Buffyverse Comic Reviews

ANGEL: YEARBOOK is out.

2011-05-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

That is all.

More thoughts on that and my incredible happiness later on.

Please tell me what you think of the book. It's quite honestly a dream come true for me.

Moment #1: Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

2011-05-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

So this is it. The end of the countdown. IDW's Angel has been such a great ride, and it's been awesome revisiting my favorite comic book of all time and picking out moments for this list. Truth of it is, there are far too many great scenes for a list like this to be even somewhat functional. Every writer and artist and editor brought something different to the table, making Angel a challenging, fun, tragic, and compelling read. I'll miss it more than I can possibly express in a blog entry, and it's been lovely writing about this comic on this site for years. I was happy to play a part in the experience for some of you, and I hope that my tale inAngel: Yearbook goes over as well as this site has. Seeing the comments pour in has been since I've announced that this site will close soon has been remarkable, and I'm humbled and grateful that folks seem to care... a lot.

So thank you.

Moment Number One

Angel: After the Fall #16

Going Back/The Happy End

Not only is this the strongest moment of the entire Angel run, it might also be the most controversial. I've seen some people--granted, I don't think these folks were fans of the run to begin with, but their loss right?--cite the end of #16 as a reason why nothing that happened inAfter the Fall matters. They're wrong. The "reboot" (though, it's not that, per se) has more of an impact on the characters and the larger Buffyverse than anything that happened while the characters were actually in Hell.

Short version: After Gunn killed Connor, Wesley and Angel come to the same conclusion at the same time. Wolfram & Hart need Angel for their prophecy, and they have already said that if anything happens to Angel that they can just pull a healthier him out of a different time. Upon hearing that, Angel bids Wesley farewell ("Thank you, rogue demon hunter") with a callback to when Wesley first joined his crew, and goes after Gunn. It initially reads as if Angel is simply trying to get revenge on Gunn for killing his son, but as they fight, Angel tells Gunn that it's his chance... Gunn's turn to rise up and become the hero that he's been trying and failing to be since he was turned into a vampire. Gunn swings his flaming sword and cuts Angel's head off. What follows is the most brilliant sequence of pages that I've ever read in a comic book.

Spike, overcome with raw emotion, rushes toward Angel's dead body, echoing what the reader is thinking: "What the hell is that? What the hell is that?" Wesley explains the situation to Spike and tells him to keep an eye on Illyria... and that he will too. And then, as the scene fades to white, Wolfram & Hart dials back to the last moment in reality that Angel was alive... the alley. We finally see the alley fight play out, but this time, our heroes remember everything. Illyria remembers the horror she inflicted and went through, and takes it out on the army. Angel, now a vampire again, now knowing that his son is out there alive somewhere, fights. Spike fights. The dragon, free from the bonds of Wolfram & Hart's control, makes short work of the evil army... leaving an opportunity from Angel to right the biggest wrong he'd committed: failing to save Gunn.

Angel quickly stakes the vampire who would sire Gunn and then bends down to his friend. Gunn is dying. He's lost an eye, he's beaten, and he remembers killing people for months in Hell. He remembers killing Angel... and he remembers killing Connor. He begs Angel to let him die, but when the vampire with a soul looks down on him, he says, "Sorry Charles. It's not that easy."

As Angel takes Gunn to the hospital, we see that Wolfram & Hart has closed up shop. They've left LA. Angel has won--for now.

When Angel arrives and the doctors take Gunn off of his hands, Connor comes. But... well, let's get to that in a moment. I kind of want to end on that note.

Thing about the dialback. It means that Gwen, the dragon, Groosalugg, Connor, Angel, and maaaany others aren't dead. It means that Gunn isn't a vampire. It means that whatever happened in Hell didn't really happen... but it also means that it did. Everyone experienced it. Everyone remembers it. Everyone who committed atrocities, everyone who lost someone, everyone who clung to each other and grew closer because of their hellish surroundings... their entire lives are changed. The public knows about monsters. The public knows about Angel and recognizes him as their hero.

And the dialback changed more than just the minds of the people involved. Wolfram & Hart's use of ancient magic brought back some of the old ways for a short while, such as limbs dusting and all that fun stuff, and it also opened a door for a certain baddie named James to step through... but that's later.

For now, the crew was left to deal with the psychological trauma. But Angel... well, he kind of had a bit of a silver lining. Connor walked up to him in the hospital and, upon seeing his son, Angel is overcome with emotion. As tears flow down his face, he hugs his son.

Connor says, "It's okay, Dad. It's okay. In fact, it's kind of a happy ending, isn't it?"

Angel replies, "I'm not sure. ...I've never had one before."

And that's all. That's all. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Angel: Yearbook comes out tomorrow. See you then.

...5, 4, 3, 2...

2011-05-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Moment Number Five

Angel: After the Fall #12

Shanshu is Not So Much with the Yay

In a devastating turn of events (I mean, when you're stuck in a Hell dimension most turns of events are devastating, granted), it is revealed that the Shanshu Prophecy--the light at the end of the tunnel for Angel, the promise that, after playing a pivotal role in the apocalypse, he would be granted humanity for his rewards--isn't as good as it sounds on paper. Wolfram & Hart wants Angel to know that the only reason they've been keeping him alive is because he eventually will Shanshu... but the role he'll play in the apocalypse is for the side of evil.

Oh, and Wesley is the one who is made to deliver the bad news to Angel. Talk about twisting the dagger. In a move almost as daring as making Angel human, Brian Lynch and Joss Whedon flipped the entirety of Angel's arc from the end of Season One until now on its head, giving Angel new reason to say "Screw destiny" and fight for himself.

Honorable Mention: Illyria Crosses Over (Fallen Angel: Rebirth #1).

Moment Number Four

Angel: After the Fall #15

Connor's Dead

Not much to say about this one. It's the most devastating death in all of the comics. It showed Angel at the end of his fight, Angel with nothing left, Angel after the worst has come true. Gunn killed Connor. When I read the issue, I instantly thought of the moment in Not Fade Away when Connor tells Angel that Wolfram & Hart is going to destroy him. Angel replied, "As long as you're okay, they can't." This moment took the series in a direction of true tragedy, which made the eventual eucatastrophe of an ending all the more happy.

This is what I wrote when the issue first came out: "His son, Connor, dies in his arms. After being stabbed by Gunn with the very flaming sword Angel fought with in the battle with the LA Lords. I wouldn't even mention this in the review, but the simple fact is that the death and the way it's handled is one of the reasons why the issue is so good. It's insanely risky, but the pay off is enormous. Because when Connor is stabbed, it feels like everything goes quiet. As Angel says, the "World has just ended." Seeing Angel holding a dying Connor is one of the saddest things I've ever seen, and the final, hopeful words that Connor gives his father will leave Angel with the will he needs to fight. And to win. Major kudos to Brian Lynch, Chris Ryall, Joss Whedon, and the entire IDW team for going there. You made me cry like a little baby, and I'm grateful."

Honorable Mention: Everybody Dies (Angel: After the Fall). I mean, c'mon. Gwen, the Dragon, Groosalugg, Connor, debatably Illyria, Wesley (again), Spike (briefly), Gunn (vamped, but still). It was a death fest. Luckily for the on-going series, a lot of these folks were saved from death, but the repercussions still affect the Buffyverse to this day.

Moment Number Three

Angel #33

James is a Baddie

James was a hard character to like. Thanks to him, we saw a very out-of-character Cordelia in Aftermath, the problematic introduction of angels into the Buffyverse, and a whole lot of mythology that didn't really vibe with the established universe that these characters live in. Say what you will about Willingham's run, but revealing James as a villain completely wiped that slate clean. Nothing he'd done in Aftermath counted for anything. He's a friggin' god being kinda... thing... Well, he's damn powerful, and it's been established now that he had lied to Angel the entire time. He wasn't an angel. Everything he'd done and said was a ruse. He turned from a strangely stuffy, humorless, angelic version of Groosalugg into the creepiest villain in all of Angel. Harvesting demons? Incest? Getting Anne pregnant with his weirdo spawn? Put nothing past this guy.

Also, he ripped Angel's hands and feet off just a few moments after his true intentions were revealed. Gotta love a guy who's quick to act.

Honorable Mention: Dedication to Wes and Fred (Angel: After the Fall #17).

Moment Number Two

Illyria: Haunted #2

Spike and Illyria's Conversation

This moment from Scott Tipton and Mariah Huehner's ILLYRIA series makes it here for a few reasons. One, it's the closest the comic has come to feeling like the show--it hits the voices, the tone, and everything else right on the head. After the Fall was up there in quality, for sure, but the story was so epic that it felt more like Angel the Movie. This feels like the show. I was waiting for the credits to start when I heard these character speaking--and yes, not read, heard. This conversation is full of pay off, character development, pathos... everything you'd want from these characters after they'd gone through so much together. Spike talks about his sacrifice for Buffy, which is something fans had been wait for since Angel hit the funny books, and Illyria talks about a tragically beautifully dream she'd been having about Fred and Wesley. It was moving, smart, funny in parts, and everything an Angel comic should be.

...8, 7, 6...

2011-05-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Four days until the big goodbye to Angel from IDW Publishing. Get the tissues (and battle axe) ready!

