JMS at WonderCon

We here at Climbing Shrimp castle are massive fans of the writing and creative legend that is JMS (AKA Joe Michael Straczynski, now you see why people abbreviate it). If you are unaware of his work and call your self a genre/cult fan you need to look him up now. Be it through the stunning Babylon 5 TV series or his awesome comics such as Squadron Supreme/Supreme Power, Rising Stars or the Amazing Spiderman. It seems that just about anything this dude puts his mind to he then knocks out of the park with a creative fervour almost unparalleled.

So, the reason for that massive indulgent love letter of a paragraph. Well he has just done an extensive panel discussion at WonderCon and I want to bring you some of the new tit bits of information that arose from it.

First and most important in many people eyes, JMS is coming to DC and will soon be picking the IP he wants to take control of and lead into what I can only imagine will be a brilliant future. There is no doubting that DC needs a shake up and to develop a much stronger writing ethic.

For Image he will be brining two creator-owned books, Justice and Ten Grand. This has all come about due to his exclusivity deal with Marvel ending. But he will continue with Thor until they no longer want him and finish off The Twelve which has so far only had two (of twelve) issues published.

In film his script for The Changeling has been made into a motion picture directed by none other than Clint Eastwood, produced by Ron Howard and starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. Damn, that's some cast and creative prowess behind that film. Straczynski was quite proud to say that the first draft was shot. Expect The Changeling in theatres November 7(US).

He has written the screenplay to World War Z for Plan B Studios and Paramount, based on the book by Max Brooks. MY GOD! I can't begin to tell you how excited that makes me and Marc (ed-when he finds out). We are huge fans of the book and often spend many an hour discussing how it could be successfully made into a movie or TV show. Frankly just now finding out JMS is behind the script fills me with joy! Check the book out now if you haven't already, I can't recommend it enough.

For Fox he has written a script for a Silver Surfer film. For what the Silver Surfer movie might entail Straczynski says it will cover the origins of Norrin Radd. He said it will feature Galactus, noting that the latest Fantastic Four film held off on showing Galactus to reveal him for this film.

He also revealed that he is working on an autobiography that will tell the story of how anyone can become a writer, “It doesn’t matter where you come from,” he said. “If you have the skills you’ll get there.”

For more, check out Newsarama. Lots of great news there, the future looks very bright for JMS an his legions of fans!