[comic fan]

Two pages from Angel #28.The start of Bill Willingham's run.

RyallTime: Denham and leather

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Denham and leather

I'm not sure if it's good or bad if you get the song reference in the Title of this entry...

But here are two finished pages for ANGEL #28, the first issue of the Bill Willingham/Brian Denham run:





Posted by Chris Ryall


Looks like they aren't ignoring the much maligned Angel:Aftermath arc by Kelley Armstrong.

[ashleyt]

Thanks for the update

[comic fan]

Preview Pages For This Weeks Angel#26",Boys And Their Toys Part 1 of 2."

Preview: Angel: After the Fall #26 - Comic Book Resources



“Boys and Their Toys,” Part 1 of 2: Somebody has made a movie based on Angel’s adventures in hell! Angel and Spike go to a comic con to see how badly Hollywood has mangled true events, only to find themselves surrounded by supernatural evil at every turn. Can Angel tell the difference between an evil demon and a 14-year-old fanboy dressed as an evil demon? Is there a difference? The Angel: After the Fall team of Brian Lynch and Stephen Mooney throw Angel and Spike into an all-new hell!















Buffy Season 8 #29.Retreat Part IV Of V is out this week too.

[ashleyt]

Spike's a girl Oh more fun for Spangel fans.

[comic fan]

There is an extra preview page here for Angel #26.

Comics Continuum

[comic fan]

Covers and Solicitation For Buffy Season 8 #31.

Comics Continuum: Dark Horse Comics for January

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #31

Written by Joss Whedon, penciled by Georges Jeanty, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Michelle Madsen, cover by Jo Chen.

After Willow unearths giant Tibetan goddesses to help in the fight against Twilight and his disposable soldiers, the Slayers are forced to retreat when the goddesses go AWOL and attack indiscriminately. Without powers the Slayers are unable to keep up the fight against missile fire, grenade launchers, and tanks. It would seem that all is lost, and Buffy -- all alone -- must make her last stand on a battlefield covered in the bodies of friends and foes.

40 pages, $2.99, in stores on Jan. 6.







BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON EIGHT VOLUME 6: RETREAT

Written by Jane Espenson and Joss Whedon, penciled by Georges Jeanty, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Michelle Madsen, cover by Jo Chen.

Buffy Season Eight Volume 6 showcases the first retreat of the Slayer legion. Vampires have solid footing at the top of the totem and Slayers have been crushed to the bottom -- in short, no one likes Buffy anymore . . . least of all this season's mysterious Big Bad, Twilight, who is hot on her magical trail!

Now that it's the world against Slayers, Buffy must find a way to return the status quo to . . . status quo‹and keep her girls alive long enough to do it! Enter Oz, the only person/werewolf Buffy knows who is down with the suppression of magic, and can take the Slayer army off of Twilight's magic-specific radar.

With Oz's assistance, the Slayers and Wiccans try to become "normal" through meditation and hard labor‹although, not everyone sees the advantage of being magicless, namely, Willow, Giles, and Andrew. And they could be right. After all, is a peaceful life for a Slayer even possible?

Oz appears in Buffy Season Eight! Collects issues #26-#30 of the ongoing series.

168 pages, $15.99, in stores on March 3.

[ashleyt]

I love that Archie version of BTVS.

[comic fan]

In addition to Buffy Season 8 #29 and Angel #26,Fallen Angel:Reborn #4 is also out today.The conclusion of the Fallen Angel/Illyria crossover.

Comics Continuum: IDW Publishing First Looks

FIRST LOOK: FALLEN ANGEL: REBORN #4

Fallen Angel: Reborn #4 will arrive in stores on Oct. 7 from IDW Publishing. The issue is written by Peter David, with art by J.K. Woodward and covers by Woodward and Johnny Atomic.

Here's how IDW describes the issue:

"Did you ever get everything you've ever wanted? Well, so has Illyria. On the devastated remains of New York City, Illyria stands triumphant. But what of the Fallen Angel? Did she try to stop Illyria...or did she wind up aiding her? And who will wind up having the final victory?"

Fallen Angel: Reborn #4 will be 32 pages and cost $3.99.











[img]http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0910/06/fallenangel43.jpg/img]

[comic fan]

Comicsgirl Five questions with Jo Chen

Five questions with Jo Chen



As an accomplished cover artist, Jo Chen’s work is the first thing readers see when picking up issues of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 among other titles. But Chen, who has been working in the comic book industry since she was a teenager, has also created video game box art as well as her own comics (most notably The Other Side of the Mirror, published in the U.S. by Tokyopop) and more.

Chen will be appearing at Baltimore Comic-Con on Oct. 10-11 and was awesome enough to answer my questions about her work through e-mail.

Comicsgirl: You’re probably best known for your covers for Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 series, a comic that seems to have brought in a lot of readers who probably weren’t comic fans before. How much responsibility do you feel to the fans of the TV series?

Jo Chen: Well the responsibility really flows down from Joss thru Scott Allie and Dark Horse to Georges, Karl and me. My part of that responsibility is to ensure that the covers are recognizable enough and compelling enough to entice the fans of the TV series, who are not necessarily comic book readers, to slip between the covers of an issue and take the ride. My guess is that the fans of the show know the characters (and the actors that portray them) and their voices so well and simply project those things onto the pages while reading. As a result, they accept that the books are indeed an extension of the television series. It’s hard not to do. So, to get people to trust/take a chance on the books is part of my job with the cover art.

CG: I love the glimpse into your creative process that you offered with your tutorial on Dark Horse’s site. While I’m sure it varies from project to project, what kind of direction are you initially given for each cover? How much freedom do you have?

JC: It depends. Most of the time, the writer of the arc, Joss or the Dark Horse editors, who already know what is in the script before I do, have definite ideas about what elements he/she/they want to see on the cover and I work to create that within that framework. It’s easy enough to ask for people drinking yak butter tea on top of a submarine that is wedged on in mountain peak with beasties roaming the grasslands underneath and another to attempt to work in all of those elements into a sound and attractive composition while still keeping the players recognizable. Whew! So, that is where my skills as an illustrator enter the picture (composition).

Conversely, there are instances when whatever is being asked for just doesn’t work. Sometimes, it’s too many elements to include; sometimes it’s the angle, etc. When this happens, I communicate that the idea isn’t working and that the concept needs to be modified or rethought entirely. That happened on one of my Runaways covers. It was a cover to feature Cloak & Dagger (Runaways #9) in a kind of split screen thing with Cloak on one side and Dagger on the other. The finished cover simply didn’t look right and I told them that it would be better to just have Cloak with the NYC skyline in the background. I can’t recall if this has happened on any of the Buffy covers. I think it has but I can’t recall right now which one.

CG: You’ve been in the comic industry for a number of years, both in the U.S. and Asia. What changes have you noticed since you first started?

JC: Not too many. I’m not really an industry-observer. Oh, I mean I hear when Disney acquires Marvel and things like that but I really don’t keep an ear to the ground for details of what is hot, what is now out of favor, what changes are afoot. I’m more acquainted with what is happening in Taiwan because there are fewer players and many of my closest friends still work and struggle there so I hear more. Sorry, that is a lame answer but there it is.

CG: While you’re probably best known for your covers, you have created your own comic, The Other Side of the Mirror. Do you have any more plans for your own comics in the future?

JC: Sure. As I’ve stated previously elsewhere, I love doing interiors and telling stories. It’s just that it is so time consuming that with kids and the workload I currently have, I can’t even entertain the idea of creating interiors for an ongoing series. The Buffy short “Always Darkest” was me getting to put my toes back into the water and splash around a little It felt good to do and I’m glad that it came off as well as it did. I will state that after its publication, I did receive an increased number of email messages suggesting that I should draw a Buffy one-shot from cover to cover and while that is both intriguing and flattering, it is simply too much work for me at the moment. I must sound like such a wimp given the crushing monthly deadlines met by Georges Jeanty, Karl Moline, Adam Warren and other interior artists I know and have worked with. But for me, right now, I simply cannot consider it. When I do venture into panel territory, it is to create some short story interiors for myself and friends’ doujin. That helps keep the rust scraped off.

CG: Is there anyone at Baltimore Comic-Con that you’re looking forward to meeting?

