Babylon 5 Resources: Products

Contents: Books - Clothing - Audio - Software - Toys/Games - Video - Misc

Licensing Company of America, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. handles the licensing of Babylon 5 products.

Many of these items are carried by online stores:

Books/Magazines

For a list of books, see the Books/novels page.
A comic-book adaptation from DC Comics with all-new stories is available. The original series started in December 1994 and ended after 11 issues. A new series, started in January 1998, is in production. Softbound collections of the first and second series are available from Titan Books in the UK, ISBNs 1852866462 and 1852867353.
Babylon 5 Magazine, an official UK magazine published by Titan Magazines, goes on sale in the UK and Ireland on July 17, 1997. It features interviews with the cast and crew and exclusive photos from the set. For subscription information, call 01536 763631.
A 1999 Babylon 5 calendar is available.
Chris Aylott produces a fan-run magazine called The Babylon Project.

Clothing

Fashion Victim has released 5 B5 shirts, with 2 more on the way.
Some fan-produced jumpgate pins (with the "<*>" symbol you may have seen in people's Usenet signatures, representing a jumpgate) are available. The price has been sharply cut for the remainder of 1997.
A leather/wool jacket with the B5 logo on the front and a station picture on the back is available, though only in limited quantities. The list price is $300. See the Uncomyn Gifts page listed above for more details.
There are some B5 character masks. Currently Delenn and G'Kar are being produced; their list prices are $15.00 and $23.00 respectively.
ALL-U Activewear has 5 shirt designs available, as well as 1 cap design and some other items. 10 Vatrano Rd, Albany NY 12205; phone 800-424-2558 or 518-488-7291.
Two T-shirt designs are now available from 800-TREKKER: the logo, and the station/season 1 cast (as seen in the TV Guide ad). $13.95 each.
Creation Entertainment has T-shirts. They can be reached at (818) 409-0960.
Babylon 5 T-shirts should be available soon at Warner Bros. company stores.

Audio

Two soundtrack albums by Christopher Franke are available via mail order and in stores. The first, titled simply "Babylon 5," is about 55 minutes in length. Sonic Images, the publisher, has a Web server with some excerpts from the CD. There is also a fan-produced detailed breakdown of which episodes the various sections of the CD come from.
The second soundtrack album is called "Babylon 5: Messages from Earth," and was released January 29, 1997. See the Sonic Images Web page about the soundtrack for details and audio clips. There is a fan-produced index of this CD as well.
A series of unabridged episode soundtracks is available from Sonic Images, containing the music from various episodes exactly as heard on the show. Each CD runs approximately 30 minutes. Episodes currently available include "Severed Dreams," "A Late Delivery from Avalon," "Walkabout," "Shadow Dancing," and "Z'ha'dum."
Sonic Images also publishes a "Crusade" soundtrack featuring music by Evan H. Chen.
All of these CDs can be ordered direct from Sonic Images; details can be found on their Web site.
Some of the CDs are available for online listening at broadcast.com.
Bill Mumy (Lennier) is part of Barnes & Barnes, an offbeat rock band. (In "Eyes," Lennier can be heard chanting a nonsense word from one of his albums.) His latest album is called "Dying To Be Heard."
There is also a set of recordings by B5's conceptual consultant Harlan Ellison, who performs his works in a radio-drama-style context. The first CD release is a reading of his Hugo-award-winning story, "Paladin of the Lost Hour." The CD costs $16.50 plus $2 shipping/handling; for more information or to order, contact the Harlan Ellison Record Collection, P. O. Box 55548, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413. (Checks or money orders only, no plastic.)
A series of recordings of radio shows written by Norman Corwin is available. Norman Corwin is JMS's favorite writer; here's what Joe has to say about him.

