Ms. Tree On TV?

This could be a very big year for Max Allan Collins' MS. TREE. ComicMix reports that a new MS. TREE novel (based on the comic book) and a TV pilot are on the way.

Well, it turns out Our Gal Friday (that's a joke, but you've got to read Ms. Tree to get it) may be headed to the small screen. In an interview with Comics2Film, Collins disclosed the Oxygen Network has "gone beyond an option (and paid) the purchase price." They've assigned two screenwriters to the write the first movie, both women, and it's being regarded as a pilot for further movies and possibly a teevee series.

Obviously, things have been held up a bit by the WGA strike, but Collins took his original treatment and turned it into Deadly Beloved, a paperback novel published last December by Hard Case Crime. Cooler still (since Collins is the author of about a million mystery novels, including the aforementioned Heller boos, and teevee/movie tie-ins, including many of the C.S.I. books) the cover was painted by Ms. Tree artist Terry Beatty.

Considering other Hard Case covers have been provided by the likes of all-time paperback mystery master painter Robert McGinnis and Marvel Zombie cover king Arthur Suydam, Terry's in some pretty heady company.