B5_Obsessed
Regular
Editor's note: I've bolded the only possible positive news on the B5 front, although i may be reaching just a bit.
>"Comics?"
The latest issues of Supreme Power and Amazing Spider-Man came out this past week, and I'm very happy with them, especially Supreme Power. The next issue coming out has probably the most brutal and realistic fight I've ever done in this area, it really shows what would happen in this kind of situation, with these sorts of individuals. The first two trade paperback collections of Supreme Power have also come out, availble at amazon.com for those who'd like to catch up on the story.
I've turned in the first issues of two books that Marvel has asked me to write, which I'll have to wait for them to announce publicly -- one's a regular ongoing title and the other is a six issue mini -- and we're about halfway through the art on Dream Police, which Mike Deodato is drawing. (It looks gorgeous, by the way.) And I'm three issues in on The Book of Lost Souls, also for Marvel.
>"But in Purple..."?
Slight delay due to a shift in publishers, but I should have some info soon about when that will be coming out.
>TV (if any)?
Not at the moment. There are two times a year when show-runner types get hired: in March and April to produce pilots when the scripts have come in, and in July/August to pitch new series. So that window will open next in the spring.
Since it's no longer an issue, because the show was not picked up, the series I'd mentioned that had come to me to talk about coming aboard as an EP was Warren Ellis' Global Frequency. I'd met with the people involved, been approved by the network, went by to meet Warren during filming in Vancouver, who seemed like a very nice sort, and was waiting for the next round of serious conversations...but the show has not been picked up by WB. I know they're
shopping it elsewhere, so we'll see, but for now, at least, that's that. (I have to say, by the way, that the pilot script is probably the smartest script I've ever read. It could really be one hell of a series.)
One last aside, on a long term project...a certain known film writer/director was recently asked by a particular studio to do a series using an established character. This person is a big fan of B5 as well as a friend, so a call came to me to ask if I wanted in on this. I said hell yes. I can't say much else about it, because a) it wouldn't be appropriate and b) things can still fall out, though that's doubtful at this stage (negotiations have formally begun
with the studio), but if it does go ahead, the plan is to write the whole first season over the course of 2005, shoot in the spring of 2006 for a fall 2006 debut. There are reasons why we'd have to write the whole thing first that
will become clear once I can explain what the character is. Again, I dont want folks to get too excited about this, because this is a weird business and this is the one town where hope can kill you, but if it goes ahead as discussed, it could be massively cool.
>Animation (just covering all bases)?
Warners came to me last year about a possible B5 animated series, but I don't think it's going to go anywhere. This happens every couple of years.
>Shared Universe?
They've picked the first writer for the Distant Stars series of books, but I don't know where things stand yet on the first novel. That reminds me, I have to check in and see how that's going. The preliminary copies of Tribulation (the last of my original novels bring reprinted by iBooks/Simon and Schuster) came in last week, so it should be coming out soon. That puts all of my novels now back in print: Demon Night, OtherSyde, and Tribulations, with Straczynski Unplugged also available, all on amazon.com.
>and....whatever it is that you're not able to tell us about this week?
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the Canadian equivalent of the BBC) will be producing my radio drama series The Adventures of Apocalypse Al. I'll be co-directing with their people up in Toronto. It's a series of 5 five-minute dramas per day, for four weeks, recapped in half-hour installments on the weekends, for a total of two hours. It's comedy/action, very noir, with a supernatural bent. The script is all done, so now we just get to have fun. (Like all CBC productions, it'll be syndicated worldwide, to the BBC and elsewhere, as well as released on CD down the road, for those not living in Canada.) I'm *really* looking forward to this because I love the radio drama form, and this could be a lot of fun.
Finally, because there is a lot of stuff that's going to be popping this coming year, I've decided to end my hermit period and barnstorm a number of conventions in 2005. I didn't do any this year, not counting the NJ fund-raiser, and only one or two the last few years before. I opted out because I'm much more comfortable talking about the work and what's going on than just appearing as myself, and because I view the cult of personality thing pretty much the way G'Kar did, with a jaundiced eye at best. Because of B5 and everything else, it all just kind of got too big, and I had to withdraw for a while or risk losing perspective.
So there will be FedCon in Bonn, Germany, the Comics Expo in Bristol England, and a bucket of comics conventions here in the US. I may also do a few non-comics cons, depending on what comes along, before ducking back into my shell for another couple of years.
