NYCC Exclusive: Veers Watch Interview

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Hello folks — I’m here to bring you an exclusive from the show floor of New York Comic Con. No, it’s nothing as banal as a news scoop or announcement. Instead, I’ve got the transcript of an interview I conducted this past Sunday with the one and only Veers Watch. If it sounds like I’m crazy, then you probably haven’t visited or followed his Twitter account. He has a very specific brand, which consists of watching/reading various Star Wars products and then announcing whether or not they contain an appearance of General Veers.

Riveting stuff, no? His dedication is certainly something to wonder at, and he’s kept it up for a while now. But who is Veers Watch? What makes him tick? Why Veers? And is there something else to him other than an admiration for a well-executed ground assault? Well, let’s find out! My questions below are in bold, his responses are in plaintext except for my interjected text in brackets.

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Why is Veers your favorite character?

Well, one of the reasons I love Veers is that he’s one of the only Imperial officers to actually survive the movies, which I thought was a lot of fun. The actor, Julian Glover, his ubiquitousness across a lot of series is also a huge draw. But I just love that out of all the Imperial officers, he always struck me as the most competent. He has his job, he gets it done. You know, he’s able to not necessarily stand up to Vader, but he offers his own insights. I thought that was a huge draw. And I like Imperials in general, so.

Even so — a lot of people have favorite characters. What inspired you to make the @VeersWatch brand? What inspired you to go in that direction on Twitter?

Well, it started off as sort of a gag. Veers just wasn’t showing up in the new canon, which I thought was a shame because he got killed off pretty early in Legends. I thought in the new canon there was a lot we could do with him. The second new canon book we got was Tarkin, an Imperial officer spotlight. Obviously, Tarkin has a much higher profile than Veers. But I just thought he’d show up at some point. The era was right for the comics, it just seemed like there was a good opportunity but he just wasn’t showing up. So I thought it might be fun to just keep track, see if maybe he’ll show up in Rebels, the comics, the books, and he really hadn’t been. So it really just became this Sisyphean thing, waiting for him to show up but knowing it’s not happening any time soon.

Part of the process of doing @VeersWatch and seeing if he shows up is reading pretty much everything the new canon puts out. What are your other interests in the new canon? What have you enjoyed so far?

I mean I’ve been enjoying a lot of the stuff they’ve put out so far. Now I’m a huge fan of John Jackson Miller’s writing, so A New Dawn I really enjoyed. I’ve been loving Rae Sloane [RAE SLOANE], another Imperial character — I think I’m far from alone there. I mean, I’ve loved Kieron Gillen’s Vader series, we have that wrapping up. So I’ll move on to the new mystery [series], Aphra, whatever it winds up being [he was right!]. I’m loving everything.

What’s your favorite Veers story and/or product so far?

Oh! I really did enjoy — I think it was Stackpole and Timothy Zahn, did a duo short story back in the Star Wars Adventure Journal, and it got republished in Tales from the Empire. So that kind of has Thrawn discovering Veers wasting away on Corellia, so that I thought was a good story. Having Thrawn, another favorite character of mine, recognize Veers was really neat. Seeing Veers’s rise to prominence was really fun. So that would probably be my favorite appearance.

“Side Trip” is a great story, and I love when those two authors collaborated because it just brought out the best in both authors.

So the last question I have for you is: if you got your wish and Veers would appear anywhere, where would you have him appear? A book, a comic, a video game? An entire TV series about Veers is not a valid answer, by the way.

Right. I mean, my pipe dream, like you said, is a Veers mini-series — which is never gonna happen. A Rogue One cameo would be great. I’d really like to see him show up in Rebels. I think the time frame’s right, they need strong Imperial villains there, so maybe after Thrawn wraps up he could make an appearance. That’s the dream.

Now, the last thing is — I’m going to tweet “Encountered @VeersWatch at NYCC, no Veers.” Because you’re not wearing a Veers costume! I’m kind of stunned by that.

I haven’t ever cosplayed. I really want to get a Veers costume. I said online I might make “Veers Watch” t-shirts. Alas. I have not seen any Veers cosplayers. I did see an AT-AT driver though, that was close.

Great. Thank you so much for talking with us, and it was great to meet you.

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