Post by Emmie on Aug 5, 2009 16:57:28 GMT -5
Dark Horse Editor, Scott Allie, and writer of Exurbia and Solomon Kane is back for another Q&A to celebrate the release of Buffy Season 8 #27 Retreat - Part II written by Jane Espenson and penciled by Georges Jeanty.
Remember to please submit one question per post and do not submit another question til the pending one has been answered.
If you want to participate, but you're not interested in registering at this time, you can e-mail your questions to emmie@slayalive.com and I'll submit them for you with credit. Again, we'd really love people to actively join in, but I'm hoping to encourage any fan out there with a great question to feel free to share it.
If this is your first time participating in the Q&A, please take a look at past Q&A's as your question might have already been answered. Thanks!
The floor is now open!
1. Ben Marston: Other than the Willow one shot coming in December, are there any more oneshots lined up before the conclusion of season 8 (including any Myspace Darkhorse Presents treats)?
Scott Allie: The only other thing planned currently is a very short bit on MDHP in our next issue. There's been some shakeups at Myspace in the last couple months that forced us to do the July issue on Darkhorse.com, but we're working on getting July and August up by the middle of this month. All I'll say is the short is written by Jane and takes place concurrent with her current arc on Season 8.
2. bamph: Is Joss's co-writer of the Willow one-shot someone Whedonverse fans will know or is it a name comic book creator and when will the co-writer be offically announced?
Scott Allie: We're not sure yet. He's written the first 5 pages himself, but was planning on bringing someone in to help, because of time. But it seems like he's gonna do it himself now. Which is of course great.
3. hitnrun017: Any chance we'll be seeing Harmony again this season? Or was her starting her own reality show it?
Scott Allie: A little. Yes.
4. butters: How about a Dark Horse Buffy PVC Figure set like the recent Umbrella Academy Figure set?
Scott Allie: That'd be great. I'll mention it to the merch people.
5. CowboyGuy: Was the Conversations With Dead People Board profitable enough to warrant future new merchandise?
ScottAllie: Yes, absolutely. But a lot of parts of the Buffy properety are carved out for other licensees, which is how we wound up doing odd bits like the ouija board and the the ill-fated tarot cards.
6. AndrewCrossett: It's clear that by the end of "Retreat," the intensity factor will be turned up to 11. From that point, there's still a year's worth of issues until the end of the season. Has it been a challenge figuring out how to maintain that level of intensity for that long, when you only have 22 pages of story every 4 weeks to work with?
Scott Allie: No, it's harder to cover everything we need to in the number of issues we've limited ourselves too. We've got plenty of story to do in these issues, and that's how you keep the intensity up.
7. Wenxina: An editing question: Was the switch from "magick" to "magic" a conscious decision? The word was spelled "magick" in the last issue, and more than once, the "k" was dropped in #27.
ScottAllie: It's different usages, but we may have made a mistake. I don't have it here to look at. I personally hate the K, but it's a Buffy thing. I roll with it.
8. buffycomic: I realize Season Nine is a whiles away, but are you guys planning to use a different series artist instead of Georges Jeanty to give it a distinctive look from Season 8? For covers, I hope Jo Chen will be staying on as cover artist, but for the alternate covers, hope you would consider bringing back Brian Horton and Paul Lee.
Scott Allie: I'd like to keep Georges and Jo, but I'm not sure what Georges will want to do.
9. vampmogs: Lately there’s been a lot of discussion about Twilight’s identity and whether or not it could live up to the hype. Are you able to promise two things? The first that it won’t have continuity issues (as for example, if it were Xander why is he at two different places at once? Etc) and that it will live up to the hype? Or do you feel it’s been overblown and there may be some issues?
Scott Allie: There won't be continuity issues. However, I'm sure people will say it was overhyped, that it's the best thing ever, that it's a letdown, and that it makes no sense. Nature of the beast. I'm excited to see what people think about it.
10. AndrewCrossett: Just out of curiosity, about how many people in the world right now know the full story of season 8 and its outcome?
Scott Allie: All the writers, Georges, Jo, me and Sierra, Katie Moody, Joss's wife. Maybe his assistant. At least, these people all know the biggest events, the main point of it, but as the story has evolved, some of the earlier writers have not been kept in the loop.
11. Wenxina: Re: The continuity error in #26 with Warren and Andrew, has a resolution been reached as to how to rectify it? Will it merely involve a quick change of a line in later prints, or will it require something more extensive?
