I'm Back!

[thedeadlyhook]

... from the Palm Springs trip, and it might be awhile before I'm fully caught up, but first off, a huge THANK YOU to herself_nyc for the extra months of paid LJ time - the best motivation there is to get me to do more writing. You're the best, sweetie! (smooch)

There'll be more to come about the desert-y trip, along with a few pictures, but in the meantime, I'm sure you've all been breathless to hear my reactions to the Buffy Season 8 comic.

Um. Okay. Let's bullet point it. It'll be faster.

• Resurrected Skinless Warren as the new Big Bad? Right, I've seen that movie already, and it's called Hellraiser. Also, now I'm REALLY wondering why Amy AND Warren would be after Buffy and not Willow.

• Buffy's dream. Oh, wait, not a dream. Dreamspace. Which has never been mentioned before in the entire run of the series, despite the fact that Buffy's once-important Slayer dreams would've been a great window into this idea. Oh-kkaaaaay. Unproductive, but whatever. Let's move on.

• Ethan Rayne. Well, that was... lame. Dracula would've actually been funny, and given the "my love" comment some meat, rather than just making a weak joke about Britishisms. And allowing for some slight 'shipper bait with Buffy reacting to Ethan's use of 'pet.' Eyeroll.

• The Threesome. Riiight. Look, I'm not going to go into huge detail analyzing the content of Buffy's dream - yeah yeah, I'm sure you've all seen the picture by now, Buffy in a sandwich with her two hot vampires - and I don't think it was meant to be analyzed. It's meant to be laughed off, like everything else to do with Buffy now, apparently. (I'll get to more detail on that in a minute.) But two things about it: 1) Unless someone can show me an Alan Moore-style script detailing every item in this image, it's a picture, which means you should credit the artist for its specific content, not Joss (including every piece of wank about whose hands are where and who's looking at who - that's the art, folks, the art) and 2) maybe this is just me being aware of the comic audience not being the usual fan space, but it seemed to me that as of this issue, Joss is really going out of his way to encourage some Beavis & Butt-Head-style gratuitous snickering over Buffy, the Vampire Layer. Again, it's the artist I can probably blame for the specific imagery (Elmer Fudd cherubs? Exploding volcanos and a train going into the tunnel at both ends?) but Joss gets to take the credit for presenting this fantasy, for all its chains and the naughty-nurse outfit, as something from which Buffy does the big scaredy runaway, which doesn't do a ton for her characterization as a sexually emancipated female any more than her dream of popping Xander's head off did. At best, Buffy is coming off as kind of childish here. For truth in advertising, this comic really should be called "Willow the Witch" or "Xander, International Man of Mystery" for all that Buffy seems to be the resolute, action-packed star.

• On that note: also color me not thrilled that Buffy now needs Ethan Rayne to provide a tour of her own subconscious. Because self-guided tours apparently aren't enough for some girl to understand the landscape of her own mind, tee hee. She needs it explained to her. By a man.

• You may have started to notice I'm still having the feminist issues. Wow, Buffy funny! She hit her head on wall, GO BOOM!! So silly! But Xander shout orders and take charge! Ethan Rayne deliver a big long intellectual lecture! Amy get steppped on!

Seriously, though, who in this issue is talking on the phone, having plotsy conversations? Why, Giles and Andrew, of course! (The art is still with the unrecognizable on both of these characters, but at least Giles's glasses are helpful - Andrew desperately needs some identifying marker, like a new nerdy T-shirt per issue.) So far, Willow seems to be the only female character with an all-access pass to being powerful without being made fun of, although I can't say I was pleased by her characterization either. She makes a crude sexual joke at Dawn's expense, and then a cruel joke about Kennedy being dead - hey, just checking, wasn't Willow supposed to like Kennedy? There's fan bait, and then there's stuff that just makes the characters look bad, and that's what I'm getting here, and ditto with Xander's skeevy joke about how he wants in on the "girl parts." Xander, you're creeping me out.

