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Post by wenxina on Apr 24, 2010 18:03:07 GMT -5
Riley one-shot will be released in August. Jane Espenson is writing, and Karl Moline is doing the art. #36 will come out in September.
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The Girl In Question
Ensouled Vampire
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Post by The Girl In Question on Apr 24, 2010 19:07:56 GMT -5
Riley one-shot will be released in August. Jane Espenson is writing, and Karl Moline is doing the art. #36 will come out in September. Thanks
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BlueJay
Descendant of a Toaster Oven
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Post by BlueJay on May 1, 2010 3:41:04 GMT -5
I don't understand why there can't be another one-shot done by a different artist/writer team for July as well. We get a Serenity comic in June, NOTHING in July, and that Riley one-shot in August. Seriously? NOTHING for July? If Joss/Scott wants/needs a break, then that's fine, but that doesn't mean that there can't be SOME kind of filler. I'd even take something along the lines of "Tales of the Vampire: The Thrill". Why not have that Simone one-shot Scott originally wanted and make it a companion piece and call it "Tales of the Slayer: (insert subtitle here)" written by someone like Drew Z. Greenberg and drawn by past artists like Cliff Richards or Paul Lee? I remember how the delay for "Time of Your Life, part 4" killed everyone's brains last year. Why would Dark Horse INTENTIONALLY do that again? I'm sorry, but that's total bull. Comics are slow enough as it is. *rant over*
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kaan
Common Vampire
[Mo0:3]
Posts: 78
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Post by kaan on May 1, 2010 4:32:23 GMT -5
I don't understand why there can't be another one-shot done by a different artist/writer team for July as well. We get a Serenity comic in June, NOTHING in July, and that Riley one-shot in August. Seriously? NOTHING for July? If Joss/Scott wants/needs a break, then that's fine, but that doesn't mean that there can't be SOME kind of filler. I'd even take something along the lines of "Tales of the Vampire: The Thrill". Why not have that Simone one-shot Scott originally wanted and make it a companion piece and call it "Tales of the Slayer: (insert subtitle here)" written by someone like Drew Z. Greenberg and drawn by past artists like Cliff Richards or Paul Lee? I remember how the delay for "Time of Your Life, part 4" killed everyone's brains last year. Why would Dark Horse INTENTIONALLY do that again? I'm sorry, but that's total bull. Comics are slow enough as it is. *rant over* It does seem pretty slack. Especially the 4 month gap between #35 and #36, thats just insane troll logic. It's like they know Joss is gonna be late with his scripts or something, because it aint like Georges is taking a break or suddenly gonna slack off on his schedule. Last I heard he was working on #37 now and he didn't even know there was a break between arcs. The lack of one-shot's I think has less to do with DH and more to do with Joss not having the time to "Executive Produce" anything. DH are fixated on keeping everything they do there completely canon, so when Joss doesn't have time to work on the story or at least sign off on it, their not interested. Me personally, I'd love to see DH begin to create an expanded Buffyverse, made up of non-canon mini's. Buffy and the Scoobies can't be touched obviously, but it would be cool to see a Robin Wood mini-series or pick random new slayer #384 and have a one-shot with her. My biggest hope would be more stories about the past slayers. Everything they do can be peripheral to season 8 and then season 9, not having any impact on their story-lines. And the character's of the non-canon stuff would be so insignificant to Buffy's story that it wouldn't effect or matter what was done. It wouldn't be perfect and I'd much rather there be more frequently produced Joss comics, but with things like The Avengers(hopefully) coming up I'm just worried about what will happen to S9 right now, let alone other books.
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Post by wenxina on May 2, 2010 8:29:42 GMT -5
It does seem pretty slack. Especially the 4 month gap between #35 and #36, thats just insane troll logic. It's like they know Joss is gonna be late with his scripts or something, because it aint like Georges is taking a break or suddenly gonna slack off on his schedule. Last I heard he was working on #37 now and he didn't even know there was a break between arcs. The lack of one-shot's I think has less to do with DH and more to do with Joss not having the time to "Executive Produce" anything. DH are fixated on keeping everything they do there completely canon, so when Joss doesn't have time to work on the story or at least sign off on it, their not interested. Me personally, I'd love to see DH begin to create an expanded Buffyverse, made up of non-canon mini's. Buffy and the Scoobies can't be touched obviously, but it would be cool to see a Robin Wood mini-series or pick random new slayer #384 and have a one-shot with her. My biggest hope would be more stories about the past slayers. Everything they do can be peripheral to season 8 and then season 9, not having any impact on their story-lines. And the character's of the non-canon stuff would be so insignificant to Buffy's story that it wouldn't effect or matter what was done. It wouldn't be perfect and I'd much rather there be more frequently produced Joss comics, but with things like The Avengers(hopefully) coming up I'm just worried about what will happen to S9 right now, let alone other books. But why do stories that don't matter, when they could be doing stories that do matter? It'll just muddle up the entire continuity thing, since Dark Horse would then have to clearly delineate the ancillary non-canon universe, and thus, probably kill sales. And if something doesn't contradict set canon, then some fans are happy to accept it as canon anyway. Which is fine and dandy, until you're trying to have a conversation about the series. The moment there's a blurring between what's canon and non-canon, the conversation is muddied right from the start, since we would be starting with different precepts, and more than likely, we would end up debating the canon issue instead of the initial topic of interest. Part of the problem with the ANGEL franchise right now is the amount of stuff that just doesn't matter. It's my understanding that "Too Human" is completely disregarded in the main series, which is pretty wasteful, IMO. I guess my point is, if a story doesn't matter, and that's clear right from the start, Dark Horse will be splitting their readership in the sense that they would only be catering to the fans that will buy it just for something to read in between, whereas there will be fans who won't care enough to read anything non-canon.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on May 2, 2010 9:39:08 GMT -5
Dark Horse already put out a ton of non-canon Buffy and Angel stuff. Some of it was good, some not so good. Back when the shows were on the air, there was more of a market for professionally-produced fanfic. (And I don't say that as an insult, being a fanfic writer myself.)