Scott Allie: The fact that Warren took credit for something the First did when disguised as Warren? Yeah, there's a small way in which we're addressing that.
12. Emmie: I've been wondering if Dark Horse follows the demographics of the Season 8 readership. It's been accepted for a long time that most comic readers are male, but BUFFY seems like the title to bump that trend and turn it on its ear. Do you have any idea what the gender demographic breakdown is for Buffy Season 8 readership?
Scott Allie: I don't know details, I only know anecdotally, but yes, Buffy brings in more women, and more younger readers than mainstream superhero comics. But Dark Horse gets more female readers than DC and Marvel in general, too.
13. nixennacht: Do you know by now, if there's a chance that we'll get the "Always Darkest" webcomic on paper in one of the collected volumes of Buffy? What about the "Tales of the vampires" will it be in a trade volume too?
Scott Allie: The short story will be printed at a certain point down the road, and the Tales oneshot will be in a collection.
14. vampmogs: Can you tell us the idea behind this month's Chen cover? A lot of us expected the issue to be very Xander & Dawn centric but it wasn't. Why did Chen choose these two particular characters for the cover?
Scott Allie: Joss makes the decisions about the covers, actually. Part of it is that despite the market, we don't want the covers to always be Buffy. If I recall, the idea evolved from the desire to put the sub on the cover, and then trying to think of who could figure around the sub, and wanting to give those two a moment together.
15. skytteflickan88: Is it illegal to post transcripts of the comics online?
Scott Allie: I'm not sure. Internet copyright laws are still evolving. Comics authors don't like it, since it seems to seek to replace the comic itself, like any other form of piracy.
16. buffycomic: The flashback in this issue shows what happened to Oz after he left Sunnydale, which is somewhat different than what that Oz mini-series by Christopher Golden & Logan Lubera that came out years ago... when the Retreat arc was being planned, did you guys consider using the story set up in the Oz mini-series for the flashback, or was it decided to rewrite the events for Season Eight?
Scott Allie: Season Eight is the only canonical work in comics, so there was no thought to how it might contradict those stories. Chris and Logan were trying to work around ideas hinted at in the TV series, which is why that mini is as close to the flashbacks in Retreat as it is, but that stuff doesn't hold any influence over Season Eight.
17. bamph: I thought the developments for Oz in issue 27 was cool.How did Bay and Kelden come about?Was it more Joss's idea or Jane's?
Scott Allie: Giving Oz a family was Joss's idea, I believe, although all this stuff comes about through conversation, and it's often hard to remember who first threw out what.
18. Joe: Could you give us a description of the Retreat TPB cover? Or at least, what characters are on it?
Scott Allie: You guys haven't seen it yet? It's Buffy, Giles, Oz, Kennedy, Satsu, Faith, Xander, and Twilight. The concept was Joss's idea, I believe, and we gave Jo a slightly longer list of characters, gave her some freedom to choose who to draw.
19. trunktheslayer: Something of a curiosity question really: We know Robin's role in Anywhere But Here was expanded after Joss read the winning entry. My question is what would her role have been before? Just a quick cameo or....?
Scott Allie: Yeah, it may only have been a cameo, a Slayer who gets a walk-on line, that sort of thing. The terms of the contest required very little of us, but he got inspired.
20. jashiel: Are we going to see more of the vengeance demon's this season?
Scott Allie: I don't think so.
21. Ben Marston: You have previously stated that you already know the framework for season 9. Does this include a guess-timate at the amount of issues this will contain? (Minus any one shots that might pop up along the way)
Scott Allie: Nope. Remember we thought Season Eight was gonna be 25 issues when we started. So I'm not in any hurry to try to figure out the length of Season Nine until we can really outline the story and figure out some basic logistics of it. When I say it's likely gonna be shorter than Season Eight, that's only because what we know of the story so far seems smaller in scope, but you never know.
22. AndrewCrossett: Is there a title selected yet for Brad Meltzer's arc and/or Joss's issue #31? (Not sure whether 31 will be a standalone or part of the arc.)
Scott Allie: Nope. And #31 is standalone, separate from Brad's arc.
23. edwardcullenus: How bad have things gotten? It's been hard over the past few books to figure out just how bad things are for the Slayers. Like, are all of Buffy's people with them in Tibet now, the ones that are left? If so, how many is that, ball park? The book said they started with 500 or so, so are they down to, what, 50, 100, 200? And what about the others that aren't with Buffy? I guess if I was going to make it a single question it would be are Slayers already almost extinct in Season 8?
