[comic fan]

Here's a full summery of the issue.

8.39 Discussion Thread:Full Spoilers! - Page 13 - BuffyForums

I've read it - Here is a quick overview of what happens...

Big fight - Slayers getting chopped in half. Willow chants over the seed. Buffy and Angel fight; they seem quite evenly matched. Spike attacks Angel. Angel takes Spike up into the sunlight and tries to kill him. Buffy flies up and knocks them apart. Spike's ship flies forward to catch their smoking captain. Angel throws a misile to the ground killing a lot of people (army and slayers mostly).

Angel and Buffy continue to fight. Buffy gets slammed into the ground. Xander sees what is happening and realises "We're not going to win this"

Andrew teams up with the earth-bound demons against the invading demons. Buffy and Angel continue to fight. Andrew sees a big dragon-type demon approaching and warns the slayers to get out of the way but he only succeeds in rescuing the red-head scottish slayer (Leah?) while the rest get incinerated by the dragon's fire breath.

Willow is really powering up on the seed. She glows red then transfigures out to where the fight is happeneing. She causes a huge tree to grow up out of the ground, spearing the dragon. Trees sprout up everywhere and Willow uses her magic against the demons making them explode - she's cross because they didn't just attack "little things that crawl on the outside of the earth...[they] attacked Mother."

Willow then begins to fight a big floating demon that looks a bit like female genitalia (i'm sure this is supposed to be symbolic) Angel says, to Buffy "You're friend thinks she can win this fight. She's missing the point" then kicks her down. Buffy flies back up but is more concerned where Giles is.

Giles watches from a distance then goes to get the scythe off Faith. He tells Faith to lead the girls but that he needs the scythe for Buffy. She hands it over. Giles runs off with it and Faith is attacked by an electric demon (what is this, pokemon?) who causes Faith's troop of slayers (and soldiers) to literally melt. Yup, that's another big group of slayers dead.

Amy and Warren are lunching in Rome. Amy wonders if they should have stayed to see how it ends. Warren thinks not.

Xander goes into the seed cave. Willow says magic spells over the vagina demon. Kennedy and Andrew watch from below and Andrew observes that the demons are winning.

Buffy and Angel are still fighting. They crash through to the chamber of the seed. Angel says "you created a world. you can't turn away from it. You were Chosen Buffy." The Master Says "That's original." Angel punches his fist clear through the Master's skull. He turns to dust.

Giles arrives and finds Xander watching the action from behind a wall. Giles asks what he is doing there. Xander implies that he was going to try and do something (what, I don't think even he is sure). Giles says there is nothing they can do, "Their power fades in proximity to the seed...but the seed fuels the scythe..."
"So throw it to her!" says Xander
Giles replies "Xander, It's Angel. At the very least she...she'll hesitate. She wants to stop him...not kill him."
and then Giles takes the scythe into the seed chamber. Xander tries to stop him but Giles can't be dissuaded.

Giles steps inbetwwen Buffy and Angel and Angel rushes forward, says, "You abandoned me for this?!" then snaps Giles neck in classic vampire fashion - quick and brutal (and just like he killed Jenny calendar). Angel stands over his body and says "When they're all gone you'll understand."

Buffy is shocked (and I mean shocked) as is Xander. Buffy knocks Angel down with a huge BAM, grabs the scythe and thinks 'No More' and smashes the seed.

Breaking the seed causes a great flash of light that shocks Buffy and Angel and causes Willow to grab her head and fall to earth. The remaining Slayers look on in shock. Amy and Warren feel it too. Acctually, Warren more than feels it - he disolves into an squishy mess.

Willow is traumatised. She cries out "No! Goddess?! What... Where!?" while all the non-earth bound demons are sucked back into the portals through which they came. The New York wiccas lose connection with sunnydale - I think they might have lost their magic. Kennedy runs to Willow who is still desperately calling for Aluwyn. Kitty Twilight is seen walking away (i'm not sure if this is on earth or in 'Twilight' dimension).

Spike order's his ship be put into reverse to avoid being sucked into "hell" with the retreating demons.
Bug one says, "Your friends, your majesty, they did-"
Spike cuts him off, "She. She did it. Slayer, you did it." He is about to land and see who need help when he spies Willow's vagina demon fleeing the scene so he decides he better stop that first and flies off after it.

On the ground, Willow is inconsolable. She says they lost and that this is the end. in the chamber of the seed Buffy is prostrate on the ground, crying and gripping her stomach (just like we saw in Anywhere but Here). Giles is dead beside her. Angel steps forward - I think he touches Xander but Xander shrugs him off and goes to check on Buffy. The Slayer Scythe is broken in the foreground.

End of issue

next issue: Coda

[comic fan]

Buffyfest review of Buffy #39.

Buffyfest: Buffy #39 Review-ish (BIG TIME HOLLYWOD SPOILERS)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Buffy #39 Review-ish (BIG TIME HOLLYWOD SPOILERS)



The Preamble/Review, well salted, with spoilers aplenty and maybe a little soapbox preaching:

Before looking at this, you should read the comic first. I'm not going to talk about everything, just share the thoughts I had after reading it. If you've read someone's summation on a forum, you've done yourself a disservice. There have been many issues I've posted detailed summaries of shortly after their release but none were quite like Buffy #39. I can't express how disappointed I am that so many peoples' first impression will be based off of a mediocre description written in broken english.

I read this issue about three weeks ago and I'm still in shock. That's how powerful it is but now there are all these people saying "that sounds stupid". This will get me in trouble but, for once, I'll really speak my mind. Read the issue. Actually absorb it and formulate an opinion of your own instead of parroting what your buddies are saying. Try to place your shipping preferences aside. This isn't a competition. It's not about who winds up with who. It's about how these characters who, for better or worse, have all made sacrifice after sacrifice to try to save the world, and have all failed in one way or another. It's about how they betrayed each other, it's about how they betrayed themselves. And for one of them, it's the end.

In a way, it's not until now, as I write this review, that I'm actually feeling the loss. Rupert Giles is dead. No alarms, no surprises, no retcons. You can say what you want about things he may have done wrong, about how he wasn't there for Buffy in the final two television seasons or how he was noticeably absent for much of the comic but, when you look beyond all that,you see the truth.

Giles is Buffy's dad and now there's just a body. He'll never talk about the smell of books or drink tea, ever, and he'll never get that confused look on his face or rub his glasses thoughtfully, not ever. And Buffy will cry but he won't be there to comfort her.

They saved the world but at a terrible cost. Willow embraced the seed's power, seemingly falling prey to old temptations only to have all magic ripped not just from her, but torn from the whole world. Xander stood frozen, desperately looking for the one right answer that doesn't exist. Buffy, with nothing left to lose, destroys the one thing that makes her world everything that it is. Destroying the seed is like destroying the meaning of life. It's the soul of the world and it's shattered because she did the shattering.

And Angel. He can't hide behind Twilight. He chose his path and, as he becomes fully aware and in control again, he has to accept that he has finally done something that Buffy should never forgive. There's something hopeful and dreamlike in the idea that there is someone out there for you, who you were born to love and who was born to love you. But that's not Buffy's world anymore and it was Angel's chasing after destiny that brought it's destruction.

Spike's off chasing monsters. He wasn't part of the crew this season and, frankly, lucky him. He's smarter than the rest, though. He knows that, even though this is tragedy of the highest order, that Buffy will go on living because she has to. He knows there's more to life than a seed of wonder. That's why Season 8 wasn't his story, particularly. The lessons that Buffy and Angel had to learn are ones Spike already knows.

Thus endeth the climax with Buffy writhing on the floor, Angel only becoming aware of what he's done, Xander trying to find a way to pick up the pieces and a broken-bodied Willow going insane. And Buffy's father, and, in a way, all their fathers, really, lies silent, never to be heard again.

It was heartbreaking. It was beautiful. It had a giant vagina monster attacking a lesbian witch but, other than that, it was really, really good.


The Scott Allie interview is supposed to go up around 1pm eastern.

[comic fan]

The Buffyfest Scott Allie interview is up.

Buffyfest: Exclusive: BIG Scott Allie Interview about Buffy #39 (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Exclusive: BIG Scott Allie Interview about Buffy #39 (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Here we are at the turn of the tide. The penultimate issue of Buffy Season 8 has arrived and if you dare to read the interview below, you probably already know by now the events that have changed Whedonverse fiction forever. You may also be asking yourself "Well, how did I get here?" We're right there with ya, buddy.

So read on fellow Whedonite, as we take a journey with Season 8 editor and Joss' co-writer of the final arc - Scott Allie - and try to make some sense of our pain.