• Actually, there's a fair amount creeping me out in this issue - we got two Make Love Not War! joke resolutions: the 'may I have this dance' ending to a zombie attack story (LAME. Plus, there's nothing icky about that zombies suddenly being all gentlemanly, all Prince Charming at the ball, for a throwaway panel, is there? IS THERE?!?), and the "true love" kiss. Right, fine, I'd expected all along that we'd get handed a fakeout for that one, but dude, that was even weaker than I expected. I mean, visualize a room that's 99.9% full of women and a .1 male remainder, and if you close your eyes and imagine somebody truly in love kissing Buffy, you have two options. One of them makes a lot of young men do the aforementioned Beavis & Butt-Head. Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh.

Joss, my dear, I'm already getting tired of your inner 15-year-old boy. Especially since MY inner 15-year-old boy would've liked to have seen more butt-kicking girls fighting the zombie army.

• And Andrew is so NOT GAY, PEEPULS! HE'S UP IN UR ROOM, STRIP POKRING WITH UR SLAYRS. Because all hot superhero chicks REALLY WANNA take it off for Star Wars trivia-spouting supernerds. I've seen it happen at Comic-Con, ALL THE TIME!!! GIRLZ GONE WILD!!!

You may get the impression that I wasn't too impressed with this issue.

Yeah. Well. I wasn't. It was not terribly well paced, there were a lot of ass-pulls on the dramatic wrapups, and it feebed out on nearly every opportunity to reveal something actually interesting with the characters. Buffy still isn't the hero of her own book - she seems to have been completely reimagined as a hybrid of Gunn and Dawn, the fighting muscle who is also menaced in order to get the plot rolling along. And I gotta say, Buffy's-in-jeopardy-it-must-be-the-Wednesday-of-the-month-when-new-comics-get-shelved doesn't quite have the same postmodern ironic ring.

And the weirdest thing about all this is that I can't help but think that if this story were done by any other writer except Joss, fandom would be up in arms. It's only because it's Joss that he can get away with reducing them like this, making Buffy look silly and having the Scoobies make masturbation jokes. Other writers would likely have too much respect for the characters... or might have, before this. Now it's okay.

I dunno if I'm going to be following much more of this. There's "adult" content here, if you count Buffy's nekkid dream imaginings, but not an adult story - the TV show was written at the level of Joss's inner 25-year-old at least, while this feels inescapably teenaged. And while I can applaud Joss's insistence (in an interview I could probably dig up, if I googled it) that comic Buffy be drawn as a bubble-breasted, thong-wearing supermaiden, he shouldn't break his arm patting himself on the back TOO hard if the only replacement for that is objectifying her in other ways, making her out to be an airheaded ditz that actual effective people either target or protect. There was the same bad taste in my mouth after this issue as the episode "As You Were," where Buffy was presented as someone to feel sorry for.

Canon arguments aside, I'm really not seeing a lot of college-level courses having quite as much to say about the feminism of these comics in the future as there has been for the TV show. Unless it's subject like "How the Feminist Backlash Has Co-Opted the Icons of Modern Feminism."

Huh. Maybe *I* oughtta write that paper.

Comments

[shapinglight]

Heh! Your thoughts are much deeper than mine. Mine just amount to, that was all very silly (the comic, that is, not your post).

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

It was all very silly, agreed. And I think that, more than anything else, was what made me so unimpressed with this one - the characters were all treated as jokes. And I love humor, but there are different kinds of humor, and I couldn't get away from the feeling that none of what was presented was anything other than a light diversion. Certainly nothing designed to challenge our understanding of the characters or the BtVS world.

Sigh.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

That's why I don't take any analyzation of ships seriously. I don't think any of it is meant seriously. He's just titilating and teasing shippers... and it feels like he does so for no reason except to amuse himself. It doesn't seem to actually be going anywhere in the story (mainly because I don't think Joss has the balls to take it anywhere even if he thought he might).

