The summer before “Serenity” came out, I starting to work on a book about fandom. I wanted to try and explain to all those people who mock conventions and online forums and geeks and freaks exactly what being a part of a fan community is all about. I did some interviews with various Browncoat movers and shakers but ultimately I let it go because, being pleasantly antisocial both on- and offline, I was the wrong person to write it.
 
Which is good because Allyson Beatrice’s book would have blown mine away. She’s the perfect person to write it because she doesn’t try to analyze the socioeconomic impact of talent-consumer interaction or the changing trends in the networks’ use of end-user-friendly viral marketing. She just wrote a book about herself and her friends.

It’s called “Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?” and if you’ve ever made a friend online you will not be able to read this book without smiling. Allyson is not just a fan, she’s a fan who can mobilize other fans. She started the Posting Board Parties for Angel, led the postcard campaign and wrote the famous Variety ad for “Firefly,” and offered support for countless numbers of people she never actually met. And in 17 essays she captures the feel, the love, the responsibilities and affections and fun and manic behavior and cheerful obsession of fandom. She talks about organizing cons, mail-in campaigns, parties, and last-minute weddings. You’ll find out how to handle trolls, deal with sock puppets, and argue with uppity showrunners. You’ll see the transcript of the night a group of people on a forum abruptly decided to raise money to bring a much-loved, never-met friend over from Israel and the speed with which the thought became the deed will look awfully familiar. You’ll laugh and get sniffly and most of all, you’ll recognize the people she’s talking about because you are the people she’s talking about. Sometimes literally, especially if you’ve ever hung around The Bronze or Whedonesque…
 
Q: You wrote a freaking book! How cool is that?
 
I’m having a hard time letting it sink in. I’ve always had this romantic view of writers, all smart and mysterious behind their typewriters. And then an idiot like me gets published. Standards have gone down the toilet, obviously.
 
I’m so pathetic that I went to Barnes & Noble the day after they shelved it so I could stare at the endcap display and try to burn it into my brain, just in case I never sell another book. I was on the same display with Woody Allen, Gabe Kaplan, and The Big Book of Jewish Humor. I’m on the Jewcap. My people are a funny people, apparently.

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The “River Triumphant” statue from Diamond Select Toys is on the shelves today, and I’m psyched. The more official stuff the better, as that continues to point out that hey, there’s still an audience out there. Also, I like stuff.

The “River Triumphant” statue is 7″ high, on scale with the Serenity action figures from DST. It features a hand-numbered base with matching box and a certificate of authenticity, with a limited edition 1,000 pieces.

I talked to Michael Leavey, DST Marketing and Sales Supervisor, about the new statues:

How did the “River Triumphant” statue come about?

“We always wanted to do more action figures but the movie box office and DVD sales were not where the buyers wanted to see them, so we had to come up with another way for fans to fill out their action figure collections if they wanted to. The one most obviously missing was River!”

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Just hours away now, as Browncoats begin massing outside QMx’s website to get one of the limited edition sets of official Serenity blueprints, it’s time to talk to two of the people behind them.

The blueprints, 10 18″x24″ full-color and insanely detailed pages, were carefully crafted by Geoffrey Mandel (graphic designer for the movie) and Tim Earls (who created the original drawings of the ship for the TV show CG models and was set designer for the movie). An amazing amount of resources were tapped for this design including the original drawings, the CG models, the set blueprints, and thousands of screenshots to make sure that this was as close to canon as it could possibly be. Not only do these sheets finally determine where all the cabins are, where the crew keeps their drinking water, and where the heck all those doors lead to, they also include detailed views of the shuttles and mule. 

These sheets — 10 blueprints and one “signature sheet” signed by Geoff and Tim, printed on heavy stock paper, are works of art and well worth framing, the definitive blueprints for our beloved little ship. I talked to Geoff and Andy Gore, director of Quantum Mechanix, about the whole shebang.

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Q: Tired of Serenity yet?
 
