Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls

Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM....

As you might not know, I love investigating about fake Star Wars items. What I also enjoy seeing is when people make out that something is real, and that it isn’t fake. This story isn’t fake. It just doesn’t exist. Anyway, while looking up about the cancelled graphic novel Lightsider (if you didn’t know, it bridges that gap between Dark Horse Comics’ Dark Empire and Dark Empire II), I came across the title “Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls.” It sounded pretty much fake, but anyway, as usual, I had a nice long search for this title. One of the things that came up was an article on “Bib Fortuna and theRise of the Dark Falls” on Simple Darthipedia, which is unsurprisingly the Star Wars humour wiki. There were also A LOT of Jedi Council Forum threads that appeared, such as “Rise of the Dark Falls – The Forgotten EUMasterpiece!” and “The Official Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls Discussion,” so it was just too tempting to not look at each and every one of them.

“Riseof the Dark Falls – The Forgotten EU Masterpiece!” was a thread begun by aw_heel_naw, explaining that he had recently come across a copy of “Rise of the Dark Falls,” and that it digs deeper into the “wars of Star Wars.” Information started being spread on this forum, such as it being authored by Derek J Reda, published by Skylark, and also that the cover text was “Rise of the Dark Falls, The Forgotten EU Masterpiece of Derek J. Reda.” Most believed that this was not a real book, due to the lack of an ISBN, or the fact that the term “EU” or “Expanded Universe” was not being used in 1985 (the so-called date of publication), although some did actually give in to the idea. Later on in the thread, it was revealed that there had been a Wookieepedia article about “Rise of the Dark Falls,” later deleted, followed by a section about the “book” in the real Bib Fortuna article! Sheesh!

In “The Official Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls Discussion,” much of the story is revealed, such as a two-chapter-long “Lekku scene,” which was dreaded by all of the readers for being too long and graphic, and an in-depth checking of the Dark Falls operatives’ vehicles. It was also said that Season Two of Dave Filoni’s 3-D animated The Clone Wars series was going to kick off with a three-part Dark Falls storyline, as well as there being a sequel, Darkness Falls on the Rise of the Dark Falls, and an interval story, The Search for Chewbacca’s Gold.

After some time, the story was apparently deemed fake by a member of Lucasfilm, Ltd. What had started out as a silly joke became an almost real Star Wars story.... A now remembered “EU masterpiece....”

Above: Original cover for Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls

Above: Rejected alternate cover for Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls

Above: Front and back covers of Bib Fortuna and the Rise of the Dark Falls