Before the world changes forever according to the X-Files mythology, a quick and lists-filled look at all the X-Files comics published since 1995, in the Dossiers section!

In other news, a big shout out to the Back to Frank Black team responsible for the “Back To Frank Black” book, a recommended buy for anyone who liked “Millennium“. The work done by these fellow Ten Thirteen fans is nothing short of amazing and highly professional! The amount of interviews, the people who were interviewed (even James Wong and Glen Morgan are here, and they had not accepted to appear in the official FOX interviews for the DVDs!), the quality of many of the analyses (not all, but let’s not be so dark), this is all unprecedented for a publication dedicated to this series — and I don’t think there are many examples where fan-made publications reach this level of quality, all series or fictional universes considered.

Since Jane Goldman’s official guide to “Millennium” ended up not being published in 1997, and since the hard-to-find French book by Edouard de Teyssiere was published in 2003, this is the next best thing in the “Millennium” world. There are some very juicy information here, such as: Chris Carter considering that the launch of “Harsh Realm” indirectly condemned “Millennium” to be cancelled after its third season, the fact that there really was a fourth season planned and that the show was cancelled well after the third season finale aired, Morgan & Wong’s “The Road”-like ideas for where the series could have gone after their apocalyptic season two finale, Lance Henriksen’s ideas on what a season four or a continuation could be…

I remember when I met Chris Carter on the occasion of “I Want To Believe“‘s premiere in London in 2008, a “Millennium” TV-movie or direct-to-DVD is what I talked to him about. There are two reasons: I think the “Millennium” concept can be easily re-imagined from (nearly) scratch to fit a feature film canvas, unlike “X-Files”‘ convulted mythology and character back story; and the potential audience is smaller than that for “X-Files”, which might warrant a theatrical release. Back To Frank Black”‘s current aim at a one-shot television event at a cable channel such as FOX-owned FX is a solution that I would see happenning. all-new fan-made book on Millennium that is the impressive result of the four year old Back To Frank Black campaign, featuring a host of interviews from cast and crew (Carter, Morgan, Wong and Johannessen included)! And then before 2012 is over we should also hear the promised 4CD Volume 2 of La La Land’s soundtrack of the X-Files!

It’s been a long time since the last update. But this one is big!

The full dossier for the Story and Visual Influences on The X-Files, covering all 202 episodes and 2 feature films, is up! There’s extensive material here, but despite the 173 references listed it’s not impossible, likely even, that more references will be identified in the future and the list enriched.

Beyond this, the year 2012 has come and is now three quarters gone, and no third X-Files feature film is to be expected by the fateful date of December 22nd 2012 defined as an essential date in its constructed mythos a whole ten years ago — how faraway that date must have seemed back then, these ten years how sufficient and full of potential!

Chris Carter, very shy of public presence since “I Want To Believe” over four years ago, is slowly reentering the world of entertainment, with one series pitch (“Unique“) that was not bough by studios and another one (“The After“) currently being sold around. Frank Spotnitz is busy launching a series of his own, in the UK, “Hunted” (BBC/Cinemax). David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are expressing their support of a third film from time to time. People are busy in other creative projects — and they should be! — and there is a great number of ways a third X-Files film could occur in 2013 and later, as long as there’s imagination in the air, but it’s still far from being a sure thing; whether it’s even desirable is up to each one’s sensibilities.

Otherwise, the biggest news is the release of “Back To Frank Black“, an all-new fan-made book on Millennium that is the impressive result of the four year old Back To Frank Black campaign, featuring a host of interviews from cast and crew (Carter, Morgan, Wong and Johannessen included)! And then before 2012 is over we should also hear the promised 4CD Volume 2 of La La Land’s soundtrack of the X-Files!

It’s here! No, not I Want To Believe! It’s the long-awaited release of the 4-CD box set of Mark Snow’s music for The X-Files by La La Land Records — the “X-BOX“! We’ve been waiting for this set since 2008 (though frankly I’ve been waiting since 1996 and The Truth and the Light!), and this is big news! More big news is that there will be another volume expected for 2012!

Full coverage of the release can be found here: The X-Files Volume One

The Massive Music Compilation has gone through a major re-working and now has more music, audio and video links to samples, ratings of cues, and thoughts on what Volume Two might/should include!

Speaking of Volume Two, we fans have a chance to weigh in on what cues will be included in there! If you want to contribute to making up a list of fan-favourites for La La Land’s consideration, please send me your 6 cues (say 4 absolute must-haves + 2 personal favourites) that you are craving for for a CD-quality, no sound effects- or dialogue-burdened release!