Major Spoilers ahead! Seriously, don't read this if you can help it, spoiler fiend.

Buffyfest: Why in the hell did you guys kill Giles?

Scott Allie: You're gonna spoiler tag this, right?

Buffyfest: Heh. So, how did the conversation between you and Joss go about this major plot point? Was this something you’ve planned from the beginning?


SA: Revealing too much about this pulls the curtain back on the great and terrible Oz a bit too much. It was planned for a while, but not from the very beginning. I will say this. I've been involved now in killing two beloved characters—Giles, and Roger from Hellboy. And both times it had everything to do with the arc of the character, and in this case, the arc of the killer.


Buffyfest: Even though Angel and Giles have had a very tumultuous relationship, there was always an underlying camaraderie in the sense that they both cared for Buffy ("Prophecy Girl", "Pangs", etc.) Can you explain why Angel was chosen as Giles' murderer?



SA: I'm like you, Michelle—I love these two characters perhaps more than others in Buffy. There are qualities about them as fictional characters that make them appeal to me dramatically, as a reader, or a writer, and that's more about their flaws than their virtues. And I agree that they had a great dynamic. They were equals in a unique sense among Buffy characters. Back in the earliest seasons, they were the adult characters, so to speak. In a sense their dynamic is why it made sense for Angel to kill Giles. They served similar roles in Buffy's life, except with Angel as the lover who couldn't really be her lover, and Giles as the father who couldn't really be her father. But the real reason is that things were building for each character to where it made sense for one to die, and the other to do the killing. If Spike could've been Twilight, it could have made sense for him to do the deed, just a different kind of sense. These relationships are so intense that whoever did the deed, it would have been uniquely meaningful. Even if it were Dawn, it would have changed the world of Buffy in a very particular way.

Buffyfest: Season 8 seems to be the adult version of Season 2. Was that the intention?

SA: No, not the intention, but I think I know what you mean. I love Season 2, and what you're saying wasn't the intention, never anything we specifically decided upon, but there's clear similarities. I think what was great about Season 2 appealed to us in the setup of Season 8, and we ran with those things. But the differences are interesting too. In Season 2, it was fairly easy to say that Angel was not Angelus, but there's more ambiguity here, in terms of how responsible Angel is for Twilight's actions. I like moral ambiguity. I find that more adult.

Buffyfest: Continuing with that thought, was the decision to have Angel snap Giles neck a shout-out to the murder of Jenny Calendar?

SA: Well, yes, that's one of the real concrete similarities. When we set that scene up, Joss said we should specifically reference Jenny's death, visually, distinctly.

Buffyfest: What would you tell fans who are now fully entrenched in the "I hate Angel" club?

SA: I'd tell 'em they've never had more in common with the characters. I could see Willow doing a hell of a lot more than turning him into a frog, if she didn't have her own problems right now. This low point that we've taken Angel to is gonna be good fodder for Season 9. People felt we let him off the hook too easily after Buffy #34, but he's not off the hook. This is interesting, to me, as someone involved in shaping his story. He's a hero, sometimes a romantic lead, who has a long, long trail of bodies behind him. Killing Giles might not be the worst thing he's ever done, but for the readers and for the characters, it's the act we're gonna be most upset about. Angel's crimes have never been brought home as sharply and as viscerally for the fans as they've been brought home this week.

Buffyfest: Where does his story go next?

SA: Season 9. There’s one more issue that will show you were people are at in the wake of all the horror, but I can’t tell you where it goes next, not just yet. We’ll spill some more info when #40 comes out. But for Angel, it is going to be about redemption—that’s sort of what his story has always been, and maybe now he needs it more than ever.

Buffyfest: As a fan, do you hate Angel for what he’s done? Or pity him for being taken over by Twilight and committing this horrible act?

SA: It's not pity, but the second option is closer to how I see him. Twilight didn't take hold of Xander. Angel was the appropriate vehicle for Twilight. So he bears responsibility for being that appropriate vehicle. I don't just mean appropriate because he's a vampire—but because he's a guy who'd sign up for a plan like this. There's a reason the talking dog went to him first, and not Buffy. I've read some interesting fan reactions to Season 8 centering on a wholly dualistic view of free will—either there is or there ain't. In fiction like this, you have to account for a certain amount of mysticism, fate, predestination, etc., because that's the genre. But you also have to allow for free will, for characters to be responsible for their actions. You can have both. You have to, or this stuff doesn't work as good fiction. Even though the gods manipulated the Greek heroes, the heroes' actions were still tragic. So even where fate is involved, predestination, and even possession, there has to be a level or personal responsibility. You can pity Regan in The Exorcist, but you can't simply pity Angel. He's a hero, not a victim. He bears responsibility for his actions, even if that responsibility is unclear and subject to debate. So I do feel sympathy that his own character—who he is, his characteristics—set him up to be in the spot to do this thing, though this specific action was not his choice. If he were another guy—if he were Spike—this would not have happened. Spike would not have accepted the Twilight mission in the first place. Buffy wouldn't have accepted the mission, didn't when presented with it. Ironically, Giles may have. Maybe, if it were framed the right way.


Buffyfest: Does that make Angel less of a hero or more of a human?

SA: I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive, by any means. If he is more human than he was before, he should be more relatable. But he’s certainly a flawed hero, a very challenged hero. That’s what’s so boring about Superman. Not enough flaw. No challenges. A weakness to an extremely rare mineral doesn’t humanize a character, and I like my heroes humanized.



Buffyfest: Buffy and Angel have been challenged since the beginning of the TV show. Will Angel killing Buffy's pseudo-dad be the final stake in the heart of that relationship?

SA: Nope. Buffy #40 is the wedding issue. Because readers unanimously demanded it!

Buffyfest: Georges Jeanty recently said, "Faith does something really remarkable" about forgiving Angel. Care to elaborate on this?

SA: Not yet.

Buffyfest: Is anyone else going to die in Issue #40?

SA: Yes.

Buffyfest: Wait, what? Say again?

SA: Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking. Next?

Buffyfest: OK, speaking of issue #40, will we see a conversation between Buffy and Angel about Giles’ death?

SA: You will not.

Buffyfest: What about Spike? Will we see him again in issue #40 or is he off to the unknown with bug crew?

SA: He gets a scene in #40.

Buffyfest: In this issue, Spike says about Angel “He finally picked a side.” What does Spike mean by this statement?

SA: Well, he says it after seeing Angel punch Buffy through a wall, right? Angel's agenda has been unclear, and he's drenched in moral ambiguity, especially from Spike's point of view. Seeing Angel deck Buffy while the big war is waging above draws the lines in such a way that Spike feels justified in trying to kill Angel, no reason to hold back.

Buffyfest: Willow’s agenda is back to magic being her main focus. Do you think she's learned anything from Season 6?

SA: Absolutely, but what she learned in Season 7 is that there are certain roads to great power that don't destroy you, that are truly good. Frankly, given my interests, what's going on with Willow in #38 and #39 is some of my favorite stuff. There was so much I wanted to do with it, but it's not what the story's about. In the Seed, Willow found a battery for the kind of power she channeled in the empowerment spell. The empowerment was the ultimate payoff of everything she'd learned over the course of the series. It was redemption after Season 6, and it was the ultimate expression of her relationship and partnership with Buffy after seven years. It was a good thing, and it was a contrast to how badly magic had gone for her in Season 6. And the Seed offered her another perspective on that sort of power. I think we'll have time and need to reflect on this in Season 9. But in response to your question, I think we can learn a lot from our experiences and remain subject to our own hubris, and Joss's characters explore that idea really nicely.


Buffyfest: Now that Buffy has destroyed the seed and ended magic, how will this affect Willow and Buffy's friendship?

SA: Not insignificantly.

Buffyfest: More on that, we’ve seen that Willow and Amy lose their abilities to use magic. What other consequences are there to the breaking of the seed?

SA: The events of Season 8 were largely the result of the empowerment spell, and a huge amount of what goes on in Season 9 will be the direct result of the breaking of the Seed.

Buffyfest: So, was the empowerment spell a bad idea in terms of the universe and was this the universe's way of balancing good and evil in the world again?

SA: Not a bad idea, no—the empowerment spell brought great things to the world, but everything comes with a price. The balance swings back and forth, like a pendulum. Things are not in balance at the end of Season 8, but they’ll keep swinging.

Buffyfest: Now that the seed is broken, is the Fray future a certainty? Will we be seeing more of that future in Season 9 (or maybe even in Buffy #40?)

