Jeph Loeb talks "After These Messages"

[iloveromy]

e10.video.blip.tv/1380005319916/DarthPaul-JEPHLOEBONBUFFY20880.mp3

may have to sign up.

vampiresandslayers.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2235870%3ABlogPost%3A17998

Also - sound quality is horrible.

LOOK BELOW FOR A TRANSCRIPT POSTED BY EMMIE!

[Skytteflickan88]

Can someone sum up?

[iloveromy]

Well one point I thought was interesting was that something happens in the present that makes Buffy reflect on the past.

[soulbrave]

something happens in the present ?
In "This Present" (Season 8 storyline) or something in "Future-Present" (while Buffy is with Fray)?

[iloveromy]

I don't know...

I assume "This Present".

[Emmie]

Here we go guys! I transcribed this for you because the audio is nearly painful to listen to. Ta da!

Jeph Loeb: "Joss had this great idea that he was gonna do all the seasons stories as comic books...Dark Horse needed to have some of the names attached to this 'cause to be perfectly honest, a licensed book has never worked...there are 40, 60, 80 issues of Buffy that no one cared - so Joss had this wacky idea that he was gonna do a Buffy comic and someone's gonna care...it's a top ten hit book, a monster hit book. It's the biggest book Dark Horse has ever had. It's a top ten book, it's consistently beating out everything that DC has and it squeezes itself into the Marvel world.

So when I first thought about doing it I said there is a way to get even and I want to tell a story where something happens to Buffy in the present and she wakes up Pleasantville-style and she's on the Animated show. And the part that is incredibly exciting is the animated series took place in year 1, so it's always episode 7.5. Which means that she knew Angel but she did not know that he was Angelus. It was just a simpler time - her mom was still alive, the biggest surprise would be that Dawn would be there and she'd be 10 years old, that it would Principal Snyder and Cordelia would still be alive, and you know Willow had not gone dark. All the things that happened as the years go by - they were still kids trying to figure out how to stake a vamp. And Buffy gets dropped in this world. There's a line that it's "a season 8 brain, season 1 bod" and she's having a ball, it's the Wizard of Oz. At what point does she decide to go home 'cause it's Pleasantville?"

I ran into Drew Goddard who wrote Cloverfield...and I told him and he was like, 'Oh my god, what is that? Is that like a 5 issue arc? It sounds great.' I said, 'It's a issue.' Drew: 'Oh no you can't do that.' Loeb: 'No no no, it's 22 pages.'

Anyway, as you can imagine because I'm going to do something with Buffy people were interested and then when they found out that it was tied in with the Animated series and that Eric Wight who had done all the design for the Animated series was doing the artwork. So then you would actually be able to see basically what our story was and what the show was going to be like. We had a chance to be able to say 'You wondered what the show was going to be like - Here, this is it.'

Well, back in the day we made this 3 minutes which by the way I've seen - it's incredibly crude. It has not been polished in any way shape or form. But there's something very cool about it and the fact that Alyson and Nicholas and Anthony all did their own voices. And the woman who does Buffy's voice on the video game sounds so much like Sarah it's freaky. Even more freaky is when you're standing in the sound booth and you're looking at her and Sarah's voice is coming out of her, it's the most bizarre thing in the world. Then it sounds like an episode of Buffy and that was a scene that we took from -----. So I don't know. I've always said - Joss has always said it's over. But the best Buffy stories are stories of resurrection. So I never say no.

I have an out in all my contracts and if it ever goes up again...the part that cracks me up is the fact that Joss could move the needle just so far on this comic book speaks to the fact that you should do the Buffy movie tomorrow. I'm sure there's 93 reasons why you can't, I mean we barely got the Animated show together given the number of deals we had to make. So I don't know, it'd be fun. That's all I can say.