Moment Number Eight

Spike Asylum #1

Spike Goes to Mosaic

There is definitely a Joss quote that says what I'd like to say about the opening scenes of Spike Asylum #1 (Brian Lynch and Franco Urru's first Buffyverse issue ever) way better than I'm about to, but I suck pretty hard at finding quotage. More than Buffy Season Eight, more than Fray, more than Angel: The Curse (though I enjoyed all of those beginnings), Asylum showed that a comic about a Buffyverse character could be as alive as a televised episode about a Buffyverse character. Spike's personality was big--he moved with violent grace, he jumped off of the page, and when you read his dialogue it was like James Marsters had recorded a voiceover of the damn thing. He does that, doesn't he? Dresden Files? Anyway, I know it's not so much a moment as a jump in quality, but it set the standard for not only IDW but every Buffyverse comic to come. And, I must say, the rest of the Angel run from Scott Tipton, Mariah Huehner, David Tischman, and Brian himself has done a great job of not dropping this incredibly slippery ball.

Honorable Mention: Lorne Exits Stage Right (Angel: Music of the Spheres). The passing of Andy Hallett hit the Buffyverse hard. He was a lovely and talented person, and IDW did the classy thing of retiring the character he played. Giving him a hero's exit, this John Byrne one-shot ended on a bittersweet yet heartwarming note. When Angel wonders aloud, "He's... one with the universe now. But I'd like to think he can still hear us. And that he knows how much he's missed," the reader can read Lorne's response: "Oh, I can hear you Angelcakes. And it's music to my ears." The book ends with a wonderful text tribute from Mark Lutz, who played Groosalugg and was a personal friend of Andy's.

Moment Number Seven

The End(s)

Angel: After the Fall #17 & Angel #44

It was impossible for me to split these two for a couple of reasons. One, they're both giving a new and somewhat definitive end to Angel as a series and two, the latter pays direct tribute to the former.

The first one has Angel, after visiting a comatose Gunn in the hospital and forgiving him (nicely echoing Angel's way less forgiving trip to visit Wesley in the hospital in Season Three--really shows how much Angel developed in After the Fall), walk down the streets of LA, this time toward the light. He reiterates his mission statement of redemption, acknowledges that he's done bad and is destined to do worse, but promises that--for now--he's here to help. Perfect closure.

And yet (thankfully) the series continued. Angel had more fights to fight, more demons to slay, and more friends to lose. It all came to a head in the final issue of IDW's on-going Angel title when he teamed up with his son to take down the villainous James (AKA Myr, whaddup). With the baddie scrunched, Angel walks into Wolfram & Hart, gives them the business, and then leaves, ready to go hang out with his son. He walks down the street, toward the light, in a direct reference to the final page of After the Fall. This time, however, as Angel walks, we see the faces of the people he's loved and lost looking at us, the readers. Wesley, Fred, Lorne, Cordelia, Doyle... a fitting, sad, happy, hopeful end.

Moment Number Six

Angel: After the Fall #4

Gunn Takes a Picture

This may not jump out as a big moment. It's quick, it's human, and a lot of other stuff was going on. However, this moment convinced me that Gunn was the best villain in the history of Angel because of how damn human he still was. In the final scenes of the fourth chapter of After the Fall, Gunn and his buddies infiltrate Wolfram & Hart in order to plant some explosive. Gunn also ransacks the place, saying that he's looking for supplies... but the only thing he takes is an old picture of him and his buddies. Angel, Fred, Wesley, baby Connor, Cordy, and Gunn... back when everything was happy and there was no betrayal and no Hell and no abandonment.

Oh, also, Gunn blows Wolfram & Hart to pieces right after that.

Honorable Mention: Eddie Hope makes an entrance (Angel #28). The first few issues of Willingham's run started the slow boil of what would become the James arc that would stretch through the end of the series. The first few issues were rather talky, which made Bill William's action packed back-ups starring the devil-on-a-mission Eddie Hope something fans looked forward to at the end of each book. The best Eddie Hope tale might be the first one; a simple assassination in a bar in which Eddie States his purpose... getting rid of those who committed atrocities in Hell. Simple, bad-ass, dark.

Thanks to Jay Valen Perez!

The Beginning of the End

2011-05-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

Alright, we're in the home stretch. IDW's ANGEL is winding down and so is this site. Over the next week, I'm going to sort of honor both of these long-running series and countdown to the finale--ANGEL: YEARBOOK--the same way I counted down to the first issue of After the Fall... with a countdown.

Here are the TOP TEN MOMENTS OF IDW's ANGEL

MOMENT NUMBER TEN

Angel: After the Fall #3

Angel's a Human

This was the moment in After the Fall when Brian Lynch knocked everything off the table and showed that he was playing a whole new game. It was risky, it was scary, and it was the biggest damn reveal in a Buffyverse story--ever.

Yeah, bigger than that one.

In fact, I remember writing this: "The issue ends with what is pretty much the biggest revelation/cliffhanger/thing in the history of not only Angel, but the entire Buffyverse. Holy crap."

The moment informed everything that happened in the following fourteen issues and made the timeshift back to non-Hell in #16 a real loss for Angel. Angel truly had what he'd always wanted, but it was the worst time for it--his dream come true was being used as a punishment against him, a means to stop him from helping his friends and his city. Gotta love when Angel gets poetic.

Honorable Mention: Gunn and Illyria Hit the Road (Angel #23- Become What You Are). Both of these characters did pretty terrible things in After the Fall, so it was amazing to catch up with them in this issue to see where their heads were. Brian Lynch handled the delicate situation in a sad, epic, funny, and hopeful way.

MOMENT NUMBER NINE

Angel #38- Cat's In the Cradle

Rooftop

What are you talking about, this moment didn't make me teary. You're a liar and a bully and FINE you're right.

In a moment that echoes another one of my favorite IDW scenes, Angel and Connor share a quiet moment and a hug on the roof of the Hyperion. Angel knows that he has to leave in order for Connor to grow, and Connor recognizes this too. It's the most open moment of affection we've ever seen between the two and, after all the horror they've suffered... it's very, very earned.

Honorable Mention: The Feeling After Reading After the Fall #1. Now, this isn't really a moment... it's a whole issue worth of moments--no, more than that, it's what I felt after reading the thing. It's hard to explain, but I knew that we were at the start of something special. I had no idea that Angel would eventually be on-going, no idea that Brian would tell the first story as well as he did, and no idea how important this book would become for me. But I felt something. This is how I tried to describe it. Can't believe that years have passed so quickly.

Brian Lynch's Spike

2011-05-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Brian Lynch's Spike - A Retrospect on the Series that Made Me Love Comics

by Patrick Shand

Listen up, boys and girls. Time for quick math lesson.

Five issue mini. Plus this Brian guy. Plus a vampire with a soul… no, not that one—

Equals this:

I guess it all started with SPIKE: ASYLUM.

When it was announced that Joss Whedon was going to continue Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a comic, I wanted to bone up on my funny books before the first issue hit the stands. I’d read some comics as a kid (I remember digging this oversized Stephen King Creepshow book), but it had been years since I’d picked one up. I took a trip down to the comic shop, picked up some of the very early IDW Angel books, and enjoyed them. It was until a few weeks later when I returned, wanting more of IDW’s Angel, that I saw they had a spin-off. Spike. I picked up Asylum #1 and everything changed.

I’d later discover Scott Tipton’s Angel: Auld Lang Syne and the three Spike one-shots (one by Peter David and two by Tipton) were up there with Brian’s work in quality and feels-like-the-showness, but Brian’s work on Asylum #1 was the first comic book that showed me what the medium can do when a phenomenal writer and a brilliant artist join forces on a story that they’re both dying to tell. And I guess that’s really saying a lot, because writing comic books is kind of what I want to do with my life.

Brian followed Spike: Asylum with Spike: Shadow Puppets (a sequel of sorts to Smile Time) and a prequel to his and Joss Whedon’s Angel: After the Fall called… well, Spike: After the Fall, that shows what Spike and Illyria did in Hell while Angel was healing from his unfortunate every-bone-in-his-body-breakage. Each of these Spike minis went above and beyond; not only did they feel authentic in both dialogue and characterization, they introduced new characters that readers actually cared about, developed both these newbies and the already existing characters so that they would be changed after the book, and centered around themes. Actual English major approved themes. Not “death is a theme” or “betrayal is the theme.” Single words aren’t themes; they’re motifs, and that will always bug the shit out of me. But Asylum, Shadow Puppets, and Spike: After the Fall had solid themes; statements about these characters, and he let those statements function as the backbone of his series without beating us over the head with a message.

Brian and Franco Urru (who is essentially the comic book version of Fonzie; that man is so suave) did great work on the Spike trilogy and Angel: After the Fall, so you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that they’d be doing an on-going Spike series together. I was at NYCC at the IDW Panel when it was revealed and Brian said he’d keep writing it until they made him stop. After the panel, I talked with Brian about some of the possible plots (we’ll cover that in an upcoming interview) and man did it all sound good.

But then, time passed. Other stuff came up, things were delayed, and then… it was announced that Dark Horse would be taking the Angel license from IDW. At first, it wasn’t clear if Brian would be able to continue Spike with IDW, because there were some quotes taken out of context that said Spike would remain on-going… but, as it unfortunately turned out, the Spike title would pass to Dark Horse as well.

So it goes.

It was at the next NYCC, a year and a half later, that I finally got my hands on Spike #1. It was everything that I wanted it to be; funny, epic, beautiful, smart, and (like all of Brian’s Spike stories) balls out insane. The issue sees Spike team up with Beck and Betta George to go to Las Vegas to stop whatever bad is brewing there; and that bad happens to be Wolfram & Hart. Erm, and a giant monster made up of Elvis impersonators.

The Spike on-going that became an eight issue Spike miniseries was about Spike leading a group of friends. In Buffy, Spike was fine at leading a group of lackies… because he didn’t give a shit if they lived or died. Then, he operated alone. Then, when he fell in love with Buffy and got a soul, he fought Buffy’s side with the Scooby Gang. Then he fought on Angel’s side. During After the Fall, he was the leader of a group of warriors, but he didn’t lead; he withdrew from the fight and set up a sanctuary, electing to protect his “flock” rather than lead them into battle. So Spike treads new ground, setting up our bleach-blond hero as leading a group of people that he cares about for the first time. He has to calculate decisions, he has to make tough calls, and he has to deal with everything Angel and Buffy have been dealing with for years. Spike grows, as he grew in all of Brian’s stories.

