As I mentioned, there’s a Mutant Enemy Fan Day coming up next Friday with Joss and Jane and Tim Minear and Marti Noxon and Steven DeKnight and more writers from Buffy, Angel, and Firefly getting together with about a hundred fans (so far) and striking in front of FOX studios. And I’m hopping on a plane to join in.

Problem is, I ain’t got a lot of extra cash for something like this, especially before the holidays. So to raise a few bucks, I’m digging through my horde of Serenity Stuff and offering it up on eBay. First up, just posted, are some hard-to-find autographed cards from the sold out Inkworks Firefly and Serenity sets.

Check back, more items will be added in the next couple days. Bid high, and bid often!

It’s official! Joss and his Mutant Enemy buddies are planning a Mutant Enemy Fan Day. Many of the ME people have been contacted and reportedly so far Jane Espenson, Doug Petrie, Amber Benson, and Adam Busch will definitely be there on the strike line picketing at FOX with Joss, and, hopefully, you. Come pick up a picket sign and march to show your support of our favoite writers. Best of all, Joss has promised that in the unlikely (but welcome) event of a concluded strike, some sort of celebration will happen anyway.

The event will be at the FOX studios (20th Century Fox Studios, 10201 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles) , Dec. 7, from 10 am to 2 pm. More details — and a lot of woo hooing, hotel information, directions and rapid plan-making - are available here.

And, in a display of utter cosmic rightness, the Nuart Theater in West LA will have a midnight showing of “Serenity” that same night. Click here for tickets.

I’ll be there myself, in my first-ever West Coast visit. Don’t let that keep you from attending.

Stop by the Joss Whedon fans forum at Fans4Writers.com to get the latest news and developments.

Our own Big Damn Chef Julesong has been pumping out ‘versy music over the Cortex for some time now, and if you’re missing it you’re missing a lot more than you realize. You get music from Firefly and Serenity, of course, but there’s also filks, folk music, Asian works, some of the Saffron songs from our recent contest, songs that might not have been in the ‘verse but should have been, and even the original pieces that songs like River’s Dance and the music from “Shindig” were based on/derived from.

And many of the tracks can be bought and downloaded right there and then.

Head over to Can’t Take the Sky and give it a listen.

“Done the Impossible,” the Browncoat documentary, has been sweeping through film festivals worldwide and will be screening at the Fantasy Worldwide Festival on Dec. 4. From DTI guy Brian Wiser:

“I created this PR piece because I was excited that Done The Impossible was actually selected to screen in six film festivals - no small feat with the number of entries festivals receive, and the 36+ festivals I entered into. And that’s a small victory for the fans too. Plus, we probably added a few Browncoats into the fold (grin)”

This one-sheet (click for a larger version) will appear first (after here) in the souvenier book that will be given to attendees of the Browncoat Cruise, sailing Dec. 1 from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas with a cargo hold full of Browncoats, cast members, and the Bedlam Bards. The 30+ page, full color souvenier book is a collectable by itself, crammed full of bios of guests, staff, volunteers, and donors, with cardstock cover art by Adam-Levermore Rich — designed in the same spirit as the QMx travel posters — and featuring ads for the 76th Battalion, AbbyShot, the Ariel Ambulance, Artcat Designs, The Bellflower, Big Damn Chefs - Freedom From Hunger, Blackmarket Beagles, the Browncoat Ball, Can’t Stop the Serenity, DragonWeave Jewelry, Done The Impossible, Fan Done, Firefly Cargo Bay, Kids Need to Read, Out to the Black Outfitters, Poplollies, QMx, the Serenity RPG, Starfury, The Signal, and The Wooten Center.

Attendees may also order the unofficial travel poster, designed by Adam.

Limited to 500 copies, you must have a passenger number to order so if you’re not going you’d better find someone who is and beg them to preorder one for you. Passengers will be picking up their posters onboard, and if the posters sell out they will not be offered to non-attendees. (If there are any left you may be able to order them, but we won’t know until after the cruise.)