Scott Allie: Not yet.
24. woundeddwarf: In "After these messages", Angel tells Buffy that you can't change a persons past. Are we to assume that Angel knows that statement to be a truth of the laws of the universe?
Scott Allie: I think it's safe to say that that's a simple fact. Angel certainly wishes he could change his past, and can only try to make up for it.
25. Wenxina: As far as you know, will the Scythe plot point come back into play? A big deal was made about it in the "Wolves at the Gate" arc, and the end of that arc pretty much sent us into the next arc, with Buffy going to NYC in hopes of learning something new about the Scythe. Since then, the Scythe has pretty much been forgotten, and I was wondering if anything else would happen with it, instead of it becoming another forgotten plot point. Unless the "vision Mickey" as Kennedy put it was just to lure Buffy to the future, and the Scythe was just a convenient way of luring her to the right place at the right time.
Scott Allie: Sorry, no spoilers ...
26. gonzalo84: Does the tech guy with glasses has a name?
Scott Allie: Devon. Oh, wait, that's BPRD. No, I don't think so.
27. bamph: This is going to be a long winded way to get to my very simple question.
I don't know if you can answer this.It could very well fall under the,"sorry,no spoilers" category and if it does,I certainly understand if you can't answer without spoiling things.But I figure it can't hurt to ask.Some of this has been touched on before closer to the start of season 8 but lately there has been a lot of very interesting discussions going on in fandom about how much Buffy knows about the events of Angel season 5 and did Andrew's orders in Damage as well Andrew's,"No one in our camp trusts you"actually come directly from Buffy or could they of come from someone else like Giles without Buffy's full knowledge.The same question for whether Buffy knows that Giles refused to help Angel save Fred in Shells.It's not the first time Giles has gone behind Buffy's back.He even just did it again in season 8 during No Future For You with Faith.
So far Angel's three appearances in Buffy's dreams(issues,3,20,Always Darkest) have shown pretty fond views of Angel with no hints of distrust or malice.We know from issue 1 that Buffy was in fact unaware of the little detail of the significance of her decoy being with The Immortal.But Andrew sure did,finding it pretty funny, and neglected to mention that significance to Buffy.And finally Buffy's reaction to Andrew mentioning he met Angel in issue 23 seems intentionally vague.You can't tell what Buffy knows about Andrew's meetings with Angel or if she actually knew that Andrew had met Angel before.
So with this topic getting a lot of heat right now in fandom,will it ever be addressed at some point in the season 8 comics or season 9 about what Buffy knows or doesn't know in regards to Andrew/Giles and the way Angel was treated by them in Angel season 5 or is this a subject matter that won't be touched on ever?
Again,I realize anything related to Angel or Spike usually falls under the no spoilers category but I ask in the off chance you can say whether or not this specific matter has any hope of being addressed at some point.
Scott Allie: It may be addressed later, but I think it's fairly beside the point. Bad storytelling to have characters sit around going, "Oh, I heard that you ran into Angel, who has nothing to do with our current story, in Italy a couple years ago." "Yes indeed, that happened." As you say, it's nothing Giles hasn't done before—although when he did it more recently, it was relevant, and did drive the plot—and I don't think Andrew's interactions with Angel are of that much concern to Buffy. Sure, she might be interested that anyone interacted with him, but I think she's been comfortable, for a couple years anyway, that Angel goes on living, so to speak, and doing things in his world without her.
28. nickb123: In the Fray comics, there's the big talk about the battle that completely ends magic - and obviously that links heavily with what Twilight is trying to do. But Willow uses what magic she has left to show Fray something in the future, and in the Fray comics Harth uses relics left over from before the death of magic to help him summon a demon. If the sealing of magic event was to happen in Season 8 hypothetically, would you guys explain the specific rules around it cause it seems kind of confusing and not a 100% blackout?
Scott Allie: Explain the specific rules? No. But you're right, looking backward from Fray's time, it does not appear to be a 100% blackout, although it will appear to be that for probably more than 99.9% of people.
29. henzINNIT: "The fact that Warren took credit for something the First did when disguised as Warren? Yeah, there's a small way in which we're addressing that."
As glad as I am to hear that you are working to fix this problem, could I ask whether you're also going to address the issues that the error created with Andrew? He was shown to be well aware that the first was behind things in season 7, so it's also a problem that he seems to play along in #26. Sorry to grill you on this, but it's rare for fans to get a chance to help iron out continuity like this and I'd be so much happier to see this totally cleaned.
