Buffy Season Eight news

Ha! While on the one hand I think this "season eight" thing is bullshit and pointless, on the other it amuses me greatly that after everyone being all annoyed about that stupid Angel episode where Buffy is suddenly with some Immortal guy in Rome, it's being so totally retconned. It's so lame it's funny - like, "yeah, that WAS a bad idea, let's wake up in the shower".

And Xander is leading Central Command in Scotland? That's hilarious. It makes total sense, for various reasons to do with Muir Island and the startling number of modern comic writers from/based here, but it's also just neat. After all, we have a big rock.

Going by the pictures, Buffy seems to have turned into Jenny Sparks.

Aw, the big rock. But wasn't the big rock Spike's line? Xander had a little rock.



What's bothersome about it is that there were so, so many bad ideas... where's our retcon for all those? (Other than in our heads.)

The thing is some of them are undoable. If they tried to say Buffy never had any feelings for Spike - well, I wish, but there was too much given. But this one-episode nonsense, yeah, that can be scrapped.

If if it turns out the real Cordelia was kidnapped sometime in the beginning of Angel Season 3 and replaced with a Cylon and is actually quite live (and bitchy) I will buy 20 copies.

So Xander being in Africa was also a lie?

I had no plans to care about this, but I've been reading some of the stuff on AICN, and I think I might give it a try. It's been long enough since the debacle that was the last 2-1/2 seasons of Buffy that there's really not much of a bad taste for me anymore. I'm curious.

Season 8 begins Wednesday, y'all.

The princess who rescued herself is a nice way of putting it: article about the comic. I haven't seen it, think I'll probably wait for the collected edition.

I picked up the first one. There were good moments and bad - I found it difficult to hear Xander's voice, if that makes sense. His persona in the comic book seems a little too complete, a little too far along. But I'm trying not to nitpick. The Dawn storyline was annoying, and points the way towards more annoyingness and sisterly bonding (bleh). But I liked the final reveal. The art's decent - I preferred the stuff they did for that "Faith of the Future" comic Joss did a few years back (what was that called again?)

It didn't grip me immediately, the way, say, Y did. But considering my history with this series, I think I might check out a couple more issues, see if it gels.

That would be Fray, Ananda. I liked the art for that too.

So, I went to pick up the second issue today, and my local comic shop was sold out. I found that to be sort of a pleasant surprise. I guess I'm sort of rooting for this! Weird.

Oh, there's a pretty good reason. I actually squeed. Not that I'm proud of the fact.

Edited to say that, I know, I should support my local comic shop and all that, but you can find .pdf comics online thru bit torrent. go to isohunt.com and search for dcp, they're weekly summaries of released comics. And as the community likes to say, if you like it, buy it.

My favorite part of the third issue? Buffy's "Dreamscape" romantic ideal. Fanficcers across the net demand their royalties!

I love how playful Joss is being with these scripts. Although I'm forced to wonder about the B/X of it all. Is it just teasing, or a future plotline.

It feels like misdirection to me - there are a few bits that are very cinematic, if I remember correctly. I think there's a panel about Buffy's true love waking her where the dialogue is actually over Xander's face. So, in true Whedonverse fashion, you expect the next shot to be some hi-larious bit of irony. Unfortunately, there aren't really enough characters at the moment with enough personality to be shocking or interesting as the Buffster's secret admirer. Unless Phantom Dennis is making an appearance (which would actually be kind of a neat trick for a comic book.)

Hey, it's a new kind of indignity to inflict on Xander!

Anyone catch the cinnamon lip gloss in issue 4?

I just got caught up through issue 6 or 7 - if they go Giles/Faith on us I'll have a hate-baby. Ick, ick, ick. I'm less sold on the actual comic book aspects of this - the team behind this has no sense of flow. Everytime they change time or location it's completely jarring and requires going back over to figure out where you're supposed to be.

However, Brian K. Vaughn is writing the section I'm in right now, and I'd sign on to him re-doing Hi & Lois, he's so good. Still quietly interested in this, but not really connecting it with the characters I loved at all. It's like those people have been burnt out and replaced with quipping commandos. Oh well, expect little and you're rarely disappointed.

