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Herc’s Seen
BUFFY 8.5!!
I am – Hercules!!
Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer transforming the comics industry? Publisher’s Weekly has an interesting story here about how “Buffy” mastermind Joss Whedon’s new “Season Eight” series is turning first-time comic-book customers into buyers of non-Buffy comics. An excerpt:
The Buffy series is currently the bestselling title at Rocketship, the Brooklyn, N.Y., comics store, "by a pretty considerable margin," said owner Alex Cox. The new customers it brings in are starting to buy other comics, too, Cox said, especially Joss Whedon's other projects, like the superhero series, Runaways. "We've pulled in extra Runaways sales just by racking it next to Buffy. They're not just coming in for Buffy and leaving. With the death of Captain America, people came in, wanted that one issue, and we'll never see them again."
Another excerpt:
Other recent comics adaptations of TV series and books haven't been nearly as big, though. Rocketship's Cox said that the comics adaptation of science fiction TV series Battlestar Galactica "died a slow, slow death on the shelves." Muse Comics' Fisher noted that a successful tie-in needs to involve the original project's creators closely and has to offer new material: "There are plenty of CSI and The Shield and Star Trek comics, but they need to be something that fans just have to have, that's only in the comic book medium."
Today brings the fifth issue of the new “Season Eight” series.
Whedon wrote this stand-alone fifth issue, titled “The Chain,” and it feels much of a piece with Whedon’s old “Tales of the Slayers” series. Buffy’s not in issue five. Nor is Xander, Dawn, Willow, Jonathan, Warren, Amy, Ethan, Faith, Kennedy, Anya, Cordelia, Angel or Spike. I spotted no angry Army men and no anti-slayer tattoos.
Giles puts in a cameo. I think. (It might be Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek; guest penciller Paul Lee is no Georges Jeanty.) We don’t learn this month where Giles has been keeping himself.
Andrew turns up on one page. Slayer One on another. Nikki Wood turns up on Slayer One’s page, wearing her black duster.
Issue five focuses on a heretofore unseen slayer, a girl fleetingly referenced in issue one. She’s a Buffy decoy, but not the one who fooled Spike and Angel in Rome; it’s the decoy operating “literally” underground, where she’s been charged with putting the fear of Buffy into some hellmouthy types.
We follow pretend-Buffy from the day she got her superpowers. We learn a bit about how the neo-slayers are recruited into Team Buffy these days. We follow her through recruitment and training, and how she came to be chosen, as it were, for her Big Assignment. One comes to like the pretend-Buffy.
Faux Buffy also gets her own all-new non-human supporting cast. Not a vampire, witch or werewolf among them.
I say pick it up. This is the last issue Whedon will write for a while. Brian K. Vaughn (“Y: The Last Man”) takes over next month with a four-issue arc focusing on Faith the Vampire Slayer. (There’s a cool preview of the Dushku-y issue-six cover on issue five’s letter page.)
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Readers Talkback
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Could I be first...or is the system slow? Either way, I wish they'd turn these into an animated series.
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when will Joss do something in film and/or television again? For those of us who STILL don't read comics, no matter who's writing them? Not to be a snob, I know they can be very good, but just can't get into them... Did Joss' script GONERS get put on the shelf?
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Look it up.
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introduce....myself. JD here, long time lurker, just registered to finally participate in the talkbacks. So to make up for the lost years, I'll try to fit all the necessary cliches in one post: Harry is fat. Someone's gotta eat. Goldilock's taint. I'd buy that for a dollar. Ok, I feel like I belong now.
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Hopefully other loved series will see their turn at canon based seasons in the comics. I'd sure like to know what happened after Brimstone went off the air.
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I haven't seen any lately. What's going on there?
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Unless he just saw the pictures or the cover. So misleading to people that didn't know about the comics.
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I'm taking bets right now the faux-Buffy is going to die, and I haven't even read it yet. Joss will make us care for her, and then he'll yank the rug right out. See if he doesn't. But damnit, that's why we love him I guess.
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I'm sure he could make that happen. On the Buffy comics I've just been collecting them cause I'm only halfway through the Season 4 dvds. I can't wait to start reading 'em.
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...I've ever seen. Have you thought that not many people care, Herc? Sure, I'm a closet Buffy fan, but I honestly don't give an ass rat's about this "season." Haven't read a single one.
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The ONLY good part in the comics so far, that has felt like part of the show, in my opinion.
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spike is going to be on torchwood next season.. hrm maybe Owen gets killed, that manwhore.
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Lots and lots of Faith!
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The eighth season is huge. Huge. And four issues of unadulterated Faith-ness? Sweet.
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The comic's tiny format is unsatisfying. I suspect it will be only a little better when the trade is released, which is the only thing I'll be buying. I agree with top poster, they need to make the fucking cartoon. Giselle Loren gotta eat!
