Tag: Babylon5

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Lately I’ve seen an interesting pattern emerge in the comment spam logs here. Along with the usual collections of links to pills, porn, and watches, there are a bunch of trackback spam attempts using innocuous websites like Google and Yahoo and the phrase “this is very good,” over and over.

Title? “this is very good”
Blog Name? “this is very good”
Author? “this is very good”

The excerpt itself varies a bit, but is usually something like, “this is related article.”

I figure they’re either probes or attempts to poison blacklists.

What’s funny about these is that in the logs, the fields are all run together, so it looks like this:

author: this is very good title: this is very good blog_name: this is very good e-mail: …

The natural inclination is to break the phrases at the punctuation, so it looks like it’s saying, “This is very good title. This is very good blog name. This is related article.”—making it sound like Zathras is behind the keyboard!

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JMS’ new site is getting more interesting all the time. Or rather, what he’s selling through the site. It started out as a 15-volume set of all of JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts, but it’s turned into, in Straczynski’s words, the definitive “Making of B5,” complete with production notes, backstage photos, introductions to each episode, etc.

Unfortunately all the really cool stuff is going into volume 15, which is only going to be available to people who order all of the first 14 volumes. A treatment of the 5-year arc with Sinclair in it all the way, alternate episodes, etc.

I’ve ordered Volume 1. Apparently they underestimated demand—people always underestimate demand for B5—because CafePress sent out a notice that “due to overwhelming popularity, your order for the Babylon 5 Script has been delayed. Our production team is working diligently to ensure that the books are printed as quickly as possible.”

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You know that new site selling JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts?

Within 48 hours, fans subscribing to the announcement list filled up the database. The remark in that message is a variation on a line JMS would use when he told stories about trying to get a big enough room for B5 events at conventions: “My people are coming.” (He eventually managed to get that line into an episode of the show.) Con staff would constantly underestimate the draw for B5 panels.

I’m also reminded of a joke David Kemper made at a Farscape panel last year: “You guys probably don’t know this, but we have obsessive fans.”

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Fallen Angel is ending with #20, and Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows has fallen through.

However, JMS has always said, “If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody’s going to do a B5 movie.” Even better, it turns out that while Warner Bros. owns the B5 TV show lock, stock and barrel, JMS owns the movie rights…so he’s in a position to make sure that whoever does do a B5 movie will get it right. “To that end,” he says… “I can wait.”

As for Fallen Angel, I suspect the timing of the decision means DC either wasn’t waiting for sales after all, or was going on pre-orders from stores. Peter David cryptically remarks, “We are not, however, quite dead yet.” It’s not clear what he means, but the characters are creator-owned, and the series isn’t tied to the DC Universe, so it’s entirely possible for them to pop up again at another publisher. Only time will tell.