J. Michael Straczynski

Joseph Michael Straczynski, known to many fans as "JMS", is a writer known for work in both print and on the screen. As a comic creator, he scripted a single Star Trek issue, "Worldsinger", from DC Comics' volume 2 Star Trek: TOS series.

Straczynski has written for numerous genre franchises, such as The Real Ghostbusters and The New Twilight Zone, however he is best known for the creation of Babylon 5, a science fiction series written for television. B5, as it is sometimes known, began in 1993, and was considered by many to be a competition for, as both series were space station-based. B5 attracted a great deal of attention to the craft of television production, as Straczynski claimed to have mapped the series out from beginning to end at its inception. Numerous changes to his plots were introduced to B5 over the years, as necessitated by changes in actors and threats of cancellation, however the series still stands as an example of successful long-term serial storytelling, on a somewhat epic scale when compared to other episodic series of similar scope and production value. The series was also notable for being the first sci-fi series to have the space scenes being completely done with computer generated imagery while others at the time, such as Star Trek, were still using models.

In a news notice in the German Star Trek magazine Trekworld in it was mentioned that Paramount Pictures offered Straczynski a chance to work on the Star Trek franchise but he refused because he didn't want to work on someone else's series and he thought that the Star Trek fans didn't like him.

In 2004, Straczynski worked on a treatment for "rebooting" the Star Trek franchise with Bryce Zabel, one that was ultimately turned down. 

Studio JMS and Patricia Tallman
In 2011, Straczynski wrote the foreword titled "1,800 Non-Libelous Words About Patricia Tallman" for Patricia Tallman's autobiography "Pleasure Thresholds – Patricia Tallman's Babylon 5 Memoir". Straczynski described himself as fan of scary movies and zombie films and saw Tallman for the first time in the 1990 horror remake Night of the Living Dead. He became fascinated by her performance and specifically wrote the part of Leonora Holt in the Murder, She Wrote 1992 episode "Incident in Lot 7" for her but was told by the casting department that Tallman was unavailable and the role was cast with actress. One year later, in 1993, Straczynski again wrote a part specifically for Tallman, the role of the telepath in "The Gathering", the pilot episode of Babylon 5.

At the day of the audition for "The Gathering" he stepped into the waiting area and told Tallman that he wrote the part specifically for her. After Tallman was cast, Straczynski was crushed by the studio's decision to replace the part when the series went into production but was ecstatic when he found the chance to bring Tallman back aboard Babylon 5 one year later. The two worked together until the end of the Babylon 5 franchise in 1998.

Throughout the following years the two only met occasionally at the funerals of fellow B5 cast members Andreas Katsulas,, and. In 2010 they reconnected and became friends again. That also led into working together. In 2012, Straczynski launched his own production company Studio JMS and Tallman became CEO and Executive Producer of the company.

Studio JMS is currently working on Phase Two of the MTV.com series The Adventures of Apocalypse Al as follow up of the online comic strip web series, with a 2014 release. In pre-production is the science fiction series Sense8, distributed by Netflix as well as the drama The Flickering Light, set for a 2016 release.