thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2007-04-06 02:18 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2007-04-06 02:18 pm
Entry tags:
Birthdays! and Links and Season 8 Comic Stuff
Okay, so either I am stupid, or LJ has made it harder to find out when people's birthdays are. It was about the only thing I liked about that "My LJ" page, that it had a quick list for b-days. So unless I figure out this new damn system, I'm probably doomed to be eternally clueless and behind.
That said...
In other news, it's been one of those weeks in which I keep stumbling across fascinating conversations at the precise moments when I have the least amount of energy for talking. I'm going to have to get in the habit of just linking when this happens, because at least then I'll remember what smart people got up to while I was out of commission feeling stupid.
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rahirah had a great post about character positioning - alpha/beta, dom/sub, etc. - and there's some great followup in the comments about fanfic's tendencies toward portraying 'ships along those lines, whether the canon (when applicable) supports it or not. Food for thought there about what kind of power dynamics writers and readers are drawn to, or respond to.
I have to admit here I wasn't originally intending to read the Buffy Season 8 comic (insert belly laugh here about how "canon" I consider these comics), but Toys wanted to see it, so we've checked out the first two issues, and I have been enjoying talking about it through various posts on my flist, so at least I've gotten that much out of it.molly_may has said most of what I wanted to say about issue 2 here, although I'll add a couple more cents in easy bullet form:
I've got feminist issues!
• For a comic entitled "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," there's not all that much Buffy in it.* There is, however, a whole lot of Xander, who is portrayed as all kinds of awesome in a way that smells very wish-fulfill-y.
• Buffy, on the other hand, still has her issues. And so does Dawn. And so does Amy. Perhaps Willow will have no issues when she shows up, but then that just disturbs me for the same reason as Xander having none - why, pray tell, are all the women (so far) angsting about their feelings while the men are shown as calm and collected? (Except for, of course, the villains - the villainous male general is kind of emo. Which leads us to what possible question about emo...?)
• The new Slayers are portrayed as an army of voiceless grunts. Of the couple that have lines, the topic of convo is how dreamy Xander is. (Said girl-with-crush is then stabbed in the back by a zombie a couple of panels later, so both the Scoobie romantic curse and the trend of killing off any Potential/New!Slayer the minute they become interesting and/or likeable still holds.)
• Xander plays Captain Kirk on the bridge while superpowered Slayers operate the consoles. Um, do I really need to point out that this is like Wonder Woman being asked to do the housekeeping around the Justice League HQ? Has adding all these new Slayers really "changed the world," or not?
• Slayers have a pointless gang melee session, apparently for Giles's amusement as he looks on, popelike, from a balcony. Buffy then takes over with a Slayer kung-fu master class in classic Buffyspeak, but the progression unfortunately codes this as Giles being very much in charge, or at least leading an entirely different group of Slayers in a different location. It's unclear.
• Andrew holds court with new young Slayers. Okay, now that's three men shown in leadership positions over an all-female superhero group. Mmmmmm.... smell that empowerment. **
• A legitimate question about why Slayers don't use guns is dismissed with a flip one-liner. Sorry; it's still a legitimate question. If demons aren't bulletproof, then there has to be some other reason for not using guns. Distance from opponent = less casualties. (Wanna guess my issues with a possible plotline in which an unstable army of women can't be trusted with projectile weapons because they're filled with eeevil darkside forces?)
*I also have yet to see a vampire slain.
** Also, let us not forget: Andrew = demon-summoning guy, accessory to murder and attempted rape, who has never served a moment of jail time. Right, great choice there.
So, there you have it. A lot of these questions could be addressed in the long run of the story, but as I've probably groused in other places at other times, I have issues in general with the current trend in comics of writing for the trade paperback compilation. Joss loves playing the fakeout card; he loves turnabout, but in TV, those sorts of revelations are handled over a week-to-week basis. In comics, those same fake-outs and set-ups and red herrings and ooh-who-is-that sly little teasers are stretched out over months. And as a hoary old-time comic fan, I find this approach kind of tiring: it's not just asking me to be ready revise my world view on demand, but also to do it in slo-mo. Is it too much to ask, I wonder, to make it unambiguous that the girls are the heroes?
[/rant]
Some art criticism:
• Nobody seems to be able to draw Giles. I've never seen a good comic rendition of him.
• Andrew is also unrecognizable, but the artist at least seems to have settled on portraying him as Jimmy Olsen, or a close facsimile.
• There are no fat Slayers. Or really any attempts at giving them unique personal looks beyond generic hot!girl, which kind of makes them all blend together into Redshirt territory; a bad sign for future plot developments (see above for possible dire fate of crushing-on-Xander girl).
• Real failure on the artist's part with Amy; it would've been clearer what was going on in the story during her attack on Buffy if she was showing off some kind of magic powers, hovering or surrounded by a glow... anything that might've explained why everyone didn't immediately jump her shit instead of just standing there talking.
Finally, some speculation:
• I'm willing to bet Dawn saves the day against the zombies because hey, giant. Or rather, that's what I would do. It would be nice, anyhow.
• Also willing to bet this Sleeping Beauty-style "true love kiss" thing is going to be resolved by either a) a kiss from Dawn, Willow, or (ack!!) Andrew (assuming he's even in the area - let me add another critique in that it's hard to tell where any of these scenes are taking place - or b) some kind of twofer in which Xander kisses her in the real world at the same time she gets smooched by her dream image of whoever-it-is that's calling her "my love," so we don't know which one broke the spell.