There are many other exciting things going on in the XF universe right now:

– The most important is of course the release of the LAX-Files book by Erica Fraga, a fully fan-led effort that benefits from a commercial release! I just received my copy and will cover that one later.

– A book signing event of LAX-Files took place on May 7, 2011, at the American Film Institute, Los Angeles; were present Erica Fraga, both Morgan brothers (!), James Wong, Mitch Pileggi and Jeff Gulka, and apparently several other 1013 alumni in the audience (Robert Mendel, Julia Vera). Coverage on all your major US West Coast-based sites.

– Another (unofficial) book was published: We Want to Believe: Faith and Gospel in The X-Files by Amy M. Donaldson! Donaldson previously published an article entitled “The Last Temptation of Mulder: Reading The X-Files through the Christological Lens of Nikos Kazantzakis” in the 2007 collection of essays The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the Story, Unraveling the Lie to Find the Truth. Kazantzakis being one of my favourite authors, I’m interested to read more about
her and her views on XF!

– The Syndicate has launched and has already started recruiting members! Salome’s Musings of an X-Phile is the latest addition.

– Finally, as you can see right above, EatTheCorn has a Twitter account! Make sure to subscribe! It is updated much more frequently than the home page of EatTheCorn, which is updated only for special occasions. Twitter updates also include additions to the 1013 Interviews Database; since they are ordered chronologically by date of when they originally occurred, it’s not possible to track newly added interviews from the Database itself, so the best and only way to keep updated is via the Twitter account.

A joint vision from key X-Files fansites has resulted in the launch of “The Syndicate,” a networking page for all sites related to TenThirteen Productions. X-FilesLexicon, EatTheCorn and XFilesUniverse are the founding members of “The Syndicate” to help build, support and strengthen the fanbase of “The X-Files,” “MillenniuM,” and all TenThirteen-related projects. “The Syndicate” is a landing page that will allow anyone easy access to multiple websites.

This initiative is an interactive and proactive webring or platform targeting to create more cohesion among all efforts, on-line and off-line, that honor the work produced by TenThirteen Productions.

As explained by webmaster Matt Allair of X-Files Lexicon: “To the fans, I view ‘The Syndicate’ as one-stop shopping. If fans like what they see, bookmark it, keep visiting the Syndicate, and write to the webmasters of your favorite sites and encourage them to register… The fans will determine its success.”

“It’s been nearly 18 years,” further elaborates Kimon of EatTheCorn, “that The X-Files started broadcast and in that time fandom has grown, fragmented, and grown again many times over. It is time to think long-term and federate fandom presence in a spirit of cooperation. ‘The Syndicate’ plans to accompany this next evolution.”

“The thing I find most exciting about ‘The Syndicate,’” says Maurisa of XFilesUniverse, “is the opportunity for all of our sites to work together to promote TenThirteen Productions. There are so many sites, and we all have our own strengths and our own promotions. But with ‘The Syndicate,’ our sites can endorse each other and raise awareness across the fanbase. After all, we all want to see growth in the fandom.”

Membership in “The Syndicate” provides promotion for each website, complete with RSS feeds and links for each member site. In addition, special events for each site will be featured prominently. A forum for Syndicate members is provided to help member sites’ staff better communicate with each other and enable greater capability to work together to promote TenThirteen Productions projects, such as a third X-Files feature film or a new Frank Black movie.

Read our full Mission Statement that explains our vision and purpose!
Visit our Membership page to add your site to The Syndicate!

The Syndicate Members

Announcing the launch of the Ten Thirteen Interviews Database Project!

This new section of EatTheCorn aims to archive every single interview of Ten Thirteen cast and crew. A daunting task, certainly, but I’m counting on the contributions of every willing 1013 fan out there to make this collaborative project a success. Come, visit, read, and contribute!

The project is launching with no less than 300 interviews already archived! A huge thank you to Libby, who very generously provided the bulk of this material! Her site featuring the most complete and accurate 1013 episode transcripts is also one to bookmark.

The hybridization retrospective is now complete with Page 5: Supersoldiers and Page 6: Special Cases.

The Primer, your comprehensive guide to the X-Files mythology, has been converted into a handy PDF file for your offline reading pleasure here! (Think of the environment before printing though — the online version is…online.)