Spike is also about a serial killer named John who believes Spike has his soul. It’s about Drusilla, and how the (as Kr’ph so uneloquently put it) “hell moment” made her sane. It’s about how Spike gave her her sould back and unknowingly broke that sanity. It’s about hard choices. It’s about realizing when it’s time to walk away for your friends for their own safety. It also functions as a bit of narrative bridge to Season Eight, as the last issue has the infamous bug ship land in the middle of Las Vegas.

For me, Spike does a bunch of things. I could see the story growing as I read more than any story I’d read before. Like the eponymous character, Spike as a series was trying to find its footing. By issue #5, when Stephen Mooney took over as artist and Willow Rosenberg guest starred, Spike and Brian were knocking it out of the park. After that, every issue was better than the last until the epic conclusion.

For me, Spike makes certain hard-to-swallow elements of Season Eight a bit easier to take.

For me, Spike isn’t just a “this is how Spike gets the bug ship” story, which—and I don’t know why—was the reason why some people bought the series. For me, Spike was an ending. It ends with Spike leaving Beck and Jeremy and Betta George behind, because he realizes what being a leader means… and he doesn’t want the people he loves to deal with the fallout. He says, “No one is in control of anything. Innocents become dangerous. Heroes can turn on a dime. Sometimes, evil can do an about-face and want to help. People come into your life. People leave. Everything’s changing. Everything’s always changing. Bottom line, the only thing any one of us is in charge of… is ourselves.”

And so, Spike leaves on the bug ship in pursuit of the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart. Spike leaves Beck, Jeremy, George, Drusilla, Biv, Marv, Anna, and the rest of the Mosaic staff. He leaves IDW and he leaves us.

Spike was only on-going for eight issues. But Brian wrote three Spike minis before this that all seem integral to the narrative and character development of Spike and his stellar supporting cast… so, I guess, in a way, Spike sort of was this sprawling, on-going tale of a vampire with a soul trying to find his place in the world. Since Brian wrote twenty-one issues of Spike as a whole—and that’s not counting his twenty-two issues of Angel, his Last Angel in Hell special, and his upcoming short story in Yearbook—I can say that this was a good run. A beautiful, weird, hilarious, and goddamn I’m so sad it’s over run.

I wish Brian got to write the series how he intended it. I wish it didn’t have to get rushed due to some license crap. I wish Brian could write Spike forever, because no one gets Blondie Bear like that man. I wish a whole bunch of stuff, but you know what? This is what’s really special about Brian Lynch’s SPIKE series. Even all those wishes won’t come true, Brian managed to deliver a fantastic story… and that’s what I’ll remember when I think about, re-read, and talk about SPIKE for years to come.

Angel - The Main Title

2011-05-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

Angel – The Main Title: A Retrospect on IDW’s Vampire with a Soul

by Patrick Shand

It’s no secret that this site has been more of an IDW’s Angel site than anything else. I’ve be accused of being biased, and here’s the thing—I guess I am. I’m biased because on November 21^st 2007 I fell in love. That’s the day that the first issue of Angel: After the Fall, the series that would eventually becoming known as the Angel on-going (or, as folks on the message boards call it, the main title), hit shelves. Brian Lynch’s tale of a vampire with a soul turned human, a city sent to hell, and a group of people learning what being champions means was so true to the TV series that I couldn’t help but obsess about the series. That book is essentially the reason that I’ve stuck with this blog as long as I have. Reading Brian’s seventeen issue arc planted the seed that would grow into a full blown love of comic books. But that’s just me. What Brian (and many other writers) have done with this series is larger than just me. So here’s my attempt at looking back.

After the Fall was an epic in its own right, but it also set the stage for things to come in what would become the on-going Angel series. Gunn was in a bad state (both physically and mentally), Illyria was trying and failing to find herself, Spike was dealing with leadership issues, Connor was growing comfortable with his new role as a champion, and Angel… well, Angel was working hard at getting back to doing what he did best—fighting the good fight. The first arc in the new post-After the Fall world, novelist Kelley Armstrong took Angel in a radically different direction. With Illyria, Spike, and Gunn off trying to work their issues out, Angel spent the arc assembling a new team in a new location. The new cast consisted of Angel (kinda the obvious one), Connor, Gwen, Kate (who had about the quickest and strangest return of all time), a werejaguar named Dez, and an angel named James. The arc wasn’t very well received, but it did serve in setting up what would be a major arc in the later issues.

And like a true prodigal son, Brian Lynch returned. I remember sitting at the New York Comic-Con panel when it was announced that Brian would be coming back for a few issues on Angel AND writing an on-going Spike miniseries. It was pretty damn awesome, and he definitely delivered. His first issue back on the series centered on Gunn and Illyria—the two characters most damaged by the events of After the Fall—and bashed them together so they could work their intense issues out. The issue showed a return to both the quality and tone of AtF, as did the subsequent issues. Brian Lynch teamed up with Juliet Landau to pen a Drusilla two-parter (set during the events of AtF) that set up some stuff that would pay off later down the road in the Spike on-going. But all good things have to end, and Brian’s run on the main title ended with a two-parter that took Angel and Spike to Comic-Con with a story that was a brilliant callback to the “Halloween” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And then, Willingham. The superstar writer of the multiple Eisner Award winning Fables took over Angel for what was supposed to be the long-run; Bill Williams wrote back-up issues starring newcomer Eddie Hope for the entirety of Willingham's run. While it took Willingham a while to get some of the voices down, the plot was clearly going somewhere epic. The fallout of Wolfram & Hart sending LA to hell was starting to show, some demon ladies dedicated themselves to Connor for mysterious reasons, Spike had a bit of a soul issue, and the “angel” James was revealed to be a demon God who was planning on using Earth as his own personal demon farm. Willingham’s sights were set on the long-term plot, and things were coming to a nice boil when writers Mariah Huehner (also the editor) and David Tischman came in to pen a touching end to the arc Willingham had set up. Angel, realizing that Connor was becoming a champion in his own right, decided to leave his son to run Angel Investigations. It was an end of sorts, with Illyria spinning off into her own miniseries and Spike leaving to head his own title. This left the main series to focus on the elephants in the room: things were rough between Connor and Gunn, James was still a giant threat, and Angel was in major need of some more screen time in his own title.

Mariah and David stuck around to finish off the on-going series. I did an interview with them at NYCC 2010 right before their The Wolf, the Ram, and the Heart arc kicked off, and man were they pumped. They were telling an story that, to me, sounded as epic in scope as After the Fall was, and they only had six issues to do it. And they had to live up to both the endings of Angel the Series and After the Fall. Big shoes to fill. Hell, big shoes to even look at from a distance. I was both excited and sad for the end, but the confidence and I-can’t-wait-for-you-to-read-this factor that Mariah and Tisch were giving off gave me faith.

Fast-forward half a year later (man, time flies) and here we are. The on-going Angel title is done. Some things are left unresolved, such as Gunn and Connor’s beef (at one point, Gunn believes it is his duty to kill Connor before he becomes the next James… though, while it’s not spelled out, one can assume that Connor’s defeating James and saving Anne might make the guy okay in Gunn’s book) but the majority of the series has been tied up in a big, bloody, epic, and at times inappropriately sexual package. Angel was pulled into a possible future to help Wolfram & Hart deal with what James has done to the planet, while Connor, Gunn, Laura Weathermill, Mr. P, and Anne are readying themselves for a similar battle in the present. Like all good time-travel stories, it’s a bit of a mindfuck when you think about how certain events transpired, but all in all it’s a fitting conclusion to Angel. Angel and Connor beat the bad guy together, Angel takes a stand against Wolfram & Hart, and—with a page that echoes the end of AtF while paying tribute to the friends Angel has lost over the years—our hero walks off into the proverbial (and, luckily for Angel, metaphorical) sunset.

So. Angel the on-going series. The main title. IDW’s Angel. Angel #1-44. It was a great, uneven, beautiful, epic, memorable, intense, and goddamn awesome run. I wish it could’ve gone to issue #100 and beyond… because I already miss it.

(In just a few days… “Spike Rests in Peace: A Retrospect.” This blog loves Brian Lynch. Similar to the Angel and Illyria articles, this blog will take a look at Brian Lynch's epic Spike on-going series, as well as everything he's done with Spike in the past.)

Illyria's True Form: A Retrospect on the Character and the Series

2011-04-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

Illyria's True Form: A Retrospect on the Character and the Series

by Patrick Shand

I’m gonna come right out and say it. Illyria changed—er, well, maybe evolved is a better word—more than any other character while Angel was on television. Granted, Cordelia and Wesley are usually the examples folks bring up of long-term character development in the show, but I’d argue that Illyria’s development was even more dramatic… which is especially impressive, seeing as she was only appeared in eight episodes.

The same holds true for the comics; the only difference is, while her character growth was exponential, so was the number of books that she appeared in. Other than the big brand name characters like Angel and Spike, Illyria appeared in more IDW comics than any other character.

Prior to the fall of LA, she went on a couple of adventures that occurred during the final season of Angel. Most notably, Joss Whedon allowed writer Peter David to cross her over into his Fallen Angel universe, where she embarked on a quest to tap back into her original power. It’s a crossover that I can’t believe we were lucky enough to get; the dark dark dark (and snarky) world of Bete Noir clashing with the… well, dark dark dark (and snarky) world of Angel? Incredible. As it’s set during the TV show, there isn’t much development for Illyria, but we do get some wonderful flashbacks that serve to explain Illyria’s connection to plants. This was further paid off when Illyria got her own series, but we’ll get to that later.