That said...
In other news, it's been one of those weeks in which I keep stumbling across fascinating conversations at the precise moments when I have the least amount of energy for talking. I'm going to have to get in the habit of just linking when this happens, because at least then I'll remember what smart people got up to while I was out of commission feeling stupid.
rahirah had a great post about character positioning - alpha/beta, dom/sub, etc. - and there's some great followup in the comments about fanfic's tendencies toward portraying 'ships along those lines, whether the canon (when applicable) supports it or not. Food for thought there about what kind of power dynamics writers and readers are drawn to, or respond to.I have to admit here I wasn't originally intending to read the Buffy Season 8 comic (insert belly laugh here about how "canon" I consider these comics), but Toys wanted to see it, so we've checked out the first two issues, and I have been enjoying talking about it through various posts on my flist, so at least I've gotten that much out of it.
molly_may has said most of what I wanted to say about issue 2 here, although I'll add a couple more cents in easy bullet form: I've got feminist issues!
• For a comic entitled "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," there's not all that much Buffy in it.* There is, however, a whole lot of Xander, who is portrayed as all kinds of awesome in a way that smells very wish-fulfill-y.
• Buffy, on the other hand, still has her issues. And so does Dawn. And so does Amy. Perhaps Willow will have no issues when she shows up, but then that just disturbs me for the same reason as Xander having none - why, pray tell, are all the women (so far) angsting about their feelings while the men are shown as calm and collected? (Except for, of course, the villains - the villainous male general is kind of emo. Which leads us to what possible question about emo...?)
• The new Slayers are portrayed as an army of voiceless grunts. Of the couple that have lines, the topic of convo is how dreamy Xander is. (Said girl-with-crush is then stabbed in the back by a zombie a couple of panels later, so both the Scoobie romantic curse and the trend of killing off any Potential/New!Slayer the minute they become interesting and/or likeable still holds.)
• Xander plays Captain Kirk on the bridge while superpowered Slayers operate the consoles. Um, do I really need to point out that this is like Wonder Woman being asked to do the housekeeping around the Justice League HQ? Has adding all these new Slayers really "changed the world," or not?
• Slayers have a pointless gang melee session, apparently for Giles's amusement as he looks on, popelike, from a balcony. Buffy then takes over with a Slayer kung-fu master class in classic Buffyspeak, but the progression unfortunately codes this as Giles being very much in charge, or at least leading an entirely different group of Slayers in a different location. It's unclear.
• Andrew holds court with new young Slayers. Okay, now that's three men shown in leadership positions over an all-female superhero group. Mmmmmm.... smell that empowerment. **
• A legitimate question about why Slayers don't use guns is dismissed with a flip one-liner. Sorry; it's still a legitimate question. If demons aren't bulletproof, then there has to be some other reason for not using guns. Distance from opponent = less casualties. (Wanna guess my issues with a possible plotline in which an unstable army of women can't be trusted with projectile weapons because they're filled with eeevil darkside forces?)
*I also have yet to see a vampire slain.
** Also, let us not forget: Andrew = demon-summoning guy, accessory to murder and attempted rape, who has never served a moment of jail time. Right, great choice there.
So, there you have it. A lot of these questions could be addressed in the long run of the story, but as I've probably groused in other places at other times, I have issues in general with the current trend in comics of writing for the trade paperback compilation. Joss loves playing the fakeout card; he loves turnabout, but in TV, those sorts of revelations are handled over a week-to-week basis. In comics, those same fake-outs and set-ups and red herrings and ooh-who-is-that sly little teasers are stretched out over months. And as a hoary old-time comic fan, I find this approach kind of tiring: it's not just asking me to be ready revise my world view on demand, but also to do it in slo-mo. Is it too much to ask, I wonder, to make it unambiguous that the girls are the heroes?
[/rant]
Some art criticism:
• Nobody seems to be able to draw Giles. I've never seen a good comic rendition of him.
• Andrew is also unrecognizable, but the artist at least seems to have settled on portraying him as Jimmy Olsen, or a close facsimile.
• There are no fat Slayers. Or really any attempts at giving them unique personal looks beyond generic hot!girl, which kind of makes them all blend together into Redshirt territory; a bad sign for future plot developments (see above for possible dire fate of crushing-on-Xander girl).
• Real failure on the artist's part with Amy; it would've been clearer what was going on in the story during her attack on Buffy if she was showing off some kind of magic powers, hovering or surrounded by a glow... anything that might've explained why everyone didn't immediately jump her shit instead of just standing there talking.
Finally, some speculation:
• I'm willing to bet Dawn saves the day against the zombies because hey, giant. Or rather, that's what I would do. It would be nice, anyhow.
• Also willing to bet this Sleeping Beauty-style "true love kiss" thing is going to be resolved by either a) a kiss from Dawn, Willow, or (ack!!) Andrew (assuming he's even in the area - let me add another critique in that it's hard to tell where any of these scenes are taking place - or b) some kind of twofer in which Xander kisses her in the real world at the same time she gets smooched by her dream image of whoever-it-is that's calling her "my love," so we don't know which one broke the spell.
no subject
Maybe so.
I'm pretty sure it's not Angel or Spike, anyhow.
no subject