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shapinglightBack online after the router problems, and here’s my review of the latest Buffy comic at last. It’s actually been quite difficult to write – not the review so much, but my thoughts surrounding this issue, which have made me decide I’m pretty much done with the comic, barring miracles.
Also, big apologies to those of you I buy the comics for. I haven't got around to posting them yet. Will make sure to do so before I go away next week.
Spoilers for Buffy no 28 within
In fact, this isn't really a proper review. For that, I recommend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beer_good_foamy's (apart from his dig at the BSG finale, which I don’t agree with, so there!). He points out both what is good about this issue – the fact that it’s well written with good dialogue and characterisation and finally everyone is talking to each other, which they've signally failed to do for most of the series. It's even structured in a clever way so we see everything through Andrew's eyes, with his conclusions sometimes being at odds with what's actually happening, like in Storyteller. Also, the art is somewhat less horrible than usual, provided there are only a couple of characters in a panel, though Jeanty still seems to be under the impression that Tibet looks like Switzerland with yaks.
beer_good_foamy also points out the issue's major weakness, which is – essentially – that Buffy’s plan is stupid – so stupid that it makes her stupid plan in Chosen look very clever indeed.
I would agree with that. I would also reiterate, as I have before, that no matter how well Jane E wrote her arc, she was always going to be hamstrung by the fact that the whole Everyone Loves Vampires (even though they still kill people and openly admit to being evil) And Hates Slayers plot has been set up so badly that it’s still very hard to take Buffy’s big scaredy runaway as anything else but ridiculously out of proportion to the threat faced, which she herself has helped ramp up, what with acquiring a large enough arsenal to take on a small country – always guaranteed to make the general public paranoid.
The fact that Buffy's decision to do this remains unexplained to the reader both in terms of plot and in terms of character development doesn't help. Apparently, it's one of those back story things that both Joss and Scott Allie tell us are not going to be filled in, (except where Willow's concerned) and that we are quite wrong-headed to think are necessary to understand where Comics Buffy's coming from.
In other words, as I’ve said before, there’s been far, far too much tell for the amount of show, which has pretty much crippled the story IMO.
So far, so no different to the previous 27 issues, you might say. So what is it that’s made this one the potential tipping point for me?
Weirdly, it stems partly from watching that vid of Joss's speech/Q&A to the American Secular Society. I say weird, because I really liked Joss while watching it. I thought he came across as intelligent, funny – even nice, which must be pretty rare in Hollywood. I agreed with a lot of what he said.
However, I also realised yet again something that I first understood some years ago, which is that what interests Joss in drama and what interests me are often very different things.
For instance, I don't know about anyone else, but it was plain to me listening to him talk and answer questions that of all his work so far, his heart is given to Firefly/Serenity. That show and its cast and its unrealised potential are his great love, rather than BtVS, and certainly rather than AtS.
That's fine. I can even understand why he would feel that way, given what happened to Firefly. But I'm afraid I can't agree with him. I just didn't like the show – so much so, that even though I watched about 7 out of the 12 episodes while staying withpeasant_ a few years back, I went home and couldn't be bothered watching the remaining eps. I still haven't seen them.
Realising this again, I had to face up to the knowledge that what floats Joss's boat in drama and what floats mine only coincides some of the time- which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that unfortunately, no matter how well written the latest arc of the comic is, I find the whole thing horribly, horribly dull!
I've read the latest issue twice and both times one side of my mind has been thinking: very clever, good character voices, pity about the art but at least it's not as bad as last time, while the other has been thinking: God, I'm so bored!
The almost-romantic scene between Buffy and Xander in this issue encapsulates my boredom with the whole story, in fact. See, I always found the idea of B/X (which is where I was sure Joss would eventually go from the first time I watched Welcome to the Hellmouth) dull as ditchwater, plus clichéd. 'Heroine falls in love with all sorts of unsuitable people, only to wake up one day and realise that Mr Right has been standing beside her all the time.'
Okay, so when Joss does get around to it, it won’t be as some of the more extreme B/X'ers want it to be, with Buffy tearfully confessing how wrong headed she's been all these years and Xander graciously forgiving her and folding her into his manly arms. But Joss will get around to it in time, no doubt, and I will still be bored by it.