Illyria big comic book development began with Brian Lynch's Spike: After the Fall. When Los Angeles was sent to hell, things got all crazy. With the sun and the moon out at the same time, vampires felt equal parts euphoria and oh-no-I’m-about-to-burst-into-flames; werewolves were able to get in touch with their beastly side while they were in human form; and, most extraordinarily, Spike got his own prequel. Illyria co-starred with him, and while the plot focused on Spike’s war against a hellishly cruel pixie named Non, the threat of Hell’s impact on Illyria bubbled under the surface. The demonic environment was tapping into her old power, forcing her to timeslip, overflow with emotion, and revert to her delicate Fred persona at the worst of times. What changed Illyria the most, however, was that Spike became her protector. She valued that and sought to keep his interests only on her; going as far as to kiss him to assert her ownership, embracing the sexuality of Fred to get what she wanted. The series also showed Illyria trying and failing to understand the position of a leader. Spike wanted to stop Non and defend the humans he was protecting. Illyria, trying to live up to the same standard, ended up killing Spike’s human friend Jeremy, thinking that “his absence will only strengthen (their) flock.” Illyria’s emotional imbalance boiled over during Angel: After the Fall, also penned by Brian Lynch, when she pulled a Dark Willow and sought to end all of existence to stop the suffering. It took a potent psychic dose of Wesley and Spike’s memories of Fred to bring Illyria down and stop her rampage.

Those memories served as a catalyst for the development that followed. She co-starred with Gunn in the road trip/action comic Angel: Only Human. Both of them, in order to deal with their own inner demons, fight literal demons. With Fred’s memories fresh in her head, Illyria is trying to find a balance between her demonic self and her undeniably human side. Wesley helped her on the way toward understanding that, and Spike took care of her when she needed it… but she took the biggest leap forward when she went out on her own.

ILLYRIA: HAUNTED

Like Spike before her, Illyria’s story was just too big to be contained in the on-going Angel book. Long time Angel and Star Trek writer Scott Tipton teamed up with Mariah Huehner and Elena Casagrande (the former the writer/editor and the latter the artist of the on-going Angel book) to tell the best Illyria story ever told. While there are appearances from both Angel and Spike, Illyria is largely on her own in this four issue miniseries. After a conversation* and a bit of an adventure with Spike, Illyria discovers where she needs to go to get the answers to the questions that have been defining who she is since the Fall -- the Deeper Well.

(* That conversation, by the way, might be my favorite scene from all of the Angel comics. Illyria and Spike open up to each other in awkward, emotional, and brave ways that only those two characters can. Everything that was set up by Brian Lynch, Peter David, Scott Tipton, and Joss Whedon himself in these comics and the show is paid off and more by Tipton and Mariah in this scene. Speaking of her dreams, Illyria says:

ILLYRIA: There is one, it repeats. I can see them. Hear them. But from far away. Mundane things mattered so much to them And they shared a sense of… peace. Completion.

SPIKE: I know. You could feel it. I… I knew that feeling once. There’s nothing like it.

ILLYRIA: I… think it makes me jealous. Weak, just like every other human emotion.

SPIKE: You always get that wrong, blue. Love like that makes you stronger than anything. You can save the world with a love like that.

ILLYRIA: Oh?

SPIKE: Never mind. We’re talking about you.

ILLYRIA: In my dream, they are… what they could have been. What they should have been. Without me. Their future spreads out before me, unfolding. So short and simple and yet… it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.)

When Illyria arrives at the Deeper Well, she finds exactly what she didn’t know what she was looking for. After throwing a God-king sized tantrum at what she perceived to be the fruitlessness of the trip, a glowing blue gem catches her eye… and when she touches it, it transforms her. And that, to me, thematically echoes what Wesley said to her as he died in her arms. “It was good that you came.” It really isn't the where or the what of the transformation that matters. It's the why. It's the because. She's ready to find answers, to explore herself, to explore humanity; and the answer is there, waiting for her to reach out and grab it and become who she is supposed to be. And what she becomes… well, that’s sort of left up to the reader. I know what I think. I like what I think. But the text does somewhat leave it open to interpretation. Illyria says, “Such burning… I taste the other… Oh, it’s sweet, it’s… everything, always, forever… You and… him? I… we become. I have ended. I have begun.”

And with that, Illyria finds the one thing that she’s been trying to imitate since Wesley showed her what was acceptable and what was not. She has reason to fight; she feels the connection between humanity and herself. Between the Earth and herself. This new connection with the Earth—which is a brilliant bit of character development, as it seems to stem (HAR HAR HAR) both from her affinity for plants in the television series as well as the revelation of what plants mean to her in Fallen Angel: Reborn—helps her out quite a bit in the obligatory Big Bad battle that she faces in the final issue of the mini. She defeats this full powered Old One not with brute strength, but by embracing her connection with plants; with life.

At the end, after a brief and well-earned moment of connection with Spike, Illyria discovers that time and space has opened for her again. It ends with her and her new pet (a squidly beast named Pancakes) on a beach, about to do what she knows she needs to do. She says, “I am her ending. But she, and I, and him, and them… we matter. We lose, we love. And in doing so, we become.”

Powerful words, especially coming from Illyria. She has truly become a completely different character after the IDW comics, and looking at her entire arc is just phenomenal. What Brian did with her in After the Fall and the events of Illyria: Haunted particularly stand out. It was a great run, with an utterly outstanding ending.

The TPB of Scott Tipton, Mariah Huehner, and Elena Casagrande’s Illyria: Haunted comes out May 18th.

All the News; The End of BCR

2011-04-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

You've all be loyal, excellent, amazing, beautiful, shiny, kind, smart readers. I've been a less loyal and kind blogger; but I'm gonna ask this of you anyway. Even though I haven't been blogging of late, I've got some pretty cool ANGEL stuff coming up. So pleeeease read this.

A lot of you have been wondering what's going on with this site. Most of you guys think this is dead. One guy even said it was so dead that it was bloated and stinky. I'd totally agree with "bloated," but stinky? Pah.

Please order this book from your local comic shop, or right here!

I wrote one of the stories collected here, and I'd promise you a big ol' hug if you get it.

Anyway, I figured today would be a good time to spell out what's going on with the blog, what with all the Season Nine news. It's all been announced. Andrew Chambliss and Joss are co-writing all of Buffy: Season Nine, which Georges Jeanty is drawing. The Angel title will be written by... well, no one, because there is no Angel solo book. He's sharing the spotlight with fan favorite slayer Faith, in a book titled Joanie Loves Chachi--er, Angel and Faith. Marvel writer Christos Gage will be joined by artist Rebekah Isaacs for the series. Each book will be 25 issues.

Angel & Faith #1 - Art by Jo Chen

But I'm going to make this clear, just so I don't cause any confusion/people-calling-me-stinky. This blog will not be covering Buffy Season Nine. This blog is closing in June.

Wait. Don't go. Stay for a sec.

I've got a few great things coming up here, and I don't want you to miss it. First of all, I owe you all a bit of insight into why the blog is closing. I don't want to carry on the illusion that I can continue reviewing the issues; it's not fair to you guys. You've been loyal readers and I can't thank you enough for sticking with me. Thank you thank you thank you. See? Not enough. But I'm a writer at heart. I've been working on pitches for comic books, proposals for novels, and scripts for films. I'll get to that in a bit, but basically, writing doesn't always pay the bills. I have to spend my free time teaching, tutoring, and (urgh) working retail jobs to make ends meet. So, unfortunately, this blog is in its final days. However, you can expect 7 more articles before we go out.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Illyria's True Form. Other than Angel and Spike, Illyria has received more attention than any other character in the Angel books. She co-starred with Gunn in Only Human and Spike in Spike: After the Fall, crossed over into a different universe with Fallen Angel, and even got her own spin-off courtesy of Scott Tipton, Mariah Huehner, and Elena Casagrande. This will be a retrospect of her development, concentrating mostly on the finale of "Illyria: Haunted."

THIS MONTH: Angel- The Main Title. It's no secret that, since After the Fall captured my heart, this has been an Angel blog. When Mariah and David Tischman bring the on-going series to a close, I'll be there to do what I used to do every month... review the shit out of it. It'll be half a review of the final arc and half a retrospect on the entire series, "After the Fall" included.

MAY: Spike Rests in Peace. The blog loves Brian Lynch. Similar to the Angel and Illyria articles, this blog will take a look at Brian Lynch's epic Spike on-going series, as well as everything he's done with Spike in the past.

ALSO MAY: Remember the countdown we did to After the Fall? I honestly get a little misty thinking that far back. I'm going to do the same to countdown to Angel: Yearbook. The top ten moments of IDW's Angel series.

ALSO ALSO MAY: I'm going to do something for Yearbook. Some kind of write-up. And man oh man, I have to urge you guys to pick this book up. Mostly because it's amazing. It has the final Buffyverse stories from Scott Tipton, Chris Ryall, Peter David, David Messina, Stephen Mooney, Elena Casagrade, Brian Lynch, and more... it also has a little of me. Thanks to the endlessly lovely folks at IDW, I was able to make my number one dream come true. I wrote an Angel comic. So please, pick the comic up, because the story and, really, all the people who worked on the book mean very much to me.

JUNE: This will make me sad. I'm going to do a little retrospect on the site, giving my favorite moments, comments, etc.

ALSO JUNE: Final post. We have to end this way. A long, in depth interview with the one and only Brian Lynch.

