New Dark Horse Comics Star Wars Series: Jedi: The Dark Side starring Qui-Gon Jinn

MTV has the official announcement for the new Dark Horse Comic series that was hinted at earlier this week.  Star Wars: Jedi: The Dark Side.

Interestingly in a week full of Qui-Gon Jinn news, Qui-Gon will be the star of this new mini-series that will feature a story involving Qui-Gon and his padawan Xanatos.

STAR WARS: JEDI—THE DARK SIDE #1 (of 5)
Scott Allie (W), Mahmud Asrar (A/Cover), Stéphane Roux (Variant Cover)
On sale May 18
FC, 40 pages, $2.99, Miniseries
Twenty-one years before the events in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is dispatched to prevent the outbreak of a civil war on the homeworld of his Padawan Xanatos—whose father is king. It is a mission that will lead Qui-Gon into close contact with the dark side and start him on a quest that will have a major impact on the future of the Jedi Order!
• Here is an opportunity for readers to get onboard a new series, set in a wild and wide-open era of the Star Wars mythos!
• The story of Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan, before Obi-Wan Kenobi!
© 2011 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All rights reserved. Used under authorization. Text and illustrations for Jedi—The Dark Side are © 2011 Lucasfilm Ltd.

MTV also has a brief interview with story writer Scott Allie:

MTV: How did you settle on Qui-Gon Jinn for the main character?
ALLIE: We were looking for a Clint Eastwood-type of character. It's always better if you can have it tie into the Star Wars films, to connect with readers, but Luke's story and so many other characters' are bound up in continuity. After discussing it for a while, Randy Stradley - our Star Wars editor here - said there's a character whose story is tied into Darth Vader's back story, which is really the backbone of the whole Star Wars mythology, that might be a good fit: Qui-Gon.
MTV: Given what we know of Qui-Gon's history already, where will this story fit in with his overall character arc?
ALLIE: Well, Qui-Gon makes sense because it's easy to look at Episode I and wonder what he was doing 10 or 15 years earlier. We're going back to an early part of his story and telling a pretty important part of the shaping of Qui-Gon as a Jedi Master.

SOURCE: MTV