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Joseph Michael Straczynski (born July 17, 1954) is an award-winning American writer/producer of television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas. He is also a playwright, journalist and author of a well-regarded tome on scriptwriting. He was the creator, executive producer and head writer for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 and its spin-off Crusade. Straczynski wrote most of the Babylon 5 episodes, notably an unbroken 59-episode run including all of the third and fourth seasons. Most recently (Spring/Summer 2006) he has sold a feature film entitled Changeling to Imagine Entertainment (although the productions status of the project remains in flux••), and an original 20-part radio drama series entitled The Adventures of Apocalypse Al for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that will debut in September 2006. He is also a participant in Usenet and other early computer networks, interacting with fans through various online forums (including GEnie, CompuServe, and America Online) since 1985. He is a friend and collaborator with speculative fiction author Harlan Ellison, a student and friend of Norman Corwin and an outspoken admirer of the work of Rod Serling. Straczynski is a graduate of San Diego State University, having earned Bachelor's degrees in psychology and sociology (with minors in philosophy and literature). While at SDSU, he wrote prolifically for the student newspaper, at times penning so many articles that the paper was jokingly referred to as the "Daily Joe." Straczynski currently resides in the Los Angeles area. Straczynski's professional name is J. Michael Straczynski, although informally he goes by "Joe". In print, and particularly on Usenet, he is often referred to by his initials JMS. Early years Straczynski hails initially from Paterson, New Jersey, but has also lived in Newark, New Jersey; Kankakee, Illinois; Richland, Texas; Chula Vista, California, where he graduated high school; and San Diego, California. According to the jacket bio for the first edition of his scriptwriting text (see Other work below), Straczynski had a play produced when he was 17, a sitcom produced when he was 21, and sold his first movie script when he was 24. By the age of 28, he had credits that included television and film scripts, radio scripts for Alien Worlds and the Mutual Broadcasting System, a dozen plays, and more than 150 newspaper and magazine articles. He had also been teaching his craft for several years at various lectures and seminars in California and elsewhere. He also spent five years co-hosting the Hour 25 radio talk show on KPFK-FM Los Angeles with Larry DiTillio. Television Straczynski started in television in 1983, working on various animated shows, and he quickly worked his way from staff writer to executive producer, culminating in his most famous television work: Babylon 5 (which won back-to-back Hugo Awards). He wrote 91 out of Babylon 5s 110 episodes, as well as the pilot and five television movies. The character-driven space opera is also notable for its five year story arc, emphasis on realism, and its pioneering, extensive use of CGI for its special effects. Straczynski was also creator and executive producer of B5's aborted sequel series, Crusade, for which he wrote 10 of the 13 episodes. Straczynski created Jeremiah, loosely based on the Belgian post-apocalyptic comic of the same name. He wrote 19 of the 35 episodes. A partial list of Straczynski's other television credits: Additionally, Straczynski was involved in She-Ra: Princess of Power, and Spiral Zone, from which he removed his name and used the pseudonym Fettes Grey (derived from the names of the grave robbers in The Body Snatcher). He also wrote an episode of CBS Story Break (an adaptation of Evelyn Sibley Lampman's The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek), as well as an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, where he was supervising producer at its inception. Straczynski has also worked on television movies. Outside of the five Babylon 5 films, he wrote the award-winning adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, an attempted Captain Power spin-off pilot, Captain Power: The Beginning, and a Murder, She Wrote movie, Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For, which he also produced. Novels, short stories and nonfiction Straczynski is the author of three horror novels - Demon Night, Othersyde, and Tribulations - and nearly twenty short stories, many of which are collected in two compilations, Tales from the New Twilight Zone and Straczynski Unplugged. He wrote the outlines for nine of the canonical Babylon 5 novels, and is the author of four Babylon 5 short stories published in magazines and (as of 2005) not yet reprinted. In 2005, Straczynski began the process of publishing all of his Babylon 5 scripts, a 14 volume, 6,300 page opus that also features 50+ page original introductions and commentaries, as well as memos from B5 and his personal photos. He has also been a journalist, reviewer and investigative reporter, publishing over 500 articles in such publications as The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Writer's Digest, Penthouse Magazine, San Diego Magazine, Twilight Zone Magazine, The San Diego Reader, The LA Reader, as well as writing feature articles for Time (magazine) Comic books Straczynski has long been a comic aficionado, and wrote a few comics during the 1980s, namely an issue of Teen Titans Spotlight, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek. With the exception of the Babylon 5 comics, television work took over most of his writing duties throughout the 1980s and 1990s, until 1999 when he started writing Rising Stars for Top Cow / Image Comics. Eventually he worked mostly under his own imprint, Joe's Comics, for which he also wrote the acclaimed Midnight Nation miniseries, and the illustrated fantasy parable Delicate Creatures. Soon, Straczynski developed a good reputation in the comics industry, and Marvel Comics signed him to an exclusive contract, beginning with a run on The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel's flagship title. Other successful titles for Marvel followed, including Supreme Power and a run on Fantastic Four. Straczynski's work for Marvel includes: Controversy Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man has included several controversial retcons, such as suggesting that Spider-Man's powers may be mystical/totemic instead of science-based. Other notable stories include ASM Supreme Power trade paperbacks The Amazing Spider-Man trade paperbacks Fantastic Four trade paperbacks Rising Stars trade paperbacks Graphic novels Other work Straczynski wrote The Complete Book of Scriptwriting (ISBN 1-85286-882-1), often used as a text in introductory screenwriting courses, and now in its third edition. On June 27, 2006, Variety reported that Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have purchased the rights to Straczynski's thriller The Changeling. Variety named Imagine's co-founder, Ron Howard, as the potential director. More recently, it has emerged that Howard has chosen to direct another project instead, although Straczynski claims that Howard will instead produce, with the task of direction falling to another "a-list director". Awards He has received a good deal of recognition for his work, including a nomination for the Comics' Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 2000. His awards, numbering in the dozens, include: two Hugo Awards, the Bradbury Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a Saturn Award, the E Pluribus Unum Award from the American Cinema Foundation, the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Award, and three technical Emmy Awards (for Babylon 5 itself). Trivia | |||||||
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