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"There are plenty of CSI and The Shield and Star Trek comics..."<p>That's the quote from above. A comic of The Shield? That can't be right, surely. Vic Mackey doesn't seem like a very good fit for comics. What does he do, fight a robot from space and then plant drugs on him?
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Dude; go into a fucking Comic book store. You are a fucking geek and should fucking want to, you fucking piker. Big ups to this comic that got me banned from a forum because I had to defend it from the criticism of a whack Irishmen. Awww... the internet... IT'S FANTASTIC!
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and I will never accept it as "Season 8". Never!!! You hear me Whedon? NEVER!!!!! Alas, I will never be accepted by society, either, so we're even.
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It just seemed like an odd idea to me, putting a mature, intelligent show like The Shield into a comic. I know, comics can be mature and intelligent, blah, etc., but I was surprised to read that.<p>Thanks for clearing things up.
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I started reading it from the first issue, then gave up on it after its 5th issue was published and never looked back. The writing/plotting is a muddled mess. It doesn't "feel" anything at all like the series. I might also add that the Angel comic series published by IDW is disappointing, too. Hey, since Tim Minear doesn't appear to be doing anything else, maybe he could take over the Angel comic book.
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Man, I forgot how great the show was. Fuck Veronica Mars and Heroes, Buffy was the best by a mile.
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Save your breath. I've tried to alert Herc 2 or 3 times in the TalkBacks that Marsters was going to be doing a TORCHWOOD guest spot (my guess as one of Jack's former fellow Time Agents), but he hasn't picked up on it. I'm expecting him to break this "news" around the time TORCHWOOD season 2 airs in the US and act like its not been already talked about to death in fandom circles.
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really felt like the show.
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...will review it next week. I'm as big a Buffy fan as they come (though I confess, I do NOT have my FRAY-like replica scythe) but I'm prepared to duke it out with the others for the honor...<br> <br> "Here's some hydrochloric acid in your eyes, Sleazy!" <br><br> "Aiieee!"
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With 4 "acts" equaling 1 episode. So, technically, that would mean this is Buffy 8.125. Or maybe 8.2.1. Or something. And by "we", I mean my imaginary friends.
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How much of a kick-back does Herc get? Seriously, the shows that Whedon has done have just been "okay". There HAS to be some sort of money changing hands or other incentives for Herc to slather all over them like he does. I mean, I could understand his enthusiasm if the shows were outstanding or something, but their just a step above mediocre. I almost think it's just an ongoing joke, pick this one just okay show and then heap praise on it like no other. Like some social experiment to see if you can generate buzz and interest and viewers out of nothing...and if it is then it works. But the emperor has no clothes when you finally watch one of these things. Buffy and Firefly were just "okay". Certainly nothing worthy of all this fake praise. Come on, move on to something else. It's not funny anymore.
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like everything else Photoman has posted
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I really have been underwhelmed by the Buffy comics so far, especially the art. I feel like Whedon's original run on Astonishing, was really, really good, and then everything else has gone downhill. I've been particularly underwhelmed by Runaways, which he's dumbed down to a large degree.
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Buffy was never more than OK. And treating a comic book like its a true followup is lame.
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Jeanty is a hack. His art is on par with the old Power Rangers comics from the nineties. It's my only problem with the book. Almost anyone would be better than him.
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I can never bring myself to believe that this is a "season"
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The standalone issues, such as this Issue #5, are mainly one-offs -- side stories. The four-issue arcs pretty much represent what would be one episode of a real TV episode. I think I read a while back that the plan for Season 8 is to have alternating four-issue arcs and one-offs. So that means Issue #10 will be a standalone, and #11 - 14 will be the third "episode".
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I love lamp. I love Angel. Seriously though I miss Angel and the whole mythos of that show.I think the guys Whedon hired to write and produce it were all top notch and really made some epic storytelling. There were some missteps like the muppet episode and the Luchadore /mail clerk episode in the last season, but I think we deserve a mini series or something.
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and the art was good... at least as good as georges jeanty's.
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for the graphic novel compilation.
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The artwork is very solid and gets the job done. I can tell who's who, and the artist can draw pretty much any situation. It's WAY better than the Angel books at IDW.
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...the first four issues I find I am somewhat disappointed in this one. I read somewhere that this was a story "near and dear" to Josh's heart. I had the impression that it touched on the Rome "double". Not!! Yeah she is a good person but to be sent willingly to your doom as a bleached blonde. Wow ...who wouldn't want that for themselves. The "Paul Lee" variant is selling for around 15 bucks here. I wrote to Darkhorse about what they think of such things. They must be quite fine with it but I am not. I actually liked the other variant cover better anyway. I'm not so sure that the Slayers should be looking quite so far down their noses at the Angel group anymore. Some of Buffy's people are real cold.
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