Scott Allie: Probably not gonna happen to your total satisfaction. I think you guys know by now that this is not the most important or fascinating aspect of the storytelling for Joss. We talked about various ways to address the complaint, and settled on the one that Joss, Jane, and I thought was best, all things considered, which will probably not be what you guys would do.
30. Simon: I see that Buffy is going to be on the front cover of an upcoming issue of Wizard Magazine. Is there going to be any other big media events for Brad Metzler's arc?
Scott Allie: Yeah. When you guys rise up and assassinate us, we're counting on that being in all the papers.
31. trunktheslayer: Ok, I'll be the begger then. When asked about the cover for the Retreat TPB you seemed sort of surprised that we haven't seen it yet. Any chance you could show us then? [/begging]
Scott Allie: It's up to my marketing department to decide when that goes out, but let me prod them.
32. Jay: You made it clear that one book cannot completely hold all of Season Eight and the special features. So I got a suggestion. Do you think you guys can release a box to hold the collected volumes, so it resembles one big book?
Scott Allie: Yeah, maybe. We love doing those, but they usually don't sell that well. What we'd do is around the time of the final collection, we'd release a boxed set of the entire season, and also make the empty box available. But very few people buy the complete boxed set, because they already have at least a few of the existing books; and then retailers don't know how to sell the empty boxes. But maybe with Buffy it'd be different. You guys are more smart and eager.
33. bamph: Is Bay actually Oz's wife or are they just lovers/together and is Kelden a boy or a girl?It was hard for me to tell in the issue.
Scott Allie: I'm pretty sure Bay and Oz are married, can't remember if we specify in the book, but we all refer to her as his wife in conversation. So I'm about 98% sure of that. And Kelden is a boy, something we also might not specify in dialogue, but do elsewhere.
34. AndrewCrossett: Okay, your little hints about the future of the story are officially scaring the crap out of me. (Mission accomplished, I know.) Can we safely say that season 8 is intended to be the most emotionally difficult season of Buffy so far for the fans?
Scott Allie: I don't think that's the goal. I think the comics format has just opened Joss up to bigger changes, bigger chances, and I think fans have a hard time with change.
35. Rowan Hawthorn: Kennedy was conspicuously absent through the whole issue. Finding it a little too awkward to be hanging out with Willow's ex, I suppose? Or trying to make it less awkward for Willow?
Scott Allie: With any ensemble story, the problem comes up that you don't have something for everyone to do. So much shit going on in this story, there's just nothing for Kennedy to be doing right now, so she's been written into the background. But one could infer from that that it has to do with Oz and Willow's history.
36. bitsy: It seems like most of the world is against the Slayers at this point but there's no such thing as an issue all people universally agree upon. What sort of people do you think still perceive vampires as evil and slayers as good other than people who actually know the truth? Left wing, right wing, religious, atheist, terrorist, pacifist?
Scott Allie: I don't think too many people who don't have first-hand knowledge would know the truth—I think mostly people would believe the hype, if they don't have good reason to know better. The Slayers aren't out there trying to put the real message forth, which they probably should do, if they weren't fighting for their lives and trying to stay hidden.
37. Stephanie: I know people keep bothering you about this juicy story line Xander has in Season 8. In the past you've said that, a lot like Dawn, his story is far from over. Considering he's kind of been in the background for most of the season since Wolves at the Gate...my question is, now that we've seen the cover for #29, is it safe to assume that his arc is going to start to pick-up in that issue? Like are we going to get this mysterious "hook-up" in Jane's arc? Or is it another case of, "well we figured Xander would be a cool homage cover," (sort of like with deciding to put him and Dawn on the sub for issue #27), and you are going to make us impatient fans wait until Brad's arc to start dealing with Xander's "emotional state"?
Scott Allie: Is #29 the Sgt Rock cover? Yeah, that one was all about the cool homage, just that Xander fit well in that. To whatever degree Xander has been in the background, his story HAS been progressing, something you'll understand by the end of Jane's arc. Remember that with these writers, a character's story doesn't progress simply by how much time he spends fighting bad guys. Xander's been in the background as far as that goes, but what's he been doing in the background? You'll see that by the end of Jane's arc, but you won't get any real insight into his emotional state for a little while. That'll come a little later.
Thanks, everybody. I think we're gonna have MDHP back on Myspace in a couple weeks, and we'll repost #23 with Always Darkest as well as posting #24 at the same time, with a new thing from Jane and Karl Moline. Both issues will go up at the same time, to inaugurate the new life for MDHP. I'll talk to you all again when #28 comes out.