JC: Well, I hope to meet with Scott Allie who will be there and with C.B. Cebulski who may or may not be there. Both are editors/former editors and people I consider friends. I don’t get to cross paths with them very often in person so it’s nice to see them. As far as others whom I’ve not met or whose work I like, there are many on the list. So, when I get a break from my table, I will be moseying up and down the aisles like everybody else rubbernecking at great artwork.

See Jo Chen at Baltimore Comic-Con on Oct. 10-11. On Oct. 10, she will be apart of the Dark Horse Comics Buffy Season 8 Panel at 2:30 p.m. On Oct. 11, hear her discuss her work during Spotlight on Jo Chen at 12:30 p.m.

[comic fan]

Review of Buffy Season 8 #29.

Review: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #29 by Jane Espenson, Georges Jeanty and Andy Owens | Bleeding Cool Comic News & Rumors

Review: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #29 by Jane Espenson, Georges Jeanty and Andy Owens

Submitted by Rich Johnston
on October 7, 2009

It’s war, but not as we know it. The Buffy clan have gone all unilateralist on their magic stylings in order to hide, only to find themselves found and targeted by armed forces with no Slayerness, spells or supernatural forces to defend them. So what do the girls do?

Man up.

This issue of Buffy Season Eight is an NRA member’s fantasy comic, with the girls and the guys getting to grips with guns ‘n’ ammo ‘n’ grenades ‘n’ bazookas’ n bayonets ‘n’ stuff. It’s a remarkable shift for the comic, mirroring the TV series when it suddenly flips the board over and suddenly you’re not playing chess, but Twister.

So, got to say, I wasn’t expecting a war comic when I picked up Buffy, Howling Commandos -style cover or no, but that’s kind of what we get. However it’s not so much a tonal shift that the book completely becomes Garth Ennis War Comic, there’s a lightness of touch in the writing and the art that doesn’t hit you with the horrors of war but keeps the story moving, skimming over the realities being presented. But even that has a subtext, the light silhouettes of soldiers on both sides looking more like paper soldiers than anything else. Is this the way Buffy is seeing people now? And what do you know, the book concludes with a Hiroshima/Nagasaki allegory.

Oh and there’s good jokes. This is a Buffy comic after all. It comes with the territory. Oh go on, just have one – “I’m starting to think there’s a reason no one’s written a suspense novel where the conflict is wolves versus tanks”.

The comic book Buffy has often sold itself on the fact that it can do things that the TV series just couldn’t afford. But I never really took to the Buffy riding a dragon stuff. Having an all out military war on a hillside with tanks and stuff, that’s more like it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #29 is published from Dark Horse Comics today.




Bill Willingham talks his upcoming Angel plans.I'm just posting the Angel part.

Bill Willingham Talks About Angel & Fables at The Blog From Another World

Bill Willingham Talks About Angel & Fables

Written by Elisabeth@TFAW
October 7th, 2009




If there’s anything TFAW.com has learned about our visitors, it’s that they love the Whedonverse. So when we heard that Eisner Award-winning writer Bill Willingham–who happens to write one of our favorite series, Fables–was taking over IDW’s Angel, we called him up for a little chat.

The always-entertaining Willingham took us through his journey to Angel, why he thought the TV series ended perfectly, and what’s coming up for Fabletown. Read on!

TFAW.com: Hi Bill, thanks for talking to us. What attracted you to Angel at IDW?

Bill Willingham: Well, he’s a handsome man! No, at this point in my career, it’s more about finding people I want to work with, and there are some decent blokes over there, including Mariah Huehner, who used to be Shelly Bond’s assistant when we started Fables. So I’d worked with Mariah before in the past and I found out a couple of years ago that she’d gone out to San Diego and was now at IDW, and we’d spoken about, “Someday let’s do something together again,” and with her and with IDW and with some other publishers, those “Somedays” kept piling up, to where I thought that maybe I should let my DC exclusive go for a year or so, and start to retire some of those “Someday we’ll do something” obligations that had been hanging over my head forever. And so when I got my freedom back from DC, she and Chris Ryall called up, and they said, “Why don’t you write Angel for awhile?”

Now I love some of the work that Joss Whedon had done–Buffy and Angel, and Firefly in particular–and the idea of coming to play in his sandbox for awhile, courtesy of folks I’d wanted to work with anyway, was a nice combination. Too nice a combination to pass up.

TFAW.com: Had you been a fan of the Angel TV show before you took the job?

BW: Yeah, and that was actually a conflict, because Buffy was good, and it ended well, but the Angel series ended as perfectly as any of that kind of show should end. They’ve finally finished off the big baddie, at some great sacrifice, and they meet in an alley, and they find an entire army of ghoulies that they’re going to have to deal with that they couldn’t possibly survive.

And the implication is, of course, that these guys went out fighting. Kind of a Viking-esque tone to it, in the sense of, “Let me die with a sword in my hand.” And that was it; that was the end of the series: “Okay, let’s get to work.” And I thought that was just a marvelous, marvelous way to end it. So there was a part of me that was conflicted, because after a moment like that, you can puncture it by trying to tell what happened next.

Had I been offered the Angel book right from that moment, I would have turned it down. There was just no way to tell that story in any kind of satisfying way. But someone else had done it, some time had passed, and now you kind of take it with, “Okay the characters have gotten to this point, it’s done, regardless, so why not go ahead and pick it up?”

TFAW.com: Now that Angel and company are back from Hell, the book and the team seem to be in a period of rebuilding. What’s going to happen with “The Crown Prince Syndrome”?

BW: Well, for one thing, that’s the title of just that first issue only. It’s titled “The Crown Prince Syndrome” because one of the unreasonable demands I made, in return for considering doing this, was there were certain things to stay away from. One of the things that I was determined not to do was have the character of Connor betray his dad again, because he just did it so often. Maybe we should have him finally start growing up, say, “Okay, I keep doing things, I keep dropping my dad to the bottom of the sea, or turning him over to his worst enemy, or having an affair with the demon goddess who’s trying to destroy the world just to spite my dad.”

At some point in the growing-up process, you go through a time of acting out, but eventually, you want to grow up and become a more wise and contributing member of society, or you continue to be that kind of tantrum-y fellow–in which case, you’re a psychopath who belongs in prison, or worse. I wanted to go the other way, in that he’s wised up.

The whole idea of “The Crown Prince Syndrome” is, Connor is the crown prince of Angel Enterprises. Angel is the guy, and if he were to disappear, Connor is the next guy in line. So that’s what I did. The story arc in which this takes place is called “Immortality for Dummies.” It’s all about how in the wake of this whole return from Hell thing, in which the universe was kind of reset, but everyone still has their memories: everyone knows what they did in an alternate reality. They know that their next-door neighbor turned out to be a complete s#!t who sold his own children to the devil, or all of these bad things that happened.

So, what you have is a paranoid and suspicious city. I mean, imagine, if you will, being able to look at anyone you know, and know what their deepest, darkest thoughts were–what they’re capable of. When the chips are down, here’s what their character will reveal. And everyone knows this about everyone! And so that’s an interesting place to set the story.

I think LA, with that as a premise, is much more hellish than actually being in Hell. If you’re actually in Hell, you can say, “This is really bad, but let’s band together and make the most of it, and try to get out of it.” But if you have this sort of situation, where no one has actually done anything, but you know what everyone can, or will, or under certain circumstances would have done, that’s a pretty dire setting. So that appealed to me. And Angel is famous now; everyone knows that he’s a vampire.

The “Immortality for Dummies” thing comes from the fact that this is also LA/Hollywood land: a vampire is immortal, and his looks are never going to fade. LA is full of stars and starlets that want 300-year movie careers, and so someone kidnaps Angel to have him work for them as a living immortality factory, producing vampires. Now this story has kind of been done before, but we’re doing a new twist on it, and I don’t want to give it all away, but the company that does this, Immortality Incorporated, is cognizant of that fact that if you just make a vampire out of someone, then they have no soul and they turn into a monster-demon.

One of the benefits of knowing all this stuff about Hell is they know how all of this works. So they set up a situation where they’re going to recreate the whole Angel thing and create vampires with guaranteed, bonafide souls. And there’s a lot of gobbledegook, but the upshot is, that’s why they specifically need Angel to do the turning; no other vampire would quite work. And so, they kidnap him, and they do it in such a way that the rest of Angel Investigations, the team, doesn’t know it happened. Being Angel, they assume that he just met some new girl and he’s off with her for a week or so, being all typically morose and pouty, and, “We can never be together because of this tragic person I am,” so they’re not worried.