YMMV of course. It all depends what you want from BtVS, both the show and the comic. If someone's main focus in the show was the Core Four relationship (or Core Three, as it has sadly become in the comic), as Joss's was, and is, then I can see that the character dynamic in the comic is like a dream come true. Season 1 all over again. However, that was never so for me. If BtVS hadn't 'opened out' and changed over the years – if it had stayed like season 1 – I would never have carried on watching.
I could see why the Buffy/Willow/Xander relationship was so important when they were in high school, but once they were out in the big wide world, it seemed only natural that they should go on to form other relationships outside their tight knit little group. That's part of growing up. And in the show, they duly did, Xander with Anya, Willow with Tara, Buffy with Riley and then Spike, plus her parental relationship with Dawn.
The fact that the three friends broadened their horizons and got out of their incestuous little huddle (which I appreciate they had good reason for getting into while they were in school) without destroying their friendship was one of the things I thought worked best in season 7, in fact. I always took that scene in the high school corridor in Chosen, where the Core Three and Giles meet up, exchange early season BtVS-type banter and then go their separate ways as symbolic of the fact that they didn't need to be living in each others' pockets any more to remain friends. They could have a life apart from each other - without cutting each other out of their lives.
Yet in the comic, they've withdrawn back into that huddle and no one outside it really seems significant – not Dawn, not Kennedy, and certainly not the cipher comic book OCs (though Satsu has just about managed to develop a personality).
That's one thing I don't like and find horribly dull – the narrowing down of the characters' focus - their regression, if you will. Another is that -once again appreciating that YMMV, especially if your favourite character is, say, Willow or Xander – I find the comic horribly lacking in characters with edge. Faith comes closest (or did, not so much now), and failing her, Dracula. With him out of the picture, and Faith towing the Follow Buffy's Stupid Plan to the Letter party line, there just isn't anyone. They're all just –boring.
And this is when I really miss a character like Spike, or Anya, or BtVS Cordelia. There isn't a cynical voice off disagreeing with/making fun of our heroes and telling them they're all going to die. There isn't even a mysterious (and annoying) character commenting cryptically on the action, as was Angel's role in season 1 and early season 2.
From what I understand, the character of Angel wasn't Joss's idea, but David Greenwalt's (and interestingly, in his Secular Society Q&A, Joss says that he'd conceived of the character as Latino, hence the name), and I can believe it. From everything Joss has said, including in this Q&A, he didn't really ever 'get' Angel as a character, though he could see the potential for angst and life lessons for Buffy in B/A.
I expect the character of Spike was Joss's idea. I believe what Joss says about preferring Spike to Angel, seeing Spike as more evolved (because he sought his own soul out instead of being cursed) and finding Spike more congenial to him if only because Spike is such an iconoclast. However, I don't believe this preference extends to having anything else to say about Spike – to, in fact, rather regarding him (and Angel) as now getting in the way of the story Joss wants to tell.
Am going off slightly at a tangent there. Sorry. So yes – no characters with edge in season 8. Plus, apart from Buffy/Satsu (which, asbeer_good_foamy points out still seems to have served no purpose in the story except to get the comic noticed more in the media), no relationships with edge either. Yes, we got a brief bit of almost-Spangel in the web comic, but I think we all know that was just Joss messing with the 'shippers because he's sick of them pestering him. He's never really going to do S/A.
Which brings me back rather circuitously to my point, which is to say again that the essential dullness (to me) of the story and characters in the comic has made me realise all over again that what interests Joss and what interests me are just not always the same, and in the comic they're poles apart. Maybe in the end the comic will have something profound to say about something, I don't know. I just know that you can be as profound as you like but – as Joss himself says, when talking about didacticism and drama in his Q&A – if your readers/viewers are bored along the way, no one's going to get it anyway.
