State of the Straczynski-verse

[GaribaldisHair]

I hate the way American entertainment works

Same with a ny form of mass media. It has to appel to the masses - which often means our old friend LCD - Lowest Common Denominator.

Same kind of thing applies in a different way in the UK.

If the BBC (which is funded by a general licence fee that all TV owner have to pay) goes too mainstream in search of ratings, people cry

"Why should we pay the licence fee for you to make the same populist rubbish as the commercial channels we get for free? What about your Public Service remit?"

On the other hand, if the BBC goes down the road of serious, public service-led programming with the inevitable limited market and lower ratings people cry

"Why should we pay the licence fee for you to make programmes that most people don't want to watch, when loads of people are watching the comercial channels for free?"

Speaking as a complete outsider, and based on what I hgave read here and elsewhere, the problem with the Sci-Fi channel appears to be one of funding/ownership.

They have clearly stated to JMS (and presumably others) that they want to move away from space baced shows, which is what the mainstream, non-SF, TV watcher will automatically equate with Science Fiction. This is probably due to the costs of making it.

That implies that SFC does not feel that the investment required to produce that type of show is value for money. (If the US market is anything like the UK, TV advertising revenues have dropped significantly in recent years).

On that basis, you can see why SFC might have been unwilling to make LotR into a series, unless they could own a piece of it and therefore get a slice of the other revenues.

The other issue is SFC's ownership by Universal(?). The parent company owns a number of long since defunct shows already, so in financial terms it makes more sense to focus on those because SFC and Universal stand to benefit from all the revenues raised.

Problem is, as far as I can see, most of those shows are only very tenuously SF, or are just not very good. However as far as Universal is concerned, the old argument seems to hold that 100% of a small pie is better than 10% of a pie five times the size.

As I say ... an outsider's view.

 

[hypatia]

That's pretty much what I've heard others say, too. Basically, good space-based science fiction is costly. The channel doesn't get anything for the show other than the ratings (no DVD profits or anything). So making cheap crap that pleases the LCD will maximize profits.

I just wonder if they will be able to hold onto their ratings increase. Well, at least last I heard, some of their shows I dislike the most pulled in fairly good ratings, IIRC. Will their new viewers remain "loyal" to the sci-fi channel? Or will they get bored and move on, leaving sci-fi with nothing at all?

 

[Lyta]

Sorry to keep dragging you guys back on topic here, but here is the latest flurry of posts from the Great Maker about what he is doing. Most of it has to do with his comic writing...

Jan.13.2003
<font color="orange">Just to bring folks up to date on stuff. Please forgive the crass commerciality of just dumping this information out in a blipvert like this, but people have been asking about the status of various projects for a while, so I figured I'd just do a brain dump of it all at once.

1) Midnight Nation

After various delays on the publishing side, the graphic novel/trade paperback version of Midnight Nation will be out in bookstores this coming Wednesday (January 15th). This is something I'm immensely proud of, and from my point of view represents some of my best work to date.

It's also available via Amazon at:

This link

2) Novels

I'm pleased to note that I've just signed a deal with iBooks/Simon and Schuster to republish all of my prior works of fiction, making them available both online and in major bookstores. This includes my novels Demon Night, OtherSyde, and Tribulations, in addition to a collection of my short stories tentatively entitled Straczynski Unplugged (which should make it just about impossible for readers to find it by spelling the title), which would include a number of my Twilight Zone stories, combined with stories published elsewhere but never previously gathered into a single collection (such as "Say Hello, Mister Quigley," originally published in Pulphouse, and "Your Move," originally published in Amazing Stories), and a number of brand new, previously unpublished short stories. I think they're targeting Spring/Summer for the books to come out.

3) Comics: Supreme Power
On new comics projects, I've just turned in issue 3 of Supreme Power, so I'm about 3 weeks ahead of schedule on the writing. The first issue, drawn by Gary Frank of Midnight Nation, is due to hit stores around March 16th. This is a very serious story, one of the most mature things I've written, oddly enough, given the medium. My scripts have turned into these huge, 50 page (for a 22 page book) Alan Moore-ish tomes that are designed to be visually dense. It's a rethinking of a number of superhero conventions that, so far, has turned out very well, I think. For various reasons we've kept a fairly low profile on this, until we could get a number of issues ready to go, and to avoid word getting out prematurely on what we have in mind, 'cause over the long haul it will prove to be kind of controversial. Once it hits stores, I suspect it'll move out pretty fast unless folks have dibs on copies.

4) Comics: Doctor Strange

Finally, I've turned an expanded, 35 page outline for a Doctor Strange limited series in to Marvel, and will be writing the script for that one as soon as I can get my head above water (easier on the keyboard that way). I wanted to bring the Doc into the 21st century and revisualize certain aspects of his character and his history. It's not intended to be as deep or as potentially controversial as Supreme Power, this one's for fun because I'm a longtime fan of Doc Strange, and want to do something nifty with the character.

I've also agreed to do a three-issue Spider-Man/Fantastic Four crossover, which should also be fun. (Which is the only reason to do anything, to be honest.) I think we've slotted that one to begin around issue 55 or so of Amazing Spider-Man.

Anyway, I think that's about it on the pubishing side...apologies again for the commercialness of this.</font color>

Jan.14.2003
<font color="orange">No apology necessary. Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, this IS a group of fans of your work. If anything, many of us would be upset if you DIDN'T tell us what was coming out!

Thanks...actually, as it is, I forgot to mentoin that the next Spidey comes out next week (the 22nd).</font color>

Jan.14.2003
(Original poster posted a message from Kevin Smith -- of Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Clerks fame who has recently been hired by Marvel to take over the Amazing Spider-Man line -- where he said that it turns out he won't be writing for Amazing since John Romita Jr wanted to stay on Amazing since he was close to setting some sort of longevity record.)

<font color="orange">Does the above mean that you'll be remaining on Amazing, instead of a new Spidey book?

Yep.</font color>

Jan.14.2003
<font color="orange">Does this collection of short stories include anything in the B5 universe?

No, that stuff was licensed via WB.</font color>

 

[Lyta]

Missed a few...

Jan.15.2003
<font color="orange">I know there are B5 short stories which were published in various magazines such as the B5 Magazine, Amazing Stories, and maybe other publications. I (and I can't be the only one) have not been able to track all of these down. Is there any chance that these could be collected and published in a single book?

Somebody would just have to make that deal with WB, that's all.</font color>

Jan.15.2003
<font color="orange">I'm hoping that _Acts of Terror_ will be one of the TZ stories included, since I've been meaning for some time to ask you where I could get hold of a copy of it. (In fact, do you have anything to say about where one could find _Acts of Terror_?)

Just in the original Twilight Zone book.</font color>