But Connor steps up, and says, “Okay, it’s my Dad’s company, he’s away, and I’m going to run the business,” and we’re going to see how that works out. So we have to two storylines: how’s Angel going to get out of his little problem of creating a world of rich and celebrity vampires, and how is Connor going to do running the show.

TFAW.com: Are Kate, Dez, and Gwen still part of the team?

BW: I think I’ve got the whole team there. We have Gunn, we have Illyria, not Fred–that’s the other thing. You might as well let the readers know, because this is sort of burned in, that we are not having the return of Fred. Illyria the demon is in that shape, but Fred’s gone and not coming back.

But yeah, it’s Gunn, it’s Illyria, it’s Spike, it’s Dez, James–the sort of half-fallen angel–and Kate, and George, the telepathic fish. I think I’ve got them all in there. Pretty much the whole gang. We’ll have it shake out. They’ve got a lot of Angel projects going, so in the main series I wanted to keep the cast as big as possible, so when characters are leached off for various miniseries and solo adventures, it doesn’t completely gut the core cast for the regular book.

TFAW.com: Are you going to deal with the fractured relationship between Gwen and Connor?

BW: Right out of the box, no, because Gwen is off doing something else, but she will probably get folded back into the cast. But there is going to be a little thing between Angel’s son and possibly everyone else, that they realize that Connor has this problem of picking up dad’s girls.

It may just be a running joke: when Angel gets involved with someone, asking Connor, “Can you leave this one alone, son?” We’re going to have a little fun with stuff like that. If it was all just going out and fighting monsters, that would get a little bit tedious, so you have the fun and personal relationships, and hopefully in the kind of quirky, acerbic, slightly distorted worldview that the Whedonverse is so capable of doing.

TFAW.com: With Gunn back on the team, does that mean he’s redeemed? What’s his relationship going to be like with the other members?

BW: Strained. If there’s a theme behind the whole group, it’s that they’re all broken, fallen characters. And there was this lovely, funny story arc in the Drew Carey Show, where it was done as a complete comedy and farce, where Drew and his misfit friends were actually sentenced by a judge to only be friends with each other, because the rest of society is protected, because those guys are a thing unto their own. That’s almost how I look at it, in that these people only deserve each other, in the sense that they’re all broken, they’re all, in many ways, a reflection of Angel himself: trying to be a decent person with lots and lots of baggage to overcome. So yes, Gunn fits in just perfectly on that point, doesn’t he?

TFAW.com: Yes! So, is Joss himself involved in this story arc?

BW: No. I mean, I don’t speak to him at all after that incident that one time . . .

TFAW.com: What incident?

BW: I’m making it up. I assume at some point he becomes aware of this, and if I’m going too far off the beaten track, that he might mention something, but so far, it seems to be smooth sailing.

TFAW.com: What’s it like working with Brian Denham? I haven’t seen any of his artwork for Angel yet.

BW: Brian and I have known each other since our respective careers began, when we were both just wannabe hot young turks breaking into the business. I have wanted to work with him for as long as I’ve known him, and I knew him from just when he started getting work, when he was working in a comic shop, and after 20-plus years, it’s finally worked out that we get to.

He draws like a dream and he does the one thing that in a comic like this is essential: he’s drawing Angel and the various characters on model, so you can recognize the likenesses that they came from, but he doesn’t do that thing where you’re working from publicity photos, where there’s this very cartoony style, and then there’s this very well-rendered, real person’s head stuck on these bodies. That’s always a story-disengagement problem when you have it.

What he does is with a few deft lines, he gets the essence of the character, but it fits right into his style, so there aren’t these glaring instances of, “Oh, there’s David Boreanaz’s head on that body!” He’s just note-perfect at that. So I’ll call attention to that. The readers are going to find various other reasons to just love his work when they start seeing it. I’m pretty happy with how the first issues we’re doing are turning out.


Hmm,there are some good ideas being planned but some things don't add up to me.

There is another souled vampire who would also work,Spike.Why don't they go after Spike as well since he was just as big a known player in saving L.A.


Of course from the episode ",Why We Fight" we know being turned by a souled vampire means diddly.But Immortality Incorporated probably don't know that.

And I don't buy Team Angel would think Angel disappeared because he ran off with some girl.That doesn't make sense to me It's not in character for Angel,IMO.And I don't buy Team Angel would buy that.

[comic fan]

I got my copies of Buffy Season 8 #29,Retreat Part IV of V and Angel #26,Boys And Their Toys Part I of II yesterday but didn't have a chance to comment until this morning.

First Buffy Season 8 #29

Good issue but more setup for the climax next issue.

It weird seeing Buffy and the gang in open war with the military.

I think Bay is as good as dead after this issue and her injuries.

We get the explanation of the mechenics of how the Slayers got rid of there powers.

Also Buffy comes off as cold this issue.A lot of that having to do with having to play general again as well as her emotions over Xander/Dawn.

Her hurt and anger over Xander/Dawn is all over this issue.

She's definitely shutting herself off again and I think based on the end of the issue and using her anger over X/D to call forth those wrathful earth goddesses,well this is not going to end well next issue.

I feel bad for Buffy but I'm actually feeling worse for Xander and Dawn.They have no idea why Buffy's upset.Her snapping at Xander's bad sex joke in the issue for example(although understandable).The one I have more sympathy for is Dawn in this situation.

You know,if they were going to play with B/X this season,I wish they hadn't done it in a triangle with Dawn.Because in this situation,my sympathy is going to be with Dawn.And I knew it would.Dawn has always had an inferiority complex with her big sister.The episode,"Him" drove it home.I'm not a B/X shipper but I wouldn't have a problem with it being played with.It could be an interesting storyline.But even if I was a B/X shipper,I still wouldn't be able to root for Buffy hooking up with Xander under these conditions.At the expense of her little sister who always had these sort of insecurities.I think we're supposed to see Buffy as the underdog in this situation but it's having the opposite effect on me.It has me rooting for Dawn even though I love and sympathize with Buffy.I sympathize with Dawn more based off the previous history of the series.

Will be interesting to see if my opinion changes as we go on.Issue 31 by Joss and Brad Meltzer's arc in #32-35 are probably going to be the meat on the B/X/D story.

Now Angel #26

Fun issue.It's basically a sequel to the Buffy episode,"Halloween" much like,"Spike:Shadow Puppets" was a sequel to,"Smile Time".

It was great to see Jeremy again and to have him finally meet Angel.I hope Jeremy is a regular supporting character in the Spike monthly.He has great chemistry with Spike and Angel too for that matter.I wouldn't mind him popping into Angel's book on occasion too but he would be a great regular for the Spike monthly.

Loved Groo in the issue.

The Angel/Spike interplay was perfect and confirmation that Spike does think of Angel as a big brother.Of course Spike tries to cover up Jeremy's blab with a perfect Spike quote.

Plus nice setup I presume for Spike's own book with his worries about being destiny free and having a blank slate.I assume that will be a big part of the Spike monthly?

The demons dressed as Teddy Bears was pretty funny and I would of killed to see that in live action.

We get a Xander reference,a Andrew reference and a Buffy reference.I wonder if next issue,we'll get a Ethan or Sunnydale reference since Angel should recognize what's going on here?He saw it first hand with Buffy and her friends.

[comic fan]

Full Scott Allie Slayalive Q/A for Buffy Season 8 #29.

SlayAlive: A Buffy Forum - SPOILERS: Scott Allie Q&A for #29 *Complete*

SPOILERS: Scott Allie Q&A for #29 *Complete*

Dark Horse Editor, Scott Allie, and writer of Exurbia and Solomon Kane is back for another Q&A to celebrate the release of Buffy Season 8 #29 Retreat - Part IV written by Jane Espenson and penciled by Georges Jeanty.


Remember to please submit one question per post and do not submit another question till the pending one has been answered.


If you want to participate, but you're not interested in registering at this time, you can e-mail your questions to emmie@slayalive.com and I'll submit them for you with credit. Again, we'd really love people to actively join in, but I'm hoping to encourage any fan out there with a great question to feel free to share it.


