Babylon 5 Novels and Graphic Novels - at Mongoose

[KoshN]

News: Babylon 5 Novels and Graphic Novels - Mongoose Publishing

[David Panzer]

Sweet. If they can get a good artist to stay on the run, it should be good. The B5 comics, while very interesting, suffered from a lack of consistency in the artwork. I lost count as to how many times a character's facial structure could change from panel to panel on the same page. Excluding of course the regular changes in features given the variety of expressions the face allows. It wasn't until the 3 issue "In Valen's Name" mini-series that a good artist was brought on board.

The writing in the comics was solid, though issues 9 and 10 of the B5 comic should be forgotten by everyone.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

The original B5 comics suffered more from a lack of quality in the artwork, most of it was just pants. And the only time the characters looked anything like their TV counterparts was when a panel was clearly based on a published photograph ... I lost count of the number of times I thought "Hey I've seen a photo that looked just like that".

Even "In Valen's Name" wasn't that hot artwork-wise - just compare it with some of the work done by Gary Frank for Midnight Nation and Supreme Power. It was, however, massively superior to the original comin run.

[cornholio1980]

Very exciting news... but thinking back on the desaster that the first 6 released books were, could maybe someone ask JMS on the Usenet to what extend he will be involved in those books (fe. providing an outline)?

[KoshN]

Very exciting news... but thinking back on the desaster that the first 6 released books were, could maybe someone ask JMS on the Usenet to what extend he will be involved in those books (fe. providing an outline)?

I fixed the one spelling error and forwarded your question.

[cornholio1980]

I fixed the one spelling error and forwarded your question.

Thanks! Hope we'll get an answer soon...

[frulad]

A moment please, while I dance a happy dance...

[Dr Maturin]

The fourth quarter of 2005 sounds pretty soon. I hope these authors have been working on the books prior to the announcement. Not many novelists can write a good book in a short amount of time.

[Darth_librarian]

Tony Lee, who refers to himself as 'the chap most likely to be writing the Babylon 5 story' for Mongoose has been kind enough to post over at B5TV,
you may want to head over and check it out. Seems like a decent gent.

http://www.b5tv.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=b5related&Number=303831&page=0&fpart=1

As Andrew said on a thread there, the B5 Universe needs a boost.

Also this thread on Newsarama

http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=31677

And the guy's website.

http://www.tonylee.co.uk/

[cornholio1980]

Well, my interest in the announced novels has suddenly declined drastically:

Mongoose asked me to consult with them, since they are doing just a couple of books and as I understand it ONLY for release in the UK...asked if I could help come up with some stories for them, or provide material from myh notes, proofread the manuscripts, make corrections, maybe write an intro, and do lots of other stuff...and I said okay, great, what are you going to pay for my work?

At first, silence. As if they were stunned that I would actually ask to be paid for my time and work. Then finally, they came back with...five hundred bucks per book. To which I responded, "You have GOT to be kidding me." I have, subsequently, washed my hands of the Mongoose books. I haven't seen anything, don't know what they're doing, so sure as hell it ain't canonical.

I'd suggest that we storm the Mongoose-forums and tell them what we think about THAT...

[Jan]

Thanks for the link, cornholio. Folks, remember to stay polite if you should decide to go over there to post. I see there's been some reaction already from posters.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

I'm always a bit amazed when people who potentially stand to make a decent amount of money from a project expect folks to work for little or nothing. I've probably told this story before (and apologies if I have) but I remember getting a call some years ago from the company that was putting out the B5 trading cards. They had heard I had some photos that I took during te filming of 'Day of the Dead' (with full permission from the producers of course) including some of the characters that were only there for one day and consequently weren't photographed by the official photographer. Anyway, they asked if they could maybe 'borrow' some of my photos for the next card set and when I asked if there was any payment involved (bear in mind there was a potential copyright problem where Warners would probably get the copyright for my photos), and they seemed shocked that anybody could be asking for money. Needless to say, I never heard from them again, and when the cards came out, they had to do screen grabs for a couple of those characters, which probably cost them more than the tiny amount of money they could have paid me for a much better shot! I guess things haven't changed too much on the B5 merchandising front.

[SpooRancher]

Daggum it! All of you ultracapitalists only worried about money. As if you Americans aren't all rich already. You should be doing it because of your love for mankind, and for the series. You shouldn't be thinking of it as work, you should be thinking of it as service!

<shakes head several times to get the wires connected properly>

No, I DON'T believe all that above the head shaking bit. It was tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Of course they are going to try to get their "consultation" as cheaply as possible. They will probably try to say that the series is "over" so you are not really "working" on it any more. That is just justification for trying to keep their margin down and profits up.

Now, that said, they obviously weren't thinking the thing all the way through. Paying a little more in the consultation process would have given them an "official" product that probably would have higher sales, as it may be purchased not only by gamers, but also by fans of the series wanting a reference.

Well, chalk another one down to corporate suits frakking things up for us fans.

[Jan]

<sarcasm> But, Joe! It only took you a few seconds to snap each of those pictures, how much could they be worth?!?</sarcasm>

It never ceases to amaze me that if a company realizes that the percieved value of a product can be enhanced by the addition of someone's work that they don't automatically understand that they should compensate that person accordingly. Shortsighted and ignorant...

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

One of the B5 cast members was approached about the use of a B5 featurette that he had hosted as a promotional piece when the series was in production. The folks who were putting the DVDs together wanted his permission to use the piece, but of course there was no money in the budget to pay him, so he politely said no. So a few days later, they called him again and asked te saem question, as though the first conversation had never taken place. He said he was happy to give them permission, and would only charge them SAG scale, which is basically the minimum amount of money that an actor can traditionally ask for, basically peanuts, a couple of hundred bucks. The DVD people went away again, and a few days later, the actor got a call from B5 producer Doug Netter, asking him to give permission to use the featurette on the DVD, again free of charge. The actor refused again, and the piece was never used again. This story was told to me firsthand by the actor involved, who has no great need for the money, but needed to make a point about giving one's work away free of charge to people who are going to make quite a lot of money. If you look up JMS's previous posts about the thousands and thousands of B5 DVDs that were sold, you can see that somebody made quite a lot of money. But for some reason, they just didn't want to share the wealth. And let's be honest, these actors didn't make huge sums of money, working on a syndicated science fiction series, even less so when they had to renegotiate their contracts when the series moved to TNT. The notion that they should be further insulted annoys me quite a bit.