SA: To some degree, the Fray future is here, right? Listen to poor Willow … But I don’t think we’ll be doing a lot more time travel soon. It’s hard. Between Terminator, Season 8, and Umbrella, our heads are spinning.



Buffyfest: We asked you this question two years ago at NYCC and then again at SDCC last year, and we hope we can finally get your answer. What is the theme of Season 8?

SA: Betrayal. And the reason I wanted to be cagey about that, even though a lot of the fans had identified it, is because of a little anecdote from Joss. Joss himself has this running theme about awesome women, right? Smart women? Well, wayyyyy back in the beginning of this thing, he was talking to Kai, his wife. He was talking the story up to her, building to the big finish, "the closest, most unexpected betrayal," and she cut to the chase and said, "Buffy betrays herself, right?" If your theme is betrayal, self-betrayal is the harshest place you can go. So I was afraid that if I confirmed that betrayal was the theme, if I singled betrayal out as where we'd be heading in the climax, and you looked at that panel from #10, you'd figure it out, it'd step on the ending. I've had a couple readers write to me with the theory that Buffy would bring an end to magic, that Buffy would betray herself, etc. And they threw those theories out into the universe, and there was no word from me or Joss or Georges to confirm it, so readers were free to do with it as they pleased, to prioritize it as they saw fit, based on what was presented in the story. To tip the scales, outside of the text of the story, in a way that would promote one theory over another would damage the story worse than the accidental spoilers we leaked over the years.

Buffyfest: You mentioned that you saw a lot of fans had figured out that the betrayal was Buffy betraying herself. Were there any fan theories along the way that you found interesting even though they wound up being incorrect?

SA: Oh yeah, absolutely. I heard some cool ideas that were very much based on an intimate understanding of the characters, and that’s always exciting. The fan speculation about where it was going was rewarding to see, because it showed a pretty sophisticated level of engagement with the story.

Buffyfest: Completely unrelated, but important, what’s your take on the Buffy reboot movie?

SA: They should cast Miley Cyrus. Is there any way we can make that happen? That would be amazing. Only way this idea could get any better.

[comic fan]

I have my copy of Buffy Season 8 #39.The summerys and stuff are pretty accurate so I don't know if I really need to post dialog and such.Plus in this case it's better to read it clean.I expected Giles to die after last issue but it it still hit me.This whole issue hit me and i hope everyone can come back from this one.

[comic fan]

New video interview with Scott Allie.Has spoilers for issue 40 and clears some things up about #39.

Part 1

YouTube - Scott Allie Buffy #39 Interview Part 1

1)Talks a bit about the process of how Giles death came about.

2)Talks about the last interaction between Giles and Faith.

3)Season 8 shows that Faith has grown up more then some of the other characters.Good things are in store for her in season 9.

4)Giles didn't know he was going to his death.Giles wasn't going into the room to fight Angel.He was going in there to smash the seed himself to take the fight down to a different level and the Twilight power Buffy and Angel had would go away.Giles thought if he destroyed the seed than either Angel would be freed from his possession of Twilight or he wouldn't have the Twilight power anymore and the fight would be taken down to a scale that both Buffy and Angel could walk away from.So it wasn't Giles going in there feeling he had to kill Angel because Buffy couldn't,he was running in there to destroy the seed himself,which Buffy ended up doing, and wasn't fast enough as he thought he was.

Part 2

YouTube - Scott Allie Buffy #39 Interview Part 2

1)None of the fans he's hearing from right now including die hard Angel fans who care about Angel coming out of season 8 looking okay,none are saying he's not responsible for his actions.Angel bears responsibility for the things that happened as does Buffy.Angel has a lot to make up for.He's not off the hook.He has to earn his redemption in the eyes of the other characters and the readers more then he ever needed to before.

2)With the seed destroyed,Buffy doesn't have her super Twilight powers but she's still the slayer.The other slayers still have their powers but no new vampire and demons will come to earth.The gateways of magic have been closed.Witches are the worst off.

3)Willow's not insane at the end of #39.She's very devastated.Her world just died in front of her and she just felt it ripped from her heart.

4)Issue 40 is a epilogue.It's very focused on Buffy.It gives Buffy a chance to check in with a lot of the cast.It gives her a chance to check in with a lot of the significant people in her life.The focus of #40 though is on Buffy.In the issue,Buffy is in San Francisco.She's interacting with a bunch of people.Not everybody is in San Francisco.Not everybody shows up.Spike has a good bit with Buffy in #40.Dawn is in there.Not everybody could be fitted into #40.There is a core to the essemble and they all get their moment.The pieces are set for where season 9 will start.

Part 3 of the video interview is about Scott Allie's upcoming other projects and his final thoughts on Giles.

YouTube - Scott Allie Buffy #39 Interview Part 3

ETA

Georges Jeanty interview on the end of Buffy Season 8.

Newsarama.com : Georges Jeanty On Driving the Final Stake Through BUFFY

Georges Jeanty On Driving the Final Stake Through BUFFY



By Chris Arrant
posted: 03 December 2010

They say you can never go home again. But in next month’s final issue of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer Season 8, Buffy, Angel and the Scoobies go back to where it all started – Sunnydale. Scheduled for release January 19th, Buffy #40 reunites series writer – and creator! – Joss Whedon with Georges Jeanty as they take blonde slayer home – with a promise to uncover a traitor in her midst.

Over the course of thirty-nine issues (and one more to go), Whedon and Jeanty served as the backbone for this redefinition of a licensed comic. Whedon served as the series showrunner/producer, writing a majority of the issues and guiding other writers for guest arcs. Jeanty served as the series’ primary artist, defining the look and feel of the characters – keeping them true to the original television series, but not turning it into a photo-montage of stills taken from the movie. For fans, the Buffy comic series continued the story they thought dead years ago. For Dark Horse, it gave them their highest charting book in decades. For Whedon, it gave him a chance to continue the story he started so many years ago. And for series artist Georges Jeanty, it gave the journeyman artist a chance to settle into a series and learn the characters and show the world what he can do.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #39 hit shelves on the first of this month, and Jeanty is furiously finishing up the final pages of #40. Newsarama sat down with the Atlanta-based artist to talk about his epic run on the series, the friendships he’s developed, and what’s next on his plate.

Newsarama: Let's start with an easy one, Georges – what are you working on today?

Georges Jeanty: I am finishing up the last issue of Buffy Season 8... [sob, sniff...] It has been a long and winding road and I can't believe I'm actually finishing the 40th issue! Back then I couldn't see getting to issue 10 and here I am at 40!

Nrama: You were hand-picked by Whedon to be his primary artist for the book – and in the years you've worked with him, have you two had a chance to talk about anything but work? If so, what's that like?

Jeanty: Well sure. We don't talk every day, and when we do it's mostly through email, but Joss is a bona fide card carrying Geek. And I mean that in the sincere way. He has a very fine knowledge of pop culture and comics in particular. We've talked about the X-Men when Claremont and Byrne were doing it, how we both have an affinity for Luke Cage, and Lando Calrissian's role in Star Wars. He's very unassuming. You quickly forget that you're talking to a guy to whom many people has become just as important in their lives as George Lucas, and realize he's a regular guy. I wish we spoke more often, but that's only because I know we have a lot in common. We were both jonesin' the other day about the episode of Glee he directed, and he was lamenting how genuine the Quinn character was. His interests are all over the place.

Nrama: A couple issues back, Buffy entered the realm of superheroes full-force with superpowers galore. Given that comics are stereotyped as a superhero medium and Buffy had been able to do without it for so long, what do you think of the Buffy title taking in some inspiration from superhero comics – which you worked extensively on before this book?

Jeanty: I think it was a well overdue nod to the medium that Joss loves so much. It was always written that, at some point, Buffy was to get superpowers because of the context of the story. I loved it, and I thought it might be a nice way to bridge the gap between the people who collect superhero comics and those who just read the Buffy book because of the show. One of the best things I've heard about Season 8 from some people was that they had never read a comic in their lives and when Buffy was announced as a book they started to pick it up not sure if they would like it, but are now regular comic readers!

I think it's great that Buffy can become the gateway drug for other comics. As you well know, there is so much great stuff out there in 'funny book' land and the more people who find their way to it, the better! While Buffy won’t remain with these 'superpowers', she's always been considered a superhero because she does have extra strength and ability. I also have to say that I don't treat this series any different than any of the superhero stuff I've done. I think if you're telling good stories then that's what you focus on. Of course I'm working with characters that exist in the guise of the actors who portray them, so I am always working to get the likeness right, but beyond that I don't approach it any different.