Software

Sierra Online was working on a B5 computer game featuring first-person space combat, but it was cancelled on September 21, 1999.
Some articles about the game are available on various sites:
- A September 1998 preview of the game
- A September 1998 interview with designers Marc Hudgins and Randy Littlejohn
The game was first shown publicly on May 29, 1998 at the E3 conference in Atlanta, GA.
Several fan-produced B5 games are available. Among them:
- I've Found Her, a space combat simulation written from scratch.
- The Babylon Project is another space combat simulation based on the Freespace 2 engine (though that game is not required to play.)
Sierra produces a B5 CD-ROM encyclopedia, "The Official Guide to J. Michael Straczynski's 'Babylon 5,'" created in cooperation with Babylonian Productions. It was released November 17, 1997, and can be ordered online from Sierra's Web site. More details:
- Sierra On-Line (Oakhurst, CA), in conjunction with Babylonian Productions and Sonic Images, is releasing the ultimate Babylon 5 reference product. It will be hitting stores the first week of November and contains 2 CDs. Both CDs are hybrid PC and MAC.
  The first CD (created by Babylonian Productions) is the reference guide. This has gobs of specs and information on ships, weapons, governments, people, and places to go on the ship. One of the most impressive things, is the incredible amount of video clips and still images taken from the show. This is a very special CD due to its unique design and depth of information.
  The second CD (created by Sonic Images and Sierra) is "The Best of Babylon 5". This is an enhanced music CD that has 15 tracks taken from Christopher Franke's 7 existing Babylon 5 CDs (Vol.1, Vol.2, and the 5 Episodic CDs), plus 2 tracks created for Sierra's upcoming game. Play the music just like any music CD, or put it in a PC or MAC and choose to see any of the 8 interviews, a Bio, or a trailer for Sierra's upcoming game.
  As an added bonus, there will be an exclusive trading card.
Comments from JMS:
- The first thing out the gate is going to be the B5 guide CDrom, which will be out next month or so. It was done in-house by us, and Sierra is distributing it. It's the authoritative guide to the races, weapons, ships, and the world of B5 itself, the locations, other stuff...with a LOT of video from the show, and your choice of three different guides.
- The other game is still being developed, and it's too early to get into the details yet. Christy Marx is involved, though.
  RE: the guides...in the informational CD rom, you arrive by shuttle at the station, and at customs you can choose from three different guides: the official station tour guide (rather stuffy, formal, only encourages you to go to the nice places), a rather shady character who knows all the best (worst) places, and a Gaim. The commentaries on the places you go vary from guide to guide.
- Yes, the fan club will also carry a limited number of the CDroms.
- Will the CD contain information about future events?
  No, this was something we couldn't work into this version...though there is one little extra hidden in the disk somewhere...sort of an easter egg, something that won't come around for almost a year in the show.
- About the name
  I was very iffy on that...I am getting this vague sense that I'm becoming a brand name, and I'm suspicious of that sort of thing. At first they wanted it in a proprietary sense, "J. Michael Straczynski's Guide to the Babylon 5 Universe," but I vetoed that because Jason Brezhinski did 90% of the actual work on the thing, researching every smallest detail shown in the series, and if anyone should get that credit, it's him. The final title only came about through a lot of haggling.
PC Magazine has a review of the CD.
Babylon 5: Shadow War is the second B5 screensaver package from Sound Source Interactive. It contains images from seasons three and four as well as a B5 videogame.
The first B5 screen saver by Sound Source Interactive is currently out of print. A note from JMS about installation:
Oh...speaking of eye-popping, I've gotten a copy of the B5 Screen Saver/Limited Edition Entertainment CD Rom, and it's nifty. I suggest it to everyone, with a caveat: if you're not a computer neep-neep kind of person, have someone help you install the thing. It took me several passes to figure everything out. And once you DO install it, even though it says "do you want all the images?" and you say yes, it doesn't put them all on. Once you've finished -- and I'm putting this here because as far as I can tell this isn't documented *anywhere* -- go to the setup menu, and hit install. Make sure your CDrom is in the drive. Go to the Images subdirectory on the CDrom, and you'll suddenly see 150 or so images that were *not* installed. Highlight all of them, copy them over to the pdesk/images subdirectory on your hard disk, then add them, and select them. Most neeps out there could probably figure this out, but I couldn't, so I pass this along for those who are as computerchip challenged as I am. Once it's all *there*, and actually even before that, it's gorgeous...the images are crisp and brilliant, the full-motion video stuff is terrific, there's music and sounds and other stuff...I can't commend it highly enough.

Toys/Games

Mongoose Publishing has a very detailed B5 roleplaying game that includes material from Crusade.
A B5 game is available from Component Game Systems. It's a strategy game played with cards. Starter kits are US$12.95 each. A core set with the complete set of cards is US$29.95.
Precedence Publishing produced a B5 collectible card game which was released in November 1997.
Three action figures (Lennier, Marcus, and Vir) are available from Diamond Comics.
Agents of Gaming produces a B5 space combat wargame called Babylon 5 Wars.
Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment produces a B5 roleplaying game. It's set in the years between the end of the Earth-Minbari War and the start of the series. The game will apparently not be available in the UK until a publisher can be found there.
Revell/Monogram produces licensed models of Babylon 5 and the Starfury fighter. Here's what JMS had to say on December 17, 1997, referring to the Starfury model:
The finished model just came in this week, with full shrink wrap, box, pieces, everything...very nice. There were some delays that came from our side, as we worked to make it more authentic and more in keeping with how they look on screen. Revell was happy to cooperate, even if it delayed things a bit...with the result that it's a better product. (Among the things we asked for: to reposition the forward guns, alter the tilt of the engines, texture under the wings as well as on top, that sort of thing.)
Basically, I'd rather have it *right* than have it Tuesday.

