JMS SPEAKS 3

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: SFX
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>Then, later on, apparently it was found the fake merchandise was genuine.

Found by whom?

Oh yeah. The organisers.

Must be true then ;-}

I'm not saying that's what went on, but that was one of the stories that was floating around. </font>

If that had even a scintilla of truth behind it, you can bet someone would've paraded this information out to me. But nobody ever said boo about that, this is literally the first time I've heard that. They clearly just floated it out there sub rosa but never said it publicly, or to me, because it could not be sustained.

<font color=red>hope no one took offense at my previous post as I am certainly not condemening the fans that did go to the Wolf-359 Con. And I can certainly understand your reasons for choosing the way you did. Also I'm sure most attendees didn't know beforehand the nature of the folks running the show.

I guess what really galls me is that there was absolutely no real reason for the organizers to take such a low road in their handling of everything. If money was what they were after then I'm sure they would have made more of it by doing things properly and above board. I am one of those naive people who still feels how one makes their bankroll is more important than how much is amassed.</font>

<font color=red>Someone I was talking to, I mentioned her in an earlier post, volunteered to be a steward, and said that they only had a quarter of the people they needed, and the fact that the main organisers seemed to be trying to treat the guests as their own personal property. </font>

Yeah, there was a lot of that, glomming onto people in an ingratiating kind of way to engender personal loyalty. There was also, in my view, a deliberate attempt to create a rift between the cast and the producers for control reasons, and to create a buffer against any criticisms I or John or others
might bring.

jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: JMS:WB wont renew B5 licences?
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>I was just over at Precedence (www.eternity.com) who make the B5 Card game
and they went to renew there license and got denied "Warner Brothers has responded that they are not renewing ANY Babylon 5 licenses at this time". </font>

There's a difference between not renewing a license and dropping a license. My suspicion is that they will want to clean the slate in preparation for Rangers...up until now, everybody's been operating off the license agreements made during and right after B5...and deals made after B5 were a bit more
generous to the retailers than those made during B5. But with the new project going ahead, I suspect they'll want to let the current deals expire in preparation for the new ones under the new title so they can make better deals (read better as more beneficial to WB).

jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: JMS: Your B5 stuff
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>Joe, what cool, nifty, or swell B5 items are in your collection? Specifically, what are your favorites (other than the Hugos <g>)? </font>

Actually, to show how sadly honest I am, I have very, very little. My feeling is that WB paid for it, it's WBs, and that's that. The few things I kept were with WBs blessings, and that's some patches, links, a PPG, the books of G'Kar and G'Quon, other tiny stuff. The one exception is the one thing I said from season 1 that I wanted: that at the end of the day, the B5 sculpture that was on the desks of all three commanders would end up on my desk. It did.

jms

<hr>

Subject: Re: ATTN: JMS - Joe's comics
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>With one (possibally two) series in the works, A Rising Stars movie in the early stages, Spider-Man for Marvel, and the B5 graphic novel for Wildstorm, I was wondering if Joe's Comics over at Top Cow will be put on a hiatus after Midnight Nation and Rising Stars conclude. </font>

Nope.

<font color=red>If you do continue doing the JC line, do you have anything specific in mind and do you know how you will manage the workload? (i.e working months ahead on your comics while your shows are on hiatus or some such) </font>

I've already lined up the next regular series, an anthology title, and a new graphic novel, Delicate Creatures, which is already written. I don't want to do more than 3 books per month (2 Joe's Comics titles, 1 other title a la Spider-Man) so one will have to phase out to make room for another to avoid the workload getting too hairy.

jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: ASM #32
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>But what's really hookinging me is what's actually missing. The Parker teen angst & S-M goofy flippancy. Peter is written with a maturity and passion of personality that I find refreshing. </font>

Thanks. I'm trying to write him as a real guy, someone you'd want to hang out with. This issue takes it all one step further.

(It hits comcs stands the middle of next week, for anyone looking on.)

jms

[Wizz]

<font face="Verdana"><font color="red">SPIDEY 32 - The Obvious Brilliance

Gosh, darn it, Joe you did it yet again! I've always loved Spidey (although I hadn't been a regular reader in many years) and this is easily the most thought provoking Spider-Man story I've ever seen.
Why? Easy, because you are turning Spidey on its head by asking OBVIOUS QUESTIONS! Things I can't believe I never thought about. When Peter was talking to Eziekiel about his rogues gallery... **TWACK** I never noticed that before.
Or more precisely, I had NOTICED but I never, not even once, asked myself why it was happening or what it meant. Just like Peter never asked those all important questions. You have put us right in there with Peter, just as thrown off and just as contemplative as he is right now. This is quite a wake up call.
"Who are you? What do you want?" are certainly penetrating questions, ones that need to be revisited regularly - thanks for once again raising them for me!</font>
Thanks, I'm having a ball doing the book.