(They could bring back Oz or Riley and win a few points with me, though. Riley certainly seems likely, at this point.)

I don't know whether to be happy or unhappy about that prospect. Probably the latter...

Just finished the first 10. I have to say, the reveal of Willow's big "betrayal" was sufficiently underwhelming. I feel sorry for her, if she blames herself for Tara's death (although connecting it directly to Buffy's resurrection...I can see it, but you have to be sort of looking for the guilt). But Kennedy is a slayer. The whole point of her existence, on a certain level, is to be in danger. If anything, what Willow should have learned from Tara's death is not to date blondes with fashion sense bad enough to allow them to be confused with Buffy (I kid). Anyway, kind of a bummer but hardly the big "Ohmigod, Willow, like, totally betrayed Buffy!" moment they seemed to be leading up to. The Robin character made me sad - the letter section confirmed that she was the wife of the winner of an essay contest who was ill and found strength in the show and the character of Buffy. She kind of reminded me of Francine from Strangers in Paradise, too.

As for the rest - I wish some of these characters would get new problems. Faith, in particular. I've exhausted all possible sorry-feelings for her internal Buffy vs. Faith battle. You had a coma and years in the slammer to move on. Move on, already. I like the idea of her playing social worker, though - the idea that there could be quite a few potential slayers-gone-bad makes sense, and could be a way for her past to do someone some good.

All in all, not an amazing experience, although I felt this last issue got the Buffy-speak down a little better than Brian K Vaughn (bless his talent) did. I guess I'm curious where all of this twilight stuff is going, but I won't be subscribing or anything.

Oh good lord.

Everybody's gay now?

This development casts retroactive light on the decision to make Willow gay. Buffy's no more gay than Willow is. (Andrew, Larry, possibly Lilah, Faith and Forrest, sure.)

I like how in the article Whedon half admits that Willow was supposed to be experimenting, but then because of the audience reaction the writers were forced into a corner.

Oh, what-the-fuck-ever.

But the linked article doesn't say Buffy's gay, it says she's "young and experimenting." So, how is everybody gay now?

I don't see what the big deal is. People flirt with romance outside of their norm all the time. I haven't done that, but in another lifetime I could see myself digging another chick, and I don't consider myself gay. If this is a fling for Buffy, then I don't see how it defines her.

Experimenting involves at least some degree of gayness. And I think popular culture is exaggerating the number of straight people who just happen to sleep with the same sex, as though it were as trivial a choice as picking a different brand of breakfast cereal.

Rarely do you see someone as devoted to the male species as Buffy is.

Just seems like they're desperately searching for novelty in the comic. The show had Buffy with various types of guys, they don't want to be harping on about Angel all the time, so instead of actually have her do other things and focus on being single - which, after all, was specifically what she said she was going to do - they've just randomly come up with this storyline to be 'different'.

I don't know - I think it probably depends quite a bit. I think that you're underestimating the LUG factor. Recently there were a bunch of folks discussing this at work (so inappropriate!!) and 70% of the girls had some sort of beyond-kissing encounter with another woman. I think that number likely high, but until a larger poll is conducted I'm not sure how you'd really know.

And if Kinsey's results are to be believed..most people are somewhere in between totally straight and totally gay, not at either extreme end of the spectrum.

I do think the Kinsey scale is right. But thinking of the people I know who've had homosexual sexual encounters, only two didn't identify as gay afterward. Maybe it's more common among Generation Y... but when I was in college LUG was talked about more than actually done.

Erm...LUG?

"Lesbian Until Graduation." It refers to women who sexually experiment with other women during college, and then not again.

Ah.

Sorry about that SNeak.

It probably is a bit generational (although I'm still not sure which generation I'm supposedly in) - but it seems like most women I know have experimented at some point in their adult life. I don't know if that's just because Boston is pretty gay or what.

