DOORWAYS COMIC July 24, 2010
I am thrilled (really) to reveal that this morning at the San Diego Comicon IDW Comics announced their plans to publish a miniseries and graphic novel of DOORWAYS, the television pilot that I created, wrote, and produced for ABC from 1991 to 1993.
The first issue will be published in November. That's the cover you're looking at over there. Tom, an emergency room doc at a Los Angeles hospital. Cat, a half-feral fugitive from an alternate timeline. Thane, the manhound, part human, part animal, part cybernetic, stalking Cat from world to world at the behest of his alien masters.
This first DOORWAYS series will be based on the revised version of my script, not (not not NOT, please note) on the TV show as shot. In other words, the characters as they appear in the comic will not look anything like the actors who portrayed them in 1993, in the version (the bloated two-hour version) of DOORWAYS that was released on video way back when. (This is purely for legal reasons and should not taken as a reflection on the actors, all of whom were terrific, especially Anne Le Guernec, the young French actress who played Cat).
A graphic novel is only as good as its artwork, of course. The art for DOORWAYS will be provided by the amazing Italian artist Stefano Martino (well, born in Italy, but he's lived in France and is presently in Spain). Fans will know him for his outstanding work on IDW's DOCTOR WHO comic. I selected Stefano personally from among a dozen candidates, and I love what I have seen of his stuff so far.
Stefano is working directly from my original teleplay, so we have not needed to bring aboard a scriptor as on some of my other recent comic projects. This time around, the writer is me. And doing this as a graphic novel rather than a television show means that we are not straight-jacketed by studio budgets or the state of SFX in 1993... so, for instance, our manhounds no longer need to be guys in rubber suits, and we will should be able to have much more fun with the aliens and their technology.
DOORWAYS is the great "might have been" of my career in Hollywood. It was the closest I ever came to getting my own show on the air. Two years of my life went into it, and unsurprisingly, I came to love the characters and their world. Worlds, in this case. When DOORWAYS slammed shut on me, and I had to say goodbye to Tom and Cat and all those stories that would now remain forever untold, it felt as though a part of me had died. But now IDW has opened that door again and I can't tell you how pleased that makes me.
In the summer of 1991 when I pitched to pitched the concept for a new weekly science fiction series to the suits at ABC, network television had done plenty of space travel and time travel shows , but one of the great tropes of science fiction remained largely untouched—the parallel worlds story. "What if" stories, sideways-in-time tales, worlds where the South won the Civil War, where the Roman Empire never fell, where Pete Best was still drumming for the Beatles... we could do them all, in an action/ adventure framework with some romance and sexual tension and an on-going Fugitive overplot for garnishes.
And if IDW's new DOORWAYS comic finds an audience, it's my hope that we will do them all... starting with the first draft of my pilot script, which featured an entirely different alternate world from the shooting script, and then going to the six never-produced back-up scripts... and then maybe, just maybe, brand new original tales that will take Tom and Cat to worlds we never would have dreamed of doing on a weekly television budget...
The DOORWAYS open in November. Reserve a copy at your favorite comic shop.
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 BATTLES OF WESTEROS July 14, 2010
Fantasy Flight Games, the folks who brought you the popular Game of Thrones board game, collectible card game, and living card game, have just shipped their latest: BATTLES OF WESTEROS, a war game/ miniatures game based on the BattleLore system.
The boxed set—with its gorgeous cover, seen here—will enable players to fight their own battles between House Stark and House Lannister. (Other houses will follow in due course). Complete with cool cards and fun miniatures.
Intrigue, alliance, battle, betrayal, and carnage! What more could you want?
(Aside from the new book, I know, I know).
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 DELIVERED June 16, 2010
FORT FREAK, volume twenty-one in the ongoing Wild Cards series, has been delivered to our editors at Tor Books. Six hundred and eight pages of Jokertown goodness.
After the wide-ranging global storylines of the Committee triad, FORT FREAK returns to New York City, the epicenter of the Wild Cards universe, to tell the stories of the cops and crooks of the historic 5th precinct of the NYPD—the Jokertown precinct. The lineup this time around includes stories by Wild Cards veterans Melinda Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and Victor Milan, and introduces newcomers Cherie Priest (Hugo-and-Nebula finalist), David Anthony Durham (still wearing his Campbell Award tiara), Mary Anne Mohanraj, Ty Franck, and Paul Cornell (Dr. Who scriptwriter).
No publication date has been set yet, but I'd look for FORT FREAK sometime in the spring of 2011. So mark that down on your calendar, and come meet Ramshead, the Rook, Tabby, SlimJim, Abigail, Sgt. Squinch, Ratboy and Flipper, Tinkerbill, the Infamous Black Tongue, Natya, Maggie Graves, Puff, Beastie, Dr. Dildo, and the other colorful denizens of Fort Freak and environs. Old-timers like Father Squid, the Sleeper, and the Oddity are also expected to turn up to enliven the proceedings.
— a Portugese edition of Fevre Dream, from Edicioes Fio Da Navalha
— an Italian edition of Fevre Dream, from Gargoyle Books — Hungarian editions of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, from Pecsi Direkt. — Czech editions of Fevre Dream, Songs of Stars and Shadows, and Songs the Dead Men Sing, from Triton. — a Polish edition of GRRM: A Rretrospective, from Zysk |
April 7, 2010
All good things come to an end, alas.
Valyrian Resin's line of Ice & Fire minibusts is one of those. My license with Haute Products has now run its course and expired, so there will be no more releases.
 (A pity. Their sculptor Justice Joseph was working up some great figures). There's a silver lining in the cloud, however. To move its unsold inventory, Valyrian Resin has just anounced a special sale on the resin minibusts still in stock.
Jed Haigh writes:
We are having a sale to clear out the remainder of our inventory. This is a great opportunity for anyone who hasn't purchased pieces to get them at a discount. But don't worry, if you have already purchased pieces, we will give you even more of a discount if you wish to purchase more pieces.
Our new website is still at the same web address: www.valyrianresin.com.
Our new web-store is located here.
You can click on the Shoppe button on any page of our website to access our web-store. The Ice and Fire page of our website features some previously unreleased design drawings you may want to check out.
Here's how the sale will work. All Variants and Regular pieces when purchased individually, or two at a time are $10 off. If you buy a set of variants, or a set of regular pieces ( a set is a set of three variants or regular pieces) you will receive $40 off. If you are a repeat customer send us and email and we will further discount your purchase! Al of these discounts are already applied to the different products on our web store. So if you purchase individual pieces or sets the discounts are already applied. However, for repeat customers, you must email us to get the further discounts we are offering!
Also, if you are a retailer or just a group of Ice and Fire fans who have come together to purchase a bunch of pieces, you may qualify for a wholesale rate for even further discounts! Just send us and email (either by emailing jhaigh@valyrianresin.com) or simply by clicking on the contact button on any page of our web-site and we can discuss group and wholesale rates.
Thanks for your support
Jed Haigh, Valyrian Resin
Supplies are limited, and no more of these figures will be produced, so once these are gone, that's that. If you've ever wanted one of these collectibles, this is the time to act.
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