The Starfury model comes with decals to make it look like Ivanova's Starfury, the Black Omega squadron, a Presidential escort, or the "Sea Witch."
Micro Games of America makes a couple handheld electronic B5 games with LCD displays.
Galoob's Babylon 5 Micro-Machines are available at toy stores like Toys R Us, as well as stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target. There are six sets of three ships, each set costing about five to six dollars.
Sets 5 and 6 are packaged as part of the Space Collection, which includes 24 3-vehicle packs per box: 22 Star Wars and Star Trek packs, and both B5 packs. Galoob apparently no longer has the license to make additional B5 sets, but the initial six should still be out there.
Bubble bottle necklaces. Each bottle is a futuristic container with one of the ships on top (the handle of the bubble blower).

Video

Warner Home Video has released the B5 pilot movies "The Gathering" and "In the Beginning" on DVD. A boxed-set release is expected in fall 2002, with commentaries by JMS. The latest information.
VHS videotapes of season-one B5 episodes are available in the US from Columbia House. The first videotape is $4.95 with a subscription; subsequent tapes (2 episodes each) are $19.95 each and arrive every four to six weeks. Columbia House can be reached at (800) 457-0866.
Videotapes of season two and beyond (and possibly season one as well) will be released in 1998 by Warner Home Video. Here's the announcement from JMS:
Victories come in all sizes; in some ways, this is a small one, in other ways this is a big one.
For four years, we bugged Warner Bros. Home Video about releasing B5 on videocassette in retail outlets. But WB has never released a series before on tape, it's not something they *do*, not sufficiently prestige when compared with their big movies. Eventually they were persuaded to let Columbia House try it for mail-order, for the first season.
And CH was *swamped* with orders. Phones rang off the hook, and tapes were back-ordered to try and fill the demand.
And Warner Bros...noticed.
And this month, they made a big announcement about the coming release of Babylon 5 on video through retail outlets all over the country. I've seen the cover designs for the first batch, and they're extremely good looking montages, each specifically designed for that tape. They're putting a lot of thought and effort and time into this, and a big campaign. I believe the first batch hits the stands in July or August, somewhere in there.
This is a big victory for us. On a grand scale, it may seem minor, but it's the most direct statement of "you were right" we've ever had from WB, and they were sufficiently mensches to say so, and act on it.
If these go well, they're also talking laserdisks and DVDs down the road, and should THAT happen, I'm going to push like hell to have them release the widescreen versions.
But that's the next campaign. For now, this is a big victory for us, and we're mighty pleased.

JMS warns of pirate videos and asks for help tracking down the source:
A number of folks have been spammed by a series of notes from a group called VulcanEntr@aol.com offering tapes of B5 bloopers and rarities. Under any circumstances, NO ONE has been licensed or authorized to sell ANY B5 bloopers, extracts, excerpts or interviews, anywhere on the planet. (And this goes for the B5 electronic press kit, which is specifically denoted as freeware and it's illegal to sell them.) If you see these tapes for sale ANYwhere, be advised that you are dealing with stolen goods.
Back to VulcanEntr...it was brought to their attention by a fan that they did not have the rights to sell these tapes...they replied to the fan that they DID have the rights, and had verified this with the B5 production office; even had a convention organizer send a similar note, both threatening the fan slander suits for such statements (that they were bootleggers). The convention organizer, Jon Bernam, of JD Productions, said that he had received a copy of a letter from B5 to Vulcan Entr. giving them the rights to sell this material.
All this was forwarded on to me...and I then contacted them and in very short order, VulcanEntr said that they never, ever at any time had any B5 tapes, that a couple of part-time employees had misused their account to put out these notes offering these items for sale...although Bernam stated that these tapes had been on a table at his convention....
VulcanEntr said they never had any knowledge of any of this, so how then did Bernam get a copy of a letter supposedly authorizing this?
I think the operative phrase here is, "duck and cover." You'd think they would at least get their stories straight.
So consider this a fact-finding and weasel-hunting expedition. If you ordered a tape from VulcanEntr, and that check has been cashed, then if Vulcan Entr. is correct and these tapes never existed...that's mail fraud. If you DID get a copy of these tapes, it's piracy and in the purview of the FBI.
Obviously, I would prefer to continue going straight to the source for my answers here, but overnight BOTH parties canceled their AOL accounts and have vanished from sight.
Suffice to say that any information on this situation will be very much appreciated. So that we can arrive at all the facts. Meanwhile, the moral is to stay clear of video pirates and bootleggers.
Image Entertaniment is releasing B5 episodes and TV-movies on laserdisc.
In Europe, Australia, Japan, and other markets, the Babylon 5 pilot movie has been released on home video (and on laserdisc in Japan), as has "A Voice in the Wilderness" (both parts, spliced together into a movie.) In Australia and New Zealand, the tape of "The Gathering" is instead titled "Universe on the Brink of Destruction."
A UK video release of the series started in May 1995. The tapes are distributed by Beyond Vision Serial Sci-Fi and cost £10.99 each. Some have two episodes per tape, some three. They're also available as boxed sets, with each season priced at £65.
The Internet Music Shop in the UK has the videos available for purchase over the net. (The UK videos are in PAL format, which won't play back on most US video equipment; keep that in mind if you decide to order.)
For more information on the European videos:
- The Storm Guide to Babylon 5
- Sector Red 34
All of the first- and second-season episodes are available on tape in Australia. The tapes are marketed by Warner Bros. and cost $19.95 each. Season three tapes began appearing in February 1998 at the same price, and will likely appear in batches of three every three months.
In Singapore, B5 is available on Video CD (two episodes per CD) from Warner Home Video.
Ron Thornton (B5 special effects coordinator) has a series of instructional videos about creating spacecraft with 3-D computer graphics.