He's just screwing with the fans.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. I think we've entered the era of pure paychecking - whatever he does now is just to keep the franchise rolling, not because he has a burning vision of How It All Ends. Which makes me wonder why he doesn't just a) tell a story about the new girls instead of messing with the canon characters (answer: marketing, obviously, because nobody really likes the new girls) or b) back up and do "the early years" with Dawn, which was the idea for the animated series (again, probably because selling an "adult" series with the TV series stars is more lucrative). Gah, exploitation!

[shapinglight]

Yeah, it was one for the more immature among the fanboys all right.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! Your description of the picture made me laugh more than the picture itself.

And can't you just imagine the notes Joss passed to the artist? "Make some sort of kinky three-way with Buffy in a vampire sandwich. Throw in some Freudian stuff too if you want."

And, yes, Joss's predictability has gotten old. He brings nothing new to this story, and that's been my argument all along for why he probably needed to leave the 'verse alone.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on JW's writing tics and tricks over the years, so those were all expected - the Oh-No-You-Din't! climaxes and stand-up comedy jokes and ironic reversals - but the crumb-throwing here was so juvenile and surface-y, it honestly did surprise me. If I thought he honestly had anything new to say about these characters, I'd be nervous and faintly interested (and ready to argue hotly if I didn't agree with the direction), but this is just playtime stuff. It's turning into self-parody.

[liliaeth]

And it'ts all that that's making me extremely happy that Joss will be taking the hands off approach with the Angel s6. I just really don't want him anywhere near it. Hell, he has me worried enough that he might ruin one of my fave comics (Runaways) as it is.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

JW's going to be doing Runaways? I hadn't heard that yet. I really must keep an ear to the ground more on what's happening out there in the comics world.

I'd be supremely happy if he kept away from the Angel series too. Just as with TV, so much of the effect is in execution, and Spike: Asylum was good enough to make me excited about that guy's take on the 'verse. Joss's take so far on his own universe is to make it punchline fodder, which fascinates me a lot less.

[liliaeth]

oh he's up to his second issue on Runaways now. I liked the original writer of the series better, but so far it's ok.
Just hoping he doesn't ruin Xavin or Victor, two of my faves.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

He's only doing a very limited run - presumably as it wouldn't give him the same personal publicity boost as Buffy, plus the Joss and deadlines not being mixy things - so there's limits to the damage he can do.

[fredsmith518.livejournal.com]

yesterday a friend of mine posted about this, so, well, pleased isn't the word, curiosity satisfied, yeah, that, to have read your post
much thanks

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Actually, moscow_watcher has a much more detailed synopsis here (http://moscow-watcher.livejournal.com/41935.html#cutid1), for a more scene-by-scene rendition without the ranting. : ) Plus, the infamous 3some page.

[fredsmith518.livejournal.com]

much thanks for the link:)

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I liked your review! So many people were squeeing over this issue that I felt like I had just arrived from the planet Curmudgeon. I had liked the first issue but these last two don't seem to be going anywhere.

Honestly I wouldn't have thought Buffy and Astonishing X-Men this month were from the same person. When did Buffy end up being you know, for kids?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

The first issue at least had some potential, yeah. There was this wavery moment or two where you really felt that there might be some more Buffy there - the angst and the deep thoughts, and the growing-to-adulthood story where the world gets more complicated all the time. It wasn't a completely solid picture, but there was some promise there.

The second issue, not so much. This one, not AT ALL. I mean, would anyone know if they hadn't seen the series that Flying!Witch!Willow used to have a magic addiction problem? Or that Buffy once spilled buckets of tears over Angel and Spike? Gah.

This really is the kids' version of the story. And it being comics is no excuse for that - comics are perfectly capable of doing adult storylines. But apparently, that's not the type of story he wants to tell.

[ruuger]

Oh thank god I'm not the only one who didn't like it. I guessed what "the image" would be B/S/A from my f-list's reaction and I was rather excited about it, thinking that Joss suggesting that Buffy's solution to her vampire problem would be to let her love both Spike and Angel (because I could have easily imagined Joss - the old Joss, at least - going for the threesome angle), but then I saw the image and... Beavis and Butthead, indeed.