My review of last year’s (already!) X-Con in Berlin, Germany, can be found here, graciously hosted by X-Files News, which also linked to a selection of mine of pictures from the event.

Check back very soon for some very big and exciting developments for E.T.C! …And for some other, also very big and exciting, developments for the fandom at large!

Part four of the hybridization round-up is now available.

Continuing on that forgotten art retrospective, here is a page on the XF work by Sue Coe, the artist behind that cover of Songs in the Key of X CD.

The BackToFrankBlack campain doesn’t cease to amaze me with their dedication and the success they have in obtaining interviews with people in front and behind the camera, the latest being some very interesting interviews with Michael R. Perry, Frank Spotnitz and Mark Snow!

The release of the four-CD set with music from the series by La La Land Records has now been pushed back to summer 2010. Well, we’ve waited 13 years since The Truth and the Light, we can wait one more — as long as the end product is worth it!

I understand those who no longer wish to see a continuation of the X-Files on the big screen. Carter, and Spotnitz, do seem adamant though that they have one more story to tell to wrap things up, and by curiosity alone I would like to see what they have in mind. Of course making it a script tailored for a theatrical release would need to have it purged of the over-complicated burden of the series’ mythology minutiae and one should only expect a storyline providing closure to the fates of Mulder, Scully and the world instead of a tying up of nine year worth’s of loose ends and a host of recurring characters appearances.

One potential storyline can be found in the recent science news: the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder that has been causing a massive decimation of honeybees worldwide in the recent years! It now appears that the cause would be the simultaneous effect of multiple viruses on the bees, making them unable to produce proteins essential to their immune and digestive system. Could this be the work of an organized resistance movement trying to get rid of the means to spread the Black Oil virus and thus prevent colonization? One can spend time coming up with other amusing ideas for XF3…

Granted, I won’t deny that E.T.C is a site that does indulge in nostalgia sometimes. Surely, part of many fans’ continued appreciation of the X-Files comes from the fact that they followed the show when it was all-new. Sadly, many creative efforts tied in to the show get lost as the XF move further away from present times. In E.T.C’s effort to serve as a repository for XF-related items and ideas, here are the artwork of the “Wave” VHS cards.

The hybridization retrospective continues with parts two and three now online.

A part of the fandom has begun a campaign to lobby for a third XF feature film. More thoughts later on how desirable an XF3 would be.

But first, I want to congratulate the German fans, who managed to kick off their project for an XF convention: the X-Con, in Berlin, October 16-18, 2009! As far as I know this is the first official XF convention ever since the mythical “X-Files Expo” of 1997-98 that happened in the USA — and last year’s expo in Chile — which is quite an achievement.

Quite a few things happened since the last update. For example, The USA welcomed the President that will see the World end in 2012 and, hopefully, a third X-Files movie… It’s also been 20 years since Laura Palmer died.

– EatTheCorn moves boldly in 2009 with the first part of a six-part dossier on hybridization in the X-Files. The other parts are coming very soon.

– XF alumni and fans everywhere mourned the premature loss of one of its best producers and directors, Kim Manners. Mr. Manners was the X-Files’ most prolific directors, with no less than 52 episodes (a quarter of the series all by himself!) over 8 seasons. He was one of the key people that helped define the show, often competing in a friendly way with fellow director Rob Bowman over who would produce the best quality work. He will be fondly remembered.

– But there are also good news. Stellar news, actually! La La Land Records, who recently brought us some MillenniuM music, is indeed working on a major release of Mark Snow’s music for XF! And it will be no less than a 4CD-set with music from around 40-60 episodes… 4CDs! A tentative release date is September, 2009. I hope that a maximum of my wishes (see here) will be fulfilled! The 13-year wait since The Truth and the Light is nearly over! Speaking of which, thanks to Tommy for filling some gaps in T&L — more help to identify some tracks is welcome.

– In an awfully overdue update, I want to thank Agent Donald for mentioning EatTheCorn in his “Reopening the X-Files” podcast. His ambitious project has him doing a podcast for every single XF episode, an effort that is definitely worthy checking out.

– Also, the XFLexicon has undergone an extensive revamping and continues its work of bringing us interesting articles and insights in the behind-the-scenes making of the show. In memoriam of Kim Manners, the Lexicon was able to obtain some unpublished parts of Matt Hurwitz’s interview with Mr. Manners done for the recent Complete XF book.

– The BackToFrankBlack campaign continues strong as ever bringing 1013 fans unexpected goodies, such as another Lance Henriksen interview!