One of the best things that could have happened for Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Dark Horse securing Jo Chen for its Season 8 comic. The fact that the series has featured writers who find the original actors’ voices so well plays perfectly off of Chen’s knack for illustrating the actors exactly as you remember them; sometimes even better. *breaks for Giles swoon* Whether they’re falling through the sky at top speed or hugging doggy companions, they look almost alive enough to start talking to you. Chen’s homage to Norman Rockwell with the cover to issue #20 was skillfully realized, but one of my favorites so far has to be her vivid look at Willow “going all veiny” on the front of issue #19 with a frightened Buffy reflected in her pupil....
[more]
Graphic novels based on TV shows were once the dregs of the comic-book world, secret pleasures relegated to the bookshelves of undatable teenage boys. Then came Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Buffy comic series is co-written by the television show's creator, Joss Whedon. It picks up where the TV show left off, with Buffy Summers — the mystical California blonde chosen to kill supernatural baddies — and her friends casting a spell that turns thousands of girls into slayers. Now the commander of that spunky army of supergirls, Buffy has morphed into a fractious general plagued by the loneliness of leadership. Wolves at the Gate, the third of the Buffy graphic novels, is particularly good, with a fast-moving plot and plenty of whimsical...
[more]
Dark Horse Comics taps into both Joss Whedon’s mythology for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the interest in Ouija-type boards as it introduces the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Conversations with Dead People board. The board is attractive, and the box and small instruction page carry the Buffy theme — but that’s the extent of the Buffy tie in, so the game will probably appeal more to Ouija enthusiasts than Buffy fans, though the true collector will no doubt want to have it. The first Ouija board came out in 1890, part of that period’s Spiritualism craze. According to the Museum of Talking Boards website, legend has it that the name came from the board itself and was supposed to be Egyptian for good luck. In fact, Ouija does not mean that in...
[more]
Fray, now preferring her given name Melaka, and Buffy soon see eye to eye. The Big Bad Harth, Melaka's twin brother, has found a familiar new playmate. Dawn discovers embarrassment in a whole new way, and the aftermath of the attack on Castle Summers proves to be less fatal than the villains would have liked. On the forum, several of my colleagues and posters discussed how the second Earth-Two Huntress in the JSA Annual apparently suffered from amnesia within the span of seconds. She forgets that Power Girl, wherever she is from, saved her life, and immediately cries out for her blood with all the other duplicate JSA members when the second Earth-Two Power Girl shows up as their genuine article. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Buffster...
[more]
It's been an interesting career trajectory for Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, The Runaways, TV’s Lost), from comics to TV to comics based on TV. Here he’s the first non-Joss Whedon member of a mix of comics and TV writers to take on the comic book continuation of Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well known for his snappy dialogue and deft balance of plot and character, Vaughan’s style is a great match for Buffy’s established tone, and he does not disappoint with No Future for You. I enjoyed The Long Way Home, Whedon’s opening arc in Buffy’s “Season 8,” well enough, but all the necessary exposition made it a frantic experience and didn’t leave Whedon room to inject as much depth or fun as Vaughan is able to in No Future...
[more]
The second Buffy: Season Eight trade, No Future For You(Dark Horse) takes the series into darker territory, as Brian K. Vaughan takes over writing duties for a story arc in which Giles assigns Faith the task of befriending, then killing, a British aristocrat who's gained Slayer powers, and is out to get Buffy. Vaughan doesn't hit the story notes as hard as Joss Whedon might, for good and bad—the story doesn't have the emotional gut-punches of a Whedon story, but it does pointedly, quietly underline how Giles is willing to use and abuse bad-girl Faith to protect good-girl Buffy, and how his expectations for them are shaped by the ways in which they've failed them. And it's a solid continuation of Faith's complicated story, as she tries...
[more]
In the second story arc of the cult TV show's comic-book continuation, Faith, a brooding, sexy and sometimes rival Slayer, forms an uneasy alliance with Buffy's former mentor, Giles. Their goal: to foil a plot to kill the titular heroine. What You'll Love: With pop-infused repartee and awkwardly funny angst, Vaughan voices the show's beloved cast perfectly, pairing the seemingly incompatible Faith and Giles to reveal hidden depths in each. Grade: A- (Evan Narcisse)...
[more]
From 1998-2003 Dark Horse comics published Buffy the Vampire Slayer; there were 63 issues in the series, plus numerous mini-series and one-shots featuring other characters in the “buffyverse” for a total of well over 100 issues. Most of the material has been reprinted in various trade paperbacks over the years, but now with the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer omnibuses, Dark Horse is taking all the issues and publishing them in chronological order - but not in the way you think. Some brilliant person at Dark Horse thought that the omnibuses should reprint the stories in the order they happened. For example, the final four issues 60-63, “A Stake to the Heart,” were published in 2003; however, they took place before Season One of the TV...