Remember to please submit one question per post and do not submit another question til the pending one has been answered.
If you want to participate, but you're not interested in registering at this time, you can e-mail your questions to emmie@slayalive.com and I'll submit them for you with credit. Again, we'd really love people to actively join in, but I'm hoping to encourage any fan out there with a great question to feel free to share it.
If this is your first time participating in the Q&A, please take a look at past Q&A's as your question might have already been answered. Thanks!
The floor is now open!
___________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Ben Marston: Other than the Willow one shot coming in December, are there any more oneshots lined up before the conclusion of season 8 (including any Myspace Darkhorse Presents treats)?
Scott Allie: The only other thing planned currently is a very short bit on MDHP in our next issue. There's been some shakeups at Myspace in the last couple months that forced us to do the July issue on Darkhorse.com, but we're working on getting July and August up by the middle of this month. All I'll say is the short is written by Jane and takes place concurrent with her current arc on Season 8.
2. bamph: Is Joss's co-writer of the Willow one-shot someone Whedonverse fans will know or is it a name comic book creator and when will the co-writer be offically announced?
Scott Allie: We're not sure yet. He's written the first 5 pages himself, but was planning on bringing someone in to help, because of time. But it seems like he's gonna do it himself now. Which is of course great.
3. hitnrun017: Any chance we'll be seeing Harmony again this season? Or was her starting her own reality show it?
Scott Allie: A little. Yes.
4. butters: How about a Dark Horse Buffy PVC Figure set like the recent Umbrella Academy Figure set?
Scott Allie: That'd be great. I'll mention it to the merch people.
5. CowboyGuy: Was the Conversations With Dead People Board profitable enough to warrant future new merchandise?
ScottAllie: Yes, absolutely. But a lot of parts of the Buffy properety are carved out for other licensees, which is how we wound up doing odd bits like the ouija board and the the ill-fated tarot cards.
6. AndrewCrossett: It's clear that by the end of "Retreat," the intensity factor will be turned up to 11. From that point, there's still a year's worth of issues until the end of the season. Has it been a challenge figuring out how to maintain that level of intensity for that long, when you only have 22 pages of story every 4 weeks to work with?
Scott Allie: No, it's harder to cover everything we need to in the number of issues we've limited ourselves too. We've got plenty of story to do in these issues, and that's how you keep the intensity up.
7. Wenxina: An editing question: Was the switch from "magick" to "magic" a conscious decision? The word was spelled "magick" in the last issue, and more than once, the "k" was dropped in #27.
ScottAllie: It's different usages, but we may have made a mistake. I don't have it here to look at. I personally hate the K, but it's a Buffy thing. I roll with it.
8. buffycomic: I realize Season Nine is a whiles away, but are you guys planning to use a different series artist instead of Georges Jeanty to give it a distinctive look from Season 8? For covers, I hope Jo Chen will be staying on as cover artist, but for the alternate covers, hope you would consider bringing back Brian Horton and Paul Lee.
Scott Allie: I'd like to keep Georges and Jo, but I'm not sure what Georges will want to do.
9. vampmogs: Lately there’s been a lot of discussion about Twilight’s identity and whether or not it could live up to the hype. Are you able to promise two things? The first that it won’t have continuity issues (as for example, if it were Xander why is he at two different places at once? Etc) and that it will live up to the hype? Or do you feel it’s been overblown and there may be some issues?
Scott Allie: There won't be continuity issues. However, I'm sure people will say it was overhyped, that it's the best thing ever, that it's a letdown, and that it makes no sense. Nature of the beast. I'm excited to see what people think about it.
10. AndrewCrossett: Just out of curiosity, about how many people in the world right now know the full story of season 8 and its outcome?
Scott Allie: All the writers, Georges, Jo, me and Sierra, Katie Moody, Joss's wife. Maybe his assistant. At least, these people all know the biggest events, the main point of it, but as the story has evolved, some of the earlier writers have not been kept in the loop.
11. Wenxina: Re: The continuity error in #26 with Warren and Andrew, has a resolution been reached as to how to rectify it? Will it merely involve a quick change of a line in later prints, or will it require something more extensive?
Scott Allie: The fact that Warren took credit for something the First did when disguised as Warren? Yeah, there's a small way in which we're addressing that.