Well, I spent four years in northeastern Pennsylvania (not exactly a gay mecca, at least not on the surface) and two in Amherst, MA (a gay mecca surrounded by gay meccas), and I would say with a certain degree of certainty that I knew more girls in both places that had experimented with other women than those who hadn't. Very few of them identified as gay or bi. I think Buffy is a girl surrounded by beautiful, interesting, fit young ladies, one of whom happens to love her. If she has a lady-liking bone in her body, she's going to at least give it a try. I thought the way they did it was pretty right-on; she has fun, but she's not running out to stock up on rainbow bumper stickers or anything.

In a way it would be a good relationship move for her - she's had difficulty in the past dating guys who weren't as strong as she is (whether those are her issues or theirs is moot - the problem still existed). Dating a slayer, maybe that could finally cease to be a problem. Honestly, Wicca aside, I actually buy Buffy as gay more than I do Willow (I may be alone in that, of course.)

Oh, and proof that Whedon can still make me laugh - the "itchy neck" tease.

Two things. One is, this validates half the fanfiction I've ever read. Two, it's hot.

Sorry, I am a guy. Who has spent 8 months deprived of significant female companionship. But still mostly a guy.

Another thing is I hate f&^#&ng Dracula. Whedon's Dracula sucks big giant stanky eggs. So leave him and Xander (who is only just regaining a modicum of self-respect and dignity) alone.

I was hoping Faith's storyline would be that Guinevere was gunning for Buffy when it was Faith who was the last of the Slayer line. That would've given our girl some kind of validation. Something beyond, I should be a guidance counselor. Whatever.

Dawn is a cliche. How Xander keeps from banging his head into walls at the lameness of his girls, I don't quite understand. Yikes.

Faith is trying to be a guidance counselor now too? Just kill me now. Could the series get any worse?

Saying Dawn is a cliche implies that there's more than one of her... a reality I'm not willing to face.

So Xander and Dracula are buddies then. They hang out. That's nice.

I'd say I hate this but after the spewing so much venom at S6 and 7 I have none left for the hair brained nonsense that the comic has turned out to be. I felt good about it all well into Faith's storyline. But now we have bi-Buffy and a return to Generalissmo Buffy and now, Xander hanging out with a vampire. You know, doing buddy stuff.

I am now certain that Xander is Twilight, because that's the only degradation left to his character. The only way to make him completely not Xander is to have him be the villain. That's all that's left.

He's the only character I've maintained any affection for, and he's just chillin' with Dracula as Albanian children are tortured and murdered outside. But there's all that race humor, so that makes it okay.

Wow, it sounds like things are heading south in a hurry. If in fact you can go south from Antarctica.

I find it hard to imagine Xander being friends with any vampire, but I find it impossible to imagine him hanging out with that tedious, humourless bore Dracula.
Xander: makes some funny pop-culture comment
Dracula: I do not understand
repeat to fade?
Even Buffy, who was only half as quippy as Xander, couldn't be arsed with Dracula's schtick after about five minutes.

Still waiting for the trades.

I'd wait for the lending library if I were you. Or, you know you can download them as pdf's and read them on you computer.

Really? Where?

Do you know about bit torrents? isohunt.com is the best place to find something, just search for Buffy Season 8 and you'll find the comics packaged in WinRar files.

You can find just about anything, really. .pdf's of books, comics, movies and music obviously. If you need a primer on torrent files just lemme know.

I never thought of using them for that, only for tv shows, but now you say it I can see how it would work - will have a hunt, thanks.

So no reaction to the latest steaming pile of donkey turd? At this point, does even he think he's clever writing this dross?

This was near the bottom of a big stack of comics I've been working through. All things considered, I wish I'd read Kickass. They have a major case of big-bad-itis - that disease wherein every baddie has to be the worst that ever was, plotting the most destructive scheme that was ever schemed. The Dracula "humor" also reminds me of how far they've come from the first two seasons of the show. There was vamp and demon-related humor, for sure, but there was a darkness to it that is completely lacking here. Dracula is basically the wacky sitcom neighbor. Very disappointing.

Angel's comic is a little better. The art is still bizarre, but I'm getting used to it. Sort of.

The big psychic fish is a head scratcher.