And that's pretty much that. I have to thank you all so much for reading, because it has meant a lot. If you want to read more of my comic book reviews, thoughts, and stories, you can follow my personal blog here --> My Blog. If you liked this blog, I promise promise promise you'll dig this. I'll still be posting way too many, way too long Buffy/Angel/Spike reviews and posts, so Whedonites will want to save the link.

I'll also be doing a weekly article for popmatters.com. You can read my FRAY 101 article here.

So clearly, I'm not abandoning the Buffyverse. I love this 'verse harder than any other work of fiction. Hell, my number one dream was writing for it, and thanks to a few lovely editors, some damn good writers, and an especially talented Irish artist, I've realized that dream. Oh, and... thanks to you guys, too. I doubt IDW would even know my name if you didn't make this blog such a big deal. So I kinda love you a lot.

Hope that makes things clear. Keep commenting, keep following me, and I'll keep loving you the way that we all love Buffy. Unreasonably.

PS: If you want more Buffyverse reviews in a much more timely fashion than I can provide, I'm happy to point you all to the best in the Buffverse business... Buffyfest. Dan Roth, a good friend of mine, writes reviews of issues that are sometimes better than the actual issues. The dude is legit. Follow them as if they were a really geeky Moses.

Spike #3

2010-12-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

Spike #3

"Everybody Loves Spike"

Written by Brian Lynch

Art by Nicola Zanni

Spike #3 was good.

I love Lynch's writing. It's funny, emotional, smart, and true to the characters. At this point, though, we're almost as the halfway point in the Spike series, and I'm still waiting for an outright epic moment. Lynch delivered the "oh shit" moment early in Angel: After the Fall. In fact, we get two of those moments in the first issue and then another game-changer at the end of the third. With Spike: Asylum, I was wowed from Page One. While I'm consistently laughing while reading Spike, I've yet to be emotionally riveted or outright captivated. I like what's going on in Spike's head, and I hope we get a bit more depth to it. I love the cast. Losing Franco this early on in the series was devastating, but my thoughts are more concentrated on hoping he gets well soon than wishing he were on the book. The art in this issue is mostly good, though it's a bit static, making the action scenes a bit awkward and confusing. I can't wait until Mooney jumps on the book.

But again, I liked it. There is an awesome scene between Betta George and Drusilla that made me laugh out loud, and everything with Groo is wonderful. I just want a bit more emotional weight or tension or anything to heighten the drama at this point. There is a moment between "Jeremy" and Spike that's pretty dramatic, but it's brief. For me, After the Fall was the best story ever told about these characters, and I'm looking forward to when Spike ups the ante and brings the drama to the same level. Not at the expense of the humor, of course, because the funny is a bit part of what makes Spike Spike... but I'm just waiting for a bit more. Fully enjoying what I'm reading, aside from some confusing action scenes due to the art, but waiting for it to be captivating.

On the technical side of things... there were just so many typos. It's happened in the past and I usually don't include it in reviews, but it was actually jarring this time. On the title page, the chapter name suffers from the same problem that the second half of the "Connorland" issues had... it's not updated. The book is called "Everybody Loves Spike," but the title page still says "What Happens in Vegas Slays in Vegas." George says "He hangs out with Angel and company. Well, I think switched teams but that's still him." and I don't know what was really being said there. Two pages later, Spike says "There are different... kinds of vampire." leaving off the "s." In the next panel, the dialogue bubble doesn't have a period. Again, not problems with the story... but jarring to see so many typos one after the other in the final product. I hope they get fixed for the collection!

Now, don't get me wrong. I loved the first issue and liked the second and the third. I know Brian has amazing, character-altering stuff to throw our way... I just hope that it happens soon. We've got five issues until Spike bows out, and I trust IDW and Brian more than anyone--yep, anyone--to tell a story worthy of the character. I can't wait until I'm able to give an outright glowing review to another Spike issue.

Oh, and Beck is awesome.

Buffy Reboot

2010-11-29T12:15:00.000-08:00

Where have you been, commenters?

Have you guys seen the awesome interviews with Mariah Huehner and Bill Williams? Just keep on scrollin'!

Also... if you guys ask nicely and butter me up (I mean with actual butter, I'm kinky), I might just maybe will review Buffy #39 on Thursday.

Oh, also, there's a Buffy reboot. Click for my thoughts. Tee hee.

Interview with Mariah Huehner... and review for Angel #39

2010-11-17T14:31:00.001-08:00

Angel #39

The Wolf, the Ram, and the Heart part 1

Written by David Tischman and Mariah Huehner

Art by Elena Casagrande

This review is going to be peppered with the best kind of pepper outside of actual delicious pepper. VIDEO INTERVIEWS!

Don’t mind the roar of the audience in the background. Mariah and I were surrounded by adoring fans of Angel and this site. There was a whole coliseum of them.

That, or we were at New York Comic Con.

Now, the issue.

It feels a lot like I wanted “Angel: Aftermath” to feel. Back when “Aftermath” came out, the biggest Angel arc had just ended. The character’s lives were changed forever. I wanted to read something that was simultaneously different from what came before but still consistent with the characters and the tone of the series. My expectations weren’t really met with that series, and now we’re in a somewhat similar place. The arc that Bill Willingham started and Mariah and David carried out has just finished. By the end of the arc, everyone had been changed forever. Connor took over as champion of LA, Spike left for Vegas, Illyria set out to find herself, and Angel decided to take a step back and let his son grow as a man. So again, I was faced with the same expectation. I wanted consistency, but I knew that things couldn’t be the same.

This book excels at doing just that.

The parallel with “Aftermath” continues, as both books feature the main action of the story moving away from the Hyperion. Thankfully, though, Kate doesn’t go around offering anyone churches in this book. Connor decided to sell the Hyperion… essentially because the writers are trying to take a more realistic look at things. It takes a shitload of money to own a place as big as the Hyperion… and the only reason that normal folks are able to afford owning that kind of space is because they rent rooms to paying customers. Angel and co., not so much. And this book finally addresses what I’ve been wondering since early in the series: How in the hell can they afford that place? Well, they can’t. Not anymore. And Connor, Gunn, Laura, and Mr. Polyphemus make a necessary move to new digs.

Now, about that crowd. It’s a good group. I’m still waiting for Laura to have a moment that really sells me on her (Polyphemus’s was when he let Spike use him as a ball), but she’s tolerable. I love the pairing of Connor and Gunn, though. I’ve been anticipating some actual movement for their characters since “After the Fall,” because… well, Gunn killed Connor. And then, last time they were together, Connor said that he wanted to cut Gunn’s throat. A bit unsympathetic, no? This book makes up for that. Connor realizes that he was in the wrong for that, but there is an air of tension between them that goes beyond that. I’m excited to see how the clearly capable Huehner and Tischman explore that.

There is a creepy scene with James. Or Jamerah? Or the other creepy alieny name he had before. Everyone else is going with James, so I’ll agree with them. They’re my fictional buddies. So, James. He kinda… has a goo… baby… thing. It’s similar to the birth of the soul eater, but this one looks very different. No idea where any of that is going, but it ups the horror factor to a level that Angel as a television show rarely took it to. It facilitates the different mood that the comic is playing with.

Now, to Angel. Angel Angel Angel. We knew thanks to the kind and good smelling folks over at Buffyfest that our eponymous hero was going to be removed from our current timeline. Not much I can say about that, other than the folks that pull him out are pretty much from where you’d expect. Good ol’ Wolfram & Hart. While they’re creepy as always, they seem less… lawyery in the future. And this time, when they say what they’ve said before (“We’re not the bad guys.”) I… kind of believe them. At least, they’re not the worst bad guys. James really screwed stuff in the future up, and Angel realizes that that means something he did in the past (his/our present) must have really been off base. They, for some reason, were unable to stop this threat. So Future W&H wants to enlist Angel to somehow make things right.

But Angel would rather jump off a building than do that. So he does.

And because this is a comic, it ends on that dramatic moment. It was solid read, and it felt very much like the beginning of an epilogue. The end of IDW’s Angel is coming, and Mariah and David are crafting what promises to be an excellent story.

Plus, Angel is wearing a hoodie. He sure knows how to rock a hoodie.

--VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH DAVID TISCHMAN NEXT WEEK--

Back-up story: “Eddie Hope- Sunset”

Written by Bill Williams

Art by Elena Casagrande and Walter Trono

While Angel gets a new beginning, Eddie Hope comes to an end. Not a deathy kind of end, though. The “Holy shit, that guy Angel and his crew really beat me up… and kind of for nothing. Gunn wasn’t even on my list, but I went after him anyway. I’m going beyond what my original mission was. Time to say fuck that and go home.” And that’s essentially it. The actual writing is more eloquent than that, but as the title implies, Eddie lets the sun set on his vengeance gig. It’s a good, if abrupt, end to the character. Bill Williams has consistently done a great job with shoving a big story into four pages, and while I would have liked a bit more breathing room for Eddie’s swan song, this does the trick. He was an engaging character, and the back-ups were always a pleasure to read. He’ll be missed.

Don’t miss my interview with Bill Williams, where he comments on Eddie’s final chapter: http://buffyversecomics.blogspot.com/2010/11/eddie-hope-and-bill-williams-bow-out.html

Oh, and just a bit of “I hope” here. While Eddie’s story end with the first part of “The Wolf, the Ram, and the Heart,” I really hope that it’s collected with the previous installments in the “Connorland” hardcover. It would be super awkward to have this one Eddie back-up in the final hardcover.

Eddie Hope and Bill Williams Bow Out: Exit Interview

2010-11-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

SPOILERS: Read Angel #39. Don't be that guy. You know

that guy. That guy who gets spoiled by reading an interview

because he/she (girls can be "that guy" too, don't be sexist)

didn't have enough patience. Be warned, potential "that guy."

