Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney and current CNBC host, announced on a recent episode of "Fast Money" that the major media companies have reached an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that effectively ends the strike.

Eisner claimed that an announcement will likely happen this weekend regarding the strike’s conclusion.

According to Eisner:

“They’ve made a deal, they shook hands on a deal,” he replies. "The deal is going on Saturday to the constituents (for a vote)… I think it’s impossible that they turn it down. A deal has been made and (the writers) will be back to work reasonably soon!”

As Eisner mentioned, however, any agreement must still be ratified by members of the WGA, whose West Coast and East Coast branches will meet tomorrow for a briefing on the strike. No confirmation of the "done deal" has been issued by the WGA thus far.

On the subject of how striking writers will be received once the strike is over, Eisner added:

“I think a lot of writers lost their deals and they won’t be reinstated," Eisner replies. "One of the reasons these media companies don’t have economic problems is that they cut back on these big (writer) deals….Of course the talented writers will get new deals but in the short term I think the strike was a mistake (because) it was fairly ill-timed," he says. "If there was going to be a strike I think it should have been 3 years from now when (the writers) really understood the definition of the online business and where the revenues are coming from."

Spoken like the a true former CEO of a major media company, eh?

Nikki Finke, the award-winning L.A. Weekly media columnist, claimed on her site that talks of an end to the strike are premature, and had this to say about the online buzz generated by Eisner’s announcement:

Earth To Web: Eisner hasn’t mattered since 2004-2005 when he was kicked to the curb by Disney and its shareholders. Or was Eisner trying to manipulate the price of all that Disney stock he owns?

Umm… Owch.

Joss Whedon recently spoke with IESB on the picket line and discussed some of the projects he’s been working on solo, as well as some of the projects he’s had to curtail due to the strike, including the television series "Dollhouse" he had planned to produce with former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actress Eliza Dushku.

Along with a brief recap of his current comics work, IESB provided this bit about the project he plans to work on with "Firefly" and "Sarah Connor Chronicles" actress Summer Glau:

“There’s a few things I’m trying to do without the studios,” said Whedon, “either for the internet or shorts and there’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time which is a ballet with Summer Glau. We’ve been talking about it for years and I’ve been doing most of the talking and none of the doing. I finally finished the score and we have a choreographer working with us. We’re hoping that sometime in the late spring/early summer we will actually get to shoot it.”

Well, here’s one that flew entirely under my radar: Kim Krizan, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter for "Before Sunset", will be one of several writers contributing stories to Zombie Tales from Boom! Studios, which is being relaunched as a monthly anthology series in April.

Krizan will join horror veterans Steve Niles and Joe R. Lansdale in the first issue of the series. Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading conducted a brief interview with Krizan that explains the jump from film to comics and brings up another aspect of the story that passed me by completely: the "Dazed and Confused" connection!

(That last bit will probably only appeal to IMDB "trivia" section obsessives like me, but it’s worth noting.)

How have you changed your style and/or process for comics?

It felt to me that in writing a comic my process became wild, fast, and sharp — while in a script or book I would be slow, laborious, and careful. The medium did seem to dictate another approach, and it was fun to write. Both film scripts and comic scripts are written for visual media, but I had to consider the importance of things like the turning of a page as an opportunity to add tension. I very easily and naturally put in violent imagery which was rather satisfying. Chip read it and said, “Wow, this gives me the creeps!” and said I was good with horror. Well, I don’t watch horror films. Driving in LA is enough horror for me.

Hmmm… I wonder if she’s ever been driving in Jersey. shudder

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan site SlayAlive.com recently called upon its members to submit questions about the ongoing Dark Horse Comics series Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, which picks up where the uber-popular television series left off.

After sending everything over to Dark Horse, Editor Scott Allie provided 30 occasionally spoiler-ific answers about Buffy: Season Eight, including this tease of a continuity-establishing connection between Buffy and Fray, Joss Whedon’s 2001 miniseries that fast-forwards the Buffy into the future:

12) How close is the link between ‘season eight’ of Buffy and the Fray comics? Also, how certain is a Fray follow up? Are they closely related?

Ever since the Scythe showed up in Buffy Season Seven, there’s been an undeniable connection between Fray and Buffy, and Season Eight definitely continues down that road. And as I’ve said before, Joss and I always talk about doing another Fray series, but we can’t do it anytime soon. He’s too busy.

(via whedonesque)