So comics. Not something I've ever been interested in. Not even a little bit. I've picked up the occasional Dykes to Watch Out For, and I read Fun Home a little while back, but that's it. I even got a couple of Tank Girl compilations for my birthday last year and never cracked the covers.
And then Buffy came and changed everything. Joss is so killing whatever was left in me that was not totally dorky already.
If you aren't a giant dork like me, you might not already know that Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 exists. Not as TV, though. As a comic book. It's canon--Joss is intimately involved in it, even writing a lot of the issues. And so I ordered a copy of the first bound set (issues 1-5) from the library, thinking I'd check it out.
Instantly hooked. Ordered the rest of the existing season (1-13 so far) from Things from Another World. Am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next issue, and the one after that. It ain't TV, but it ain't bad. And, for the most part, it's the same old Buffy.
This is likely just because I am not used to comics, but I have trouble telling the characters apart the way they are drawn. Giles and Andrew were particularly tough to identify at first. It becomes a game, however, figuring out how quickly I can ID them by their dialogue. And the dialogue is fairly to very true to character.
I'm not going to get too much into plot details here, since there might be folks reading who haven't picked these up yet and I don't want to give too many spoilers. What I will say, though, is that yes, they are far less feminist than the show. The characters are comics, they're drawn like comics, and there is a fair amount of gratuitous female flesh. That being said, the characters are fairly true to themselves, so if you thought they were impressive on Buffy, you'll probably still like them in comic form. The plot is still developing (time moves slow in comic-land, apparently), but so far I have only one major problem with it, but that problem is from a very recent issue, so I won't spoil it quite yet.
Anyway, they have to my recommendation. If you're a Buffy head and you want more, the comics are worth a look.
There are Angel and Firefly comics as well. Does anybody have any experience with those? Are they worth seeking out?
Comments (4)
Are the hunky guys super ridiculously superhero buff too, or is it just the women who are idealized?
Posted by jenny | April 15, 2008 3:50 PM
They seem kind of hunky in a no-neck way, but it's hard to tell, b/c they generally wear a lot more clothes than the girls do. Except for one Buffy dream sequence early on that features naked men.
Posted by Grace | April 15, 2008 4:49 PM
I started reading the Angel comics, but I got bored, probably because I'm not so emotionally involved with the Angel TV series as I was with Buffy. I somehow couldn't quite figure out what was supposed to be going on. I'm not really experienced with comic books...
Posted by sofiya | April 16, 2008 12:04 AM
I've read the bridge comic between the Firefly series and Serenity the movie, "Those Left Behind". It ties up some of the loose ends nicely and would have made an excellent one or two-hour episode of the show, but it's nothing special.
Posted by Robin | April 18, 2008 11:01 AM