IDW Extravaganza
Pat Shand Interviews Bill Williams
Again: Exit Interview
Writer of the Eddie Hope backups in ANGEL
and SPIKE: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

Buffyverse Comic Reviews: So, Eddie Hope dies. Very sad.

Kidding.

So Bill, Eddie Hope’s story end with today’s issue. After escaping from Team Angel, everyone’s favorite bright blue devil came to the realization that it’s time for a break. How do you feel Eddie’s decision to return home wraps up the character?

Bill Williams: Well, the plan was to have him introduced into Team Angel, but that was scrapped which works just as well for me. I’m not sure that the vengeance road has room for a full minivan.

For me, I got a solid grip on the character when I had another character ask him why he never went home when Los Angeles snapped back to normal. Eddie Hope’s name became ironic for him in that he considered himself damaged and corrupted by the events of After the Fall. He was afraid that he would poison all of his friends and family if he did not quarantine himself. That put him on an even lonelier road.

So in Angel #39, Eddie has suffered a nasty physical beating and it makes him reconsider what he is doing. There is also a nice callback to the Spike mini-series. It was fun for me to be able to write a few lines of dialogue for Angel in the Angel comics.

My truncated run with Eddie ends with the scene I always intended to conclude the series with, just a bit early. Eddie’s story is over, but in comics anything is possible.

BCR: Fans have been all a-twitter. Is Eddie modeled after Wentworth Miller?

BW: That’s a question for David Messina who is a great guy. An Italian publisher found that we both worked on the Eddie stuff for Angel. They were interested in publishing Italian editions of some work I published in the states and David more or less vouched for both sides so I’m at the contract stage for those foreign rights. Like I said great guy.

When it comes to the art I do my best to leave out any reference to celebrity. It’s one of those things that can really bite you when it goes wrong and I did not know that David would be the lead artist on the Eddie stories until the last minute. I suppose one of the many reasons not to provide reference is the danger that you will end up with bad photo tracing as a result.

I was at the Wizard show in Austin chatting with Brian Denham as he was drawing a Spike commission for a fan and man that guy gets it. He can pull up a photo on his cell phone and draw a likeness that is spot on and not deadened by the process.

That said, I can see a little passing resemblance to the Prison Break actor.

BCR: What was your favorite moment in your tenure as an Angel/Spike writer?

BW: At the end of Angel #38, Eddie has been beaten unconscious by Team Angel. Originally in issue #39, Eddie was to have a hallucination and have a bit of a dream walk where a few stray bits of his character were stitched together and it was surreal and charming and funny. But that bit was cut away in the change over in the creative teams when Willingham left the title.

I liked writing the banter between the Spike and Eddie in the Spike: Devil You Know mini-series, which will be out in trade form early next year. I pitched it as ‘24 with Vampires’, but by the time I was through it was more like ‘48 Hours with vampires’. Spike has such a wonderful sense of humor, that it’s a shame not to use it.

But my favorite bit that hit the shelves was the extended fight between Team Angel and Eddie in Angel #37 and #38. Eddie is fairly certain that the vampires and monsters on Team Angel will kill him if they beat him and Team Angel is furious for the abduction of Gunn. There’s a lot of drama in that fight.

BCR: Now that Eddie's story has wrapped up, what is next for Bill Williams?

BW: I am so far behind in my effort in the National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30. To hit that mark, you need to manage around 1700 words a day. I lost a week already as I finished a new comic book project that just hit the digital distributors. So, I need to pull out a few 5,000 word days to hit the writing deadline. The novel is a mystery set in Austin where a young police detective chases a killer and wanders into a variation on a Hitchcock classic.

The reason I lost that week was that I have a new webcomic launching on December 1. A few years back, I wrote a story that is loosely based on some events I lived through when my cat was hit by a car and I had to help him rehab. Biscuit & Lefty: A Cat’s Tale is available for digital download from WOWIO. www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=223401 It is also in the works with Graphic.ly and Comics Plus and more. It will launch for free as a webcomic on December 1 off of my blog www.billwilliamsfreelance.com which is chock full of fun stuff. The story is so sweet that my letterer Thom asked me if I really wrote it. The art is by Bobby Diaz and me and I’m pretty proud of it. Bobby penciled it and I inked and colored the pages.

At that show in Austin, I talked with Brent Erwin from Ape Entertainment and he seems keen on a pitch I sent in for one of his licensed properties. So I might have a few projects in the cycle from them.

But with the comic book field, you never know.

Big thanks to Bill Williams for the interview! Check out the links he provided and be sure to catch the end of Eddie Hope's saga of vengeance in Angel #39.

Angel #38, Illyria #1, Spike #2

2010-11-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

Angel #38

Cats in the Cradle (the conclusion of "Connorland")

Plotted by Bill Willingham, David Tischman, and Mariah Huehner

Written by David Tischman and Mariah Huehner

Back up story ("Eddie Hope: Knockout Punch") written by Bill Williams

Art by Elena Casagrande

The scene on the roof.

That is all.

Alright, kidding, but I seriously could end the review there, because... just damn. More on that later. A few loose ends get tied up here: The Sisterhood of the Jaro Hull is defeated in one of the best fight scenes in the comics, Spike's soul flu is cleared up with a few lines of a dialogue (all that needed, for me), and the chief characters (Angel, Connor, Spike, Illyria, and Gunn) are all taken or about to be taken to interesting places.

Gunn is back in the group. The Eddie Hope back-up story shows him being saved by the gang, but the main action of the issues shows Gunn already back in play. He was my favorite character in After the Fall, and the whole reason that arc resonates so well is that all the crazy shit that happened while they were in hell matters because they remember it. Gunn's character is at such a rich point, and he hasn't really been explored that well since Become What You Are. But he has a little moment in this issue, where he throws a weapon to Connor and simply says, "We'll talk later" before proceeding to whoop Sisterhood ass. Based on conversations I had with writers David Tischman and Mariah Huehner at NYCC (videos to come!), Gunn is in for some wonderful, deep, and startling development.

Spike. Oh, Spike. Probably the main issue most folks took with Willingham's run was his characterization of William the Bloody. Mariah Huehner wrote this article that promised there was a twist concerning Spike if fans just waited, and that twist came to light a bit earlier in the arc. Spike's got a soul flu, which was a fallout from his ghosties all the way back in Season Five. In this issue, Spike is back to his... well, Spikey-self (Is there really an adjective that can properly describe him? No one word can sum up his Spikeyness.) and it's great to see. He recognizes that he's been acting out of character, and he's off to do some soul searching (mwah!) to find out what he's made of.

Illyria leaves the group after a conversation with Angel that happens in between scenes. To see this convo, read Illyria #1. These two issues really work well together, even though they're kick ass on their own. For those who didn't really dig Willingham's characterization of Blue Thunder, this issue and Illyria #1 are here to show you that IDW is on top of things.

Now, Angel and Connor. I'm bunching these two together because, really. With Connor in the picture, Angel is really all about his son. He's not interested in aerial sex, wearing costumes, or hanging out with skinless dudes. Just Connor. And Connor knows this. And here's another thing that the both of them know: Connor is special in a way that has yet to be discovered, and the Sisterhood--creepy as they were--helped show them that. And Connor isn't going to be able to tap into his true power and see how far he can stretch it in order to become a champion while Angel is around, worrying about him every second of the day. Angel and Connor have this conversation, which has been in the works since... well, I was going to say since After the Fall, but I think it dates as far back as the finale of Season Four. Angel walked away from Connor, leaving him in the safety of a normal life. But Connor didn't belong there. Connor belongs where he is now, playing the role of a champion... and Angel recognizes that it's finally time for him to walk away, leaving Connor to fend for himself the way Angel did when he came to LA. The scene on the roof is beautiful, calling back to both Home and Angel and Connor's post-resurrection reunion in After the Fall #16. A lot to live up to, huh? Well, it easily succeeds. It's heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, if that's possible. You see those broken pieces of your hearts? They're super toasty.

I'll end with a quote from the issue. Angel says to Connor, "None of that matters. What matters is you and me and the people in this city. The city needs you. And maybe you'll find you need it, too. So... maybe it's time I stepped back for awhile and let you find each other."

That is Angel. That is all.

PS: The title. Jeez. Fits. Wow.

Illyria #1

Haunted (part one of four)

Written by Scott Tipton and Mariah Huehner

Art by Elena Casagrande

...My god.

So, so very good. While IDW has given Illyria a lot of attention in the past (Fallen Angel: Reborn, Illyria: Spotlight, Angel: Only Human, etc.) this book gives us more insight into her perspective than we've gotten... well, ever. Since her arrival in Shells, she's been a mystery. We've seen her develop, change, grow... but she remains alien. Now, we finally get a good look at her thought process, and it's fascinating. Illyria has great conversations with both Angel and Spike that sheds light on all three characters in new and interesting ways. And that's really what good writing is. Developing characters in a way that makes sense considering their history, but keeping it all unexpected. Illyria: Haunted treads new ground, which is kind of ironic seeing that the plot is taking Illyria back to where she started: The Deeper Well.

All in all, it might be the best Buffyverse issue since Brian Lynch's epic "Become What You Are." It's right up there with that issue, and also the recent and awesome Spike #1. Good things are coming in with all of the IDW Angel comics, and I can't wait to see what the dream team of Mariah, Scott, and Elena have in store for us. If the next three issues are anywhere as good as this, I just might have to break my "Serious Fans Do Not Squee" rule.

Actually, I may have broken that when I read the dream sequence where everyone but Illyria and Spike were crayon drawings. What an outright brilliant way to tinker with the medium.