Bon voyage, Browncoat Cruise people! Remember, love keeps her afloat when she oughta fall down, tells ya she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens. Just something to keep in mind.

Suzy Seigel, one of the winner’s of “Win a Dinner with Joss” a few months ago is now giving away a Serenity movie poster signed by Joss.

I’m thrilled that Joss signed this poster for an auction supporting Equality Now. Since I already gave it a big check, however, I’d like the poster to now do its magic for people with leiomyosarcoma. 

Think of us as inhabiting the outer planets of the cancer ‘verse. Many of us, including me, have stage 4 LMS. Some of us don’t expect to survive this fight (although that’s not Plan A). But we think: “The future is worth fighting for.” We have lost friends. Few people know our world exists. We see millions go to more common cancers, while we go begging. With that said, let the begging begin!

Details on how to enter are here. Contest ends March 1, 2008.

TFAW.com is celebrating Black Friday with blowout sales on statues and select graphic novels. Such as the “River Triumphant” statue, now 20% off, and the “Serenity: Those left Behind” trade paperback, now only $7.46. Also, many more graphic novels, some up to 80% off. Check out the “Tales of the Slayers” collection and the Buffy Omnibus and “Fray.”

And, today onoly, free domestic shipping on any order over $15 of in-stock items. Now’s the time to stock up on your own stuff, and start thinking about Christmas presents… More details here.

Stores know what pulls in the customers on big sale days. Firefly! And every year it pops up on sale somewhere on Black Friday or during the big weekend sales after Thanksgiving. Let’s check ‘em out. And if you hear of any more, add ‘em in the comments and I’ll keep updating.

Fryes.com has it for $16.99.

It was on sale at Target for $14.88, anyone know if it still is? The website is, oddly enough, out of stock.

Buy.com now has it for $23.00. (The $18 price was Thursday only)

Any more?

Hie thee hence over to QMx and buy your Serenity Blueprints Reference Pack, they just went on sale.

My review is here.

SerenityCollectors.com has announced that the licensed Mal resin mini-bust is now available, sold exclusively from Razor’s Edge Collectibles. Sculpted by Gentle Giant, made by Diamond, this little captain is in 1/6 scale and is 6″ tall. It’s also, judging from the final protoype pic here, the closest anyone’s gotten to capturing his distinctive likeness.

Only 1,000 will be made and sales are limited to two per household, $49.99 each.

Whatcha think? More pics and closeups in their forums.

During the writers’ strike our favorite shows are running out of new episodes. Some eagerly anticipated ones may not show up this year at all. Meanwhile, episodes are being sold online with a pittance going back to the writers who thunk ‘em up, or streamed online — in essence, a rerun — without paying the writers anything.

Which puts us in a dilemma. We want the writers to get their fair share, so we’re willing to wait as long as it takes for that to happen. But we also want new adventures, new stories in our favorite worlds. Where do we go?

Well, there’s always comics.

TFAW.com is promoting their TV- and movie-tie-in comics. Serenity, Buffy, Angel, CSI, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars, Supernatural, The Simpsons, Alias, and many more are all there in brand new adventures. Granted, not all of the writers get paid for each one of those sold, either, but those deals were known ahead of time. And some of them do. Personally, I hope Joss gets rich from the record-breaking sales of Buffy, Angel, and Serenity. It might encourage him to write a few more…

Then there’s the tie-in novels. Buy his Buffy book, for example, and Keith R.A. DeCandido gets a royalty. See how easy that is? Support a writer and go read some Buffy, Angel, Serenity, Star Trek, Star Wars, even Monk.

Me, I’m holding off on buying any epsiodes from iTunes or Amazon’s Unbox, and I’m avoiding the networks’ websites. Books and comics will hold me for awhile.

If you need more suggestion on ways to help writers during the strike, head to www.fans4writers.com . You’ll find a lot of people there with great ideas, and the occasional visiting writer or showrunner.