J Michael Straczynski (previously) is known for many things: creating Babylon 5, spectacular runs on flagship comics from Spiderman to Superman, incredibly innovative and weird kids' TV shows like The Real Ghostbusters, and megahits like Sense8; in the industry he's known as a writing machine, the kind of guy who can write and produce 22 hours of TV in a single season, and he's also known as a mensch, whose online outreach to fans during the Babylon 5 years set the bar for how creators and audiences can work together to convince studios to take real chances. But in JMS's new memoir, Becoming Superman: My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood, we get a look at a real-life history that is by turns horrific and terrifying, and a first-person account of superhuman perseverance and commitment to the right thing that, incredibly, leads to triumph
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Last year, the team behind B5 Books put together a The Babylon 5 Encyclopedia a thoroughly researched, lovingly crafted set of volumes on the universe of the 90's Sci-Fi series Babylon 5.
I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this edition when it came out, and have referred to it repeatedly when rewatching the series recently. It's an amazing one-of-a-kind resource for fans of the show.
WHAT ARE THE SPECS OF THE 2-VOLUME HARDCOVER COLOR EDITION?
Trim Size: 8 x 10 inches. These books weigh about 3.5 pounds each (1.58kg), and this was the best size to keep the weight evenly distributed for extended reading.
832 pages total
Hand-signed by J. Michael Straczynski
Premium 90gsm paper
All pages full, four-color printing
Custom Slipcase with foil stamping
Two Ribbon Bookmarks: one purple, one green. The advantage of two is that you can mark were you left off reading and you can mark the last entry you cross-referenced. Even better, couples can each have their own color.
Less than 100 copies are remaining, however, and the B5 Books team is letting the resource go out of print to focus on B5s 25th anniversary. If you're a B5 fan, this is your last chance to own the definitive resource on all things Babylonian.
Also, Amazon has Announced that the entire series will be available to stream come June 1st, so if you haven't delved into the story of our last, best hope for peace, now's the time! Read the rest
Babylon 5, even during its original run, was never particularly easy to watch when it first aired. The changing TV landscape of the time, as well as the failure of B5's original network PTEN and subsequent re-emergence on the TNT network, meant that timeslots and airdates shifted several times during the show's original five-year run.
Show creator Joe Michael Sraczynski's "B5 books" site is reporting that Go90.com now has the entire show available to stream for free for the first time, along with several other recent series.
I've always believed that B5 represented one of the better Sci-Fi "space opera" TV shows in history, and one that many people were never able to watch during its run on television. The story and effects hold up extremely well for a show that recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Now's your chance to see it in its entirety, for free, on your own terms.
Unfortunately, the site is US-only. Read the rest
