sire
Potential Slayer
Glad to see you've found the softer side of Sears[Mo0:0]
Posts: 143
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Post by sire on Nov 29, 2010 0:23:55 GMT -5
And not to get too political, but it always made me uncomfortable that such an openly homophobic, anti-feminist, and possibly even racist (he's made some bizarre and questionable statements on the subject) writer was contributing to the Buffyverse. Thankfully that stuff doesn't bleed into his work very often, but it still concerns me a little. Yikes, i didnt know this... what a shame
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patxshand
Ensouled Vampire
Writer/director/Amy Acker's husband.[Mo0:0]
Posts: 1,918
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Post by patxshand on Nov 29, 2010 16:15:24 GMT -5
To be completely honest, my relief at Angel returning to Dark Horse is more grounded in the fact that it means Bill Willingham won't be allowed near these characters anymore more than it is any preference for DH over IDW. That said, Lynch's titles were fantastic, the Drusilla two-parter was pretty brilliant, and Byrne's Lorne story was simply beautiful. So in that sense, I think the good outweighed the bad Where is the good besides "Willingham won't be allowed near these characters"? He'd been off the title anyway. Done for good.
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Paul
Ensouled Vampire
[Mo0:34]
Posts: 1,173
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Post by Paul on Nov 29, 2010 17:49:43 GMT -5
Where is the good besides "Willingham won't be allowed near these characters"? The biggest plus for me is greater cohesion between the Buffy and Angel titles. Yes, they are two distinct series with their own themes and tone, but there should be a level of continuity between them which has been sorely missing since the shows ended. Even on TV, we never really had an all-out definitive crossover between the two series, so hopefully we can get that now. Dark Horse's promise of a "Buffy Marvel Universe" is really appealing to me.
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Jordan
Innocent Bystander
[Mo0:0]
Posts: 15
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Post by Jordan on Nov 30, 2010 6:37:59 GMT -5
I think the good lies in the fact that this world and its characters may now have the chance to feature in an ongoing series that might actually do right by them. While there were a handful of decent one-shots and the like spread throughout the series, the rest was seriously flawed, and has been for almost two years. And while I have a lot of problems with Armstrong and Willingham's contributions, to pin all the blame on one or both of them does feel a bit unfair. Rather, I think the editorial staff just dropped the ball entirely by letting people who clearly didn't know what they were doing take the reins on this series in the first place. On top of that, it just never seemed to have any sort of cohesive creative vision, which is another blame that shouldn't lay entirely on the writers. There is something to be said for creative talent being given free rein in this industry, but editorial mandate doesn't always have to be intrusive. If someone would have spoken up when the first of these writers' scripts hit the desk, or even just told the writers "we want to be here by issue 10," this could have worked out better.
I don't doubt that there are people at IDW that are as passionate about this franchise as I am. I also don't doubt that this series might have gotten better as time went on. Hell, I actually liked the most recent issue and am cautiously excited about the final arc. But even with Willingham gone, I'm not entirely sure the higher-ups or editors or whoever would have given 'Angel' the respect and oversight it deserves. It's hard to have much faith when the only consistent thing a series has done for 16 issues is leaving you feeling burned. So I'm relieved that it's changing hands, and I'm excited to see if Joss and Dark Horse will do a better job. That, and like Paul said, it'll be nice to see the Angel story actually going somewhere, in the context of the canonical Buffyverse.
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