12. Emmie: I've been wondering if Dark Horse follows the demographics of the Season 8 readership. It's been accepted for a long time that most comic readers are male, but BUFFY seems like the title to bump that trend and turn it on its ear. Do you have any idea what the gender demographic breakdown is for Buffy Season 8 readership?
Scott Allie: I don't know details, I only know anecdotally, but yes, Buffy brings in more women, and more younger readers than mainstream superhero comics. But Dark Horse gets more female readers than DC and Marvel in general, too.
13. nixennacht: Do you know by now, if there's a chance that we'll get the "Always Darkest" webcomic on paper in one of the collected volumes of Buffy? What about the "Tales of the vampires" will it be in a trade volume too?
Scott Allie: The short story will be printed at a certain point down the road, and the Tales oneshot will be in a collection.
14. vampmogs: Can you tell us the idea behind this month's Chen cover? A lot of us expected the issue to be very Xander & Dawn centric but it wasn't. Why did Chen choose these two particular characters for the cover?
Scott Allie: Joss makes the decisions about the covers, actually. Part of it is that despite the market, we don't want the covers to always be Buffy. If I recall, the idea evolved from the desire to put the sub on the cover, and then trying to think of who could figure around the sub, and wanting to give those two a moment together.
15. skytteflickan88: Is it illegal to post transcripts of the comics online?
Scott Allie: I'm not sure. Internet copyright laws are still evolving. Comics authors don't like it, since it seems to seek to replace the comic itself, like any other form of piracy.
16. buffycomic: The flashback in this issue shows what happened to Oz after he left Sunnydale, which is somewhat different than what that Oz mini-series by Christopher Golden & Logan Lubera that came out years ago... when the Retreat arc was being planned, did you guys consider using the story set up in the Oz mini-series for the flashback, or was it decided to rewrite the events for Season Eight?
Scott Allie: Season Eight is the only canonical work in comics, so there was no thought to how it might contradict those stories. Chris and Logan were trying to work around ideas hinted at in the TV series, which is why that mini is as close to the flashbacks in Retreat as it is, but that stuff doesn't hold any influence over Season Eight.
17. bamph: I thought the developments for Oz in issue 27 was cool.How did Bay and Kelden come about?Was it more Joss's idea or Jane's?
Scott Allie: Giving Oz a family was Joss's idea, I believe, although all this stuff comes about through conversation, and it's often hard to remember who first threw out what.
18. Joe: Could you give us a description of the Retreat TPB cover? Or at least, what characters are on it?
Scott Allie: You guys haven't seen it yet? It's Buffy, Giles, Oz, Kennedy, Satsu, Faith, Xander, and Twilight. The concept was Joss's idea, I believe, and we gave Jo a slightly longer list of characters, gave her some freedom to choose who to draw.
19. trunktheslayer: Something of a curiosity question really: We know Robin's role in Anywhere But Here was expanded after Joss read the winning entry. My question is what would her role have been before? Just a quick cameo or....?
Scott Allie: Yeah, it may only have been a cameo, a Slayer who gets a walk-on line, that sort of thing. The terms of the contest required very little of us, but he got inspired.
20. jashiel: Are we going to see more of the vengeance demon's this season?
Scott Allie: I don't think so.
21. Ben Marston: You have previously stated that you already know the framework for season 9. Does this include a guess-timate at the amount of issues this will contain? (Minus any one shots that might pop up along the way)
Scott Allie: Nope. Remember we thought Season Eight was gonna be 25 issues when we started. So I'm not in any hurry to try to figure out the length of Season Nine until we can really outline the story and figure out some basic logistics of it. When I say it's likely gonna be shorter than Season Eight, that's only because what we know of the story so far seems smaller in scope, but you never know.
22. AndrewCrossett: Is there a title selected yet for Brad Meltzer's arc and/or Joss's issue #31? (Not sure whether 31 will be a standalone or part of the arc.)
Scott Allie: Nope. And #31 is standalone, separate from Brad's arc.
23. edwardcullenus: How bad have things gotten? It's been hard over the past few books to figure out just how bad things are for the Slayers. Like, are all of Buffy's people with them in Tibet now, the ones that are left? If so, how many is that, ball park? The book said they started with 500 or so, so are they down to, what, 50, 100, 200? And what about the others that aren't with Buffy? I guess if I was going to make it a single question it would be are Slayers already almost extinct in Season 8?
Scott Allie: Not yet.
24. woundeddwarf: In "After these messages", Angel tells Buffy that you can't change a persons past. Are we to assume that Angel knows that statement to be a truth of the laws of the universe?
