Unlike many writers who adapt popular properties from the big-or-small screen to the written page, Golden has personally visited the set where the original stories for Buffy the Vampire Slayer are told, and he's met with the cast on numerous occasions. Thanks to this personal exposure, Golden has an incredible insight into each of the Buffy characters, and this insight guides him well as he crafts new stories and off-screen adventures for Buffy, Angel, and the various members of the Scooby Gang.
In July, Golden is stepping up to the plate with a much anticipated story for Buffy fans which details the incredible journey of self discovery that young Daniel Osbourne -- the guitar-playing werewolf better known as Oz to fans of the show -- embarked upon to better understand the darker, violence-prone beast that lives with him under his skin.
Golden was generous enough to take a few minutes from his busy schedule to discuss his work on the three-issue Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz miniseries with us. You don't have to worry about finding any spoilers in this interview, but Oz fans, beware -- you may find yourselves howling at the moon in anticipation of the July 18 debut of this miniseries!
Ivana Fanboy: Whose idea was it, first of all, to do an Oz miniseries? Did that come from you, or was it Scott's (Dark Horse's Buffy editor Scott Allie -- ed.) idea?
Christopher Golden: It was something that I wanted to do because I like the character. I know he has a lot of fans, but of course, he's gone from the show, now. Also, it was just really interesting to me that they chose to evolve him in the sense of changing what it means to be a werewolf, and they did that all off-screen.
IF: What do you mean by "What is means to be a werewolf?"
CG: Well, in season four of the show, about episode 6 or 7, Oz felt as though he was a danger to the people around him. All along, he had sort of convinced himself that Oz and the werewolf inside Oz were two separate things -- that he was a werewolf three nights a month, and that's it. But it was finally made clear to him that that's not really the case at all, and in fact, a werewolf is not even human anymore. A werewolf is a beast, and Oz and the werewolf are one in the same, and he has a really hard time accepting that.
IF: Is this something Oz learned from his relationship with Veruca?
CG: It's something he learned from his conflict with Veruca, actually. He learned that werewolves are not necessarily what even he thought they were. Because he was concerned that he might be a danger to the people he loved, he decided that he would leave and try to find a way to at least control himself or understand what it means to be what he is.
Then, when he showed up again much later in the season, he had done just that that. He'd gone to Tibet, and he learned to somewhat control the change from human to wolf. And that also implied that he could change when it wasn't a full moon if he wanted to.
IF: So it became more of a power of his instead of something he's controlled by?
CG: Exactly. And it became something that he must still control -- the instinct of the beast that he really is.
IF: That's one of the reasons that Joss's (Buffy creator Joss Whedon -- ed.) formula for Buffy stories works so well. Making a teenaged kid into a werewolf is basically a cool, extended metaphor. Everyone knows that Oz is basically a good kid, he's a nice boy, he's good to his friends, he loves his friends and would do anything for them -- but everything he went through when Veruca came into his life began to suggest that some part of him might have really enjoyed when the werewolf came out, maybe because it allowed him to be all these things he never is in his daily life.
CG: I do think that all of it is a metaphor for the idea that we all have a beast within us. There's a great, long passage from Jekyll and Hyde that I used at the beginning of one of the Angel comics, and it really addresses the fact that everybody has these darker impulses. And the difference between most of us and Oz is that his darker impulses have claws and fangs...
IF: In other words, it's a physical manifestation of dark impulses, which for most people are much more internal.
CG: Exactly, yes. And it isn't just a matter of suppressing the darker impulses, or pretending that you don't sometimes feel like using your claws. It's a matter of recognizing that you have those feelings within you, and that they're a part of you, and that you can control them, but only if you first accept them. If you try to bury them, they might come out at the worst possible time, exactly when you wouldn't want them to. That's what this is all about.
IF: A lot of your work on the Buffy comics take place outside of Sunnydale...
CG: I do my best to do that, and when they'll let me, I'll always be happy to go afield of Sunnydale.
IF: I think that's one of the cooler aspects of the comic-book series, because the characters sometimes are more complex when they're not in their most familiar surroundings.
CG: If you like that, then tell Scott to push through the Faith miniseries. We've got a great story in the works, and it also takes place mostly outside of Sunnydale.
IF: That sounds like a great project! At the beginning of this miniseries, Oz is staying with a family in Hong Kong. How does he know them?
CG: This is a family that Giles has contact with from a long-ago adventure, which I hope to tell some day.
IF: It becomes fairly evident early on with this story that Oz isn't exactly sure where he's going or what will happen once he gets there.
CG: Well, he's on one of those classic hero journeys where -- not to get all metaphysical and crap -- it's really a journey of self discovery. He's taking the advice of friends and strangers, trying to find the place or person who can give him the insights he needs to understand himself.
By the time he gets to Hong Kong, he's actually already been on the journey for some time. I'm doing a novel of this story, called Into the Wild, that will be out sometime next year, so it will be detailed to an even greater extent with that.
But in Hong Kong, he's assisted by this family -- and I don't want to give too much away here -- in locating a person who can point him in the right direction and provide him with a map to an old monastery in Tibet. He's heard that supernatural beings that are struggling with their own inner darkness can find enlightenment there. So he sets out on a quest to find this legendary place, and unbeknownst to him -- and certainly again his will -- the daughter of the family he met in Hong Kong follows. Even once he reaches his destination, he finds himself in a situation with dark magic and demons that is not at all what he expected to find.
If you're a Buffy fan who finds yourself constantly wishing that Oz would return to the show, you definitely can't miss the three-issue Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz miniseries, written by Christopher Golden with art by Logan Lubera. Look for the first issue of this exotic and intriguing series on sale July 18 at your local comics shop.