Geoff: Never! In fact, corresponding with you and the other Brain Trust members [note: the beta-test team] made me look forward to revisiting the Firefly DVDs (after a decent interval, of course). Going through all the photos and reference materials made me remember a lot of details from the movie set… such as the fact that the cargo barrels down in the hold were really rusty and disgusting.

Andy: Tired? Tired? Are you MAD?! Am I tired of my left arm? My right foot? A rainbow after a summer storm? ;-) Okay, no. You should *see* the list of Serenity-based projects I’ve submitted to the PD team for review. Don’t believe me? Ask Geoff. He’s working on all of them, right Geoff? ;-) 

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You know his work. You love his work. And that’s because artist Jason Palmer truly loves Firefly. He’s been illustrating professionally for over 15 years now, creating images and prop designs and comic book covers and trading cards and DVD covers and more for a variety of licenses such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Without a Trace, Happy Feet, and Harry Potter. But his licensed illustrations of the crew of the Serenity are a labor of love that have endeared him to the Browncoat community, and he continues to create more. Currently he’s making portraits of each crew member, available separately or as a set (see the end of the interview for more details).

I caught up to him at the FX Con in Orlando this year (pictured with his wife Yelena) to finally get the interview we agreed on at the last FX con. It was worth the wait.

SS: Jason, how did you get started doing licensed artwork?

JP: Well, as far as Serenity and Firefly goes, originally, at the promotional convention for the Firefly DVD, I did a piece just on my own, I thought I should do something to key in on this. So I did a pencil piece for Firefly that you see here, and it was really popular. Joss loved it, Nathan loved it, every… the whole cast really liked it. I kept getting requests about it so I worked it up into a full-fledged painting and it got very popular so I thought, let’s go ahead and get the license, so that’s what we did.

SS: You were already a fan?

JP: Oh, big time, yeah. I actually saw “The Train Job” when it first aired and thought “Wow, this is different, this is very cool.” I was a little leery because there had been so many sci-fi disappointments and things that were just kind of hackneyed but I could tell this looked different. I was a little confused because of the showing out of order–

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Rumors have been spreading, hints have been leaked, and now finally the word is out: there are new, licensed Serenity props coming from a brand new replica company, QMx.

The company was started by Stephen Dymszo, a man who has been in the prop business for 14 years. 4 1/2 of them were spent at the company he founded, Master Replicas, and if you’ve ever gone shopping for the best lightsaber replicas or just walked through a good convention dealer room, you’ve seeing their acclaimed work. In fact, if you saw Yoda’s lightsaber in the prequel movies you saw Steve’s work – a prop he reworked as a joke for a friend was seen by a designer working for LucasArts, and ultimately made it into the movies. But last year he left the company he founded to take a new direction.

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One year ago today, more or less, the Serenity novelization hit the shelves. Some of us avoided it like the plague, not wanting to know anything before we were in the theater and the lights went down. Some of us — and I’m not admitting anything — went driving through several cities trying to find a copy because Amazon takes a whole two days to deliver.

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Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Allan Caplan, president of Inkworks, the company responsible for the highly regard collectible cards for various popular movies and TV shows like X-Files, The Family Guy, Buffy, Angel, Lost, The Simpsons,  Veronica Mars, The Sopranos, Smallville, and (of course) Serenity.

For some reason I forgot to ask him anything about any of the other shows… 

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If you’re at a Renaissance festival and hear “The Hero of Canton,” or working your way through a science fiction convention and hear lilting Celtic music that makes you want to laugh or cry or stomp your feet (or all three) right there in the dealer’s room, you’re hearing the Bedlam Bards.

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When you sat spellbound in the movie theater watching the Serenity’s nose art fill the screen, or the star charts for Miranda that River brought up one-handed, you were seeing the work of Serenity graphic designer Geoffrey Mandel. And the odds are good you’ve seen his work before.

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Just posted an interview with Stephen Lane, buyer for The Prop Store of London where hundreds of props from the movie Serenity are popping up (you may have noticed). Check it out!