I enjoyed this issue more on a totally brainless level, but as soon as I started thinking about it, I couldn't help wondering where's the Joss we love and why has he been replaced with this podperson.

Unless it's subject like "How the Feminist Backlash Has Co-Opted the Icons of Modern Feminism." Huh. Maybe *I* oughtta write that paper.

Do it, or I will ;)

Seriously, though, what worries me most is how uncritical people have been of the comics in places like Whedonesque. Sure, there's been some complaining about the art etc., but most of the critique about storylines and characterization gets countered with "Oh, it's just a comic" or "You just hate it because it doesn't have Spike in it" or "It's been just two (three) issues, you can't judge the comic by that".

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think the chances of my being interested in the comic would be higher if, at this point, it hadn't been something that was easily predictable.

I fear that it is treading close to self-parody.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Joss, my dear, I'm already getting tired of your inner 15-year-old boy. Especially since MY inner 15-year-old boy would've liked to have seen more butt-kicking girls fighting the zombie army.

High fives you for that one.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

*g* I have a deep need to see chicks kick ass in a comic that's supposed to be about ass-kicking chicks. I'm funny that way.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Interesting but I'm a little confused on some points. For example:-

You want to see more girlz kicking zombie butt then complain that Buffy’s reduced to being the muscle.

To qualify as sexually emancipated a woman must embrace even her cheesiest fantasies with due reverence but heaven forbid people make jokes about sex?

Isn’t it a little rash to assume that the man in a woman’s dreamspace is an all-knowing guide? Even when he gives her no information that can help them escape and she’s the one to figure out what he cannot?

I liked Buffy in this installment. While Willow and Amy go back and forth each playing the other’s strength against her jujitsu style, Buffy holds back and uses her brain. She’s well aware that Ethan shouldn’t be there, she identifies Amy, she points out they’re being played and she makes the connection between the not!Initiative and some as yet unspecified cavern, which I suspect is going to be important in the denouement.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want consistency... *g*

Actually, I think we're both aware that you and I don't see eye to eye on this stuff. That said, I don't see the contradiction between wanting to see Buffy be a strong, butt-kicking character that's not constantly undercut by off-the-cut jokes about her sexuality and her various emo hangups - I enjoyed it when the show took that stuff seriously, but to reduce those issues to punchline fodder seems a downgrade no matter how I look at it. To be honest, it feels like you're just dropping by play let's-poke-holes-in-your-argument instead of really trying to see what I'm saying here. There's a difference, in my book, between laughing with Buffy and laughing at her, and the feeling I'm getting right now in the comic as the latter.

But if you're enjoying, great, more power to you. It's not doing it for me.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

I'm acting pretty immature, because I haven't read the comics, and I haven't decided if I will, so I've been passing over most posts. about them. But the word "threesome" got me here in record time. I am so shallow!

Your review makes me wonder again if I should bother reading when it comes out as a graphic novel. If it hasn't already.

*really must pay more attention*

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

It's not out in graphic novel form yet, no. Probably next year for that, I'm guessing.

[makd.livejournal.com]

We're all fortunate that some of the fans who've been buying the comic have posted spoilers and pics for the rest of us.

I decided before the series came out that I wouldn't buy them. Nothing I've seen has changed my mind.

IMHO, this is just another way for The Jossman to make more money on The Franchise and simultaneously destroy any feminist allusions we thought he had.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I can't begrudge the franchise money, I suppose, but I certainly don't have to swallow anything I don't like, and I reserve the right to scream to high heaven if my feminist sensibilities feel like they're being stepped on. Which, as you see.

And it's a shame, because I really love the idea of a story of a new world full of supergirls, and trying to do something with that premise. But so far, the approach hasn't even been about as enlightened as Fox Force Five.

[powerofthebook.livejournal.com]

Word.

Love this - bit deeper than my own, but I'm really hating the comic characterizations. Everyone's becoming a parody or an archetype, in a show that once began and thrived on breaking archetypes.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

(nods) I feel like someone should make Joss write a paper about his own creations, and hope that it sparks a realization or two about how progressive he's actually not being right now. I'm too old of a comic book reader to be dazzled by any of this stuff. It's really not new.