Miscellaneous

Hugh Fleming Illustration produces a limited-edition B5 poster in the style of a movie poster.
Mania has a limited-edition G'Kar sculpture designed by the artist who did the original makeup work.
Creation has licensed several products in addition to the shirts mentioned above, including mugs and photos. They can be reached at (818) 409-0960.
Fleer has a set of 120 trading cards, including some holograms. The Uncomyn Gifts trading-card page has more information about the available cards. Front and back views of a promotional card are available.
Warning! Be sure not to accept a box of cards that has had the shrinkwrap removed. That may be a sign that someone (perhaps the dealer or a distributor) has gone through the box looking for the valuable "chaser" cards. It is possible for someone to tell which packs contain such cards without actually opening the packs up.
A second set of cards was released in October 1996. Some samples from the set are available.
Some packs of the second set of cards contain posters; for some reason, the posters aren't listed in the card checklist. They are:
1. Together Against the Shadows (To Stand Against the Dark or Perish)
2. Recycle: Keep Babylon 5 Clean
3. Babylon 5 Earth's Best Hope
4. Narn poster #1 (3 mirrored images)
5. Earth's Last Best Hope Babylon 5
6. Alien poster (2 mirrored images)
7. Narn poster #2 (2 mirrored images)
8. Night Watch
9. Narn poster #3 (G'Kar and ship)
10. Ministry of Peace
A special-edition card series was released on June 25, 1997. Fleer had the following to say about it.
FLEER/SKYBOX will release a new line of BABYLON 5 Special Edition trading cards this June. The common cards in the set include a 72-card retrospective of the show's pilot episode, as well as cards themed after Ships of the Earth Alliance, Ships of the Shadow War, and BABYLON 5 Perspectives. The boxes will also feature numerous rare cards in certain packs, including 36 B5 trivia cards (1 in every 1 pack), 18 costume cards (1:2), 8 Worlds of B5 (1:6), 4 faces of Delenn (1:12), 1 Hugo Award card (1:36), one B5 sculpted hologram card (1:180), and one Mira Furlann (Delenn) autographed card (1:720). The B5 cards come in packs of 8, for a suggested $1.49.

In January 1998, Fleer will release a third regular set, covering season four, with the following cards:
- 81 standard cards covering season 4, character bios, and an in-depth look at Sheridan.
- 81 alien language parallel cards (1 per pack.)
- 12 season one retrospective cards (1 per 4 packs.)
- 9 Starfury art cards (1 per 8 packs.)
- 6 Fleet of the First Ones cards (1 per 6 packs.)
- 3 "In the Beginning" cards (1 per 36 packs.)
- 6 SkyMotion Space Action cards (1 per 90 packs.)
- Autographed cards from Richard Biggs, Jeff Conaway, Stephen Furst, Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas, Bill Mumy, and Patricia Tallman (1 per 180 packs.)
JMS had the following to say about the season-four cards on January 25, 1998:
Just a general FYI...the Fleer S4 card set has just come in, and should be appearing soon at stores. They're gorgeous cards, with not only the pictures on one side, but also on the same side, a line of dialogue associated with that character that can only be seen if you tilt the card; plus some nice (but not excessive in number) chase cards...real nice.

Jay Morris runs a trading post for people who want to trade cards.
Antioch Publishing makes a variety of licensed B5 products, including bookplates and bookmarks, wallet ID cards, journals, magnets, and a Kosh doorknob hanger. They will also be producing the 1998 B5 calendar.
A stamper set, consisting of two rubber stamps with a ship outline, a stamp pad, and a B5 notepad. There are 4 different sets.
Keychains made using the Galoob MicroMachine ship figures.
Photographer RL Dietz is selling prints of several of his pictures used as set dressings in crewmembers' quarters on B5. More details can be found on his Web site.
See the Fans page for a list of fan clubs.

Last update: December 5, 2005