If this is your first time participating in the Q&A, please take a look at past Q&A's as your question might have already been answered. Also check out the on-going Q&A with Georges Jeanty, the main artist for Season 8. Thanks!


The floor is now open!

1. trunktheslayer: Hey Scott, sorry but I'm gonna be "that guy" (and I don't just mean with the long-winded question): Either last issue or the issue before, there was a letter published by someone named Raki. To say the least, the letter was blatantly homophobic. Now, I'm all for showing diversity of opinion but this letter was something far more bigoted. I meant to ask before, and I kind of need to, but why publish it? Especially when we've already seen so many "I don't like Buffy going gay" letters? Then in today's issue, a counter-letter is finally published and then not only was it essentially dismissed, but immediately followed by yet another "I don't like Buffy going gay" letter. I don't think this is a mark on you personally. I'm just trying to understand the reason for 1)posting the Raki letter in the first place, given how blatantly offensive it was to a certain group within the fandom and 2)Why immediately follow one of the few openly pro-gay letters with an almost direct counter to it(that didn't say anything we haven't heard a thousand times)?
Like I said, I hate to be 'that guy' but yea, I'm offended to put it simply. The Raki letter was bad. Really bad. Seeing a counter to it was a really nice surprise...until it essentially got written off with a "Sorry you feel that way, we didn't mean it" and followed up by the exact same type of letter it was referring to.

Scott Allie: Why publish it—So that everyone is heard, and you guys can respond. As I've said a million times, I run almost every letter we get, and the only ones I edit are the ones that I think are just unfounded attacks on my creators. Readers complain because they think I censor letters (I don't) and other complain because I don't (I won't). The Whedon fandom has a surprisingly diverse range of beliefs, including beliefs counter to what Joss's work is all about. I find that interesting. I didn't find Raki's letter that offensive—she hates what we're doing on a number of levels, hates the gay content in the series, thinks we're doing it for bad reasons, and would probably argue that that's not homophobia talking. I've read and heard much more hateful speech than Raki's—just because I disagree with something doesn't make it offensive to me. It has to rise to a higher level than that. Even if she said lesbians are awful people, which I don't think she does—that's an opinion, one I find more outlandish and silly than offensive. If she said lesbians should be rounded up and beheaded, I'd draw the line, but still—asinine more than anything else. And are you saying I dismissed Danny Hirschhorn's letter? Absolutely not. I said I was sorry because I was sorry he felt that way. I'd done something wrong if I made him feel that way. I emailed him privately, basically the same reply I posted in the lettercol, and judging by his response I don't think he felt blown off. You feel I should not run distasteful letters. That's certainly a fair call. I don't want to be the guy deciding what's offensive and what's not, so I'm not gonna do it, unless it's REALLY over the top. Here in Portland, Oregon, we live in a bit of a bubble—we're so liberal, we sometimes forget that the rest of the world doesn't think like us. We're shocked when we see Fox News. While I will never move away from my liberal Mecca, I think it's dangerous to forget the other side's out there; and I think it's good for us to look out from our safety zone at the harsh world out there. Some would say that we should keep our safety zone safe, but I want to be the lookout. In the Buffy comic, I think we can look out from a place where we know that we're ultimately safe, ultimately good to each other, and keep an eye on what the phobes are all about.



2. bamph: Something I've been wondering about. Twilight wants to end all magic.Amy is a witch and is basically addicted to magic if you go by season 6 and magic is basically the thing keeping Warren around. So my next question is,why would they be on board with working with Twilight and helping him end magic when they themselves are almost defined by magic especially Amy? It doesn't make sense when you think about it unless Twilight promised them something in return for there aid or they're just too dense to really get what Twilight wants to do. Will the reason why Amy and Warren are with Twilight given there magic reliance be brought up at some point?

Scott Allie: Like everyone who conspires with oppressors, they figure they'll be spared, that there'll be exceptions.



3. AndrewCrossett: A lot of us nerd/fans (me included) spend time poring over every issue, trying to find obscure clues in things like a character's exact wording of a line, or background details, etc... an example is in #28, when we were wondering if there was any significance to Andrew's losing track of Willow after her encounter with Oz. I guess a lot of it has to do with the amount of study time we have between issues. Is there any point to our looking for obscure clues and hints, or is the story actually more straightforward than we think?

Scott Allie: There is a point, though there's nothing much to the one you mentioned. And it is probably more straightforward than you think.



4. parabola: It's been noticed in the solicits for the Retreat TPB that it's a hefty 168 pages ... does this mean that Joss' issue #31 will be collected in this volume?

Scott Allie: Um, something might've changed there. It was never gonna include #31, but it was gonna include Willow. However, we changed our minds on that. Joss & Jo's story is going in there, and the Harmony/Colbert thing is, but not the Willow oneshot. So the page count might be a bit lower.



5. Emmie: Do we have a title for Issue 31 penned by Joss? It was notably lacking a title in the solicits.

Scott Allie: Holding onto that one for a moment. #32 will go without it in solicits too.



6. Charles: I was wondering if there was any sort of official explanation for what happened with Sam, Riley's wife, or is that more spoiler-ish talk?

Scott Allie: I think we're getting to that soon.



7. iloveromy: How far ahead is Jo on covers at this point? Any other guest artists doing covers?

Scott Allie: Hopefully no more guest artists on covers. We have up through #33 from Jo, and the Vol. 7 tpb cover. Oooh, now I'm just being mean ... you won't see that one for ages ... We recently brought a bunch of Browncoats to Milwaukie, and we hid a bunch of art for fear they'd see what was coming. We might not even show the covers when we solicit, how about that!



8. wenxina: So... I noticed that Monroe was alive and well in this issue. Problem is, I'm pretty sure that Bay that killed him in one of the flashbacks in #27. His limp form is shown lying down, with a ripped out throat, and Bay mentioned her remorse in killing him since it may have made him a martyr. Was this an honest mistake? Or is there more to it?

Scott Allie: ****. Yeah, he does look sort of dead there, huh? He wasn't supposed to be dead. He wasn't dead. Bay didn't kill him. But yeah, we got too nasty with the blood there, I guess.



9. Ben Marston: Will we be seeing all of the special Harmony inserts that featured on the back pages of BPRD, Solomon Kane and Krull in the Deluxe editions of season 8 also? As well as this how about the Jane Espenson 'Harmony' blog over at MTV, will this be seen in printed form? I think that all of these would be a great way to flesh out the 'Preadtors and Prey' story and should be inserted before and after the 'Harmonic Divergence' issue. Hopefully we'll be seeing the 'Tales' one shot, Always Darkest and 'Harmoney comes to the nation' before 'Retreat' also. I cannot wait to get these to read the entire run as a whole in all it's glory. Oh, just got to put a sneaky little question in here too. Have you decided as to whether you will be doing 4 sets of 10 issue HCs or the 2 sets of 20 issues?

Scott Allie: Pretty sure 4 books of ten. Won't decide till late next year. If your other comments were indeed a question, we'll have most of that in the paperbacks, but good ideas for the hardcover. Forgot about that blog...



10. AndrewCrossett: Joss has said that one of his goals with season 8 was to show how things progressed from the end of the TV series to the situation in "Fray." Should the things we've seen about the future (in Fray and ToYL) be considered immutable? Is the story now less about where we're going and more about how we get there?

Scott Allie: No, but yes.



11. bamph: On the Buffy/Xander/Dawn thing, while I feel bad that Buffy feels bad, in this situation, my sympathy is with Dawn. Dawn has always had an inferiority complex and a lot of insecurities about being in Buffy's shadow. The episode Him from season 7 really showed that as well as stuff here in season 8. Given that, under these circumstances, I just can't root for Buffy hooking up with Xander at the expense of her little sister who always had these sort of fears. So my question is, are we even supposed to be rooting for Buffy to hookup with Xander over Dawn now that Xander and Dawn are together and who is the underdog in this situation,Buffy or Dawn? Because on paper, I think we're supposed to see Buffy in that light, but as much as I feel for Buffy, my sympathies are leaning more towards Dawn given previous history on the show and Buffy's reactions in the new issue.

