[B5JMS] various from jms

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:26:59 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 45

My apologies for the prolonged absence, but the loss of Richard Biggs kind of
took the wind out of our sails and it's taken a while for me to feel up to
saying anything about B5.  This has also had the effect of slowing up anything
to do with B5:TMoS (which as some of you have guessed or inferred does indeed
stand for The Memory of Shadows), because in the writing we/I never imagined he
wouldn't be here to be a part of it.  More on that another time.

The funeral itself was a very moving ceremony.  It was a point of some pride
that, although Richard had worked on a variety of shows, and all of them were
present to varying degrees, the largest contingent was from Babylon 5.  The B5
family gathered in full strength, because whatever internecine hassles may have
come up between anybody, there wasn't one person on that show who didn't think
Richard was just a nifty, nifty guy.

There were many crew members present, from art department to camera and office
staff...DP John Flinn, directors Tony Dow and Jesus Trevino, and literally all
the major or minor cast members with the exception of Jeff Conaway (who was out
of town and couldn't make it), Peter Jurasik (who was attending another funeral
on the other side of the country) and Joshua Cox (ditto...it was a bad week for
a lot of people).

So from the cast we had: Bruce, Jerry, Mira (and Goran), Andreas, Claudia,
Walter, Bill, Pat, Marjorie, Tracy, Stephen, Jason, Caitlin, and others I may
have missed or forgotten.  From the writing/producing side it was me, Kathryn,
Larry DiTillio, Doug, John Copeland, Kevin Cremin, Skip Beaudine, others.  

Out of respect for the privacy of the family, I won't go into details of the
ceremony itself.  Suffice to say that he was dearly loved by all, and his
family is held in that same affection by everyone who was there.

I was going to go into more stuff here in general, but I don't seem to have it
in me at the moment.  More later, then.


 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)






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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:58:58 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 71

Okay, let's try this again.  Best to break the ice by just sort of doing a
round-up of what's going on and what's coming and suchlike.

I'll try to address some of the questions that have come up about what's coming
up.

On the movies DVDs, and what's inside: the main thing is that we've got
commentaries on literally every one of them.  Mike Vejar and I did a commentary
on In the Beginning, I did one with John Iacovelli on The Gathering, and
another with Janet Greek and Tracy Scoggins on River of Souls.  I can't
remember now if I solo'd on A Call to Arms or if Mike was there as well (it all
blurs after a while...I've done something like fifteen of these things by now).

There's a separate cast commentary on Thirdspace with, I think, Pat, Jeff,
Jesus Trevino, and one or two others.

On the Crusade DVDs, there's one commentary I did on the original pilot (once
WB and I came to a meeting of minds, to wit, "I'm gonna say what happened to
the show, what *really* happened...you got a problem with that?").  There's a
second commentary track with Fiona, Janet, Peter Woodward and Carrie Dobro.

(We interrupt this message with a coded message for our friends in England and
Australia: keep your eyes on the horizon.)

One oddity...constant readers will remember a while back when I was asked what
TMoS was, and I provided a list of things it *wasn't*.  The aforementioned
oddity is...one of those things has come up as an adjunct to TMoS.  

Also, expect word fairly soon-ish about a new series of B5 novels.

Elsewhere on the prose front...Straczynski Unplugged is out now, and
Tribulations will be coming out in December.  

I've turned in all three final Rising Stars scripts, and the first issue of the
last arc comes out in October, I hear.

Next week a new arc and a new artist starts on Amazing Spider-Man, and it's a
stinking cool issue.  You can read a preview of the whole issue for free at: 

http://www.milehighcomics.com/firstlook/marvel/spidey509/

On other projects...I'm making sudden progress with the medieval play I've been
twiddling with for the last few years, and may have it done in the next couple
of months.  Once that happens, my plan is to do a limited, small production for
two weeks or so here in LA, just to see how the text works with an audience,
then take it away for another few months, twiddle with it some more, then go
for a larger venue.  I may do something similar in London, since I may be
spending a bit amount of time there fairly soon.

And for those who've asked, I won't be in attendence at San Diego Comic Con
this year due to a variety of commitments.

Oh...and I've been offered an EP position on a network series, and while I
don't usually do that on shows I don't create or develop, when I heard what
this project was, I had to get on board.  We still have to negotiate a deal,
and work out how that will interface with the stuff that'll be going on later
in the year, but fortunately the start date for the series should work out, at
least at this point.


 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)