Yeah, someone said about S6/7 that the demon/horror was all too much in the open. That's what I feel like Dracula et al is about, it used to be this was the stuff that skittered in the dark and dank edges of man's sanity. Now, it's carnies with skin conditions and racist mass murders as comic relief. Lame. Awful, actually.

Remember the Praying Mantis Lady? Giles' buddy went mad after fighting one. That's the essence of what Buffy's horrors always were. Lovecraftian entities that prey on the tender, weak humans even when they don't actual kill them.

Yes, but then they needed to make Spike a luuuurve interest, and if demons and vampires are evil you can't do that. So the show went from being a horror show about how the things you fear take actual monstrous form and became a lame sci-fi show where the demons are just funny aliens.

There's a big psychic fish?

I suppose it could be like the big prophetic hamburger... except it sounds like it's not nearly so cool.

Just a device for back story exposition, near as I can tell. And nothing is cooler than prophetic hamburger statues.

Hmm... Okay, not quite redeemed. As a matter of fact, much of it makes me shake my head and sigh.

But Xander tells Dracula to kiss off. He goes to Buffy for comfort, even if just in the background. Willow and Buffy address the glaringly obvious 'why not me?' issue.

I guess worst of all, Dracula was awesome for a moment. (maybe cause it had nothing to do with the vampire and everything to do with the man)

I finally got around to reading these. Strange experience reading them in one go, certainly - I went from "hmm" to enjoying seeing them back but then to "WTF is this?" Like the rest of you, I HATED the return of Dracula - firstly, because he was a) a crap character the way the show played him and b) his episode was the beginning of the end, then secondly because of the utter disbelief. I am not buying on any level that Xander, who continually took a stand against vampires, suddenly became friends with him, that he wrote him chummy letters and went to visit him after Anya died. If they wanted so much to show that having dated an ex-demon somehow changed Xander's principles towards grey areas, then they'd need to, well, actually show that, not just make it a throwaway idea that he is now behaving in a totally alien way.

Actually I'm pissed off in general that while Willow is still getting to moan on about Tara, whom she treated like crap and we've spent several series covering, Xander is not allowed to mourn Anya, something we never actually got to see in the series because of the timing. I know they had split up - which didn't make much sense or was treated properly either - but all the same, I don't think that would make so very much of a difference in the circumstances, especially when she died fighting alongside of them all.

And now he's had a second loss. They would never write that for Willow. Originally I feel that the show portrayed Willow & Xander as equally important, but that's long gone, eh? Maybe an actor issue or whatever, but you'd think in the comics he could get a break. Feh.

I don't mind either way that Buffy slept with a woman, but I am confused why there was no question that it was going to be a one-(or two-)time thing. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, enough to be up for a repeat, and she liked the girl; I think it would have made more sense if she'd either expressed that it was interesting but not really for her, or if she'd been happy to have a casual thing but Satsu broke it off because she needed more emotional commitment or something. I guess though it was a change to have Buffy exit a brief relationship without any damage.

That aside, there were good parts. I was interested in the team-up between Giles and Faith, though the depiction of England was, as usual, ridiculous. Given that Joss Whedon actually lived in Britain for a few years - if I remember rightly - you'd think he'd not portray such very huge stereotypes, but whatever. I also thought the decoy Buffy underground story was a good example of what a comic can do with the franchise. I like that it's now official that Dawn's main characteristic is whining and it's a nifty metajoke that she's this huge, yet boring figure looming over Buffy's story. Some of the artwork is really nice, happily the characters look reasonably close to the actors so story aside, it is a little like 'seeing' them again.

But overall, this seemed to have much more in common with comic tropes rather than Buffy tropes so that I don't have a lot of trouble disassociating it from the series, which is good because I don't want to accept that this is how they end up.

I haven't read the comics. What loss did they add to the pile?

He had just started a new relationship with one of the new Slayers, a sweet girl who'd had a big crush on him. Naturally she died minutes after their first kiss.

And yet, Kennedy, still alive and even more obnoxious than ever.

A world of yes.



Such as? I haven't read that far.