Buffy is back! ...and more Joss goodies

[miriam_e]

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended with season 7 we all thought that would be the finish, apart from the scattered, but long-running series of Buffy comix published by Dark Horse (now being collected and re-released as the Omnibus series). Well, we were wrong, weren't we.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 is now out, following on from where the TV series left off. Yes. But not on TV though. Joss is writing it for comix, and doing an excellent job of it. I just finished reading episodes 1 through 6. It is gonna kill me waiting for the rest. Originally it was going to run for about 25 issues but they have already mapped out 50 or more to be made. Not only Joss but other Buffyverse notables like the brilliant Jane Espenson, Steven DeKnight, Doug Petrie, will be writing for it.

I don't know how he does it. Other people produce just a few things in their lifetime. After the original Buffy movie, Joss makes well over 100 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, followed by by the incredibly innovative TV science fiction series Firefly and the movie Serenity which finished the story the TV series began after it was tragically cancelled by mindless TV execs. He made a short-run comic series of Serenity to bridge between the TV series and the movie. Somehow he also found time during all this to create a breathtakingly original new comic series of a futuristic Slayer in Fray. Fray also featured in his project Tales of the Slayers. Joss wrote the main storyline of Tales of the Vampires short comic series. Later he took on the Astonishing X-Men comix and his genius for dialogue and unexpected plot twists continues to bring it new life. Runaways was a comic series that has great potential. Joss must have thought so too, because he took it under his wing also, and it is currently flowering under his writerly care. Now the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 is out, and wowing people. In between all this he has been script writer and script doctor for a whole slew of films, including Alien Resurrection, Titan AE, X-Men, Speed, Waterworld, Twister, often uncredited. He was nominated for an academy award for Toy Story's screenplay.

You'd think all that was enough wouldn't you. But, no. He has to rub in how enormously talented he is and release the nutty, off-the-wall, downright loony comic Sugar Shock ...for free. That's right it's online at:
http://creative.myspace.com/groups/_mh/mdhp/pages/issue01/sshock.html
http://creative.myspace.com/groups/_mh/mdhp/pages/issue02/sugarshock.html

If, like me, you like to think of yourself as creative then please resist the urge to slash your wrists. Take consolation in the belief that he must actually be an alien sent to cow us all into submission. How else can we explain the improbable phenomenon that is Joss?

Incidentally, if you feel the need to read some of these wonderful publications, I'd advise you to contact Alternate Worlds http://www.alternateworlds.com.au in Melbourne (address, phone and hours are on the website). They have a mind-blowing amount of brilliant stuff and are patiently, encyclopaedically helpful, even with bumbling clods like me.

Comments

Buffy Book

[(Anonymous)]

I'll wait for the Graphic Novel compendium later this year!
MFG

Re: Buffy Book

[(Anonymous)]

:) You are right. That really is the best way to get them.
But I'm too impatient. heheh Also the compendia (compendiums?) generally don't have the covers or the letter columns.

I feel a little guilty admitting I'm not quite as delighted by Buffy Season 8 as I am with Joss' Runaways work. Guilty, because it is like saying I prefer diamonds over platinum -- it's all great.

It is weird after having not read his stuff for a long time, coming back to it fresh and wondering if perhaps it is not as good as I remember. I readg another writer's work and thought "this stuff is great", then got to Joss' stuff and felt like a fresh breeze had blown in. I'd thought the other writer was great, and he was, but Joss has a whole different level of capability.