Nrama: With Buffy Season 8 nearing its conclusion, what are your thoughts on what you, Joss, Scott and the others have accomplished here? You re-invented the idea of licensed comics and have had many others follow in your footsteps

Jeanty: It's amazing. And I'm the first one to tell you that I'm surprised by all the attention this little blonde slayer has gotten. I would have never believed it, if in the beginning, you told me that this book would run for as long as it has and win all the awards it has and gotten all the people who now read comics on a monthly basis. I don't know why I'm surprised, really. This is Joss after all. The guy has the Midas touch. Each time every issue comes out I'm amazed at how much there is still the popularity now as when it first came out 3 years ago. Do you know that Buffy in terms of chart numbers, has hovered in the top 20s and 30s for all of it's run? That's space where only the X-men or the Justice League and the Spider-man's and Batman's hang out, not some little slayer. But there she is. It's consistently the highest selling female lead character book. Buffy has proven she has just as much staying power as any of those other titles. I think it's a great accomplishment that the first 'non-superhero' book is usually Buffy in the top of the charts!

Nrama: Fans of yours at cons have been getting something special from you – sketchbooks chronicling your work on Buffy that are also available on your website. You've done four so far – can you tell us about them?

Jeanty: They were these little books that I put together mostly because people were always asking me about the process of drawing and of drawing Buffy in particular. So I took it upon myself to make little books showing how the issues came to being. I'm a process artist. I don't just sit at the table and start drawing a page. I have to get reference, map out a location, figure out lighting perspective, mood, all that, and at the end of a given issue, I have all these little tidbits, so I put stuff together for about five issues worth and make a sketch book out of it. The first one had a lot of art and some text on it, but I fond more and more people were really interested in reading about how things came together or any conversation I may have had with Joss or the like. So subsequent issues carry a fair of amount of art and text. They're really neat. I like to think of the comics as DVDs and the sketchbooks as the DVD supplemental!

Nrama: Any big celebration plans for when you wrap the series up with the last page of the last issue, #40?

Jeanty: I really haven't thought about that. When you're in the eye of the storm for so long you never think about what it's going to be like when the storm passes. It would have been cool if Dark Horse or someone threw a party. But we're all in different states so that might not work as seamless, but I'm always up for a party, so if anyone out there is throwing a end of Buffy Season 8 party let me know! What I will be working on after this is a mystery to me as well. I have a few offers, but nothing concrete, so if there are any editors reading this interview, I'm looking for work!

Nrama: Well, you might have a fallback position. Prior to committing yourself to comics, I read that you considered going into acting. Can you tell us about what tempted you with that career path?

Jeanty: In high school I was always the class clown looking for attention, making people laugh, y'know that socially insecure stuff some kids do and only found validation in the opinion of others. You average teen. Ah High School, good times! But really, I just loved, not so much being the center of attention, which I craved, but making people laugh. It gave me such a high! And, of course, if you could make the girls laugh then you had something! I don't know why I never went into singing because everybody knows that's where you get the chicks! I've just always had a good sense of humor. That's not to say I laughed at everything, rather I had a keen idea on what was funny and I could see the humor in a situation. I always drew and could never see giving that up, but the acting was a powerful force, and it was fun because you were around other kids and you went places. As anyone who draws can tell you, art is mainly a solitary sport! I realized early on, that I was a better artist than I was actor. Not that I have left that part of my life behind, I still do the random community theater here and there. I still crave the attention from people, that's why I love cons so much, getting to talk to people. So beware, that little church production of Bye Bye Birdie might just have yours truly in!

Nrama: We're glad to have you in comics, Georges – but what do you thinking the acting business and the cartooning business have in common? Is there anything you learned from the acting realm that's helped you in depicting people in comics?

Jeanty: Oh yes, a great deal. As an artist you're pretty omnipotent. You have to create this world and have your 'characters' act in it. Having studied drama has helped my 'characters' better actors. I run a scene in a comic like it's a scene in a movie. I'm always asking what are my characters doing even if they're not saying anything at that moment. I always strive to put facial expressions on their faces. I've always loved the way Kevin McGuire did it and it's always been a staple in my books.

Nrama: Although Buffy has taken up your drawing board for a few years now, from time to time I see you doing side projects – like a recent Batman comic. Can you tell us about doing these side gigs and getting a chance to stretch your legs between Buffy issues?

Jeanty: That has been a practice in juggling. All of those projects I took, like the Manhunter story or the Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne or the Faces of Evil: Deathstroke, were all taken because I had some down time with Buffy and wanted to keep busy. Well, the best laid plans being what they are, those 'extra' projects were either late or I had some other Buffy stuff to finish and it never became as smooth a transition as I would have liked. I immensely enjoyed doing those projects, but in the end, I had to pull double duty in some cases to get them done! Everyone all around was very nice and accommodating, it was just the timing that went a little off.

Nrama: Will you be coming back for the next run of Buffy, Season 9?

Jeanty: That's the million-dollar question. I don't know. I would love to come back to Buffy and me and the powers that be are talking about it, but in the mean time I will have some down time and I'd like to keep busy. I don't know with what, but I have been very lucky in my career that things have come my way when I needed them so I'm hoping something comes along that is both fun and interesting and has no Buffy in it. I love my Buffy, but after 4 years I need a little distance to avoid burnout. My only hope is that she'll take me back next year...

[comic fan]

Fans In Shock After Events In Buffy The Vampire Slayer #39 (Major Spoilers!) MTV Geek

Fans In Shock After Events In Buffy The Vampire Slayer #39 (Major Spoilers!)

by Valerie D'Orazio



WARNING: This post references major spoilers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer #39!

Buffy the Vampire fans are in shock as they learned that one of the most beloved characters from the TV show and comic book died in Buffy Season 8 #39. Fan site Whedonesque had to shut down, citing "family circumstances." Of course, Rupert Giles was like family to us. And the thought that another favorite, Angel, killed him? Well, let's just say there's a lot of high emotions out there in Buffy fan universe!

"Yeah, I've gotten some very earnest emails," Buffy editor Scott Allie told MTV Geek. "Someone said we'd ruined the best icon of redemption since 'Crime and Punishment'. That was pretty intense."

On the Dark Horse Facebook page, fans reflected on the passing of Buffy's mentor and friend. "Giles was my favorite," one fan posted. "I was secretly in love with him and his sexy, sexy tweed. I will now spend my night having a Buffy marathon of all my favorite Giles episodes. I feel like crying."
But Giles wasn't the only character majorly impacted by Buffy #39. Angelus's murder of Jenny Calendar in Season Two of the TV show was already a "black mark" on Angel's rep. But killing Giles? Twilight or no Twilight, this action has reprecussions for his future relationship with all the Scoobies. But is it the point-of-no-return for the character? Allie doesn't see it that way:

"No, not a point of no return. It feels worse for the reader, and probably all the characters, but this is another in a long string of murders for this character, all done under different situations. But there is a point now where redemption is more urgent and necessary than ever. Some readers wrote in to say that we'd let him off the hook too easily for what he did as Twilight. We didn't, there just was no time, in the thick of things, for him to answer for it. Now's the time."

Whatever happens next in the comic, one thing is for sure: the Dark Horse seasons of BTVS are every bit as unpredictable and consequential as the broadcast ones before it. Anything can happen! And as both a Buffy and comic book fan, it's something I really appreciate...even if in cases like Buffy #39 it also breaks my heart just a little bit.



Discuss this story in our Comics forums! Follow @MTVGeek on Twitter and be sure to "like" us on Facebook for the best geek news about comics, toys, gaming and more!

[comic fan]

Sorry that I didn't get this posted sooner.Just got back from my cousins wedding.

Buffyfest:Behind The scenes of Buffy #39.

Buffyfest: From Script to Page: A Behind the Scenes Look at Buffy #39

Saturday, December 4, 2010

From Script to Page: A Behind the Scenes Look at Buffy #39

It’s the last day of Dark Horse Week here at Buffyfest and we’re ending it with a special treat. Here’s a rare look at a portion of the first draft from the now infamous issue #39, written by Joss Whedon and Scott Allie. Scott takes us behind the scenes of the writing process and shares a few initial pages from the script along with some of his thoughts.

[comic fan]

No preview pages so far but in my case it doesn't matter now since I have my copy of Spike #3 of 8.

It was a good issue although we don't get a lot of insight yet on John other then he's killed many vamps waiting to get to Spike.

We learn in this issue that Angel sent Groo as backup for Spike.Groo warned that Spike best not mock him and show him some respect.Spike naturally mocks Groo,his battle cry of course.