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

My reaction was similar, I think. I felt kind of used and abused. And not in the fun way.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I hold out a vague hope for other writers doing something fun after Joss finishes his first four issues, but not a lot of hope. This intro story is doing a little too good a job of killing my interest. Which is a shame.

[simplefangirl.livejournal.com]

You have said it much better than I could have, but I'm over here nodding right along with you. I read the 1st issue with a big geekygirl grin on my face, but the grin is fading fast. I want to shake Joss and yell at him, "TELL THE DAMN STORY ALREADY!". Quit jerking shipper chains and futzing around and give me a story I can respect and be interested in and I won't give a darn who you put Buffy with, (not entirely true but willing to say it for the sake of argument!). And you're comments regarding the childishness of it all are spot-on. I felt very much like I was the wrong demographic they were going for in this issue.
Sorry, hope you don't mind me sticking my two cents in!

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Not at all, thanks for your two cents! And really, yeah, what happened to the story with the general and all? The TV-style pacing and stalling before revealing details of major plotlines is a real handicap here, I think - it just takes too long to get the meat of anything, and in the meantime, I'm just getting annoyed at all the huckstering and jokes.

[st_salieri.livejournal.com]

Excellent review. You've done a great job of summing up so many of the things that are bothering me about the comic. Must go off and think deep thinky thoughts now!

Oh, and a belated happy birthday! :)

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Sorry for the long delay in response. It's been quite the week.

[herself_nyc]

You're welcome!

And I dig your thoughts on the comic, though I had the impression that Andrew was oblivious to the half-naked slayers, thereby again demonstrating his gayness, as in “Storyteller” when he zooms past the necking women to focus on Xander's woodworking.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... nice theory, but I don't think the comics art sells that. What you see is Andrew playing cards with half-naked girls, which still has the connotation that either a) he proposed the idea or b) they did, so all of which brings as back to the Beavis and Butt-Head reaction. Even if the girls are only interested in each other, they're still letting him watch, which is... god, I don't even know how to react to that. The whole Watcher thing just continues to get creepier.

[herself_nyc]

Well, yeah, because just showing Willow and Kennedy kissing, even through Andrew's oblivious POV, is an appeal to the Beavis factor in the male viewer. Which is annoying, I agree.

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

What you see is Andrew playing cards with half-naked girls, which still has the connotation that either a) he proposed the idea or b) they did, so all of which brings as back to the Beavis and Butt-Head reaction.

Personally, I don't really care what we're supposed to think about Andrew in this scenario - in general, I prefer not to think about Andrew at all. I just find it really offensive that, in order to make whatever Andrew-related joke he's trying for, Whedon is reducing his "empowered" Slayers to giggling stripper-bots straight out of a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Is this that "male gaze" I keep hearing about?

[ncvids.livejournal.com]

How does Andrew being bored in a room full of half-naked women make him not gay?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Mostly in the way it's being presented - like an Axe body spray commercial, where girls take off their clothes for you. There's not a lot of support for the idea of gayness in those pictures.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You've managed to nail on the head my difficulty with how Buffy has been coming across in the comics and why she feels completely off to me. I've been trying to figure it out. In the series, Buffy was the hero, the proactive one, mature, rolling her eyes at Xander. Here....she feels hollow somehow, off, like a side-kick.

Xander and Willow are oddly the cool ones. Xander with his Nick Fury 'tude and Willow with her wicked powers.

The whole thing feels and reads like a fanfic. And it is odd, because Whedon's other comics - Runaways and The X-Men - where he is writing for characters others created, don't read like that at all. He appears to be taking the X-Men seriously, but not his own characters?

My hunch is that Whedon is spending far too much time reading Whedonesque for his own good. The dream image of the threesome was something I've seen posted as a joke on more than one fanboard including Whedonesque. And read more than one fanfic that had her dream it. Making me wonder if Whedon is reading fanfic online? Surely not. But there are a few things in this issue that are making me wonder...

