Babylon 5 custom cover art (1 Viewer)

[Frank Anderson]

I'm in the minority I guess. I prefer the reproduction of the original cover, without the additional coloring.

[url=http://members.aol.com/nightdog35/spidey_smiley.gif] [/url]

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Here's JMS's reply to that very question, from the same usenet discussion thread referenced above. (Note that the movie box is here called "the big set", which may have still been in JMS's mind if he reviewed the thread before replying to the ACtA question later the same day):

Q: What a weekend! Does "all movies" include B5LR by the way?

A: Not in the big set, no... that will be a separate DVD since it's really not a part of what comprised the original B5 movies. - jms Nov 30 2003

Regards,

Joe

 

[Bhavesh]

Ric, I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned it yet,
but the Minbari Warcruiser was upside down on the booklet.

I've never liked the the arrangement of the cast on the S2 box set. Warner's S3 cover is great though.

I particularly like this S4 cast picture

 

[Ric Easton]

Bhavesh, That shot on the VHS cover is great, as were many of the overseas VHS covers. You don't happen to have that and could scan it for me do you?

Thanks for the heads up on the upside down Minbari vessel. Along with seasons 3 and 4 pictured below, you'll also see a revamped season 2...


I used the Station to help balance out the picture, Londo was already on seasons 1 and 3 so I decided not to try to go with that idea. Now my only slight misgiving is that Ivanova will not appear on any of the covers, so I guess I will still use the big head shots for an alrternate cover if anyone wants it.



The six and seven disc alpha cases are the same exact size, so "ITB" and "The Gathering" will easily fit in. Unfortunately there are so "slim sevens" at present and I do not believe they would be the same size as the "Slim sixes" anyway.

That's about it for now...
Ric

 

[Bhavesh]

Ric, unfortunately I don't have access to that cover or I would gladly oblige. Hopefully a UK member can help you out.

Oh and I far prefer your S2 cover to the WHV one.

 

[todd s]

Ric, when will these be available for download?

 

[Rick P]

Ric.. I like the 'portrait' cover for S2, might I suggest that if you wanted to you could use a double character
portrait (not just floating heads)

Season 1 - Sinclair/Kosh
Season 2 - Sheridan/Delenn
Season 3 - Londo/G'Kar
Season 4 - Ivanova/Marcus
Season 5 - Garabaldi/Lyta

just a thought...

 

[Ric Easton]

Rick, its a nice idea, but my resources are extremely limited. Unlike Trek, I cannot find good enough portraits to create my own, that's why I'm just trying to rework the official covers. Besides, I kind of like them (with the exception of season 2) I'll offer both the official season two cover and my own version and folks will have to decide between the two.

I should have both the regular size and the slims available sometime this weekend on my site. Just doing some tweaks to the nebula on the slims.

Ric

 

[George_W_K]

Very nice work, Ric! The color scheme of the WB boxes aren't too appealing to me, even if I understand where they got their idea. Your cover art is awesome!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Thought the folks in this thread might be interested in current events in the B5 universe. Here's the latest JMS usenet post, from around one AM GMT today:


For those of you who haven't been following recent events, B5:TMoS is the abbreviation (possibly for the working, rather than the real, title) of a new B5 universe project. JMS's comments above make it pretty obvious that it is going the hoped-for and long-awaited theatrical film. (There is simply no other reason to specify a "2.35:1 hole". ) Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I think it is safe to say that it is the (to them) stunning success of the DVDs that got Warner Bros. interested in the property again, since the rerun ratings have been so lackluster that The Sci-Fi Channel stopped airing them at the end of December, and DelRey Books put tentative plans for an anthology of B5 short fiction on hold because sales for the novels dropped off.

And by extension I think it is safe to say that the members of The Home Theater Forum, who with others have lobbied tirelessly since the first Warner Bros. live chat for this show to be released on DVD, who deserve much of the credit. (I would point out that certain members actually predicted that strong sales of the DVDs could get the studio thinking about a big screen release, but modesty prevents me. )

So congratulations to all of us. Let us hope that B5:TMoS moves quickly from stage two, to stage three to stage four (coming soon to a theater near you.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Rick P]

Why didn't you say so? I'll dig out my sets of B5 Trading Cards and make some extra-hi-res scans and see of those could help.

 

[George_W_K]

Thanks for the update, Joe! I am finally excited about this new project. I hope it has a lot of the main cast in it. Especially Ivanova. I must second your "Happy, happy, joy, joy!"

Ric, I have a question about your art since I've only seen your stuff in your threads. After they are printed, how are they a part of the cases that we order? Do they slip inside somehow? Do we glue them on? Velcro? Thanks.