Drusilla is all over this issue.It's Beck and George who meet up with her first thinking they're rescuing her from the Wolfram & Hart building.The meeting is a blast fro George and I mean that literally.When he tries to read Dru,he the feedback knocks him out.

Dru:Hello

Beck:Oh,hey lady...You'd better get out of here.Place is evil.

Dru:Oh,I know.The very worst kind of evil.They kept me here for months.But I can't leave.Not until I find Spike.You know him too.You want to know him so much more.

Beck:George

George:On It.Miss

Dru: Drusilla

George: Drusilla.do you mind if I....Do a quick psychic reading?

Dru:Go in deep.

Close up of George reading Dru.

George collapsing:Holy S%%T.

Beck in a panic:George?George???

Dru:I think...yes,I think we should go.

Beck:What happened to my friend?

Dru picking up the unconscious George:Oh,I like him.

Beck:Great,Jet's get out of here.

Dru:But Spike...

Beck:We'll find him.Come on.So,how do you know Spike?

Dru:We're family.

Beck:Oh.Hey,maybe I should hold the fish.

The Spike/Dru reunion happens at the end of the issue.

The Wolfram and Hart casino building has been destroyed

Beck:I didn't do this,I swear!Okay,there was a slight fire in the other casino that I may have had a hand in.But this one,NOT AT ALL.

Spike smiling:No pet,I know it's...I'm glad....I'm you know....relieved...It's good.You're okay.

Beck:Thanks I...

Spike vamping out angry:That Scent!

Beck confused:What?What are you talking about?(then realizing).So,you DO know her.Should I have not brought her here?She was a prisoner of Wolfram & Hart.Totally saved her.

Dru coming out of the rubble.

Spike looks at Dru in shock.

Beck continues:Between you and me.She's a little....you know,loopy.Anyway,George is knocked out but he's breathing.Well,his tiny gills are going up and down.

closeup of Dru.

Spike's thoughts:Is it a projection?Some bloody illusion?Wolfram & Hart must have found a way to get into my head.That's gotta be it.

Dru jumps into Spike's arms and kisses him.Spike still has a shocked expression on his face as she locks lips with him.

Spike's thoughts:No.This..This is all too real.

Beck looking on:Right.So.This day just keeps snow-balling,I swear.

To be continued

[comic fan]

CBR's Behind Buffy Season 8 #39 with Scott Allie and Georges Jeanty.

BEHIND BUFFY SEASON 8: "Last Gleaming" - Comic Book Resources

BEHIND BUFFY SEASON 8: "Last Gleaming"

As Twilight falls on Dark Horse's "Buffy: Season 8," co-writer Scott Allie and artist Georges Jeanty tackle the shocking events of the penultimate issue #39 including the death of a major character and plans for "Season 9."

by Kiel Phegley, News Editor



SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8" #39, in stores now.


It took four years for Joss Whedon to find a way to continue the adventures of Buffy Summers on the page of a Dark Horse comic after the 2003 end of the popular "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" television series, and now another end is facing franchise fans as the best-selling "Season 8" comic is down to its last two issues.

But before Buffy, Angel, Spike and the Scoobies all return to (a much more brief than four year) hibernation, some of the biggest, most shocking events in Buffy-verse history are on hand. To help prepare fans for the hit series' impending finale, CBR is back with an all-new installment of BEHIND BUFFY SEASON 8 - a monthly column featuring interviews with the creators and staff behind the creation of Buffy's last two stories, highlighting the questions being answered, the characters thrown into crisis and the future of the entire franchise.

This week, readers are still feeling the shockwaves from issue #39 – the penultimate chapter in the season's "Long Road Home" mega-story, and to help uncover the most info, CBR News spoke with both "Buffy" editor extraordinaire (and final arc co-writer with Whedon) Scott Allie as well as series artist Georges Jeanty. Below, the pair go over what it felt like to bring this important story to a close, discuss the major death and major losses suffered at the end of the story, tease how the end of the "Angel as Twilight" era will roll into the upcoming "Season 9" series and so much more.



CBR News: Gentlemen, before we get into the issue itself this week, since we are down to the end of the end here, I thought I'd check in and see where everyone was at. Have you wrapped the final issue of the series completely, or are there still a few pages to go before it's sent out to the printer?

Georges Jeanty: I'll let Scott answer that one, because I'm sure he's elated.

Scott Allie: [Laughs] Yeah, Georges is done, so we're all happy. Georges and Andy are both done, and the coloring and lettering is getting finished right now, so we're real close. The letter column's done, and we're putting the last few pieces together and waiting to see colors. Then we'll be all done with #40.

How does that feel? I'm sure it' a bit sad to be seeing such a big project, but after years of work how differently did this book end than you thought it would when you begain?

Allie: Well, Georges thought it was only going to be a few issues!

Jeanty: Yeah, I originally thought it was just going to be four issues, and then 12 issues, and then 25! It just kept getting longer and longer, so I didn't know that there would be an end to be honest. [Laughs]

Allie: Yeah, Georges only signed on for the first arc, and we didn't have the idea at that point that it would be one artist and a million writers. We thought it'd be this rotating team of people on what at the time we thought would be 22 or 25 issues. But then we really liked what Georges was doing, and so when Brian Vaughan was coming on as the second writer, that was the carrot to get Georges to stay. Then I think he figured out that he actually liked it, so he stuck around after that.

Jeanty: [Laughs] Yeah, I actually learned the material and thought, "Hey! This is pretty good!"

Allie: And Georges just so came to define what we thought the book was that it became increasingly important to keep him around. But originally for me, the moment it all really started was when Joss sent me that first script from out of the blue. We had been talking about doing something that we might call "Season 8" for a couple of years at that point, but when a script showed up, it was just a huge surprise. I didn't have a real concept of what it was going to be by the end. So it has definitely been a long, crazy trip for us. I think for me it's been about five years from getting that first script to where we are now. Wow.

And you've had a strong hand in working on a lot of the stories you've edited, from the Hellboy stuff to books like "Umbrella Academy," but with "Buffy" you're ending by actually coming on as co-writer and saying, "Here are some images from my head to help end this story." Has that made this last leg a bit more intensive than it was all the way through.

Allie: Yeah. For sure. And that's certainly the part that I couldn't have seen coming when we started. That's been huge fun and a great way to go out. I've been right there with Joss and Georges from the beginning, and nobody's more invested in this thing than us. So being able to do that with all three of us being a part of it at the end was really gratifying, and it was an amazing payoff. Working with guys like Joss and Mignola, I look at it as a real educational experience. I'm always learning better how to tell a story by editing someone like Mike or Joss. So now being able to co-write and get notes from Joss and really pick it apart with him that way, I really feel like I've learned a lot working on this final arc.

Jeanty: You hate to say things came full circle, but they really did at the end of this. It felt like, "Wow! This is how we started the whole thing!"

Georges, looking at #39 specifically, it felt like the issue was laid out for you as "the action issue," with big fight beats on almost every page. Did you guys know for a while that Joss was going to write a quieter coda issue for the finale, or did this big fight come on in and dictate how things would go?

Jeanty: I think once we got to #36, I knew pretty much that #39 was going to be a real climax and #40 would be the aftermath. And oh my God! I never draw in sequence and am always doing things out of order. Now, looking back on #39, it felt like that thing was never going to end. [Allie Laughs] I was endlessly drawing some creature here, something there...it just felt like there wasn't a lot of architecture on the page, it was a monument of either Slayers or creatures or demons or explosions or what have you. I'm glad that I got the script in pieces, if I remember, because if I would've read the whole thing, I would have gone, "I can't draw this in the time allotted."

Allie: With the way it ended, #39 was the total climax and #40 as the coda, that was a surprise because going into this last meeting I had with Joss in May where we sat down and broke out the last five issues together, when we started the process, we knew basically what happened. We knew the events that have now taken place in #39, and we knew what the coda was going to look like. But when we first started breaking things, we thought that the pivotal climactic stuff was going to happen in the beginning of #40 and that the coda, which Georges has just finished drawing, would be five or six pages. I'm much happier with the way it worked out – getting all the climax and the big stuff in #38 and 39, and then with what happens on the last pages few pages of #39, I'm so glad we have a full 24 pages in issue #40 to come down off it. If we had to come down off that moment in that room in six pages and then go, "Okay guys, we'll see you in ten months!" that would have sucked. It would have been a real bad rhythm.