Once the shows went off, though, the market dried up and the Buffy and Angel comics were cancelled.
Season 8 has been the top-selling indie comic for almost its entire run (Kevin Smith's Green Hornet #1 beat it last month) specifically because it's Joss, and therefore unmistakably canon. As soon as it stopped being canon, sales would plummet and Dark Horse would see once again why they had to cancel Buffy before.
The Angel comics at IDW are still holding on to profitability, even though they're not canon anymore, because a) they used to be canon and many readers assume they still are, and b) they've got a fan favorite writer, Bill Willingham, working on them.
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kaan
Common Vampire
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Post by kaan on May 2, 2010 12:39:20 GMT -5
Well I did say it wouldn't be perfect... But why do stories that don't matter, when they could be doing stories that do matter? Thats the whole point, right now they aren't doing enough stories. People have wanted more than one issue a month since before S8 began. But Joss ain't exactly Joe-free-time-on-his-hands. Canon is only an issue that arises during conversation, usually online discussion. And with the Whedonverse it's pretty simple Joss=Canon. The reason people were confused with the Angel ongoing is that they continued the story(as well as the numbering) from AtF, so people didn't know if Joss was involved. Turns out he wasn't so it ain't canon. It's only for us fans that canonicity matters and it's easy enough to tell, unless DH start to vague up Joss involvement. Yes that is confusing, but the stories I'm thinking about aren't like that at all. Most of the IDW stuff are comics about Angel's past or Episode adaptations or whatever. It wouldn't be like DH suddenly starts cranking out Buffy comics on the side. The extra Buffyverse comics I proposed would have nothing to do with Buffy and the gang. (So that would probably rule out the Robin Wood mini or the one-shot's about some of the new slayers..) But I can't really see a problem with taking the simple concept of "a girl who fights monsters" and picking a random time in the past and base a story around that. They get a writer from the show or someone who has seen the show and tell them not to contradict anything from that and have fun. Joss doesn't look to the past when it comes to Buffy(he won't even tell us what went down between S7 & 8) so how could a slayer story set three hundred years ago affect anything? I don't really feel like that would be an issue. I mean, the Buffy season's are the main course, everything else is secondary. Sure many people won't buy it because it's non-canon, but even if only a quarter of the fan's buy it, it'd still be doing pretty good. The obvious problem would be to actually make the comics look like they tie into the Buffyverse, otherwise why not just start a completely different series and universe... Everyone want's more Joss produced comics. Dark Horse wants to make more Joss produced comics. But Joss has shown that he really only has time to produce one book a month, even when he doesn't have to write the issues. Scott Allie talked about how there going to be upping the output of "Joss Comic's" next year, (and who nows how thats all shaping up with the Avengers and all that), so I think there will be more instances like AtF; were Joss works on an outline with a writer and then lets them run with it. Anyway, I'm getting sleepy-sleepy and I don't really know what I am arguing about again. You're right, it was a stupid idea. Non-canon? That's ridiculous. Don't know what I was thinking. Goodnight folks.
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Post by wenxina on May 2, 2010 13:49:00 GMT -5
Passive aggressive much?
Disregarding that, moving on. I understand what you're saying about fans' demand far exceeding the output of stuff. But here's the ironic part: IDW came pretty close to saturating the market with their Angel license, when they were churning out one project after another, all seemingly largely inconsequential, except to perhaps flesh out some backstory. And when that happened, some fans were quite vocal about their disapproval, stating that instead of churning out stories that quite honestly go nowhere, they should've been moving the Angel story forward.
But barring that, there's also the fact that, as AC pointed out, quite a lot of the old run of comics were actually quite bad. Some were badly written. Some had lousy art. Some had both. There were very few stories that I actually found to meet my expectations, and no, those weren't necessarily the ones written by writers who wrote for the show, or even the ones who wrote those novels.
So, personally, I'd rather the focus go where the focus needs to be. That's just my opinion. You're free to disagree. That's what a discussion/debate is.