NOTE: After Illyria #4 is released, Scott Tipton will be dropping by Buffyverse Comic Reviews to give you guys "Illyria Annotated." He, Mariah, and Elena threw a lot of tiny jokes and references into the book, so let's see if you can catch them!

Spike #2

What Happens in Vegas, Slays in Vegas

Written by Brian Lynch

Art by Franco Urru and Nicola Nanni

The issue was good and fun. I'm finding that while the balance of Brian Lynch's Spike: Asylum, Spike: After the Fall, and Angel: After the Fall series was in tune with that of the television series (equal parts comedy, drama, and fantasy), the on-going Spike series is veering more in the direction of comedy. And that's not really a problem. It has a Spike: Shadow Puppets kind of feel, even more in this issue than the first. I can tell that there are bits that will have emotional payoff, such as Spike's upcoming reunion with Drusilla and whatever happens to Jeremy, who is revealed to be possessed in this issue by an agent of Wolfram & Hart. Seeing Spike taking the reigns as leader is awesome, and Brian Lynch utilizes the thought captions very well, showing our hero's thought process as he struggles to pave his own way. There continue to be awesome one-liners (Beck's "Weird, right? Whoa, someone must really want you to shush?"; Spike's "Gits like you mess with the mystique. Seriously, mate, the chocolate cereal vampire is embarrassed by you."; and John, the Big Bad's "I fully anticipate a slap on the wrist" come to mind) and fun character moments, but I'm anticipating the story really kicking off. The first issue had a lot of great set up and fun moments. This issue had a great deal of comedy, banter, and exposition. I'm ready for the arc to kick in, and I'm excited to see where my favorite Buffyverse writer takes his trademark character.

Also, for you continuity nuts and Whedonesquers taking issue with how these relate to each other and Season Eight, here's a quote from Mariah Huehner to clear things up.

Mariah Huenher: "You can ask Brian for more specifics, but it's not actually a continuity goof so much as gray area of time. And some inside jokes. Buffy is a year ahead of all the Angel comics at least, and while Spike will be more directly related than the others, we're not defining precisely how far behind it is. Hence why you're not seeing direct ref's to Harmony's show or the like. It's just a bit of humor for those who have read both, it's not to be taken as exact references to the timeline.

Spike's Vegas adventure takes place after Angel #38, and that's pretty much all the defining of the timeline we're doing for now. Illyria's story takes place after #38 as well, and after the little fight with Angel and Spike. When you see Illyria #1 you'll see how some of it ties together, but again, it's a tight time frame for only those specific events. The Spike adventure goes off on its own and has its own arc to manage. Brian's story was too important to hamstring with trying to force it all to gel perfectly. And a lot of the Spike comic had been established before the last story arc became the last one, so it's more on me than it is on Brian. We just want to link what we can, and hope fans will be forgiving and okay with the sort of vague "happens after #38" answer. :}

The way we see it, the pro-vamp attitude has probably been around awhile. Heck, there have been groups who really didn't understand how bad there were long before ATF (the ep of Buffy with the pro-vamp teens, for instance). So this is really just an extension of that, plus the fact that vamps are "known" now in this verse, and a little bit of a poke at the sparkly "romantic" vamps of "Twinkle". It's just playing with the idea that people are easily misled when they want to be. Our culture has often romanticized vampires, and this is just another facet of it. Which is, I'm sure, what the idea was in the Buffy comics. So we're just showing how it manifests in the Angel/Spikeverse side of things. :}"

Spike #1: Alone Together Now

2010-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

SPIKE #1

"Alone Together Now"

Written by Brian Lynch

Art by Franco Urru

Editor: Mariah Huehner

Review by Patrick Shand

This is why I do these reviews. This sort of comic is why I made this site in the first place.

You might have noticed a lot less reviewage here. I've been doing the IDW Extravaganza here for a while now, and that will continue until the end of their ANGEL and SPIKE series. But there hasn't been a BUFFY or even an ANGEL review for a while now, which, as some of you pointed out, kind of goes against the name of the site. Well, I can promise that the SPIKE series, the ANGEL series (starting with #38), and the ILLYRIA mini will be reviewed in full... hopefully on their respective release dates. With all of these books, my passion for the comics has been reignited, and I'm glad to be excited about this wonderful universe again.

Now. Spike #1. Brian Lynch. Franco Urru. Neil Patrick Harris.

Well, maybe not that last. More on him later, though.

The issue starts with some background stuff. We have Spike narrating a scene in Las Vegas that involves murder, mayhem, and bugs. Not giant bugs, though. Casino-bugs that do the whole swarm and eat tourists thing. Then, more Spike narration over a montage of his life. He gets sired, he arrives in Sunnydale, Buffy's fist makes its first appearance in an IDW comic by punching Spike, Spike gets a soul, and then Spike admits that Angel is better than him, much to the chagrin of a bunch of Spuffy fans. Actually, though, not at all. The page I'm talking about, the image that was used as the exclusive NYCC cover, is not about evolution. It's not about who is better. It's the way Spike sees things, on a scale from "pure evil" to "so noble it's coma inducing." Spike is below Angel because, to him, he registers as a "chaotic 8 and a half." And that's the thing. Out of context, I can see how this would piss off fans who have spent years arguing that Spike is better than Angel or vice versa, but in context, it's just indicative of where Spike sees himself of the morality scale. He's a bad boy, the anti-hero who functions as a champion. He more than recognizes this; he revels in it.

Then, more set-up. Spike narrates the montage of him going to Wolfram & Hart, him going to Hell, the reaction to the release of "Last Angel in Hell," and then... then, my favorite moment of the issue. The loyal readers of "After the Fall" get some closure with Spider, wrapped up in the funniest "Twilight" parody since... well, probably since "Twilight" itself. Wait, what? You mean... "Twilight"wasn't parodying itself? It was... unintentionally that bad? Erm. Well. Shit.

Anyway.

So the "Twilight" of the Buffyverse is called "Twinkle," and Spider wrote it about Spike. There are a few scenes from the movie adaptation in the comic, and it's hilarious. Also, it's the segue from the pages of exposition to the actual meat of the comic. When a bunch of vampires decide to feast on some fans waiting in line to see the third installment of "Twinkle" ("Re-clipse"), Spike, Angel, and Illyria swoop in to save them. I love how Spike's behavior kind of riffs off the development he underwent in "Boys and their Toys," because even as he's working under Angel, it's apparent that he's aching to get out on his own. The two ensouled vampires still have the level of mutual respect (well, maybe more of a mix of respect and familial contempt) that they gained for each other in "After the Fall," but Spike is clearly antsy to go on his own adventure.

Which he does.

He picks up Beck. A sexier, more fiery, out of control Beck. He picks up Betta George, who rides in a sidecar on Spike's motorcycle. Picture it.

Based on "Asylum" and "Shadow Puppets," we know the team has chemistry (and I can't wait to see how they work with the fourth member, Groosalugg, who comes into play in issue #2), but we don't get much interaction time in this particular installment. Which is fine, because this issue is very much a set-up for things to come. It's a solid book, rife with hilarious lines and moments that are so damn in character that you'll start to forget that Brian Lynch didn't create Spike himself, but it does seem to scream "This is just the beginning." We're in for the most epic Spike tale that's ever been told, and the starting pistol has been fired.

The rest of the issue is essentially fast-paced action. A demon is making itself a giant body by sucking a bunch of Elvis impersonators to itself... which Spike has to deal with without hurting any of the innocent Elvises ("Er... Elvisii? Elvees?"), much to Beck's woe. She'd rather just torch the thing and call it a day. However, for the safety of Elvises everywhere, and also for the plot development, it's a good thing Spike told her to hold back. Right before kills the bearded, tendrilley demon responsible for the abundance of Elvises, he finds out that whoever hired this strange fellow knows him.

And then, things get super sexy. Like, remember when Buffy had sex in space? Well, actually, bad comparison, that was kind of just weird. Point being, the issue ends with Drusilla and a new enemy, all sorts of naked, talking about our lovely, bleach blond protagonist. Drusilla says that nothing the man does for her will ever be real, because Spike has her heart.

And then, the plot twist. The man says that he can do her one better. Spike has his soul.

DRAMATIC-THUNK-SOUND-AT-THE-END-OF-LOST!

Oh, also, Spike pokes fun at space sex. Yes.

So as I write this review, in formal attire-- What, you're surprised? Do you think that Brian Lynch deserves any less than to be reviewed by a dapper man in a suit? Well, actually, as much as Brian does deserve that, I'm dressed this way for International Suit Up Day. Are you not doing the same? Do the same. Neil Patrick Harris and Brian Lynch deserve no less.

So.

I loved it. It was a fitting start to a series that I've been waiting for since it was announced almost two full years ago. Brian understand Spike in a way that no one else does, matching the quippy, clever Whedonesque dialogue with his own distinctly Brian-y style. I can't wait to see where he takes Spike, but I know it's gonna be one hell of a journey.

Also, check out Buffyfest's review of the issue.

Also also, man oh man... Franco's art. Best artist working in comics today, bar none.

Buy the damn thing.

Montage - short film

2010-09-27T22:29:00.001-07:00

Hey guys. Taking a quick break from the IDW Extravaganza to bring you the new short film from Stinky Burger Productions... "Montage."

Click the video twice to watch on YouTube proper. Blogger is cutting it off.