jms
<hr width="75%">
<font color="red">Great issue, Joe. I loved how you *really* got into setting up the twist in the mythology - with ramifications for more than just Spidey.</font>

It really is kind of a different way of having the characters themselves reacting to the way things have laid out in the Marvel universe. Opensup all kinds of possibilities, and has the effect of uniting something like thirty years of Spidey villains under one metaphorical umbrella.

jms
</font>

[Wizz]

<font face="verdana"><font color="red">It's a nifty talent, that - being able to look at things we've grown up with and taken for granted, thinking about it, shifting the angle a couple of degrees, and like a hologram - a whole new picture comes out. Were you always that way, or did it develop through your writing?</font>

I've always been weird that way, I go for the details, I like turning things around and looking at them in different ways. When I was in college, I helped a local community center fix up a "youth activities room," which meant getting scraps left over from carpet stores and putting them together into a kind of montage carpet.

Now, all the other guys working on this grabbed whatever big swatches of carpet were available and started laying 'em down. Me, I was at the other end with all the tiny scraps, a few inches across, maybe a foot, assembling them in this very detailed, precise sequence, this little abstract tapestry, if you will.
At the end of the day, you would stand at one end of the room and, as one person put it, "you can tell where Joe was sitting today."

jms
<hr width = "75%"><font color="red">
Hi...very innovative with the Spidey villains explanation that ties all of them together, that's something that's been right in front of all of our faces for quite awhile but never realized. However, I couldn't help but think that the only major Spidey villain that doesn't quite fit into that definition is The Sandman.
</font>
It was never meant to be an all-inclusive statement, and what's weird is that a number of people, including critics, have taken it as such. It covers most of them, but it sure as heck doesn't cover ALL of them, nor was it intended to.
There's no rule or yellow tape around Spidey saying "Totems Only." So there are going to be any number that don't, the only issue was that there are thematic connections between many of them.

<font color="red"> Any plans to do anything with this interesting character who was so cleverly 'redeemed' over the course of almost 15 years, then ruined in a throwaway shock value story with a "yawn", brainwashing? </font>

I'm open to it.

jms
</font>

[Wizz]

<font face="georgia"><font color="red">OK - I saw some of the best acting this side of an Academy Award (deserving, in my mind, of such an award) in one scene in Thirdspace. The Scene in question is the lift tube, Zack (Jeff Conaway) and Lyta (Pat Tallman). She's doing the "There is danger - Remember" mantra and he's trying to start a relationship. This was done, it seems, with one camera and there are a LOT of lines for Zack

A) Did Jeff Conaway have a set script or was he to make some up as he went, just to ensure he hit some high points?</font>

Improv was never much allowed; he said what was written line for line.

<font color="red">B) How many takes did it require to get the scene? </font>

Not many, he nailed it just fine every time.

Funny thing about that scene...we were told before filming that the script was 8-10 minutes longer than it should be, and I had to make cuts. I didn't agree, but the director was very concerned, so with great reluctance, I snipped about 8 minutes out.

So on practically the last day of filming, we get a report from the film editor that we're about 6 minutes *short*. The director suggested ways to expand the last few shots, and we could add some more CGI, but it wasn't nearly enough. I now had to write a new scene to make up the difference. (If I'd not had to make the cuts in the stuff shot to that point, we'd've been fine.)

Given that it was the last day or so, we'd already released a number of the cast, and struck many of the sets. I asked what we had left to work with. We had Zack, and Lyta, some extras...and an elevator. So with that in mind, I wrote that scene in about 20 minutes and turned it over to Jeff, who memorized the lines overnight and showed up the next morning and nailed the scene.

jms</font>

[Wizz]

<font face ="Georgia">&quot; Improv was never much allowed; he said what was written line for line.&quot;<font color="red">

Is that a standard rule with you in all of your works, or was it just a
standard rule with B5?</font>

It became my rule as soon as I got into a position where I could enforce it.

jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Ad-libbing, etc.?
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>I know you've stated recently that you keep tight control with actors sticking to the script, but that bit where Ivanova checks Sheridan's coffee cup was almost TOO good to have been scripted (especially knowing Claudia's warped sense of humor). </font>

It was scripted.

<font color=red>In a similar vein, do all actors in a scene always know what's coming
up? Ivanova's reaction when Sheridan pounded the table earlier in that scene was also almost too real to have been scripted: I'd swear she wasn't ready for it </font>

It was scripted.

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: TNT Still Fiddles ...
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>It's not that unusual for all networks to cancel shows they've ordered before putting them on the air. It's just that you don't necessarily hear about them. This is really no different than the company that kills a product that's been in development before it gets to market. It happens all the time. TNT is acting in a pretty standard way by killing things it doesn't think will succeed. </font>

If it were standard behavior, I don't think the LA Times, which has been covering the entertainment industry since there's BEEN one here, would have dedicated an entire page of coverage to the story....

jms