And that's that for now.
jms
>"Comics?"
The latest issues of Supreme Power and Amazing Spider-Man came out this past week, and I'm very happy with them, especially Supreme Power. The next issue coming out has probably the most brutal and realistic fight I've ever done in this area, it really shows what would happen in this kind of situation, with these sorts of individuals. The first two trade paperback collections of Supreme Power have also come out, availble at amazon.com for those who'd like to catch up on the story.
I've turned in the first issues of two books that Marvel has asked me to write, which I'll have to wait for them to announce publicly -- one's a regular ongoing title and the other is a six issue mini -- and we're about halfway through the art on Dream Police, which Mike Deodato is drawing. (It looks gorgeous, by the way.) And I'm three issues in on The Book of Lost Souls, also for Marvel.
>"But in Purple..."?
Slight delay due to a shift in publishers, but I should have some info soon about when that will be coming out.
>TV (if any)?
Not at the moment. There are two times a year when show-runner types get hired: in March and April to produce pilots when the scripts have come in, and in July/August to pitch new series. So that window will open next in the spring.
Since it's no longer an issue, because the show was not picked up, the series I'd mentioned that had come to me to talk about coming aboard as an EP was Warren Ellis' Global Frequency. I'd met with the people involved, been approved by the network, went by to meet Warren during filming in Vancouver, who seemed like a very nice sort, and was waiting for the next round of serious conversations...but the show has not been picked up by WB. I know they're
shopping it elsewhere, so we'll see, but for now, at least, that's that. (I have to say, by the way, that the pilot script is probably the smartest script I've ever read. It could really be one hell of a series.)
One last aside, on a long term project...a certain known film writer/director was recently asked by a particular studio to do a series using an established character. This person is a big fan of B5 as well as a friend, so a call came to me to ask if I wanted in on this. I said hell yes. I can't say much else about it, because a) it wouldn't be appropriate and b) things can still fall out, though that's doubtful at this stage (negotiations have formally begun
with the studio), but if it does go ahead, the plan is to write the whole first season over the course of 2005, shoot in the spring of 2006 for a fall 2006 debut. There are reasons why we'd have to write the whole thing first that
will become clear once I can explain what the character is. Again, I dont want folks to get too excited about this, because this is a weird business and this is the one town where hope can kill you, but if it goes ahead as discussed, it could be massively cool.
>Animation (just covering all bases)?
Warners came to me last year about a possible B5 animated series, but I don't think it's going to go anywhere. This happens every couple of years.
>Shared Universe?
They've picked the first writer for the Distant Stars series of books, but I don't know where things stand yet on the first novel. That reminds me, I have to check in and see how that's going. The preliminary copies of Tribulation (the last of my original novels bring reprinted by iBooks/Simon and Schuster) came in last week, so it should be coming out soon. That puts all of my novels now back in print: Demon Night, OtherSyde, and Tribulations, with Straczynski Unplugged also available, all on amazon.com.
>and....whatever it is that you're not able to tell us about this week?
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the Canadian equivalent of the BBC) will be producing my radio drama series The Adventures of Apocalypse Al. I'll be co-directing with their people up in Toronto. It's a series of 5 five-minute dramas per day, for four weeks, recapped in half-hour installments on the weekends, for a total of two hours. It's comedy/action, very noir, with a supernatural bent. The script is all done, so now we just get to have fun. (Like all CBC productions, it'll be syndicated worldwide, to the BBC and elsewhere, as well as released on CD down the road, for those not living in Canada.) I'm *really* looking forward to this because I love the radio drama form, and this could be a lot of fun.
Finally, because there is a lot of stuff that's going to be popping this coming year, I've decided to end my hermit period and barnstorm a number of conventions in 2005. I didn't do any this year, not counting the NJ fund-raiser, and only one or two the last few years before. I opted out because I'm much more comfortable talking about the work and what's going on than just appearing as myself, and because I view the cult of personality thing pretty much the way G'Kar did, with a jaundiced eye at best. Because of B5 and everything else, it all just kind of got too big, and I had to withdraw for a while or risk losing perspective.
So there will be FedCon in Bonn, Germany, the Comics Expo in Bristol England, and a bucket of comics conventions here in the US. I may also do a few non-comics cons, depending on what comes along, before ducking back into my shell for another couple of years.
And that's that for now.
jms