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BlueJay
Descendant of a Toaster Oven
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Posts: 631
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Post by BlueJay on May 2, 2010 20:56:48 GMT -5
I'm all cool with Dark Horse's focus being on a canon Buffy series. And I'm cool with one monthly comic. But I'm not cool with having a three month break before the final five issues.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on May 2, 2010 21:46:08 GMT -5
I'm all cool with Dark Horse's focus being on a canon Buffy series. And I'm cool with one monthly comic. But I'm not cool with having a three month break before the final five issues. I think that was done to ensure there will be no breaks during the final arc due to script or art delays. I have a feeling that would wreck the momentum much more than having to wait some extra time for the arc to begin. It also means they don't have to worry about spoilers in their solicits for this arc.
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kaan
Common Vampire
[Mo0:3]
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Post by kaan on May 2, 2010 21:58:51 GMT -5
That last part I wasn't being passive aggressive, but I see how it reads like that, so apologies. I felt like I should have defended/explained my original post suggesting the non-canon stuff, but by the time I got to the end of the second post I just didn't understand exactly why I was doing that. Cause it really is a moot point right now. And while I do think there are some merits in my argument, I actually came around to agreeing more with your side of the issue as I was typing, but didn't just want to delete my whole post.
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Post by NightlySorrow on May 2, 2010 22:17:21 GMT -5
Anyone think Whedon will really be able to get an issue out every month starting in Sept.? I think there's going to be even more delays because of how busy he is now. This three month break is bad enough. Not dying to read the one shot in August. Hopefully we'll get the cover to issue 36 after issue 35 arrives this week, I'm curious to see it and how spoilery it is.
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Post by wenxina on May 2, 2010 22:47:47 GMT -5
That last part I wasn't being passive aggressive, but I see how it reads like that, so apologies. I felt like I should have defended/explained my original post suggesting the non-canon stuff, but by the time I got to the end of the second post I just didn't understand exactly why I was doing that. Cause it really is a moot point right now. And while I do think there are some merits in my argument, I actually came around to agreeing more with your side of the issue as I was typing, but didn't just want to delete my whole post. Thanks for clarifying. Anyone think Whedon will really be able to get an issue out every month starting in Sept.? I think there's going to be even more delays because of how busy he is now. This three month break is bad enough. Not dying to read the one shot in August. Hopefully we'll get the cover to issue 36 after issue 35 arrives this week, I'm curious to see it and how spoilery it is. Scripts are coming in now... we know that at least the script for #37 has been turned in, since Jeanty was already working on it a while back. So, it's possible that we'll get the issues without a break once the arc starts. But you never know... something may come up. As it is, even if we get an issue a month, S8 will only end in January 2011. As for the cover for #36... the official solicitations for August aren't out yet, so we may simply just get the Riley one-shot official solicitation in the Dark Horse release.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on May 6, 2010 14:08:19 GMT -5
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Joe
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Post by Joe on May 6, 2010 14:15:09 GMT -5
We all know and love that Spike is back but I don't like the cover. It's the first cover to the last arc. It could be better than that. :/
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neowhobaz
Respected Watcher
"Beyond the Shadow you settle for, there's miracle illuminated"[Mo0:0]
Posts: 594
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Post by neowhobaz on May 6, 2010 14:16:21 GMT -5
I love season2/4 style Spike. It's a nice change to see him back with his redshirt and black nails.
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Post by hitnrun017 on May 6, 2010 14:22:13 GMT -5
A little bit too portrait-y, but it looks great. Solicitation is exciting without giving too much away. Sounding like there will be consequences for Angel.
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Post by Wyndam on May 6, 2010 14:25:59 GMT -5
I love the cover, especially the coloring. Spike's return is going to be a hot button topic in #36, so why not plaster him and him alone on the cover.?
Awesome.
Only critique is that Jo forgot Spike's trademark scar (Jeanty actually did as well in #35).
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Post by drywallman on May 6, 2010 14:33:41 GMT -5
It seems as if this last arc could wind up being all about Buffy and the vampires. I can't say that makes me happy. Having Spike on a cover by himself just doesn't seem right. I don't recall them doing that with anyone else this season.
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Post by Emmie on May 6, 2010 14:50:56 GMT -5
Love the depiction, agree that it's a little too portraity and I'd have liked to see Chen depict Spike as... actually doing something that tells us something about his character. Even having him pose deliberately would've worked because that's something Spike definitely does. The outlandish posing of Restless and the playing-it-up for the camera in Storyteller.
The cover is kinda bland, but overall a nice likeness except... eyes. Not Blue. Okay. I'd let this go if it were a long shot, but it's a close-up and Spike's uber-blue eyes are a huge facial feature.
A close-up portrait of Spike's face is easy to hit all the major points: uber blue eyes, very obvious scar across the end tip of his left eyebrow, cutting cheekbones.
Seems like Chen got the cheekbones and most of the rest, but missed the two most obvious standouts: eye color and eyebrow scar.
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