Scott Allie: Really for you to decide. As much as we love her, I think we all have a hard time sympathizing with Buffy. No? I really like how it plays over the next few issues. It won't take too long for a pretty clear picture to form here.



12. henzINNIT: You said that you considered the Willow 1-shot for the Retreat TPB, but not any longer. Does that imply that you are considering saving it for TPB #7 or just not including it at all?

Scott Allie: Seven. (Used to be an in joke at DH to answer any complex question with simply the word "seven," but in this case it's right.) It was a very weird printing consideration that bounced it out of Six, but it's a pretty necessary chapter of S8, so I gotta get it into a trade.



13. collex: Hi Scott. So, I know you said you couldn't comment last time (your perceived attitude on that has got a lot of folks talking, you can imagine), but the Season 8 adaptation trailer that was announced by FOX to be on their Bones season 4 is finally not there. Is it because it has been cancelled? Or is it still alive and you still don't want (or can't) talk about it?

Scott Allie: Seven.



14. wenxina: Hey again. While I don't really want to drag this on, I just wanted to point out that in relation to my previous question and your answer to it, it wasn't the blood so much as Bay's comment in the very next panel that led me to believe that Monroe was killed. The thing about making him a martyr implied death, especially when combo-ed with the throat ripping imagery. Would this be something that would be worth fixing, or at least tweaked to make it more clear that Bay didn't kill Monroe?

Scott Allie: Yeah, that's worth revisiting with Jane. I didn't have it to look at when I answered before.



15. bamph: This weekend is the Baltimore Comic Con. Dark Horse is doing a Buffy Season 8 panel on Saturday. Can we expect any news or new reveals about upcoming issues at the panel? Anything new being announced?

Scott Allie: Nope, it was just Jo and Georges and me chatting. But Georges almost tossed out a major spoiler. He forgot which issue had just come out. Oops.



16. Sosa Lola: Did Xander and Dawn go public with their relationship in #29? Because the lack of reaction is kinda weird.

Scott Allie: Just keep reading, and reading close. They have not gone public yet.



17. AndrewCrossett: Hooray for Felicia Day doing a Guild comic at DH. I somehow knew she was destined to hook up with you guys sooner or later. At a DragonCon panel, Felicia expressed interest in what was going on with her Vi character in the comics. I know Felicia is now buried under almost Joss-like levels of busyness, and I don't know if you have any further specific plans for Vi in season 8, but is there any chance we could see Felicia write something about her? Maybe an MDHP webcomic or something?

Scott Allie: We've talked about it, and we all agree we should focus on The Guild.



18. collex: I live in Quebec, where we receive both the French HC and he English TPB. I was looking at the two side-by-side and I was wondering: why does the French HC doesn't use the same cover art than the English TPB? The cover art of the English TPB is the back-cover art of the French TPB, and the cover art of the French HC is the cover art of one of the included in the book. So why the change? Is it a question of rights, or of formats?

Scott Allie: Editorial preference. I edit the English version, and commission the front cover especially for the paperback, rather reusing something that English-language readers might have already bought as a single issue. The French don't sell the single issues, so any cover is new to them, and apparently they like the full-bleed of the comic cover.



19. skippcomet: I'm the guy whose long-winded letter about Xander you printed back in issue #25, so first I wanted to thank you for printing my letter. Now, my question: Over the course of Season Eight, there has been criticism from some corners of fandom that a lot of the story elements and plot twists of Season Eight (such as the amount of female nudity, Buffy and Satsu, the prominence of Xander and Andrew, the lack of a resident vampire sex or love interest, or the very notion of Buffy developing a romantic interest in Xander or any other "normal" male) are inherently more appealing to "the male gaze" than they are to "the female gaze," which is supposed to be in contrast to BtVS being a feminist show (and which implies that certain parts of the audience are supposed to be more important than others). The idea that many in the audience are examining the characters, storylines, and relationships according to the yardstick of "must be this feminist to ride" (apologies for the mixed metaphor) is an old phenomenon in fandom, in my experience; but in this month's letters, you briefly discuss what you call "Joss's keen sense of drama." Have there been any discussions with Joss or the other writers about when or even if the "sense of drama" ever conflicts with whether the elements of the story might be perceived as not being feminist or feminist enough?

Scott Allie: Without confirming or validating your other points, which I can't get into right now—anyone read my tweets from last night? I still haven't gone to bed—the simple answer to your question is no, that conversation has not taken place.


20. flippinslayer: Anywho, my first question is about Xander (keep in mind I’m not intentionally asking about things that involve spoilers with this one!) are we gonna know more about what happened with him and Dracula? Or are we just to guess on our own? (Now to the spoilers) I just need one question answered and I will 100% know the identity of twilight and will keep it to myself at all cost. Does Warren’s reason for being in season 8 have anything to do with robots or human copies?

Scott Allie:


21. dusktodawn: How much longer are we going to have to wait for a twilight reveal?

Scott Allie: Answer to Warren question: No. Regarding Xander and Dracula, we won't be going back into that this Season. What specifically do you wanna know?



22. Ben Marston: Will the scene that features Buffy falling to the floor crying in 'Anywhere But Here' and 'Always Darkest' occur in one of the remaining issues of season 8?

Scott Allie: very long. You'll find out during Brad's arc.



23. sosa lola: Will Renee ever be mentioned again?

Scott Allie: Probably, but I'm not positive.



24. smashed: I was asked to ask this question again, but with a picture, Could you tell us what font this is?


http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1139/dibujogm.jpg

Scott Allie: Lemme get back to you.



25. collex: When Xander and Dawn kissed in issue 28, the reaction a lot of people, excluding me, was "Ehww, they are basically brother and sisters. She's too young! It's icky." So, my question was, had you anticipated this kind of reaction? And did you, at one moment, tought of no going forward with "Dander" because of these possible reactions?

P.S. Last time you said you would tell us about the tarot if you were drunk enough. Are you drunk enough now?

Scott Allie: We expected a little outrage, but that ain't stopping us. As far as the age thing--what, she's 18 and he's 22, 23 ? No big deal. And I'm sober...



26. slayerette: I was re-reading the TOYL arc, and I kept going back to Future Dark Willow's comment,"...the most important thing about death isn't who dies. It's who kills them." Was that just a foreshadowing of Buffy having to run her through with the scythe? Does it apply to what is still to come, or both?

Scott Allie: I'd say equally significant for both those things you mention. It's key.


All right, thank you from Baltimore!
Cheers!



If I'm reading it right.It sounds like the Twilight reveal is coming in Brad Meltzer's arc and not next issue as well as the scene of Buffy falling to the floor crying that was forshadowed in 'Anywhere But Here' and 'Always Darkest' ?

Georges Jeanty Video interview about Buffy Season 8 from Baltimore Comic Con.


Comics Continuum by Rob Allstetter: Sunday, October 11, 2009

BALTIMORE COMIC-CON: GEORGES JEANTY TALKS BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER



Buffy the Vampire artist Georges Jeanty told The Continuum's Kate Jewell that the pace of the series will pick up as Season 8 hits its home stretch.

For the complete video interview, CLICK HERE.


Comics Continuum: Kate Jewell interviews Georges Jeanty


Baltimore Comic Con Buffy Season 8 Panel report.

BCC: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8" Panel - Comic Book Resources

BCC: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8" Panel

This past Saturday, the artists and editors of the popular series gave eager fans some insight on what happens behind the curtains and teased what's to come.


by Jim Gibbons, Contributing Write

Half an hour before the Dark Horse Buffy Season Eight Panel began at this year's Baltimore Comic Con, a line full of eager fans trailed out from the panel room door. After the patient group had been filtered into the room, panelists Georges Jeanty, Jo Chen and Scott Allie—the book's artist, cover artist and editor, respectively—entered the room and sat down for a casual chat with fans about Joss Whedons "Buffy Season 8."

The trio began the panel by telling fans how they got their jobs for the series. Both Jeanty and Chen had never seen a single episode of "Buffy" before signing on to the project. Though Jeanty was initially met with groans, he explained that he was sent seasons six and seven of the show, fell in love with it, and became a "Buffy" fan.

Chen, who began as a manga artist in Taiwan, got her start on "Buffy" after working on "Runways" with Brian K. Vaughan. Chen was introduced to Whedon by Vaughan and that's how things took off. When Chen was pitched on doing covers by Whedon, she thought it sounded like more of an indie comic before a friend relayed how popular "Buffy" was and loaned her some DVDs.