The picture of Angel/Buffy/Spike by the way isn't entirely the artist - comics work more or less the same way as a screenplay - except in a comic book the writer is also the director and he tells the artist/cinematographer exactly what he wants and approves it before it gets published. So...Whedon was behind that drawing. I read some of the spoiler pages - and saw him write "here Willow appears with bugs crawling all over her"...so I'm pretty certain he wrote:"Here Buffy is in a nurse outfit between Angel and Spike, with volcanoes in the background and funny look cherubs with Elmer Fudd's face".

I wouldn't give up on the series entirely though - we got some other writers coming up to plate, who may do the story a bit more justice. Apparently the Faith arc is supposed to be a bit more adult in tone and darker.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

The picture of Angel/Buffy/Spike by the way isn't entirely the artist - comics work more or less the same way as a screenplay - except in a comic book the writer is also the director and he tells the artist/cinematographer exactly what he wants and approves it before it gets publish

Actually, you've inadvertantly wandered onto one of my big pet peeves here - the idea that comics scripts are exactly like film scripts. They're not, actually - that's why I qualified the statement above with "unless you can show me" and the Alan Moore citation, because Moore is infamous for writing his scripts with insane amounts of detail to let the artist know exactly what to do. Stuff along the lines of (ficticious example, but to give you the gist): "There's a park bench in the foreground. On it, sits a man in a wrinkled suit. There is a stain on his striped tie. His hair is parted on the right. He carries a pot of azaleas. The stems are bent to the left. In the background, there is a dog catching a frisbee. It's high noon..." So, yeah, what I was trying to say there, is that unless Joss does his scripts like this, I'm guessing that he turned in something more like his script for "Chosen"(paraphrasing): "and then Faith grabs the scythe and goes to town and girls all kick ass and it's an awesome battle!" To which the artist then has to go, "okay, so how exactly should I convey 'awesome', and in how many panels?" In most cases in comics, the artist makes quite a few of those decisions - who to put where, how they're posed, what they're wearing, etc. - so credit where credit is due.

Apparently the Faith arc is supposed to be a bit more adult in tone and darker.

Hm, I'd be curious to see that! It may be that this is the type of series that you have to judge on a very case-by-case basis. But so far, JW's own version is just not doing much for me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

So, yeah, what I was trying to say there, is that unless Joss does his scripts like this, I'm guessing that he turned in something more like his script for "Chosen"(paraphrasing): "and then Faith grabs the scythe and goes to town and girls all kick ass and it's an awesome battle!" To which the artist then has to go, "okay, so how exactly should I convey 'awesome', and in how many panels?" In most cases in comics, the artist makes quite a few of those decisions - who to put where, how they're posed, what they're wearing, etc. - so credit where credit is due


If I hadn't seen the spoiler pages posted by Dark Horse for issue 3 back in March, which had script, then pencils, then drawings - showing the process,
I'd have agreed with you.

But Whedon writes comics differently than he did film and television scripts. He started out with Fray, then went to X-Men, and has honed his craft. Depending on the artist, he may pull back a bit, but in the spoiler pages I saw - he was pretty graphic in some of his descriptions.

It could have been either of course. I saw his description of the fight between Willow and Amy. The first panel he states Willow looks like an awesome power queen with flame coming from her fingers or something to that effect. But the other panels are fairly detailed.

So they are actually written differently by the writer. In a screenplay - the writer is told *not* to include all this stuff - *less is more*, while in a comic they work closely with an artist - and might approve the panel.

How to put this - Whedon has more control and is more responsible for what appears in this comics than he ever was for the tv show. If anything the comics are more his creation, while the tv show was far more collaborative. That is not to say the comics aren't collaborative or Jeanty shouldn't get credit - it is more than possible, Jeanty came up with the cherubs and volcano, not to mention the nurse outfit and asked Whedon - "okay, has this work?" Whedon burst out laughing and said, put it in! put it in!

Moore and Frank Miller are oddities, Miller drew his own books while his wife was his colorist. Moore hand-picked his artists, much like Neil Gaiman tends to, but unlike Gaiman wanted complete control.

