro has finally come up with a way to use them. Scheduled for launch in September, Jedi Master Point Auctions will enable registered users of Hasbro's Star Wars website to use their Jedi Master Points as currency in a series of online auctions. While the product offering is not finalized, expect hard-to-find items like Jorg Sacul, Toy Fair Darth Vader and the R2-D2 Astromech Droid. The promotion is a three-month trial and subject to evaluation after that time, so don't save your points for the future. See Hasbro's site for announcements as the auction draws closer.

In 2004, the basic figure line will no longer be delineated with different collection numbers, and Hasbro is planning to release a new wave of commonly-themed figures each month. A tentative theme schedule, along with possible example figure, was announced as follows:

• Wave 1 Hoth
  Luke Skywalker, Wampa Cave
• Wave 2 Tatooine
  Luke Skywalker, ROTJ (previously shown on starwars.com)
• Wave 3 Jabba's Palace
• Wave 4 Battle of Yavin
  Captain Antilles (Fans' Choice #5)
  General Dodonna (close runner up to Antilles)
• Wave 5 Star Destroyer
  Dengar (with backpack)

Also announced was the introduction of a new assortment at the deluxe price point in 2004. This line was created to offer characters and accessories that are too large to fit in the basic figure line while remaining true to our 3 3/4" scale. There are seven figures in total, which will be available in the spring, and where possible, many of the figures will fit into one of the basic figure themes. Examples include the Wampa Ice Creature and a Jabba the Hutt figure.

Paizo Publishing
With all their Comic-Con 2003 activities, it might be easy to forget that Paizo is the publisher of the Star Wars Insider. Continuing to bring value to the fan community, the Paizo booth is never without a maximum-length line-up to purchase the convention-exclusive 3 3/4" silver Boba Fett action figure.

At the same time, the group announced more major action-figure news with plans for a limited-edition follow-up to last year's C-3PO / R2-D2 holiday figure, with the 2003 Jedi Master Yoda Holiday Edition figure inspired by the 1980's Lucasfilm holiday greeting card by Ralph McQuarrie.

Members of the Official Star Wars Fan Club will have first access to the figure through a "Lightspeed Pass" entry form at Paizo's website starting July 18. In September, registered members will have first opportunity to buy the figure, followed by remaining Fan Club members and members of starwars.com Hyperspace. If any figures remain, they will be offered to the general public in October. All sales will be limited to three figures per person.