Not saying that everyone is bored, but I'm afraid I am. The only remaining matter of interest to me in the comic now that Allie has flat out said that we've seen all we're going to see of Spike and Angel and we're never going to find out what brought Buffy to her current pass character development-wise, is the identity of Twilight, but since after reading this issue I strongly suspect that Giles is Twilight, or at least working for him, I'm not much enthused about that either.
:(
I haven't given up on Joss completely, btw. Watched the first episode of Dollhouse today, and while I can't say I liked it, it was at least interesting. Also, even if I stop buying the comic for myself, I shall still be buying it for other people, so I shall still be reading - in the increasingly vain hope that at some point all the time/money I spent on this thing in the past two years will be justified.
Also, big apologies to those of you I buy the comics for. I haven't got around to posting them yet. Will make sure to do so before I go away next week.
Spoilers for Buffy no 28 within
In fact, this isn't really a proper review. For that, I recommend
beer_good_foamy's (apart from his dig at the BSG finale, which I don’t agree with, so there!). He points out both what is good about this issue – the fact that it’s well written with good dialogue and characterisation and finally everyone is talking to each other, which they've signally failed to do for most of the series. It's even structured in a clever way so we see everything through Andrew's eyes, with his conclusions sometimes being at odds with what's actually happening, like in Storyteller. Also, the art is somewhat less horrible than usual, provided there are only a couple of characters in a panel, though Jeanty still seems to be under the impression that Tibet looks like Switzerland with yaks. beer_good_foamy also points out the issue's major weakness, which is – essentially – that Buffy’s plan is stupid – so stupid that it makes her stupid plan in Chosen look very clever indeed. I would agree with that. I would also reiterate, as I have before, that no matter how well Jane E wrote her arc, she was always going to be hamstrung by the fact that the whole Everyone Loves Vampires (even though they still kill people and openly admit to being evil) And Hates Slayers plot has been set up so badly that it’s still very hard to take Buffy’s big scaredy runaway as anything else but ridiculously out of proportion to the threat faced, which she herself has helped ramp up, what with acquiring a large enough arsenal to take on a small country – always guaranteed to make the general public paranoid.
The fact that Buffy's decision to do this remains unexplained to the reader both in terms of plot and in terms of character development doesn't help. Apparently, it's one of those back story things that both Joss and Scott Allie tell us are not going to be filled in, (except where Willow's concerned) and that we are quite wrong-headed to think are necessary to understand where Comics Buffy's coming from.
In other words, as I’ve said before, there’s been far, far too much tell for the amount of show, which has pretty much crippled the story IMO.
So far, so no different to the previous 27 issues, you might say. So what is it that’s made this one the potential tipping point for me?
Weirdly, it stems partly from watching that vid of Joss's speech/Q&A to the American Secular Society. I say weird, because I really liked Joss while watching it. I thought he came across as intelligent, funny – even nice, which must be pretty rare in Hollywood. I agreed with a lot of what he said.
However, I also realised yet again something that I first understood some years ago, which is that what interests Joss in drama and what interests me are often very different things.
For instance, I don't know about anyone else, but it was plain to me listening to him talk and answer questions that of all his work so far, his heart is given to Firefly/Serenity. That show and its cast and its unrealised potential are his great love, rather than BtVS, and certainly rather than AtS.
That's fine. I can even understand why he would feel that way, given what happened to Firefly. But I'm afraid I can't agree with him. I just didn't like the show – so much so, that even though I watched about 7 out of the 12 episodes while staying with
peasant_ a few years back, I went home and couldn't be bothered watching the remaining eps. I still haven't seen them.Realising this again, I had to face up to the knowledge that what floats Joss's boat in drama and what floats mine only coincides some of the time- which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that unfortunately, no matter how well written the latest arc of the comic is, I find the whole thing horribly, horribly dull!
I've read the latest issue twice and both times one side of my mind has been thinking: very clever, good character voices, pity about the art but at least it's not as bad as last time, while the other has been thinking: God, I'm so bored!
The almost-romantic scene between Buffy and Xander in this issue encapsulates my boredom with the whole story, in fact. See, I always found the idea of B/X (which is where I was sure Joss would eventually go from the first time I watched Welcome to the Hellmouth) dull as ditchwater, plus clichéd. 'Heroine falls in love with all sorts of unsuitable people, only to wake up one day and realise that Mr Right has been standing beside her all the time.'