Jeanty: And the great thing about #40 is that Buffy is on every page. There's sort of that closing of the doors and opening of new ones where there's a literal point where she goes to each and every person she has to talk to and has that – either a resolution or a setup for more conflict. I like the fact that we're following the main character through all this, since we've just been through all this for the last four years. This issue is a nice way to close it and reaffirm who she is as it closes at the end of the day.

Well, I've got some pages picked here from #39 to talk about, and I'm sure you'll remember which moments are what even if you didn't draw them in order...

Jeanty: Oh, I've got this issue right here. I went to my local comics shop and picked it up!

Allie: What's the name of that local comic shop?

Jeanty: Oxford Comics in Atlanta, Georgia!



Well, we're starting here with a big action page – Angel throwing a plane, even – but what stood out to me here was that the story focuses back in on how Buffy views herself and how she feels at fault for this situation saying, "This is some kind of cosmic vengeance." When I spoke with Brad Meltzer, he stressed how much her taking everything on the chin is ingrained in the character. How do you guys view that aspect as it played into this series and this issue in particular?

Jeanty: I think the great drama that is Buffy is that she's always thinking something is her fault or that she created something, and I think the fans have really latched onto that. With who she is and what she's done in the whole of "Season 8," I can definitely see her having some issues in "Season 9" because I think, for all intents and purposes, this is, psychologically, the most upsetting season for her.

Allie: This is a pretty big failure for her in a lot of ways. She did what she had to do, but it's pretty devastating for her. And on this page in particular, the stuff you're talking about reminds me of a phrase Joss has always talked about with his writers: "What's the Buffy of it?" In any conflict, in any situation, she's the main character, and you've got to bring it back to her in some way. When I initially wrote this page, the narration was too focused on Angel, and then Joss steered me toward bringing it back on to her. So those last two lines are about "Yeah, what's going on with Angel is important, but we've got to keep an eye on how it relates to her." I do find her kind of narcissistic in a sense, but she's always going to blame herself and see her fault and failure. Even in the midst of this colossal fight, the fight of her life in some ways, it's a little bit of self-pity and self-flagellation, but it's what she does.

Georges, we talked last month about how military stuff is some of your least favorite to draw. Is this giant, flaming plane the last of that for you?

Allie: I'll say that Georges did point out to me the stupidity of a guy grabbing a plane in flight and the idea that such a plane would just come apart and completely shred itself.

Jeanty: Yeah, I just keep thinking of the physics of it all. [Laughter]

Allie: Oh yeah, it's stupid. He's quick to point out that it makes no sense, and he's right. But it was like "We need a superhero moment here. We need a stupid, big moment." Because if they're just punching each other for five pages, I don't know. But even thought it doesn't make sense, I think it looks kind of cool, and I love the way Georges drew it. I love how big it feels.

Jeanty: There is that thing with comics that I think Jack Kirby had said: Something doesn't have to make sense, but if it has that cool factor, people will let it go.



Speaking of big moments, this page starts with a tree growing high enough to stab a dragon in the chest. But for me, one aspect of the "Buffy-verse" that I've never really had the best handle on is how the various genre elements, from vampires to witches to demons, always synched up. Was part of this story for you guys about putting all those pieces right up next to each other?

Allie: It was largely just about getting the biggest things possible onto the table. Aside from the protagonists, there are no vampires here. I'm always bummed out a bit that we don't manage to get more vampires onto the page sometimes, but I felt like having a bunch of vampires fall into the big war scene wouldn't be big enough stakes. It wouldn't take the fight grand enough. But yeah, Willow's magic and the dragons and all this interdimensional demons and stuff - we needed to have all the magic on the table in the final battle because of how it's going to turn out. We needed it all there so that when we flip the switch, you could feel the effects immediately. You can see them right on the battlefield.

Jeanty: For me, I'm always editing myself, and I was looking at that page when I got the book and thinking, "We should have put some sparkles around her because she's actually materializing in that scene." And it screams at me that it's something I didn't do and that I could have made it more clear. So I'm always editing something when I'm finished with it.

Well, you were talking about drawing out of sequence and getting pages in chunks. Do you tackle these things in terms of "Here are the magic pages" and "Here are the underground pages" and such?

Allie: Well, he got the pages in pieces, but in order...right?

Jeanty: Yeah, I think so. It's more that I'm just working out what the aesthetics are. So here we've got a dragon for a few pages. I will tend to draw those pages with the dragons together because I have the reference, and it's quicker to draw all of that in one fell swoop.



There's a whole lot in this issue, and it's kind of impossible to cover it all without showing every page, but I wanted to focus on this bit with Faith because it's one of the really clear supporting cast moments in this issue and one of the last of those moments after a string of them in this arc. Was part of the goal here to reach back to the BKV arc and give that thread a final beat at the end?

Jeanty: Well, I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, but a lot of this really does set up what will come again. Certainly in the next issue, you'll get more of this. It's been a great little subplot – how Faith, while she is on par with Buffy in every way, is always Number 2 – and I think that stuff has been personified a lot more in "Season 8."

Allie: In "Season 8," we set up certain things in Brian's arc, and the [Jim] Krueger one-shot dealt with it a little bit, but we never delved as deeply into the Faith arc as we could have because we had to stay focused on the main story. There was so much going on with Buffy and then Angel in the main story that we didn't get to go as deeply into Faith's growth and her relationship with Giles as we wanted to. So it became really important that we gave her a moment and check in with the two of them at the end, here. Their mission – the agenda they developed in Brian's arc – is something they're never going to get to pay off, now. Now she's left with it, and it'll certainly be a part of what's going on with her in "Season 9."

Jeanty: And if I'm not mistaken, some of the dialogue changed there too. I remember it being a little more cathartic from what is written.

Allie: The main thing I remember is that I had a really bad line of dialogue for her at the bottom of the previous page. Joss and I fixed that, but I think the two panels of them together was pretty much the same. You remember there being more?

Jeanty: I remember it being more of her relegating herself and going, "Yeah, go save your #1" instead.

But Georges, you really sell the emotion of that moment in the second panel on that page. I'm not sure any additional dialogue is needed there.

Allie: You're absolutely right. Georges delivers what it's all about without having to say it. I'm looking back through the earlier draft of the script right now, and I think you're remembering what the intent of the panel was, but you really got that across. I'm looking at the first draft, and there's even less dialogue than there is now. The idea was to show her – she says the word "right" and it's there to sum up her disappointment. Georges, you just nailed it, and so that one word doesn't hold a candle to the image.

Jeanty: When I read the scripts, I read them as any fan would. There's a point where I separate myself as an artist, but as a fan is how I go through the first reading. I try to visualize it in terms of "What if this were being filmed as an episode" and I can see all the "Buffy" episodes, understanding Joss' edicts so well that I can materialize it more than just going, "What's your motivation here?" If you know the characters, you know what they're feeling.



As we go along in this issue, the phrase that kept popping up in my head was "Collateral Damage." [Laughter] So much gets lost and changed through the comic, but it came through these big moments. This one, we get to see Angel punch a hole in the Master's head, which is a really intense moment. Did you try to pace this so that with each change, the character's affected got bigger and bigger?

Allie: I don't know that we thought about it like that, exactly. Back in those meetings we had in May, we blocked out all that was going to happen. So we knew at this point that Angel had to kill the Master. By the time I got to writing this issue, we had talked so much about the Master in the previous couple of issues that felt the best way to deal with him finally after all the buildup and all these years was another quick, unceremonious murder. And punching him through the head - was that in the script, or was that you, George?

Jeanty: No, that was in the script.

Allie: That may be a call out to something in "Umbrella Academy" where The Boy punched someone in the head, but I liked how it looks here. I like seeing the back of his head go, and I'm sure to some longtime fans and readers, it'll feel too unceremonious. But the point at this time was "Yeah, there's a lot happening, and there's huge consequences." And one of the things Joss and I talked about in terms of the character was that Joss finds the Master really funny. That wasn't my initial impression of the character, but once I'd seen that I was like "Totally." He's the high-faluting comedy relief in some ways. So the back of his head gets blown apart. And then he gets dusted, which I love how Georges handled that in the next panel where you see pieces of skull flying as green dust floats around.

I think as I wrote this like this, I was thinking, "Angel doesn't have a stake, so the other way to kill a vampire is to cut off his head. How can we do a new decapitation? How do you make decapitation interesting and original? Well, a fist straight through the head is like decapitation."

So now it's canon. Punching it through the head until it explodes is officially a way to kill a vampire.

Allie: [Laughter] I think so, yeah. I think most people just don't have the stones to do it.

Jeanty: I actually think that works in most walks of life.

