Which brings me back to STARPORT.<\/p>\n
STARPORT was one of those pilots I wrote during my years in development hell.\u00a0\u00a0 In some ways it was my favorite.\u00a0\u00a0 When pitching a television series, there is a certain shorthand where you describe your new show by comparing it to existing shows (preferably successful ones).\u00a0\u00a0 Gene Roddenberry sold STAR TREK as “Wagon Train to the stars.”\u00a0 HBO bought GAME OF THRONES as “the Sopranos in Middle Earth.”\u00a0\u00a0 I knew how to play that game too, so I pitched STARPORT as “HILL STREET BLUES with aliens.”\u00a0\u00a0 The idea was that, in the very near future (that would have been the late 90s, since I wrote the script around 1993-94), a great interstellar civilization called the Harmony of Worlds decides that humanity has finally advanced sufficiently to be admitted to the ranks of civilized races, and reveals themselves to us.\u00a0\u00a0 After first contact, they build three great starports for purposes of trade and diplomacy: one in Singapore, one in Copenhagen, and one in Chicago… out in the lake, where Mayor Daley always wanted to build an airport.\u00a0\u00a0 But the focus of the show was smaller than that: our viewpoint characters would be the cops and detectives of the police division closest to the Starport, who suddenly had to deal with all sorts of strange aliens coming and going, and with the sorts of problems they had never previously imagined.<\/p>\n
It was a fun show to write.\u00a0 Fox wanted a 90-minute pilot, which was all the rage back then.\u00a0\u00a0 My first draft came out closer to two hours, so of course I had to go back in and cut a lot of stuff, but that was pretty much par for the course for me. \u00a0 My first drafts were always too long and too expensive. \u00a0 The development process was pretty much the old Hollywood cliche: they loved it, they loved it, they loved it, they decided to pass. \u00a0 We shipped it around to other networks, but there were only four back then, so finding a second buyer was a long shot. \u00a0 No dice. \u00a0 STARPORT went in the drawer. \u00a0 Years later, I included one version of the script in QUARTET, a small press collection from NESFA Press to mark my being GOH at a Boskone. \u00a0 But aside from that, the story remained untold.<\/p>\n
Until now.<\/p>\n
Enter RAYA GOLDEN. \u00a0 My friend, my minion, the art director for my Fevre River Packet Company, and a very talented comic artist in her own right. \u00a0 A few years ago she adapted “Meathouse Man,” one of my darker and more twisted short stories, as a comic.\u00a0 It earned a Hugo nomination in the Best Graphic Novel category (did not win, alas). \u00a0 But she was only warming up with that. \u00a0 Afterward I gave her a much bigger challenge: STARPORT, both drafts. \u00a0 And she’s been hard at work at it for the past two years, adapting the teleplay to comics format, fixing all my dated 90s references (the jokes about VHS tapes did not work so well any more), and penciling and inking it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Raya-GRRM3-1024x678.jpg\")
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It’s huge fun. \u00a0 And now, at long last, it’s almost here.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/promo-large-splash-1024x792.jpg\")
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