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Message

Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Short Stories
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 21:11:51 +0000 (UTC)
From: jmsatb5@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

AC wrote:
>
> So, are you claiming this Mathew guy is lying in the podcast?

Not having heard the podcast, I really can't say.  All that I can say
is that there has been zero coordination or approvals between Mongoose
and anyone else that I know of.  To date, again as far as I know, WB
hasn't been shown what they're doing, certainly I haven't seen it,
don't know what it is, nobody has signed off or approved anything that
they're doing in terms of story, content, characterization, anything.

In the long history of B5, we have never had a situation where a
licensee has decided to just go off and do their own thing without
coordinating the creative aspects through WB and myself.  They're doing
this completely off on their own.  No other B5 licensed company has
decided, in essence, "screw you, we don't need you," which has been my
perception of their approach from early on, when they first approached
me to try and (in my view) reluctantly get me involved...an initial
approach that was absurd, and insulting.  When they came back, the
situation did not measurably improve and the attitude was one of, and
I'm admittedly characterizing it here, sod off, we don't need you, we
can go directly to the fans, who don't need you, we can do it better.
And they went on to kind of poison the well with the fans in that
regard.

And that's where it ended.  They've gone off and done their thing,
without any kind of creative approval as far as I know, which I believe
is also a requirement of their contract.  Be that as it may...whatever
they're doing, it has no bearing on the B5 universe insofar as I'm
concerned, which is again why I cannot endorse this on a personal or
creative basis.

jms