Allie: Yeah! Almost anyone you punch through the head will probably die. [Laughter]



Two pages later, we get a much more serious and intense moment, which I'm sure you'll be hearing about from fans if you aren't already.

Allie: I am never going to another convention. [Laughter]

Jeanty: Not without security, I'm sure.

But Angel kills Giles. I'm not sure there's much else to say about it. At what point did Joss realize Giles was going to sacrifice himself to complete this story?

Allie: That was a while ago – and I hope you appreciate this, Georges – because when we started having this conversation, there was a moment in the conversation, it reminded me of a scene in "The Godfather." And in this, Georges is basically Luca Brasi. We started talking about it, and it was like "Georges is going to go crazy. Georges is not going to like this." I said, "Okay, I'll deal with the fans and with Sierra [Hahn], but who's going to handle Luca Brasi? Who's going to tell Georges?" I think at the point when Georges found out we were going to do this, that was when we got the reaction we were expecting. What did you think when you found this out, Georges?

Jeanty: Obviously, being a fan and knowing all the lore, you have to prepare yourself for this thing. And I was more on the side of pleading. I thought, "If I don't actually draw it, it doesn't actually happen. Maybe if I talk to someone first, they'll reconsider this thing." I remember talking to Joss at one point, and I told him "You really have to justify that to me" – I can't believe I was so bold in saying that – "before I actually put pen to paper. Because speaking as a fan and not the artist, you are going to get an upheaval here." And Joss went on to describe it, and at the end of the day I do what I'm told. But I was really pleading. It was one of those things I understood because people were still reacting to Tara. So I was going, "Could you please kill somebody else and not Giles?" [Laughter]

Allie: And by the way, Joss will not necessarily provide that service to every fan who calls and says, "You need to explain yourself." [Laughter] But I think he felt it was important and that Georges had earned that explanation. For me, I don't take it lightly at all. I was a little shocked and amazed when it first came up, but it has everything to do with where all these people are in their lives – where Giles is at, where Angel is at, where Buffy is at. The decision to kill a pivotal character is something that you can't just do for shock value or for the sake of housekeeping or to prove a point that there are stakes involved in the story. It can't just be about that, and it wasn't about that. This didn't start with any of those concerns. It started with who and where these guys were at, and it ended with me going on Netflix and going to the episode where Angel kills Jenny Calendar and doing a screen grab of him snapping Jenny's neck and pasting that into the script and saying "This is what Joss wants you to draw." Joss wanted us to exactly echo that moment from Season 2, which was a pretty rough moment.

Jeanty: And all I did was reverse it. When Angel did it then, he was facing left, and here he's facing right. It sort of bookends that whole scene.



Here we get a match-up of those harder moments and the hilarious as Willow loses her magic while Warren splats to pieces. With the Seed being broken, magic is being taken from the world. Where does that leave everyone? Is there any magic left? Any powers left for the Slayers?

Allie: I'm only going to answer this questions because we have sort of already answered it in the comic, but we will get into it a little bit more in #40. Aluwyn explained that if the Seed breaks, the Slayers will retain their power because their power is in them. They were born with it, and then it was activated. Things that have power latently in them will still have whatever they have. But witches tap into energies from other dimensions and other realms, so they will no longer have the ability to tap into those things. Demons who live on this earth – like vampires which are revenant humans with demons in them – will still be here. But there probably won't be any new vampires created because there won't be any more avenues for demons to come through and get into their bodies. New demons won't appear on earth. You can't conjure a demon or get one to show up because there's no way for them to get here or for us to get to them.

So the demons being sucked up through those holes in the sky are gone. There are demons that won't get sucked out. There will be thousands of demons left on earth that will still be here, but if they can't get away and more can't come, then if the army and Buffy and everybody were to team up and wipe out the thousand or so demons left around, that'd be the end of it. And if the vampires were all killed, there'd never be anymore vampires. But for now we've got some demons running around and some vampires running around. And we've got some Slayers who still have their latent abilities, and Buffy will still have her Slayer abilities. But Willow is, as I think we make pretty clear, entirely powerless.

Georges, what's it like for you to transition between such big, serious moments and then things like Warren? That mix of real emotion and tongue-in-cheek stuff is what "Buffy" is known for, but it must be hard to juggle those elements on the page.

Jeanty: Well, totally, but you've kind of got to look at it – with this whole series – from a different point of view than drawing a Superman or Batman book. A lot of who this series is being done for are people who've never read comics, and what you do in terms of how you show it is making things as identifiable as possible because if you miss your chance the first time around, you can really mislead the reader and make them feel like they can't follow a comic. To me, that sounds like an oxymoron to begin with, but they really feel like "I don't read comics, so I don't know what's going on in this Buffy book." As an artist, I've really tried to make it as plain as possible and in saying that, I try to chose scenes and angles that are the most depictable.

So when you're trying to deal with comedy or horror or things that move back and forth, it's a very delicate balancing act because you cannot alienate the viewer who's already skeptical about the medium. So I try and keep my storytelling very basic and straightforward.

Allie: One of the things we love the most about Georges – and Karl [Story's] another guy who does this well when a lot of guys who work in this don't do it – is the way that he so comfortably can slip from superhero action to real heartfelt drama to really silly, funny ****. He does that without making abrupt style changes. He just kind of slides. It's really graceful and keeps a continuous vibe to the story with a great emotional impact. In this bit with Amy and Warren, I loved it. He nailed it and made it stupid and gross and funny...and probably not too tragic, but what's going on around it is so tragic that when Warren turns into a puddle of goo, it's both funny and makes you go "That sort of means terrible, cataclysmic things too."

Jeanty: And in the Joss Whedon universe, that's par for the course.



Like I said, there's so much in this issue that we can't get to here from what's up with Spike to what the Lion of Twilight turning away is all about, but one last page that struck me was the very final page. For all the crazy action in the issue, it ends on a very quiet moment. Why go out on such an understated series of images?

Jeanty: Well, with me I look at this and just see what I did wrong. Honestly, as we said, I was getting pages as they came in, and I did not know the Scythe was going to be broken. If I would have known that was the case, I would have broken it when Buffy swung at the egg. So when I look at this, every time I just go, "God, if I just would have broken that in an earlier shot!"

Allie: Ending on such a somber, quiet page is kind of the same reason why I'm glad we have all of issue #40 to reflect on this. You just need to take it down a second. The action is so high-pitched for such a long time, and then starting around page 17 when she cracks the egg, it's the ending but it's also the beginning of the fireworks. It's been so loud and traumatic that writing things like the page of Willow screaming was rough. I thought, "I think she'd just be screaming, but there has to be words." So I'm hearing this girl traumatized, and I just need to take it down for a minute after that. We knew we had to do the image of Buffy laying on the ground, which had been foreshadowed in issue #10. We knew we needed that, and the question was "Is that the last image of the story?" I think it would be weird to purely end it on that. So I like the idea of Xander just stumbling around looking horrified and angry and then getting one last image of Giles so people can't mistake the fact that he's lying there dead. People can't mistake the fact that things are just miserable. It's just good fun.

Jeanty: I think that this is the beauty of monthly comics. It cannot be replaced, and it's so well said here. With all the events going on here and in this page in particular, you see it and you digest it. You may not understand it all together, but now you have 30 days to look at it and start to postulate and think and let it resonate and start to come down from this obvious high. By the next issue, you're prepared to go, "Okay, I've waited a month. Give me my just desserts and fulfill what I was thinking about." I was thinking about this as I was doing this issue: once this is collected in a trade, I don't think the resonating factor will be as much. You can just turn the page and move on to the next issue. Here you have to wait, and there's nothing anybody can do until the next issue but be left feeling whatever they're feeling on this last page.

Allie: Another thing about this page that was in my head before we had to break down the five issues was that I had thought when we had talked about this scene over the years...I'd imagined the scene as having all the main characters in one room together. It just seemed like that's what was going to happen. Then as we were working on the story and all the pages individually, you just had to go, "No. All these guys need to be doing stuff. So...wow. Willow's not in the room." It was really weird to me that Willow wasn't in the room, but I think it adds to the devastation of the issue that we don't even see the principals together on the last page. Willow's screaming her head off on a battlefield. Xander's speechless. Angel's literally speechless. And Buffy's crying too hard to acknowledge anybody. That initial image I once had of everybody in a room together – even if they were all crying and tearing their clothes – would be more upbeat than what we see here.

Jeanty: Right. You look at this as "All bets are off."

Well, for everybody waiting the 30 days for the finale to come, what do you want to say about how "Season 8" ends? Obviously, "Season 9" is in the offing, but do you feel this season wraps in a way that's satisfying, or are a lot of questions left as to what comes next?