"Joss is very nice, very respectful. He's almost like a fanboy," Chen said.

Allie, who was an editor on the original "Buffy" series, explained that Whedon initially wanted to do a series about Faith, but ended up doing the story of a future slayer that turned in to "Fray."

Whedon, who Jeanty had spoken with a few days prior, told the artist to relay this message to fans: "Tell everybody there, thank you so much for your support. I love you all."

The panel then opened up to fan questions, the first of which asked where is "Season 8" going to end and go into "Season 9?"

For a while the plan was to go to 40 issues Allie explained, but Brad Meltzer's arc—which begins after Jane Espenson's current arc ends—was so complicated that it might have to go an extra issue. Then, they will likely take a break, do some smaller projects and then move on to "Season Nine."

"I would loved to be involved in 'Season Nine' in some way," Jeanty revealed, after Allie mentioned they had been dancing around the issue.

When asked about future plots, Allie said "All we know now is what 'Season Nine' will be. We know what the story for 'Season 9' is. We don't know that we'll do another one after that." Allie explained that it's all up to Whedon if he wanted to continue.

"But hopefully he'll have gotten his team together and just said 'Well, let's just do the movie,'" Jeanty replied.

A fan asked what the artists use for reference when drawing the book. Chen explained she uses the DVDs and hates to look at publicity photos from online.

"For me, the subtleties are the things for this book." Jeanty said before explaining that things like mannerisms and even character heights are crucial factors to how they look in the books.

"When Joss and I picked Georges, we picked him mainly for his style," Allie said. "We picked him because we had a look in mind of what the book would look like. We had this kind of expressive but conventional superhero look. We didn't want it to be a dark, Vertigo-looking thing, we didn't want it to look like an indie comic, we didn't want it to look like a Mignola comic. We had this look and Georges was the perfect guy for that look. But then what we didn't know because the books he had previously worked on were more like straight up superhero books, we didn't realize his impeccable fashion sense."

As personality is key to how the characters in this book look and that was often expressed through their wardrobe on the show, Jeanty asked Whedon for examples of where the characters would shop so he could draw them in the style that suited them. Whedon cited Anthropology as the store that would match Buffy's wardrobe yet and that sent Jeanty digging out catalogs for examples.

"Once you dress them the right way, they tend to act the way you think they would," Jeanty said.

Another fan asked if they would have to wait till the end of "Season 8" for the reveal of Twilight, the big bad of the season. Allie revealed they would not and both Jeanty and Chen have drawn their covers for the issue already.

A three-part question came next. A fan asked if there was a chance of "Dollhouse" comic, if there was going to be a series revealing the past of "Serenity's" Shepherd and if Dark Horse would be getting former Buffy beaus Spike and Angel from IDW, the company which owns the rights to them.

Allie replied with a simple "yes," but expanded on that after the laughter died down. First he explained that Angel and Spike have appeared, but likely wouldn't again.

"'Dollhouse? There's a chance," Allie explained. "When Joss first told me he was going to do the 'Dollhouse' show, I said 'Well, I know you don't want to do comic right away, but whenever you want to do then, we want to do them.' He said, 'Yeah, I just don't really see how it's a comic, but if we're gonna do it, I'll do it with you guys.' And then at San Diego this year, he said 'I know how we can do it as a comic.' And that's where we left it."

Allie then explained that a writer has been hired for the Shepherd story, but they are still looking for an artist. He went to explain that Ron Glass, the actor who portrayed Shepherd Book, asked Whedon to give him some backstory on the character's past because people were always asking him for answers about the shadowed history. Whedon told him that it would be a comic, but that he could reveal these four things, three of which Allie could remember: Book found god in a bowl of soup, one part of him is artificial and he got his name from a dead man. When the artist has been found, Ron Glass will announce the creative team.

When asked about characters that were hardest to draw, Chen shared an interesting tidbit about Fray. As she likes to keep her cover realistic, she asked original "Fray" artist Karl Moline which actresses he thought she most looked like. Moline went with Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Portman.

About halfway through the panel, when the artists were talking about selling the realism of fantastic situations with their art in the story, Jeanty came dangerously close to revealing the final cliffhanger of November's issue #30 of "Buffy," insisting it had come out this week. After a playful back and forth with Allie, and the audience prompting Jeanty to tell them what he was about to reveal, the artist gave the audience a bit of a teaser but nothing nearly as juicy as they were hoping for.

"There are things that are happening that couldn't be done on the show. I think if you believe enough in the characters and how they are, you can take a character doing something she wouldn't normally be doing and make it look, I guess, authentic. I think if you can make Buffy or whomever believable enough, you can put them in the most extreme situations—that I guess are coming up in issue #30*— "

"In November!" Allie chimed in as the audience chuckled at the almost slip up from earlier.

"…that's because you believe in it becomes believable within that universe," Jeanty finished.

A few minutes later, Allie was frantically saying "No" again, much to the eager audience's chagrin, as Chen almost revealed something else while talking about details of an upcoming cover.

At the end of the panel, Allie was pressed for more information about "Season 9."As the current amount of issues would have "Season 8" end in 2010, Allie relayed that after Whedon takes a break and comes back to work on "Season 9" he hopes they'll be able to begin it in 2011 to coincide with Dark Horse's 25th anniversary.

Keep those fingers crossed, slayer fanatics!


Some things that stood out to me.

1)Angel & Spike have already made there season 8 appearances(Angel in issue 3 and 20.Spike also in issue 3.And both in the web comic.) and probably won't be showing up again this season according to Allie.So no real present day appearences by the two.

2)Twilight's identity is coming very soon.Jo Chen and Georges Jeanty have already drawn their covers where he's shown revealed.Considering his answer about Angel and Spike,I think we can now take them off the lists of suspects unless he's lying which I don't see a reason for him to.Could always be wrong though.

3)They know what season 9 will be about.They hope to start it in 2011.It's up to Joss if he wants to go past that.

4)Jeanty and Chen almost spilled some big spoilers.Sounds like next issue really will be a biggie.


Also sounds like Joss is more open to doing a Dollhouse comic.

More preview pages for Angel #28."Immortality for Dummies" Part 1.The start of Bill Willingham's run.

RyallTime: Decade of Angel

Friday, October 9, 2009

Decade of Angel





Joss Whedon's ANGEL turned 10 years old this week. So as a special way to celebrate that, how about a very-advance look at Bill Willingham and Brian Denham's first issue (#28), available for pre-order in the current issue of Previews (the one with ANGEL 28 on the back cover of the magazine) and shipping in December.

There'll be one other bit of ANGEL 28 news to share soon, a cool little something, but for now, happy anniversary, ANGEL. Here's to another 10 or more under our stewardship...

Posted by Chris Ryall















John Bryne to do more Angel work.From the man himself

Byrne Robotics: SCHISM 2 Thoughts and Comments

Any chance you could produce bi-weekly Star Trek books?
••

Currently the ANGEL stuff seems to be selling slightly better, so guess series which IDW is asking for more of?

Hint: Look for two new ANGEL/ANGEL related projects in 2010!

(That's in addition to the TREK "mystery project" already mentioned.)


I bet he meant two new Angel/Angelus projects.

Angel:Only Human #3 is out this week.Here's preview pages.

Comics Continuum: IDW Publishing First Looks

FIRST LOOK: ANGEL: ONLY HUMAN #3

Angel: Only Human #3 will arrive in stores on Oct. 14 from IDW Publishing. The issue is written by Scott Lobdell, wit art by David Messina and Mirco Pierfederici and a cover by Messina.

Here's how IDW describes the issue:

"'Another Old One roams the Earth! And don't think he's going to go easy on Illyria, his ex. (Considering she's the one that enslaved him several hundred thousand years ago, it doesn't look like a reconciliation is in the cards.) All this and a glimpse into Gunn's past, revealing the very first time he ever met a vampire... in his beloved Grandmother's kitchen."

Angel: Only Human #3 will be 32 pages and will cost $3.99.

[comic fan]

Here's the corrected answers to questions 20-22 in Allie's Slayalive Q/A for issue 29.