[more]
On May 19, 2003 Buffy The Vampire Slayer ended its seven-year run with an open ending (creator Joss Whedon doesn’t like thing nice and neat in a perfect package), but Buffy had endless possibilities in front of her. Then in November of 2003 the series published by Dark Horse also ended, sure there would be an anthology mini-series, but nothing that featured the cast of the show. Thankfully in March 2007 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 started, Buffy was once again published by Dark Horse, but this time the entire Season is overseen by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, and the 1st arc comprising of 4 issues and issue 5 a stand-alone story were written by Whedon. Not only did Whedon kick off the return of Buffy, but he will return to do single...
[more]
Most Buffy fans who have gotten their hands on the slew of post-BtVS Season Seven graphic novels already know that it's a Long Way Home for Ms. Summers, but just how did this wild and crazy ride of hers start off, anyway? Hints and open-ended sentences provided teasing glimpses of what had come before Sunnydale. And that movie from back in '92? You know, the one with no Sara Michelle Gellar? Best not to dwell on that too much (even though it ain't half bad . . . but that's a story for another time.) Well, the folks at Dark Horse Books have collected a series of tales that shed light on that time, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus: Volume 1. And it's just what the slayer ordered. Okay, maybe not; Buffy would probably think that people...
[more]
I stopped by Big Brother Comics last night in need of something uplifting, and lo and behold, Volume 2 of the Joss Whedon-penned Buffy: Season Eight had just come in. Titled "No Future For You," this new collection covers a story arc that includes my favorite of all bad girls, Faith. She’s got a tough job—Giles has her doing the stuff that would be too emotionally difficult for Buffy. Things like slaying the vamp-children created when a single mother was turned. That sort of stuff. And there’s this slayer chick with an evil warlock directing her to kill Buffy and become queen of the slayers, thus leading to all sorts of badass badness…and you know Faith’s just the gal for the job. This volume’s even better than the last—especially the...
[more]
The horror and superhero genres often treat mental illness with a sense of fascinated revulsion - as the countless heirs of Norman Bates and inmates of Arkham Asylum attest. Issue #10 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the result of the "Buffy is my Life" essay contest, flips this delusional maniac trope while simultaneously giving a nod to some gentler folk traditions. The contest saw Buffy creator Joss Whedon select a winning fan to appear in this issue; he chose Robin Balzer, who in real life is losing her battle with schizophrenia. In an otherwise fluffy installment of the larger "Season Eight" story arc, Whedon slips in a subtle Buffy-verse allegory for both Balzer and her disability. She becomes the placid Robin, kindly "minder" of a...
[more]
For Buffy fans who felt that there was still more to be said about the Buffyverse when the show ended, writer and creator Joss Whedon thankfully has turned to something else he does just as well as TV: comic books. With the first trade of what is officially being called Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight now out, it is clear that there is still much more to be told by Whedon about Buffy and her friends. Little time has passed since the town of Sunnydale was turned into a giant crater. While there was originally one Chosen One, there is now a veritable army of slayerettes in training to be as good as the real thing. There are also two Buffy doppelgangers--one in Rome and one literally underground in a different world--each intended to...
[more]
The death of magic. It begins in blood and betrayal. At least this chapter does. There’s also some humor, tragedy and a good number of surprises mixed in. In other words, good, solid Buffy fun. A brief reflection on Faith’s time with Mayor Wilkins and a rather tangential connection to issue #9, it jumps right back in to Faith’s fight with the blue blooded slayer, Gigi. Having discovered, last issue, that Faith is not at all she said she was, Gigi is out for blood. While Gigi may be swinging her battle axe, Faith is restraining herself in the hopes of reaching someone who she had a brief connection, even if it was under false pretenses. So there’s one thing that makes it enjoyable; Faith doesn’t go all black-eyed evil, but remains decent...
[more]
Being the bad girl can be fun. But the trouble with it, among other things, is after a time that’s all people see when they look at you. Brian Vaughn, along with the usual crew of Buffy, ably explores this thematic issue in the latest of the series by taking a look at the slayer’s dark counterpart. From the opening, where readers find Faith talking to herself in Vaughn’s hometown of Cleveland, it becomes clear that not much has changed since last she was seen. Much to the Buffy’s team credit, they resisted the temptation to give Faith a happy ending after season 7; the romantic relationship between her and Wood has gone south. Given her mental stability and her youth, it seems like the logical conclusion. Additionally, Faith’s contempt...
[more]
Since Angel left the air almost three years ago, fans of the Buffyverse shows have wondered how (not if) either series would continue. We've been teased with the possibility of moves since even before Buffy ended its run, and still no one seems to have given us a straight answer. Finally we Whedon fans have had something to look forward to in the form of a comic book. Sure there have been plenty of books done in the Buffyverse before, but this time it's different. 'Long Way from Home' is meant to serve as the start of Joss' s vision of what a season eight of Buffy would have been, had the show continued. So for purists this is most probably considered canon. (Keith McDuffee)...
[more]