Okay, so when Joss does get around to it, it won’t be as some of the more extreme B/X'ers want it to be, with Buffy tearfully confessing how wrong headed she's been all these years and Xander graciously forgiving her and folding her into his manly arms. But Joss will get around to it in time, no doubt, and I will still be bored by it.
YMMV of course. It all depends what you want from BtVS, both the show and the comic. If someone's main focus in the show was the Core Four relationship (or Core Three, as it has sadly become in the comic), as Joss's was, and is, then I can see that the character dynamic in the comic is like a dream come true. Season 1 all over again. However, that was never so for me. If BtVS hadn't 'opened out' and changed over the years – if it had stayed like season 1 – I would never have carried on watching.
I could see why the Buffy/Willow/Xander relationship was so important when they were in high school, but once they were out in the big wide world, it seemed only natural that they should go on to form other relationships outside their tight knit little group. That's part of growing up. And in the show, they duly did, Xander with Anya, Willow with Tara, Buffy with Riley and then Spike, plus her parental relationship with Dawn.
The fact that the three friends broadened their horizons and got out of their incestuous little huddle (which I appreciate they had good reason for getting into while they were in school) without destroying their friendship was one of the things I thought worked best in season 7, in fact. I always took that scene in the high school corridor in Chosen, where the Core Three and Giles meet up, exchange early season BtVS-type banter and then go their separate ways as symbolic of the fact that they didn't need to be living in each others' pockets any more to remain friends. They could have a life apart from each other - without cutting each other out of their lives.
Yet in the comic, they've withdrawn back into that huddle and no one outside it really seems significant – not Dawn, not Kennedy, and certainly not the cipher comic book OCs (though Satsu has just about managed to develop a personality).
That's one thing I don't like and find horribly dull – the narrowing down of the characters' focus - their regression, if you will. Another is that -once again appreciating that YMMV, especially if your favourite character is, say, Willow or Xander – I find the comic horribly lacking in characters with edge. Faith comes closest (or did, not so much now), and failing her, Dracula. With him out of the picture, and Faith towing the Follow Buffy's Stupid Plan to the Letter party line, there just isn't anyone. They're all just –boring.
And this is when I really miss a character like Spike, or Anya, or BtVS Cordelia. There isn't a cynical voice off disagreeing with/making fun of our heroes and telling them they're all going to die. There isn't even a mysterious (and annoying) character commenting cryptically on the action, as was Angel's role in season 1 and early season 2.
From what I understand, the character of Angel wasn't Joss's idea, but David Greenwalt's (and interestingly, in his Secular Society Q&A, Joss says that he'd conceived of the character as Latino, hence the name), and I can believe it. From everything Joss has said, including in this Q&A, he didn't really ever 'get' Angel as a character, though he could see the potential for angst and life lessons for Buffy in B/A.
I expect the character of Spike was Joss's idea. I believe what Joss says about preferring Spike to Angel, seeing Spike as more evolved (because he sought his own soul out instead of being cursed) and finding Spike more congenial to him if only because Spike is such an iconoclast. However, I don't believe this preference extends to having anything else to say about Spike – to, in fact, rather regarding him (and Angel) as now getting in the way of the story Joss wants to tell.
Am going off slightly at a tangent there. Sorry. So yes – no characters with edge in season 8. Plus, apart from Buffy/Satsu (which, as
beer_good_foamy points out still seems to have served no purpose in the story except to get the comic noticed more in the media), no relationships with edge either. Yes, we got a brief bit of almost-Spangel in the web comic, but I think we all know that was just Joss messing with the 'shippers because he's sick of them pestering him. He's never really going to do S/A. Which brings me back rather circuitously to my point, which is to say again that the essential dullness (to me) of the story and characters in the comic has made me realise all over again that what interests Joss and what interests me are just not always the same, and in the comic they're poles apart. Maybe in the end the comic will have something profound to say about something, I don't know. I just know that you can be as profound as you like but – as Joss himself says, when talking about didacticism and drama in his Q&A – if your readers/viewers are bored along the way, no one's going to get it anyway.