20. flippinslayer: Anywho, my first question is about Xander (keep in mind I’m not intentionally asking about things that involve spoilers with this one!) are we gonna know more about what happened with him and Dracula? Or are we just to guess on our own? (Now to the spoilers) I just need one question answered and I will 100% know the identity of twilight and will keep it to myself at all cost. Does Warren’s reason for being in season 8 have anything to do with robots or human copies?

Scott Allie: to Warren question: No. Regarding Xander and Dracula, we won't be going back into that this Season. What specifically do you wanna know?

21. dusktodawn: How much longer are we going to have to wait for a twilight reveal?

Scott Allie: Not very long. You'll find out during Brad's arc.



22. Ben Marston: Will the scene that features Buffy falling to the floor crying in 'Anywhere But Here' and 'Always Darkest' occur in one of the remaining issues of season 8?

Scott Allie: Not exactly, but the scene holds great significance.



That makes more sense now.So Twilight's identity will be revealed in Meltzer's arc.

[comic fan]

Part 1 of Buffyfest Interview With Brian Lynch.Tallking Angel #26-27 and Angel Annual(Last Angel In Hell).Also a preview page from the annual.

Buffyfest: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brian Lynch Talks Upcoming Angel Comics Part One

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brian Lynch Talks Upcoming Angel Comics Part One



Without question, one of my favorite parts of working on this website is the opportunity it provides to get to hang out and talk with really talented and fun people. Shortly before my trip to LA, Brian Lynch dropped us a line to let us know he was gearing the proverbial hype machine for LAST ANGEL IN HELL, the Angel Annual that will be coming out in December. What was intended to be a quick interview over IM turned into a two hour long discussion about, well, just about everything. Today we're bringing you the first part of two where we concentrate on Angel #'s 26 & 27 as well as LAST ANGEL IN HELL. Without further ado, here's the conversation we had with the man himself:

Buffyfest: Shall we?

Brian Lynch: Let's DO THIS

Buffyfest: Let's do a recap of what's coming up. We've got the two part Angel and Spike go to San Diego story and an annual.

Brian Lynch: Yes, ANGEL 26-27 is Angel and Spike's big movie date night, and the Annual is a whole other beast.

Buffyfest: So for the comic con story the concept is essentially that all the geeks at the con become whatever they are cosplaying as, right?

Brian Lynch: Whatever costume they are wearing, they become. People are dressed as superheroes, super villains, jedi, ninja turtles, vampires, robots. So Angel has to deal with thousands of suddenly very powerful and confused people.

Buffyfest: And Spike is dressed as Angel.

Brian Lynch: Spike is dressed as Angel, so Angel also has to deal with Spike acting like what he thinks Angel is like.

Buffyfest: Which begs the question: what does Spike think Angel is like?

Brian Lynch: Self-important, tortured, a bleeding heart, but also this really noble hero, who is selfless to a fault. We really get a chance to see what Spike thinks of Angel in ways Spike would never, ever admit. I think there's some very sweet moments among the funnier asides, and action. Tons of action, though. Maybe more than I've written in an ANGEL book.

Buffyfest: That makes sense considering all the sudden super powers. How about these con goers? Are they all aware of Angel and the happenings of After the Fall?

Brian Lynch: Some are definitely aware, some think he's simply dressed as a character from LAST ANGEL IN HELL, the movie based on Angel's adventures in hell. Angel hasn't reached Stan Lee levels of fame at the con, though.

Buffyfest: But geeks who are in the know tend to be very critical. Any chance we'll see some of them criticizing LAST ANGEL IN HELL as not being accurate to what actually happened?

Brian Lynch: There is some of that, for sure. A character we haven't seen since AFTER THE FALL is actually very angry about how the movie portrays events. As well he should be. They mess a lot up.

Buffyfest: That sounds hilarious. Did you feel tempted at all to gently rib some of the bigger Buffy and Angel geeks who tend to get caught up in the obsession of story canon when you were writing this story (since comic book geeks will be in it) or have you always felt it best to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to that sort of thing?

Brian Lynch: I think it is absolutely best to let sleeping dogs lie and not poke fun at canon debates. That said, in ANGEL 26, I have woken the dog and poke fun at canon debates.

Buffyfest: FANTASTIC! I have been waiting for a long time, sir.

Brian Lynch: I've had this idea for years, I just couldn't figure out WHY Angel and Spike would go to a comic con. The fake movie allowed for it, I was thrilled. Angel works best when he's thrown into situations he doesn't understand and/or has to talk to a lot of people. Here, he's in the most crowded location I could think of, dealing with something that makes little to no sense. I mean, we explain everything for the reader, but Angel isn't privy to all the info. Oh, and Angel fights zombies and Spike deals with a chubby power ranger.

Buffyfest: So what other kind of super powers will we be seeing people get? Spidey sense?

Brian Lynch: Hmmmm. Lots of lasers, super strength, tons of ninjas, but my favorite is Explodo. I will not tell you what he does, you will NEVER get it.

Buffyfest: Alright. Let's move along to LAST ANGEL IN HELL

Brian Lynch: Hoooray

Buffyfest: Because talking about a theoretical Angel movie is awesome

Brian Lynch: Well, LAST ANGEL IN HELL should never ever be the ANGEL movie. It is written by someone who witnessed some of Angel's heroics, and pieced together what he thinks the story is. Then I gave it an extra gloss of the script being handed over to a committee that clearly didn't care about facts and went crazy. It's a big Bruckheimer-seque ANGEL romp. There are moments in the comic that are clearly put in to sell action figures. Like a character comes in and out and looks cool and leaves. Or action beats happen for no reason. There is a sex scene in the book that is literally put in, even though it is completely pointless and at the worst time, because I pictured the studio executive going "we need a sex scene HERE." I think it's my first sex scene in comics.

Buffyfest: and it involves Angel?

Brian Lynch: Yes

Buffyfest: Does the curse get a mention or is it completely glossed over?

Brian Lynch: It isn't mentioned because the screenwriter wouldn't have known about it.

Buffyfest: And it's definitely not with lady Spike?

Brian Lynch: Lady Spike is sexy...but I cannot confirm or deny if Lady Spike has sex with Pseudo Angel.

Buffyfest: speaking of Lady Spike. What would happen if Lady Spike and Actual Spike met?

Brian Lynch: Oh they will, I think. Spike would definitely take an interest in the girl who played him in a movie, for sure. It's not in ANGEL 26-27, but he does show an interest in meeting her. Like, I know the actress who plays Lady Spike, so when I'm ready to put her into the world, I have all of her background, real name, all sorted out.

Buffyfest: I remember you mentioning cameos Are these Angel character cameos only or might we get a glimpse of some characters from other comics you've written?

Brian Lynch: There is only one cameo in LAST ANGEL, and that is a lead from AFTER THE FALL. I pictured the studio execs going out to all the characters, and only one person said "yes, I will be in this". Although he's not really a person. And he doesn't play himself in the movie. He cameos as a waiter.

Buffyfest: If it's who I think it is... how does he "wait" exactly? With his mind?

Brian Lynch: There's a tray on his back and he floats around. It's in the James Bond type scene, where Angel dons a tux and infiltrates the villain's party.

Buffyfest: James Bond scene you say? Any other major franchises whose style you utilize?

Brian Lynch: Definitely some BATMAN moments, some old Western type beats, a little buddy comedy thrown in. Some product placement, there's a lot going on. And the fake ads, oh the fake ads. This might just be the perfect comic.

Buffyfest: Let's talk about the movie versions of the characters. What we know so far is that Angel is a Nic Cage type, Spike is a Lady, Gunn is a wacky Hurley buddy guy, and Betta went from fish to dog. How about Illyria and Wes? I know Illyria is black suddenly but what else has changed?

Brian Lynch: Illyria is a bad-ass black lady with a secret. And it's not at all close to Illyria's actual secret. Also she's dyslexic so there are very special moments. Wes is Angel's best friend and partner. Hard to describe what he does without spoiling, but a moment with him in the beginning kinda sets the stage for Angel's character arc. Basically, if Angel is Riggs in LETHAL WEAPON, Wesley is Murtaugh. It is really fun. I love IDW, they're taking a chance on this book. I hope people want to check it out even though it is 100% not canon. I've wanted to get to this issue forever and the fact that's it a big annual, like double-sized? So much fun.