Jeanty: I've said that #40 will definitely set the tone for "Season 9," and after reading it, you'll definitely understand why there will be another season.

Allie: Good point. But I don't know, it's weird. I think the thing about issue #40 is that we were all happy when we figured out that the action was climaxing in #39 and that #40 would have room for a denouement. Then we were really happy after we decided that we were going to have me co-write the last arc that Joss was going to be able to write #40 by himself. One of the things about this book is that his arcs have been great on "Season 8," but when he comes in to write a one-shot, the one-shots always do an amazing job of rallying the troops and redefining exactly where we are after a flurry of activity in the issues before. Like Jane's five issues – those were cataclysmic in a lot of ways, and they ended with Buffy getting superpowers. It was really fortunate that Joss was able to jump in and write a one-shot after that to get a crystalline focus on who everybody was and where they were at. That's something he can naturally do better than anyone else can do. It was so essential for him to do issue #40 by himself.

And so I think what issue #40 does is reestablish who everybody is at the end of all these events. It takes them down a notch and let's them be the characters that they are. One thing Georges said earlier is that in issue #40, Buffy is on every page, and it's all about her relating to the principal characters...or not relating to them at all. It hits the reset button. In a lot of ways, it could have been issue #1 of "Season 9." It kind of is the beginning. It's the interesting thing about the comics: in so many ways, "Season 8" is not like a season of a TV show. One of the ways in which it isn't is that we have this denouement that gets us right into "Season 9." It establishes a brand new world order after these terrible events. Normally, you didn't get that at the end of a season. You had to wait until September to see what the fallout was. And I think more than any season of the show – or any pair of seasons of the show – the events of "Season 8" directly put you in "Season 9," and "Season 9" will be very much about dealing with what happened in "Season 8."

Check back to CBR next month for one final BEHIND BUFFY SEASON 8 focusing on the 40th and final issue of the best-selling series!

[comic fan]

Anthony Stewart Head comments on Giles's death in Buffy #39.

Official Anthony Stewart Head News and Information

'GILES' DEMISE

It's obviously sad because it's the end of a great character, but the thing we love about Joss is his ability to tell great stories and the fact that he never shies away from haunting and impactful twists in his plotlines; the death of Joyce in the TV series gave rise to a catalogue of brilliant stories. Ripper R.I.P . Tony Head

[fresley4ever]

Wow I really walked into this one.

[comic fan]

Preview Pages for tomorrow's Angel #40.

Comics Continuum: IDW Publishing First Looks

IDW PUBLISHING FIRST LOOKS

FIRST LOOK: ANGEL #40







Angel #40 will arrive in stores on Dec. 15 from IDW Publishing. The issue is written by David Tischman and Mariah Huehner, with art by Elena Casagrande and covers by Jenny Frison and Casagrande.

Here's how IDW describes the issue:

"Zapped…elsewhere, Angel discovers an old nemesis with a common foe, as James continues to turn L.A. into his own private demon farm. Can the enemy of his enemy be his friend, or is Angel about to get major league betrayed?"

Angel #40 will be 32 pages and will cost $3.99.

[comic fan]

Un-colored version of Jeanty's Buffy #40 cover including the missing person from the cover.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #40 COVER JEANTY/VINES, in MICHAEL ALEXANDER's FOR SALE Comic Art Gallery Room

[comic fan]

I have my copy of Angel #40 but I don't have much time to get into any details.On my way out again.Here are a couple points though.

1)I agree the art is jarring for Angel although it does sort of work for me in the future setting.

2)The future setting is very Sci Fi hence the art working somewhat for me in these parts.

3)Looks like Angel is going to make another deal with Wolfram and Hart but under his terms this time.

3)In the present day,we ctach up with Anne who is rescued by Gunn,Connor,Laura and Poly.

4)They learn about Angel's car accident and being missing from Kate.

5)Connor has a big blowup at Gunn towards the end of the issue.

6)Issue ends in the future and a mystrious figure(Angel seems to recognize the scent) indicating that Angel keeps making the wrong move by confronting W&H and they have to make sure he does not forget that.

[comic fan]

Slayalive posts Buffy Season 9 sample art.

SlayAlive Forum - Buffy Season 9: What do you want?

Buffy Season 9: What do you want?

by CowboyGuy
Published on 12-15-2010

I'm sure there is so much everyone would like to see covered or explored next Season. So what are you hoping for? I for one am looking forward to more from Faith, and seeing what life is like for Buffy in San Francisco. I'm not really looking forward to more Xander/Dawn, but I guess it's inevitable (still not a fan of the ship). MORE SPIKE. But not more Spuffy, please. That's so Seasons 6-7...

I think Spike is a better and deeper character when he's not following Buffy around, and his existence isn't as a foil to her (i.e - from the IDW Angel stuff). Still curious as to how he has a space ship and a crew of giant roaches too. I'm also pretty excited to see the state of the Scoobies, and what Willow is up to as well. I'm even open to more Kennedy! *dodges rocks* Anyway, back to Buffy for a second. She was more or less a single woman in Season 8, and even in Season 7 she was not technically in a real relationship a la Riley or Angel. is it time for a new man (or woman) to come into her life? What do you think, and what are you hoping for?

Found some art request submissions for Season 9...check them out. I love seeing stuff like this. But, unfortunately it's not official. I received an email from Scott @ Dark Horse, letting me know that this art is no longer in consideration for Season 9. I do quite like them, official or not.











He worked on a title for Dark Horse as well as a title for Marvel. This summer he was asked by Scott to do a submission of his art for Buffy Season 9. He says it was like a "try out in the eventuality of taking over the title starting with Season 9." Also, his likeness tests for Buffy, Faith, Angel and Spike have seemingly met approval from what I can glean. Meaning Sarah Michelle Gellar's team, etc, have approved the likeness factor for their respective depictions, should this artist get hired. Other than that there is no official answer or announcement to give.

We know from Issue 40 hints that Buffy is living in San Francisco. But I wonder, when asked by Scott to submit samples, was he given panel direction? Such as "in this page we wanna see Buffy, Spike and Angel in an apartment, with a map of Romania on the wall" or "Xander enters on the last panel of page three"?

Just a clarification I just got from Scott, this is art is no longer being considered for S9.

But, it's nice to look at anyway


The source of the art.

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Buff...e-01-167754513



This is the first page of the sample I was asked to make for DH's "Buffy the vampire slayer". I had quite some fun with this one as the short sample script was custom written. Thus the action is taking place here in Romania's capital Bucharest. It's actually quite suited considering how everybody knows us by the Dracula stories if not by something else (unfortunately).

The hotel in panel 1 is a combination between its old look and the new renovated one. IN the far background on the right you can also see the Intercontinental Hotel, the biggest in Bucharest. On the wall in the back you can see both the maps of Romania and Bucharest.

I really hope you guys will enjoy this page as much as I did drawing it.

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Buff...e-02-167754989



Here's the second page I have done. I loved having to draw the room from two exactly opposite angles in order to describe the space's every detail.

In the first version of this page Xander didn't have the patch on his left eye, but good thing a fellow artist colleague of mine saw that and immediately notified me

Enjoy!

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Buff...mple-184099043



Here is another sample I was asked to do on Buffy for the 9th season of the title. I haven't received the editor's feedback on it yet, but I'm pretty hopeful. I now Geroges Jeanty left a very deep mark on the title, so I can only hope to live up to that and take it further - if given the chance.

In the mean time you guys enjoy it.

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Buff...ness-167752541

Buffy likeness



As you could read in my Journal entry I was asked to make a tryout for DH's "Buffy the vampire slayer". The first step in that direction was to make the likenesses of the main characters, which I am gladly posting for you all to see and hopefully enjoy.

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Fait...ness-167753582

Faith likeness



This is Faith whom was quite challenge due to her very interesting facial features and a hot body too I particularly had lots of fun drawing the full body shot on this one.
Enjoy verybody!

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Ange...ness-167753281

Angel likeness



This is Angel. Although I might have cheated this on a bit with all the dark on the full body shot, the main purpose was getting the portraits right. They were approved.

I have a lot of fun with the likenesses because one needs to stay true to the actor's look, but also revise/optimize certain flows they might have. Anyway, the min purpose is to have these sell to the actor represented.

Hope you guys enjoy

http://druje.deviantart.com/art/Spik...ness-167754158

Spike likeness



And here's Spike who's facial features don't really allow you to make many mistakes. They're every specific and very well defined. I really enjoyed drawing James Marshall impersonating Spike.

Enjoy everybody!