Not saying that everyone is bored, but I'm afraid I am. The only remaining matter of interest to me in the comic now that Allie has flat out said that we've seen all we're going to see of Spike and Angel and we're never going to find out what brought Buffy to her current pass character development-wise, is the identity of Twilight, but since after reading this issue I strongly suspect that Giles is Twilight, or at least working for him, I'm not much enthused about that either.
:(
I haven't given up on Joss completely, btw. Watched the first episode of Dollhouse today, and while I can't say I liked it, it was at least interesting. Also, even if I stop buying the comic for myself, I shall still be buying it for other people, so I shall still be reading - in the increasingly vain hope that at some point all the time/money I spent on this thing in the past two years will be justified.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:53 pm (UTC)I certainly don't see B/X happening, if at all, until the bitter end. I'm just not sure I'm interested enough to hang around and find out.
As for the Vampires!Yay! storyline, I can think of so many ways that could have been handled better, even in the waste of time that was the one-offs arc (where only the Buffy/Andrew issue was at all relevant). I can buy from what we've seen - Buffy's private army, the bank robbing, Simone - that the public might be iffy about Slayers, but the vampires!yay! thing? Unless it turns out that the whole world everywhere is under a spell, it just doesn't make any sense, even taking no 25 out of the equation.
The oneshot was more than enough to show that telling that story takes you too far away from Buffy right now
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Having said which, I think the one-shot was unnecessary. All the vampires!Yay! stuff could have been done in dribs and drabs in the main book easily enough and far more effectively.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 06:10 pm (UTC)I meant that all that we've seen about the vampires!yay! is from remote sources. And likely, these are also the sources of what Buffy is seeing too. In a way, we're seeing the world through Buffy's limited POV as she has cut herself off from humanity. All she can see is that Harmony is on reality TV and loved, that the media (who of course are never, never biased and have bottom line that would affect them pimping out vampires to raise ratings) are also fascinated with Harmony and her message.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this.
Simply that humans loving vampires is about...humans loving vampires. It's not about Buffy. Where as humans hating Slayers is about Buffy. The first is a story that may affect Buffy, the second is the story of Buffy's experience.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 12:54 pm (UTC)To be honest, I shall be quite surprised if that turns out to be the case.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 06:22 pm (UTC)Going back to the actual source - the story - there's nothing to me that says the entire world loves vampires. And Allie has later gone on to say that yes, there are groups out in the world who naturally wouldn't be vampires!yay!. But that won't be shown because the story isn't about "vampires in public", but about the world seeing a Slayer try to murder a vampire on TV and demonizing the Slayer. The story is about the world "hating slayers", not "vampires in public". Basically, I'm saying Allie unofficially named it wrong those many months ago.
So now all the fans want to see the "vampires in public" and aren't happy that the vampires aren't in public. And hey, while we're at it, many people want to see two very specific vampires in Buffy's sphere of the public. And we're not seeing it. It's not the story. Fans no happy. Fans mad. The Vegemite Effect (http://deird1.livejournal.com/67823.html) or the 'I was expecting the movie District 9 to be a scifi alien flick as I understand it, but it wasn't that and so it sucks'.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 07:15 pm (UTC)I'm really serious here. I'm quite stunned at how 'average' the whole thing is.
If I didn't already know JW had anything to do with it, I could never have guessed. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 01:07 pm (UTC)You know, I did make a point in my post- quite a few times, in fact - of saying this was my personal opinion and that I realise that fans whose character of focus/interest is different from mine might well feel differently. Obviously, the story interests Joss or he wouldn't be writing it, and if it interests you, that's great. But it just doesn't interest me - not enough for me to be able to ignore all its very many faults. I'm only a part time worshipper at the church of Joss, and this issue of the comic, which I can see intellectually is better than most yet still find deadly dull just brought that home to me.
As always in fandom, YMMV.
And for the record, it's not all about lack of Angel and Spike for me. It's also about lack of anything of interest at all. I didn't think Joss could make Buffy dull but he's managed it where I'm concerned.