Beware! Dr. Horrible is Coming!

Joss Whedon, writer/creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, and the upcoming Dollhouse, to whom I owe no insubstantial debt for resurrecting my beloved X-Man Colossus and whom Chris Claremont may never forgive for writing out Kitty Pryde, has a new project in the works that...

Well, here. I'll let Joss explain it to you himself:

Dear Friends,

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay?

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, “It’s Show Business – not Show Friends”? Well now it’s Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

And now to answers a few Frequently (soon to be) Asked Questions:

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

2) What happens when it goes away? Does it go to a happy farm for always like Fluffy did when mommy was crying and the neighbor kept washing his fender?

No, Dr horrible will live on. We intend to make it available for download soon after it’s published. This would be for a nominal fee, which we’re hoping people will embrace instead of getting all piratey. We have big dreams, people, and one of them is paying our crew.

And somewhat later, we will put the complete short epic out on DVD – with the finest and bravest extras in all the land. We’ll go into greater detail about that at Comiccon, but we’re changing the face of Show Friendliness a second time with that crazy DVD.

3) Joss, you are so kind, and generous, and your forehead is like, huge, like SCARY, like I think I can see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint hanging off it… what can WE do to help this musical extravanganza?

What you always do, peeps! What you’re already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.

Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.

4) Joss, do you ever answer a question simply or coherently?

Shledzguohn?

There’ll be more questions, and more long, long answers, but for now I’m just excited that we’re actually making this happen. We (and a lot of other people -- gushing to commence soon) worked very hard on the show and we hope/think you guys will be pleased. Until July 15th , I remain, yours truly, -j, of the firm j, j, m & z.

[ edited by joss on 2008-06-28 12:56 ]

To those few of you who might yet need to know more, I commend the following video...


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Both of you who still aren't convinced can click here to get the rest.

I don't know about the rest of you but, musical lover that I am, I can't wait for July 15th.

On the Road Again

This is just a quick note to remind all and sundry that your humble blogger will be one of the Guests of Honor over July 4th weekend at the wonderful CONvergence to be held just outside of Minneapolis from the 3rd to the 6th. I'll be joined there by such stalwarts as Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson, the incomparable Marv Wolfman, Groo the Wanderer and Garfield's own Mark Evanier, Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman, noted Science Fiction authors David Weber, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon and Eric Flint, as well as Ain't It Cool News?'s own Harry Knowles, among many others.

Having had the enormous honor and extraordinary good luck to have been a guest at CONvergence back in 2005, I can tell you without hesitation that it is by far one of the best times I've ever had a convention since I helped to throw the very first New York ComiCon way back in the early Jurassic era. So, if you're in the area over the weekend and have any books you want signed or just feel like saying howdy, drop on by.

For more information, just check out this link. Who says this isn't a full-service blog?

Our Snickerdoodle Destiny

Okay, I know a few of you Gentle Readers out there were a tinch perturbed by my previous posting. But here's a political point of view by one of the most legendary pundits of the day that I challenge even the most hardhearted among you out there to take issue with.

Go ahead. Try. I dare you.

This Pretty Much Speaks For Itself

As I've mentioned here a time or two before, I'm not a very political creature by nature, but this one struck enough raw nerves to warrant inclusion.

Enjoy.

Sure Good Eatin'

For those of you out there interested in food (and, let's face it, with the possible exception of certain supermodels and some obstinate three-year-olds, who among us isn't?), my lovely wife Christine has started a new blog on the subject of eating and its usual precursor cooking. It's called Into The Kitchen and it can be found at this new location right here. There will be recipes, reviews, and anecdotes galore provided, and a good time is guaranteed for all. Drop on by and check it out when you get a chance and tell her your humble blogger sent ya.

Oh, BTW, for those of you counting such things, that now makes three blogs for my Best Beloved, compared to my one, all of which are updated far more often than I ever seem to be able to get around to here. Frankly, I think this is all just some sort of sinister plan on her part to guilt me into posting more often.

Women! Can't live with 'em, can't outblog 'em.

>sigh<

Yes, I'm Still Alive. Thanks For Asking.

Well, one of the things I've learned since starting this blog is how it utterly changes your relationship with the world around you and your friends at large.

In the old days, if I was under a really tight deadline or just wasn't feeling terribly social for whatever reason or had been snowed in to the rafters, with the house surrounded by ravenous wolves, I could just vanish into the woodwork for a time to pop my head back up, groundhog-like, when circumstances had changed for the better. Now that I have this here blog, if I should fail to post anything new for a few days (or, okay, I'll admit it, a whole month this time), many of you Gentle Readers out there start writing in, concerned about my general well being, afraid that I may have somehow contracted Death Cooties or the like and am sprawled senseless beneath my desk, unable to gasp for help.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. In point of fact, I find it extraordinarily comforting to know that, should my lovely wife Christine ever be out of town for an extended period, and if I were to contract Death Cooties while she was gone, there are so many of you out there who would notice my absence. Not that you could do anything about it, of course.

I mean, really, Death Cooties are incredibly contagious, and you'd have to break into my house past my state-of-the-art security system just to check if I was under my desk, and most of you don't even live locally to begin with, so you'd have to drive here all the way from wherever or buy airline tickets and then go through hours of aggravation with stupid airport security just to get on the plane, and by then, by the time you finally got here, I'd probably already be dead of the Cooties anyway.

But thanks for the thought.

The truth of the matter is that I really have been under a tight deadline for the past month. I'm in the final stretch of writing an incredibly cool video game that I really wish I could tell you all about, but promise I will once I'm legally able to. I've also been spending a lot of time dealing with the declining health of my beloved old Golden Retriever Muffin, about whom I've written here a time or two before. At the age of thirteen-and-a-half, rather old for a dog her size, she's become somewhat senile, extremely arthritic, and occasionally incontinent, a horrible hat trick for such a sweet-hearted friend. So I give her her medicines, scratch her loving head, and keep a watchful eye on her, hoping for the best as time goes by.

I have made the time over the past month to catch all of the new summer blockbuster movies (with the singular exception of Sex and the City, since I never watched the series) and I'll try to post my opinions of same over the next few days, should any of you out there actually care what I have to think about them. The lovely wife and I also caught a test screening last night of the new Viggo Mortensen/Ed Harris/Renee Zellwegger western Appaloosa, which Christine covers in more detail over on her own entertaining blog which can be read by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

Beyond that, I'll try to show up here more regularly, if for no other reason than to relieve your collective concerns. Yes, I know I've promised that in the past, but good intentions have got to count for something.

Oh, and if it'll make you all sleep any easier, just yesterday I got inoculated against Death Cooties, so now all we have to worry about are the ravenous wolves.