Sci-Fi Storm

“This’ll be fairly quick because it’s nearly 1 a.m. and I’m constantly under the gun these days…just wanted to give folks (who’ve been very patient with both my absence and the momentary glitch in getting stuff through the pipeline whose ends come out my wrists and onto the keyboard) some brief updates on coming stuff. (I always feel awkward doing this, like it’s some kind of commercial or something — “It’s NewJMS! New, improved, less fattening!” — feh. But people ask, so I answer….)

Tomorrow at 1:58 p.m. we nailed the first shot on the two-hour opener for “Jeremiah,” shooting a couple of quick preliminary second unit shots before the real start of filming tomorrow, when we begin banging down pages in earnest. As I write this, we have six more scripts already in hand, well in advance of getting to the episodes. Titles include “To Sail Beyond the Stars,” “Tribes,” and “Man of Iron, Woman Under Glass,” all jms scripts, with “The Bag,” “The Touch,” and “City of Roses” by Sam Egan, previously show-runner on The Outer Limits.

The show has a pretty solid pedigree…me from B5 and Twilight Zone, Sam from Outer Limits and Northern Exposure, director Russell Mulcahy from the first two Highlander movies and the On the Beach miniseries, designer Steve Gaeghan from Stargate and B5: Rangers and Outer Limits, stars Luke Perry and Malcom Jamal Warner from 90210 and Cosby respectively…it’s a real good lineup and both MGM and Showtime are enthusiastic about everything they’ve seen. It’s a nice merging of a lot of TV SF and mainstream worlds.

On other fronts….

My new hardcover graphic novel, “Delicate Creatures,” story by jms and art by Michael Zulli, will be appearing at the end of this month from Image/Top Cow/Joe’s Comics. It can be pre-ordered from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582402256/ qid=999761876/sr=8-1/ref =aps_sr_b_1_1/102-3608192-2288166.

The script for the Rising Stars feature is nearly in final shape, and will be going out to directors within the next few weeks. We already have one very well known director (as in oscar winning) interested in directing it, so we’ll see. But this is being fast tracked for Summer 2002.

After letting the comics work for Top Cow kinda go fallow while I did everything else on my plate, I just turned in the script for issue 9 of Midnight Nation, “Explanations, Valid and Otherwise,” so we’re getting that train back onto the rails again. Should have the next Rising Stars comic script in next week.

(feh…there has to be a better way to do this….)

This weekend the final version of “Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers” goes to scifi channel. We’ll see what we shall see…but from a production standpoint I think it may be either the best or one of the best MOWs we’ve ever done.

My next issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man” (#35) should hit stores in about two weeks, and I strongly commend it to people for a twist in the story and the character, and the finale of the big conflict that’s been going on now for 3 issues. We pull a big thread in Peter Parker’s life, and I have a hunch that this one is gonna disappear as fast as #30 did.

I should be able to announce one other project, the last I could take on at this point, in about a month or so. The contracts only now got signed. And I’m now about halfway through the new novel I’m writing, which should be going out to auction in January (assuming work allows me to finish it by then). Also this fall we should see the debut of my new anthology comic from Top Cow, each issue presenting a different story. We haven’t nailed down a title yet; I suggested Eccentric Tales, they like Joe’s Comics Presents or Tales of Joe.

Finally: I have air dates for both Rangers (January 2) and the debut of Jeremiah (January 11).

Heading back to the shadows now to grab a few hours sleep before the cameras begin rolling again tomorrow (this) morning at 7.

Feh.
JMS