Michael Kingma, 28th March, 2009—My Place, Thirty-six hours after landing from Holland where he plays basketball (where you expecting maybe badminton?).

With his dad along for the ride, Michael rushes over the next morning after he'd slept for 24 hours to catch up on his jet lag. Michael is absolute pro at the signing, as he is one of the few people that I’ve done a signing with that have already been exposed to autographing.

Within 60 minutes, Michael has signed all his items, including the "awesome shot"—as he put it—of Tarfful spinning a basketball on his finger. Michael doesn’t have any secrets or gossip from his time on the Revenge of the Sith, noting "I had a great time, they treated us like kings." He remains close friends with fellow Wookiee, Peter Mayhew and "would definitely jump at the TV series if invited back."

Whilst we were signing, my daughter gets on the Wii and starts playing her sports game. Michael challenges her to a game when finished. As you can see from the photo, (my daughter is the small one ::grin::), they had a great couple of games, of which my five year old beat him twice. After that, Michael, his Dad and I partake in a quick round of one Australia’s favourite sports—beer drinking. We talk about what his plans are whilst back in Australia for a few months, before he heads back to Europe for more basketball.

Michael is a great guy who rushed over as quickly as he could once back in the country to sign the fans items. The fans should realize that Michael is the first Wookiee I contacted on this piece almost 12 months ago when Wattographs was discussing the next Connoisseur Series, so it takes a long time for us to get everything together, and get the Wookiees (who as you’ll read soon, are difficult) together.

Steve Foy, 14th April, 2009—My Place.

[Just a note for this, Steve Foy, drove from Bathurst—for those non-Australians, it’s about 200 km or 125 miles, each way—on his night off to sign the items.]

Steve is a prison warden, and as you can see from the pictures, it’s an appropriate job. However, as quite often, looks can be deceiving and Steve is one of the nicest people I’ve met. Steve recalls that he got the call from ‘a mate on the inside’ looking for someone tall. Having always been a Star Wars fan, he jumped at the chance. Steve soon completes his signing and stays a bit to discuss his friend, Rob Cope (Steve was the person who emailed me late last year when Rob passed away). Steve recalls Rob as a loud, full-of-life man, who was very happy to be involved in the Star Wars world and was looking forward to signing the fans items when the time came. Just a reminder, Rob was the person who put me in touch with Steve and James Rowland, otherwise this piece would not have happened. We had been searching for these three guys for a long time, and it was only due to the generosity of a Star Wars fan who put me in contact with Rob.

James Rowland, 1st May, 2009—My Place.

James is young man who, again, was more than happy to sign items and talk Star Wars. James didn’t have many specific recollections of his time on set, but kept saying that he "had a great time, and was treated great." After a few laughs about the costumes (most of the guys hadn’t seen the Official Pix images – they just remember posing for the shots), James signs away quickly. Unfortunately, James couldn’t stay long as he had an appointment about 90 minutes away (he had driven another 90 minutess to come and see me. I know, it sounds like I live out of the way, but in fact I live in the Inner Sydney suburbs and the Wookiees come from all areas around me).

The Wookiee Connoisseur Series piece is picking up momentum…

Julian Khazzouh, 21st May, 2009—My Place.

Similar to Michael, Julian is playing basketball overseas and within 36 hours of landing back in Sydney was at my place, signing away. Julian the youngest of the Wookiees (in his early 20’s) who, whilst not a Star Wars fan, got a job most of us would kill for. He recalls that the casting team was putting out calls to local basketball teams looking for taller-than-tall guys to do some "extra work." Julian, being 6-ft. 11-in. took the chance. Julian also doesn’t have many specific memories of time on set, due to his lack of Star Wars fandom and interest. But, he does recollect it being a very positive experience and "was well looked after." Julian provided the highlight of my signings with the Wookiees, and reminds me that no matter how much of Star Wars fan (or not in this case), you can get a job in the Star Wars universe.

Whilst we were signing, my wife Clara asked:

Clara: Julian, did you get to meet George Lucas?

Julian: No.

Me: Are you sure?

Julian: I think so, who is he?

Man, he is so lucky.

Axel Dench & David Stiff, 23rd May, 2009—PJ O’Briens Pub, Melbourne Airport.

That’s right: not at my place! Every couple of months I have to fly to Melbourne for personal reasons. A few weeks out, I have a brainwave and contact both Axel and David who live in Melbourne and aren't coming up to Sydney anytime soon. I ask if either of them are within distance of the airport and available within my limited time window (I only stay a couple of hours during my trips). Fortunately, both say yes!

So, six o’clock a.m. wake-up (after six hours sleep), grab my poster tube and large box of other Wookiee items—lucky I didn’t have to fill out customs paperwork—and head to the airport. I have a 2.5-hour window between landing in Melbourne and re-boarding my plane back to Sydney.

If you don’t want to read another page of trials and tribulations on Saturday, stop now, knowing they signed and all is well.

So, I'm sitting at the airport, having checked my too-big-for-carry-on items in and answering the usual questions: "What have you got in there"—"Ummmmmm…’ I'm waiting at the gate and bang! The flight's delayed 30 minutes due to the inbound flight of the aircraft. Two hour window now. I start worrying, as both Axel and David have personal character images as well as the CS images to sign. I quickly text them, letting them know I’ll be 30 minutes late.

I finally land in Melbourne and call Axel. They’re 30 minutes away. DANG (well, you can imagine what I really thought)! 90-minute window now. And there's a new snafu: where to do the signing. I look around. Melbourne airport doesn’t have any dedicated rooms, with huge tables. I go to the local flight lounge who want to charge me $35 a person to come in and use the facilities, including all drinks and nibblies. Normally, I’d jump at the chance, but given it’s 10:30 Saturday morning and I need re-hydrating from the night before, we pass. David decides, given the time of day, that the onsite pub will be open and quiet.

We’re in luck. We grab the biggest table we can find, crack open the boxes and cover the table in Wookiee images, posters and figures. Big kudos to the worker in the pub who kept walking over the check on us, and didn’t ask any questions or kick us out. Axel and David start co-signing as quickly as possible.They both are now ex-Basketball and have—as every Wookiee has expressed—positive memories of Revenge of the Sith. Both are Star Wars fans—Axel more so—and made good-natured jokes about who had the best costume and such. Axel and David are friends who share a few commonailities between Star Wars and basketball. They both tell a story of how the casting team put the call out to basketball teams and they reacted—both are 6-ft. 11-in.. Axel now has a full-time job and family, whilst David is relaxing. Both would jump at the chance to go back into the Star Wars world if the television series has a need for Wookiees. In fact, as I was leaving, I’m sure both were logging a call with JAK to "update" their details.

I seal the box and poster tube, run to get checked in with about 10 minutes to spare before my boarding time. I stroll to the gate, hop on the plane and go home.

WOOKIEES are complete.

Dave and Lou Elsey are working on The Wolf Man in London. They were scheduled to visit me but got the call to go to London on the next flight. They are due back within a few weeks. After that, it'll be off to David Acord to finish it off and send it to those lucky folks who participated!