I would agree Whedon's probably looser than both of them.

Hm, I'd be curious to see that! It may be that this is the type of series that you have to judge on a very case-by-case basis. But so far, JW's own version is just not doing much for me.

Very much so. Comics can be like that. Each writer/artist makes it their own. If the artist changes, the comics will change in flavor and attitude as well. Even if the writer spells everything out, how the artist draws the panels affects things. My favorite artist right now may be Frank Urhu who is doing the Spike comics with Brian Lynch.

While Whedon will influence the general plot arc and approve that, the smaller bits will be someone else, and Whedon tends to let writers alone mostly.

Would agree, the humor in these first three issues isn't amusing me as much as most of my friends. Am hoping the series gets a bit better as we move forward.

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

Moore and Frank Miller are oddities, Miller drew his own books while his wife was his colorist. Moore hand-picked his artists, much like Neil Gaiman tends to, but unlike Gaiman wanted complete control.

That's the thing of it, I guess - different comics writers approach the process differently. Alan Moore represents the extreme control-freak end of the spectrum, while other writers give the artist a lot more leeway. Grant Morrison, for example, lets his artists get away with murder and then goes through his dialogue at the last minute to adjust it to match the artwork. I'd assume Joss Whedon falls somewhere in the middle, and since you've seen some of his script pages you probably have an idea how much he's leaving up to the artist.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm a process fanatic. While most people find the "final" product or the inner personal lives of the creators, actors, etc interesting, or want to know what their "authorial" intent was....I'm mostly fascinated by "how" they did it, the procedures they followed, and the process of putting it together. The decisions they made during that process. So as a result, I tend to read and look at anything that concerns that, while ignoring all the personal bits.

You're right there is a huge spectrum.

Grant Morrison is at the far left of it (let the artist do whatever they please, I'll fix the dialogue to match) - while Moore falls at the far right (wants complete control and has to approve every single panel.)

Coming from a film/tv background, and having been burned by how some directors interpreted his film scripts (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men, and Alien Resurrection being three examples...) Whedon tends to be far more involved in the art process than Morrison. Just like he was in his tv show - often coming on set and telling actors they had to say the line *this* way. He allegedly drove a couple of them nuts - David Boreanze who prefers a little more flexibility, had troubles with it for example. While James Marsters who is somewhat anal when it comes to that stuff himself, shrugged it off as part of the medium he was in. He also insisted on directing everything he wrote, went over the dailies often in detail, and would fuss over an actors hair or a shirt they were wearing, and was known to insist on reshooting a scene if it didn't fit what he wanted - example was the church sequence in Beneath You. Yet, by the same token, he trusted certain directors and writers with little interference often pulling back and letting it fly. So it depends on who the artist is.

We see this in his comics - he gives John Cassidy on X-Men a lot of lee-way. Often won't even write anything and let Cassidy's art tell the story. He's a fan of the artist and thinks Cassidy can sometimes tell the story better than he does. He did the same thing on BTVS with Tom Lenk - often letting Tom Lenk do whatever he wanted. I don't think he's doing this with Jeanty - from the scripted bits I saw, I think he is overseeing everything that goes into those pages. Don't blame him, would do the same - Jeanty isn't in the same league as Cassidy is.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

But Whedon writes comics differently than he did film and television scripts. He started out with Fray, then went to X-Men, and has honed his craft. Depending on the artist, he may pull back a bit, but in the spoiler pages I saw - he was pretty graphic in some of his descriptions.

The fact that you've seen spoiler scripts does help a lot here, thank you. And it's good to know that JW is approaching the comic writing differently than the TV work, and that he's continuing to develop those skills.

Just so you know, the only reason I brought any of this up in the first place was because of the 'shipper wankery that immediately broke out after the publication of this issue, based on Buffy's head being inclined this way, or Angel's or Spike's hands being placed that way. And hello, not even the TV series sprung whole from Joss's forehead like Athena - for the comics, where there's two people in that marriage, so to speak, I was finding it kind of grating that no one had even seemed to consider Jeanty as part of the equation.