Scott Allie: I think it's safe to say that that's a simple fact. Angel certainly wishes he could change his past, and can only try to make up for it.
25. Wenxina: As far as you know, will the Scythe plot point come back into play? A big deal was made about it in the "Wolves at the Gate" arc, and the end of that arc pretty much sent us into the next arc, with Buffy going to NYC in hopes of learning something new about the Scythe. Since then, the Scythe has pretty much been forgotten, and I was wondering if anything else would happen with it, instead of it becoming another forgotten plot point. Unless the "vision Mickey" as Kennedy put it was just to lure Buffy to the future, and the Scythe was just a convenient way of luring her to the right place at the right time.
Scott Allie: Sorry, no spoilers ...
26. gonzalo84: Does the tech guy with glasses has a name?
Scott Allie: Devon. Oh, wait, that's BPRD. No, I don't think so.
27. bamph: This is going to be a long winded way to get to my very simple question.
I don't know if you can answer this.It could very well fall under the,"sorry,no spoilers" category and if it does,I certainly understand if you can't answer without spoiling things.But I figure it can't hurt to ask.Some of this has been touched on before closer to the start of season 8 but lately there has been a lot of very interesting discussions going on in fandom about how much Buffy knows about the events of Angel season 5 and did Andrew's orders in Damage as well Andrew's,"No one in our camp trusts you"actually come directly from Buffy or could they of come from someone else like Giles without Buffy's full knowledge.The same question for whether Buffy knows that Giles refused to help Angel save Fred in Shells.It's not the first time Giles has gone behind Buffy's back.He even just did it again in season 8 during No Future For You with Faith.
So far Angel's three appearances in Buffy's dreams(issues,3,20,Always Darkest) have shown pretty fond views of Angel with no hints of distrust or malice.We know from issue 1 that Buffy was in fact unaware of the little detail of the significance of her decoy being with The Immortal.But Andrew sure did,finding it pretty funny, and neglected to mention that significance to Buffy.And finally Buffy's reaction to Andrew mentioning he met Angel in issue 23 seems intentionally vague.You can't tell what Buffy knows about Andrew's meetings with Angel or if she actually knew that Andrew had met Angel before.
So with this topic getting a lot of heat right now in fandom,will it ever be addressed at some point in the season 8 comics or season 9 about what Buffy knows or doesn't know in regards to Andrew/Giles and the way Angel was treated by them in Angel season 5 or is this a subject matter that won't be touched on ever?
Again,I realize anything related to Angel or Spike usually falls under the no spoilers category but I ask in the off chance you can say whether or not this specific matter has any hope of being addressed at some point.
Scott Allie: It may be addressed later, but I think it's fairly beside the point. Bad storytelling to have characters sit around going, "Oh, I heard that you ran into Angel, who has nothing to do with our current story, in Italy a couple years ago." "Yes indeed, that happened." As you say, it's nothing Giles hasn't done before—although when he did it more recently, it was relevant, and did drive the plot—and I don't think Andrew's interactions with Angel are of that much concern to Buffy. Sure, she might be interested that anyone interacted with him, but I think she's been comfortable, for a couple years anyway, that Angel goes on living, so to speak, and doing things in his world without her.
28. nickb123: In the Fray comics, there's the big talk about the battle that completely ends magic - and obviously that links heavily with what Twilight is trying to do. But Willow uses what magic she has left to show Fray something in the future, and in the Fray comics Harth uses relics left over from before the death of magic to help him summon a demon. If the sealing of magic event was to happen in Season 8 hypothetically, would you guys explain the specific rules around it cause it seems kind of confusing and not a 100% blackout?
Scott Allie: Explain the specific rules? No. But you're right, looking backward from Fray's time, it does not appear to be a 100% blackout, although it will appear to be that for probably more than 99.9% of people.
29. henzINNIT: "The fact that Warren took credit for something the First did when disguised as Warren? Yeah, there's a small way in which we're addressing that."
As glad as I am to hear that you are working to fix this problem, could I ask whether you're also going to address the issues that the error created with Andrew? He was shown to be well aware that the first was behind things in season 7, so it's also a problem that he seems to play along in #26. Sorry to grill you on this, but it's rare for fans to get a chance to help iron out continuity like this and I'd be so much happier to see this totally cleaned.