Buffyfest: Have you found out officially how many pages it's going to be yet?

Brian Lynch: I think it's just short of 50 pages. Nothing but story and fake ads, though, it's ALL Last Angel related. No IDW solicits or anything. I think we even get the back cover and inside back cover and such. Mooney has had to draw Nicholas Cage a billion times for this one, ORDER IT FOR MOONEY! Or, I should say, someone who kinda looks like Nicholas Cage, not actually Nicholas Cage, because that would be illegal-ish.

Buffyfest: Right. Totally not actually Nicholas Cage (please don't sue)

Brian Lynch: My hope is Nic Cage sees it on the comics shelf and thinks he starred in the movie verson.


NEVER SEEN BEFORE IMAGE: (Not)Nic Cage as Angel Cartwright is about to be married. SPOILER ALERT The wedding will not go well END SPOILER ALERT


Buffyfest: There's a distinct possibility that might happen. I'm sure he doesn't remember half the movies he's in.

Brian Lynch: I just want this comic to be one gigantic punking on Nic Cage. So he talks about it in interviews. "Shooting LAST ANGEL was fun, yeah."

Buffyfest: "It was a great experience. The fat guy from Lost is a real professional"

Brian Lynch: Maybe they will become friends in real life, thinking they made a movie together. LAST ANGEL IN HELL brings people together.

Buffyfest: It's a real people pleasure. Two thumbs up!

Brian Lynch: Oh, the sequel should be 3-D. I just thought of that, that could be fun.

Buffyfest: there should be a 3-D section, I think. Like it is when they do the special IMAX releases of films.

Brian Lynch: Oh yeah, just for a few pages here and there. But it should be the wrong pages. Explosions and sword fights, no 3-D. Long conversation scenes and Angel napping, 3-D!

Buffyfest: It's like I can reach out and feel him snoozing!

Brian Lynch: FINALLY.

Buffyfest: I've been waiting like forEVER. Thank you, Brian Lynch. Thank you.

Brian Lynch: ANGEL: NAPPING is going to be a five issue series, I think.

Buffyfest: We might have to self publish that bad boy

Brian Lynch: So in summation, LAST ANGEL IN HELL is good.

Buffyfest: It most certainly is.

And that's the end of Part One. Stay tuned later this week for Part Two where Brian and I talk about the Drusilla comic, the Spike ongoing, and more!

[comic fan]

The second part of Brian Lynch's interview at Buffyfest is up.He talks the Dru two parter,working with JL and the Spike monthly.Plus another preview page from the Angel annual and a cover for Spike that I think we've seen.

Buffyfest: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brian Lynch Talks Angel Comics Part Two

Thursday, October 15, 2009

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brian Lynch Talks Angel Comics Part Two


Exclusive Angel Annual Image: The Hollywood Reimagining of LA's descent into Hell


As promised, we present the second half of our interview with Brian Lynch. In the second half we talk about his involvement in the Drusilla comic, the Spike ongoing, and a little man named Angry Naked Pat. Enjoy!

Buffyfest: Let's talk about the Drusilla book. You told us at NYCC that Juliet sent you these long, movie-style scripts when the idea of the two of you doing a comic together was originally proposed. The final result has very little dialogue. Was it hard transitioning her original scripts to what we ultimately saw on the page?

Brian Lynch: It really wasn't. The first issue was fun, she wrote the story and dialog, I helped transcribe it into comic script format, and futzed with some dialog, gave it back to her, she futzed with it and sent it to Chris. Second issue, we had the story mapped out, so she just want to town and tackled it. I had a little input, but mostly it was me just saying "yes that will work". So it might have been tough for her, but for me, it was fun and a breeze. She had a very clear vision of what she wanted, in script, art and even colors. I just helped her get there.

Buffyfest: Were there an ideas that were specifically yours?

Brian Lynch: Yeah, early on, when she and I talked about the plot on the phone, we went back and forth with story, I had input there. And the moments with the guard who was really working for someone else, who's job it was to keep Dru under wraps, that was my main contribution. Because I figured she'd need someone helping her keep Drusilla a secret, or else it would be very strange that none of these doctors and interns noticed Dru killing people or not going into sunlight. But man, Juliet had everything all ready. She had photos, plots, scripts. She should do another book, that girl is a dynamo. And she's insanely sweet. AND I don't know if you're aware, but she was also on BUFFY and ANGEL.



Buffyfest: HOLY CRAP, WHAT!?

Brian Lynch: Yeah I think she played Rose, Sunnydale's newest exchange student.

Buffyfest: Thank you for that bit of minutia which will surely come in handy when playing Buffy Trivial Pursuit

Brian Lynch: Not a problem.

Buffyfest: How about the ending of that story? You'd mentioned Spike would see Dru during his ongoing. Is that still happening? Where is she?

Brian Lynch: You know, I'm not sure if Dru and Spike will meet up during my run. I feel as though Juliet should that story if she wants. Is that a cop-out?

Buffyfest: total cop-out

Brian Lynch: She and James should write it together.

Buffyfest: That would sell a lot of books

Brian Lynch: The story I have for Spike doesn't feature Drusilla coming in, but I only have, I think 10 mapped out. If I go beyond that, maybe. Unless Spike dies in issue 10.

Buffyfest: Shh... don't even mention that!

Brian Lynch: Okay.

Buffyfest: Are you thinking of bringing Spider into the Spike ongoing?

Brian Lynch: The ongoing will be called SPIKE & SPIDER 4EVA. She's not in my outline, but things can change. Especially since you just shoved her to the forefront of my mind. So you're to blame.

Buffyfest: I'll take it. I liked Spider and I know you had some ideas for her way back when during NYCC.

Brian Lynch: I haven't decided on Spider yet. She's not planned for the series, but as I'm writing, who knows. I am unpredictable and lovely. But I think SPIKE is my last trip in the Whedonverse, so I'm trying to make it count. It's going to be good.

Buffyfest: Anything you want to share or are you keeping it all close to the vest for now?



Brian Lynch: Hmmmm. It's Spike completely in charge of his life for the first time in a long time. He's not following anyone, he's the master of his own destiny. With cameos from all your favorites! And maybe Spider! What I have planned is very dark and very heart-wrenching, but then there's funny stuff too. It's an epic Spike story. It's a lot of little Spike stories that build to an epic Spike story. It's Spike if Spike got his own TV show. But with a movie-sized budget every month. It starts with Spike falling into Joss Whedon's well and ends with a marriage to Spider. Fans will love it.

Buffyfest: If by "fans" you mean "me", then you're correct, sir.

Brian Lynch: That's exactly what I meant.

Buffyfest: I have a question that will please only the most geekiest of geeks. What would have happened in Short Bus to Glory Part Two had it gotten made? (This is in reference to the Angry Naked Pat Animated Web Series)

Brian Lynch: Pat got to assemble his team of special kids that fought against Kevin's team of special kids (which were all celebrities like George Lucas and Fred Durst) and it became a kinda parody of Scooby Doo's Laugh-O-Lympics. Thank you for that question. I so very much want to do more ANGRY NAKED PAT stuff.

Buffyfest: I want to see it.

Brian Lynch: I do too! I want Dave Crosland, the artist on EVERYBODY'S DEAD, to do an ANGRY NAKED PAT comic series. What's weird is, I was talking to Robert Kirkman via email and he said "Are you guy that used to do ANGRY NAKED PAT?" so I guess some people remember.

Buffyfest: I'm really not surprised. It was a good webcomic and the cartoon was great too.

Brian Lynch: I really should bring it back. A decision has been made! This interview was life changing for SO many reasons.

Buffyfest: Truly we have shared a moment

Brian Lynch: Many, many.

Buffyfest: That will alter who we are forever. Shill for Party Truck on your way out!

Brian Lynch: Everyone go to Itunes and subscribe to PARTY TRUCK USA. We talk about all kinds of geeky stuff and make fun of it. If you love me in I-Mterview form, you'll super love me x 10 in podcast form.

Buffyfest: Excellent. Well interviewed, Mister Bond

Brian Lynch: Well interviewered.

A huge thanks to Brian for talking with us. Remember you can check out his blog here and follow him on twitter here. Most importantly, though, you can find all the information you need at comixology for when you reserve the Angel Annual.