And, again, awesome work,
George

 

[Ric Easton]

Wow, thanks for the update, Joe! That 2.35:1 line sure has got my attention!

Rick, I also have a bunch of the trading cards, but they do not enlarge well enough to use for DVD cover art. Especially with the high standards over at DVDCA. Besides, I kind of like the way these have turned out and I don't feel like starting again from scratch! I do appreciate the offer though, thank you. If I ever decide to revisit this... I'll put the word out for hi-res stuff.

George, once printed up, they just slide into the cases like a regular DVD cover keep case (behind a see-thru plastic sleeve), no velcro necessary!

Ric

 

[KyleC]

I have a quick question. I know this is OT and I apologize. I have season 1 (but have not watched it yet) and just bought season 2 today. I plan on waiting until I have all of them before watching them. Plus my fiancee and I have to finish seasons 6 and 7 of DS9. Anyway, I've reading reviews that say the CG shots on the DVDs look really really bad. How bad is it? Should I not buy the seasons? Just curious. I do not have HDTV yet, but plan to get one in Sept if that helps.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Because the CGI was originally produced as fairly lo-res (just good enough for broadcast) 4:3 files, and there was no budget to re-compose and re-render it for the DVDs, it is a bit of a compromise. But B5 was never a show about special effects, anymore than something like Dr. Who was. If you want slick and shiny go to any number of other SF shows with bigger budgets and worse writers. B5 was always story first. The CGI shots mostly look OK, little, if any worse than the 4:3 originals. The shots that have the most problems are the (infrequent) CGI/Live Action composite shots, which are notably soft as a result of being cropped, then blown up to fit with the 16:9 anamorphic live action footage. (Ironically this would not be a problem if WB had elected to release the show as straight letterbox.)

Another reported problem on some high-end front projection and HDTV systems is that at least the first season discs had the CGI and composite shots flagged as video, while the live action material was flagged as film-source - with the result that systems with automatic settings for the two were constantly switching and making the CGI shots look worse than they really should have.

Your mileage may vary, but I wouldn't even consider missing this terrific and complex story based on some slightly fuzzy FX shots. Other shows may look beautiful even when they have nothing to say, but I'd rather a slightly shabbier looking presentation that makes me think.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Sam Favate]

Thanks for the update, Joe. Good news indeed.

The fact is that DVD is the perfect format for Babylon 5 and shows of a serialized nature, because it allows the viewer to watch at his or her own pace and digest one episode to personal satisfaction. So it is not surprising that DVD sales would be impressive but re-run ratings would not. (Or even first-run ratings. I found it very hard to catch B5 in its initial run on the PTEN. My first run-through was the initial 1998 showings on TNT).

To stay somewhat on topic here, I want to say that the cover artwork here is gorgeous. I wish I had the capability to print it out.

See you in the DVD aisles for the Movies and Crusade box sets!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, that was strange. Before editing, this message was an exact duplicate of my most recent message above, but with a time-stamp over two hours later. I have no idea how that happened.

As long as I have to edit this to remove the duplicate content, I thought I'd throw in the following links and quotations regarding the remaining B5 DVD sets for 2004:

JMS Message, Date: 2003-11-30 02:34:39 PST

'Oh, yeah...and next year you can expect two new DVD sets that a) include all of the TV movies in one package (with commentaries from me on "The Gathering" and "In the Beginning") and b) package all 13 of the Crusade episodes into one box.'

JMS Message, Date: 2003-11-30 16:11:48 PST

>What a weekend! Does all movies include B5LR by the way?

"Not in the big set, no...that will be a separate DVD since it's really not a part of what comprised the original B5 movies."

Regards,

Joe

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

A B5 movie? Exciting.

 

[Ric Easton]

Well, at last I'm finished with them. (I hope, anyway!) For those interested, you can download them from my website.

BTW, I could use some solid info on how to order the "super slim" six disc cases that some of us got from Austrailia, so I can put it on my website, for those that want to go thru the trouble. Fortunately, Greg got me some in the last big group order and I am proudly displaying mine in the slims! They turned out better than I thought they would. A shame I can't fit my "The Gathering' and In the Beginning" disc in there as well. I did make a variant to include those in season one of the "fat" set.

Joseph, feel free to point your B5 buds to my website!

Enjoy!
Ric

 

[GarySchrock]

Very cool. I have to admit, I like the spine design on the larger cases better, but my dvd storage space says I should go with the small cases . Time to fire the old printer up.

I wish I had a fraction of Ric's talent.