Scott Allie: Probably not gonna happen to your total satisfaction. I think you guys know by now that this is not the most important or fascinating aspect of the storytelling for Joss. We talked about various ways to address the complaint, and settled on the one that Joss, Jane, and I thought was best, all things considered, which will probably not be what you guys would do.
30. Simon: I see that Buffy is going to be on the front cover of an upcoming issue of Wizard Magazine. Is there going to be any other big media events for Brad Metzler's arc?
Scott Allie: Yeah. When you guys rise up and assassinate us, we're counting on that being in all the papers.
31. trunktheslayer: Ok, I'll be the begger then. When asked about the cover for the Retreat TPB you seemed sort of surprised that we haven't seen it yet. Any chance you could show us then? [/begging]
Scott Allie: It's up to my marketing department to decide when that goes out, but let me prod them.
32. Jay: You made it clear that one book cannot completely hold all of Season Eight and the special features. So I got a suggestion. Do you think you guys can release a box to hold the collected volumes, so it resembles one big book?
Scott Allie: Yeah, maybe. We love doing those, but they usually don't sell that well. What we'd do is around the time of the final collection, we'd release a boxed set of the entire season, and also make the empty box available. But very few people buy the complete boxed set, because they already have at least a few of the existing books; and then retailers don't know how to sell the empty boxes. But maybe with Buffy it'd be different. You guys are more smart and eager.
33. bamph: Is Bay actually Oz's wife or are they just lovers/together and is Kelden a boy or a girl?It was hard for me to tell in the issue.
Scott Allie: I'm pretty sure Bay and Oz are married, can't remember if we specify in the book, but we all refer to her as his wife in conversation. So I'm about 98% sure of that. And Kelden is a boy, something we also might not specify in dialogue, but do elsewhere.
34. AndrewCrossett: Okay, your little hints about the future of the story are officially scaring the crap out of me. (Mission accomplished, I know.) Can we safely say that season 8 is intended to be the most emotionally difficult season of Buffy so far for the fans?
Scott Allie: I don't think that's the goal. I think the comics format has just opened Joss up to bigger changes, bigger chances, and I think fans have a hard time with change.
35. Rowan Hawthorn: Kennedy was conspicuously absent through the whole issue. Finding it a little too awkward to be hanging out with Willow's ex, I suppose? Or trying to make it less awkward for Willow?
Scott Allie: With any ensemble story, the problem comes up that you don't have something for everyone to do. So much shit going on in this story, there's just nothing for Kennedy to be doing right now, so she's been written into the background. But one could infer from that that it has to do with Oz and Willow's history.
36. bitsy: It seems like most of the world is against the Slayers at this point but there's no such thing as an issue all people universally agree upon. What sort of people do you think still perceive vampires as evil and slayers as good other than people who actually know the truth? Left wing, right wing, religious, atheist, terrorist, pacifist?
Scott Allie: I don't think too many people who don't have first-hand knowledge would know the truth—I think mostly people would believe the hype, if they don't have good reason to know better. The Slayers aren't out there trying to put the real message forth, which they probably should do, if they weren't fighting for their lives and trying to stay hidden.
37. Stephanie: I know people keep bothering you about this juicy story line Xander has in Season 8. In the past you've said that, a lot like Dawn, his story is far from over. Considering he's kind of been in the background for most of the season since Wolves at the Gate...my question is, now that we've seen the cover for #29, is it safe to assume that his arc is going to start to pick-up in that issue? Like are we going to get this mysterious "hook-up" in Jane's arc? Or is it another case of, "well we figured Xander would be a cool homage cover," (sort of like with deciding to put him and Dawn on the sub for issue #27), and you are going to make us impatient fans wait until Brad's arc to start dealing with Xander's "emotional state"?
Scott Allie: Is #29 the Sgt Rock cover? Yeah, that one was all about the cool homage, just that Xander fit well in that. To whatever degree Xander has been in the background, his story HAS been progressing, something you'll understand by the end of Jane's arc. Remember that with these writers, a character's story doesn't progress simply by how much time he spends fighting bad guys. Xander's been in the background as far as that goes, but what's he been doing in the background? You'll see that by the end of Jane's arc, but you won't get any real insight into his emotional state for a little while. That'll come a little later.
Thanks, everybody. I think we're gonna have MDHP back on Myspace in a couple weeks, and we'll repost #23 with Always Darkest as well as posting #24 at the same time, with a new thing from Jane and Karl Moline. Both issues will go up at the same time, to inaugurate the new life for MDHP. I'll talk to you all again when #28 comes out.