Everybody that was working on it was having a great time and we have 13 scripts, so it's not like we couldn't - we were in production when they pulled the plug so everyone's got all those notes and everyone that was gonna do it is still here and still working in the business. Eric Radomski is still one of the most talented executive producers and directors working in the business of animation. I talk to him once a week about a lot of different stuff. Every third call we laugh and giggle and talk about how we almost made it - we almost got it."[/i]

Interviewer: "I was hoping with that footage got out that it would wake somebody up to say that this could still work."

"Look, the world is a different place. When Family Guy and American Dad are top-rated shows and the idea that a half-hour of night time - primetime - television animation...I don't know, not so far. You toss in my head all the goods when the show went down and we laugh about it all the time. Then we'd laugh in a sad way when we would go to meetings - we would have designs, budgets, agreements with actors, 6 scripts that you could read right when we left there and a (relationship/licenseship ?) with money basically. And we would say 'We're so grateful you saw us. What we have today is to bring big bags of money and bags of gold. Here they are and they're all yours. All you have to do is make the check.' And people would look at us and go, 'Do you have any copper pans?' And we would go, 'No no no, we have bags of money - gold!' People: 'But we're looking for copper pans.'

And that's what it was like, we just couldn't - I don't know. And so now I do think that the amount of buzz that's on this issue is funny. You know, they started an online petition and the publics hands will not go down quietly. There's a chance that those stories could get out. There are a lot of fun scripts to direct. Jane Espenson wrote two brilliant episodes and it's great fun."




***That's my best effort with the transcript. I'm afraid I don't have the heart (or ear drums) to go back and make sure it's 100% perfect. Any sentences that seem...grammatically just wrong are how Loeb worded it. I swear.

[Joe]

WOOOOOOOW

[Emmie]

Thread updated with transcription of the interview.

[ligeia]

Thank you Emmie !

[cheryl]

So very cool.

[patxshand]

SHIT Emmie, that is such dedication. That was even hard to decipher on just a casual listen, I couldn't imagine transcribing it. You rock!

[CowboyGuy]

EMMIE ROCKS MY SOCKS

The best part:

"You know, they started an online petition and the publics hands will not go down quietly"

If he has seen it, there is a high chance that Joss has seen the petition as well!!

[Emmie]

Haha! Yeah, I was listening with my hands pressing my headphones in and my eyes closed as I concentrated on the really indecipherable parts. Some parts I'm really not sure what Jeph Loeb was saying because the static on the recording was SO bad, but I gave it my best shot. Glad everyone can enjoy reading it now

[buffyverseforever]

Thanks for posting this, Emmie.

Best wishes,

Scott

[Léo]

Thanks for the transcript Emmie ! That was really necessary and it must have been hard so gratz
Thirteen scripts ! That's like 4 hours and a half of Buffy, a complete season written !
I am posting a link to your transcript on whedonesque.com beacause people have been asking for one. Also, it will shut the mouth of those who believes the petition is rubbish

[dane5by5]

Thank you for writing the transcript Emmie.

I liked the comment he made about his conversation with Drew Goddard, I thought the same thing, with such a great premise and opportunity in this medium, this story could be an entire arc of four or five issues. I'm curious as to how it's going to be written in just 22 pages.

[vampmogs]

Thanks for the transcript Emmie.

That was great and it sounds very, very cool. I love his comments that Buffy is going to have a ball in her season 1 "bod" and why wouldn't she, they were happier times. But I'm very interested to see what makes Buffy decide she has to go back.

[Skytteflickan88]

Love you Emmie.

Let's all give Emmie karma.

[Emmie]

It was my pleasure guys. I'm so happy you enjoyed reading it - that's all I wanted

[barryshaft]

Very nice transcript thank you I'm looking forward to this issue very much as I've always been curious as to how it'd play out with Buffy interacting with Dawn in those high school years. Though truthfully I was always glad that the animated series fell through as I really didn't want to see such a simplified version of the stories nor did I really care to have all this "Is it Canon or not" stuff surrounding it so I think the story works much better this way.

Now, a non-kid's friendly, non-dumbed down, post- season 7 animated series and I'm all for it...especially if Jeph Loeb was behind it. Loeb's an excellent writer, his comic work is insanely good.