Moore and Frank Miller are oddities, Miller drew his own books while his wife was his colorist. Moore hand-picked his artists, much like Neil Gaiman tends to, but unlike Gaiman wanted complete control.

I'd qualify this as "oddities in America." In other parts of the world, it's far more the norm for comics to be written and drawn by the same person. The American and British traditions of separate writers and artists is a pretty unique collaboration. The only time you starting getting these kinds of questions for a manga, for example, by a single author is when they gain a large stable of art assistants and you begin to wonder just how much of the production should be credited to the group rather than the main artist in question.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, the only reason I brought any of this up in the first place was because of the 'shipper wankery that immediately broke out after the publication of this issue, based on Buffy's head being inclined this way, or Angel's or Spike's hands being placed that way.

LOL! Honestly people are nutty about certain things. Like, oh, Kenny's name must stand for...because that's the root of it in Scotland. Or Whedon thinks Spike is a Prat, because he likes the name William Pratt. There
is such a thing a *over-analyzing* things, and sometimes Occam's Razor applies - ie. a cigar is just a cigar.

If you've ever listened to Whedon's commentary on Chosen, he makes a really funny reference to the Buffy ships - he says, people want her with Angel or Spike and if we pick one or the other everyone goes nutty, personally I was a Buffy/Parker shipper. He's more or less stating he doesn't care. And will only explore the romantic relationship to the extent that he can explore the horrific consequences of it. Hey, he's a horror/sci-fi/fantasy writer not a romance writer, so this makes sense.

But seriously? The inclination of the head? That's just because it was easier to draw it that way. Whedon probably wrote: Naked Angel, Buffy in Nurse's outfit, Naked Spike, volcano, cherubs...make it look funny but also sexy at the same time. I want shippers to swoon and non-shippers to laugh their heads off. Artist showed it to him. He said - great. That's that. From everything I've read on what interests Whedon and the process - I see no evidence of any discussion on the pic demonstrating who she preferred. The whole point of the pic was to state she loved them both, wanted them both, and really sees no reason to make a choice between them. Can't say I blame her. Particularly if she thinks one is *dead* and one is well impossible due to a pesky curse.

I'd qualify this as "oddities in America." In other parts of the world, it's far more the norm for comics to be written and drawn by the same person. The American and British traditions of separate writers and artists is a pretty unique collaboration.

Oddities may be the wrong word here. It depends. There are a lot of comics published - art comics, not superhero or action comics - where the writer and artist are the same along with inker, colorist, etc - but they are idependent publishers. The bigger companies such as Marvel, DC - the corporations if you will - like to have huge collaborative efforts. Although Miller is US and has been more or less a solo gig with his wife since the 1970s.

That may be the difference. Corporate involvement. Same with movies and television and books. Once you get *big* investors involved and corporations - you start adding specialists to the mix and the entertainment product being created becomes a mass effort. Indie films, music, tv shows (rare), comics, books - not quite as many chefs. It's all about the money. The more expensive something is, the more people involved. Capitalism at work or gone wonky ;-)

That's one reason. The other is simpler:

Stan Lee can't draw - so he teamed up with Jack Kirby to create the X-Men. Kirby wasn't great at colors, so they hired so and so...Same deal with Joss Whedon - he can't draw. Jim Lee can't write - so he teamed with Chris Claremont who can't draw.

It's really just a matter of whether or not the creator can do both. In some cases they can, but choose not to...but that's pretty rare.

Didn't know magna was mostly drawn and written by the same person..interesting.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

Finally, an intelligent review. Well, you agree with me - or me with you--- so obviously it has to be intelligent. Sometimes I wish that they would just leave well enough alone. We had a great run, it was fun while it lasted so don't try to squeeze more money out of it. My main thought while I was looking at the comic was "how far back feminism has been pushed."
Le sigh.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

And worst of all, there is still so much potential here to salvage things, but the more I see of this comic, the less confident I am that there's a reversal coming.

Le sigh indeed