The meaning of life is circles. This is how it goes: Everything begins with the big bang. Life happens. You are born, you die. More life happens. Then, the apocalypse, and the Earth is sucked into the sun, kick starting the Big Bang again which, in turn, begins everything all over again. In the exact same way. Not one small difference. We live our lives over and over again, unaware of the never ending circle. Except for me. I met a genie (long story) and asked to be granted full awareness, so I could remember everything, every time. This is the story of how I tried to break the circle. MONTAGE Written & directed by Patrick Shand Produced by Steven Wisnowski Starring Patrick Shand, Erica Krilov, Danielle Juliet, Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson, Ryan Shand, James Shand, & Janice Shand.

Bill Williams Interview

2010-09-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

IDW Extravaganza

Pat Shand Interviews Bill Williams

Writer of the Eddie Hope backups in ANGEL

and SPIKE: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

BUFFYVERSE COMIC REVIEWS: For starters, how did you get into writing comics?

BILL WILLIAMS: I backed into writing comics and from there stumbled into writing prose. I have an art degree from the University of Texas and I’m a cartoonist by training. When I was trying to break in as an inker, I needed pages to work on, so I wrote a story and hired a penciler and before you knew it I was making pages and the pages became actual comics. In my college writing courses, I scored pretty well and even had a teacher tell me that I should write for a local paper after reading a movie review I had churned out in class. Since then, I’ve written a novel, a few dozen short stories, a few spec screenplays and fifty plus comics. There are more stories on my plate than I can finish at the moment and a few pitches floating around in some editorial offices.

At this point in my career, I’m more of a crime writer and a fan of the superheroes and the creatures in the supernature. Writing stories about devils looking for revenge and a charming vampire out to remind the world how awesome he is fits me pretty well. I currently split my time between writing and drawing, but more on that later.

BCR: You’re the first writer to tackle a SPIKE series since Brian Lynch essentially redefined the character with his SPIKE trilogy, “After the Fall,” and his upcoming ongoing series. What did you draw from to add your own spin on this fan favorite character?

WILLIAMS: First off, I love Spike. I think the best of the episodes from Angel Season Five starred Spike. I really drew on the early Buffy seasons and the last season of Angel for my tone for Spike. He’s a full fledged hero now and he’s totally engaged with the waking world. Spike seems to enjoy every moment in life. Even when Dru leaves him he feels it, but without all of the pouting.

Spike strikes me as the character that’s always having fun and I wanted the mini-series to reflect that. Comics are too grim and dour. I wanted to find a way to capture a charm and drive of Spike. Playing him off of Eddie worked pretty well because Eddie’s a pretty decent straight man.

In terms of mythology, when the series starts Spike is a character at the cross roads. He’s been told that Angel has dibs on the Shanshu Prophecy and he is shut out. Spike needs to find a new way to live when he meets Andrea in a bar. Since Spike is a hero, she‘s trying to kill him and steal a charm from him, but it sets him more along his true path. So many vampire stories are about family and Spike’s family tree shakes out a real villain.

Spike: The Devil You Know #4

Cover art by Franco Urru

BCR: There are so many aspects of Spike that fans fell in love with. So many people are passionate about the character for different reasons. What about Spike did you want to portray in THE DEVIL YOU KNOW?

WILLIAMS: In a lot of the stories I drew from, Spike had been reduced to a punch line. He was Illyria’s tackling dummy. Spike was the runner up in the Shanshu Contest. That was totally disconnected from the Spike I loved in his early appearances and I wanted to get back to that version of the character. In The Devil You Know, Spike’s competent and fun and charming.

The pitch I sent in to Mariah was detailed enough to give a good road map for ther story, but loose enough to improvise as I was banging out the pages. I think I wrote the first draft of the thing in two weeks. There was a wait and then the rewrites and the search for the art team and we struck gold with ChrisCross and Marc Deering.

BCR: The Buffyverse is my favorite fictional universe, easily. However, even I have to admit that the mythology sometimes suffers when a writer has a good idea. Angel’s facial hair situation seemed to change from “yeah, vampires can grow mustaches, because look how badass he looks” to “what? Vampires? Facial hair? Pshaw.” However, you seem to be making an effort to make the mythology a bit stronger by tying TDYK into the early Buffy episodes by having the Order of Aurelius show up. What about the Order interested you?

WILLIAMS: The World of Buffy plays by a set of rules and I like that about it. For the two series, they created new mythologies out of whole cloth. If they needed a demon casino, BANG there it was and it was never seen again. Same for a special school for Gwen. Here and gone. In most comics we tend to do endless navel gazing and end up choking on continuity. I wanted to bring an awareness of what has come before to the Spike mini-series and if anything, tie Spike into that larger world a little better.

I was struck that the Order seemed to die with The Master. It seemed that he was an order of one and that’s not much of an order. So I created the villain Tansy Fry as a kind of protégé to the Master who had predated Darla as the apple of the old monster’s eye. The nice thing about a character like The Master is that there are long deep pockets of his personal history that can be explored. I see that the Buffy comics are going to be doing a bit of that.

An early idea that I rejected in the writing process was to have a few distant surviving members of The Order arrive in Los Angeles looking for Spike. These badass vampires find Spike and immediately start bowing to him. They ask him to be the new head of the Order. But that approach lacked the conflict and tension that Tansy brought to the story. I wanted to write something bigger than a one joke story.

BCR: Coincidentally, The Master has just showed up in the BUFFY comic. It seems as if the comics are sort of making a return to the roots of the TV series. How do you think writing an ANGEL or SPIKE comic is different than writing an episode of the series?

WILLIAMS: The comic writing process is miles away from the television writing process. I’m based in Austin and I work with people all around the globe with the editor functioning as the coordinator for the stories. Most comic stories have one author. In the television model, the writers are in the same room and there is better collaboration and stories that get off topic can be nipped early on. Recently, I was brought in to by an independent production company to rewrite their pilot for a new one hour drama. I kept half of the original pilot and totally rewrote the back half of the project. That would never happen in comics.

More television writers are now writing comics, so they’re picking up our bad habits. The Master is an interesting plot device. He’s the pater familias of the Order and at the trunk of the family tree that includes Darla, Angelus, Dru and Spike and many others.

BCR: Tell us a bit about the process of developing the Eddie Hope character.

WILLIAMS: When Mariah hired Willingham to write Angel, he wrote a document that detailed where the series would go. It was not exactly a pitch document, because he already had the job. He pulled me into the project and set aside four pages a month for my little Eddie stories. I’m grateful for the work and the time in front of the audience. But Eddie was born as a single paragraph in that original document.

At our annual Clockwork writing retreat I wrote and emailed to Willingham my first Eddie story. He told me that I was missing the point and that the original script did not illustrate the premise. So, I told him that I could just have Eddie walk into a bar and kill someone. He said go with that. So the first story became the second story and I was off and writing.

For the sixth script, I had started Eddie off in a fight club story. Behind the bars in Whedon’s LA, there was always a demon fist fight going on and I wondered what would happen if someone organized that and made it a pay per view contest complete with wagering. So Eddie was in the middle of that and it was a story about Eddie taking a beating, a real hard loss. I turned in the first chapter of that story and thought about it a bit more. Then I contacted Mariah and told her that I wanted to get a do over and that I thought it would be more interesting to have him slam into Gunn and through him get into a fight with Team Angel.

I got the emotional handle on Eddie when I had a woman from his past track him down to ask him why he had not come home after LA left Hell. Answering that question gave me more insight into Eddie’s head.

By the time all is said and done, I think I wrote twenty Eddie stories and a dozen will see the light of day. I may rework and reuse elements of some of the stories that never left my hard drive.

Angel #38 Variant Cover

Art by David Messina

BCR: With Eddie Hope’s story rushing toward its climax, fans have been wondering if the character is going to get closure or not. Without spoiling, any thoughts?

WILLIAMS: If you do not close a story, you’re writing a soap opera. The best stories have ends. The artistic value of stories falls if the story never ends. The Wire ends. The Watchmen ends.

Writing an ending is tricky. It’s the hardest part of the process. I compare the ending to the dismount in a gymnastic routine. You have to stick the ending if you want a story to sing. The movie Michael Clayton has a bit of unnecessary non-linear storytelling, but it mostly works. It’s popular to hammer on Clooney, but he’s pretty good in that movie and it could go either way. But then within the last few moments, he delivers a total verbal smack down to someone who has it coming. That final dramatic scene saves that movie. As you can see I think they have to end. The thing is that the next morning, the next story starts.

Eddie gets a decent send off. It ends the way I always saw the story ending, just too soon.

BCR: It’d been said that you were months ahead on the Eddie scripts. Was there anything you wanted to do with the characters that fans won’t get to see?

WILLIAMS: In the spring this year, I finished writing my Eddie stories so that I could free up my schedule enough to finish writing a detective novel. Given the option, I wrote a year’s worth. I love the character and the world around him. At Mariah’s instruction, I had written the Eddie stories through issue #44. My run’s a lot shorter than that now. My last issue is #39 and it was written after all of the changes had shaken out. Originally, there was the story about the woman from his past. I wrote a long hallucination that Eddie endured as he recovered from a beating. There was a three part stranger in town story where Eddie realizes that the locals are corrupt as they are giving him a beating. And finally, I wrote a killer two-part story about Kate and Eddie killing demons in a police substation.

I wanted to do more with Kate the cop. In the Angel television series, she had originally been fired from the police force for being obsessed with the creatures in the supernature. Then LA went to Hell and proved her points. I figured that she could give the mother of all I Told You So’s to the department, but she would have too much class for that. In the back of my head, my plan was to make her the liaison between Angel Investigations and the regular authorities in LA. Of course at the time, I had assumed that I would have a long run on the characters with Willingham.

I don't want to say too much about what else we had planned, because I don't know how much of the original blueprint the new writing team will use.

Angel #37 Variant Cover

Art by David Messina

BCR: You touched on Gunn’s emotional state, which has sort of been pushed to the side in the main storyline since #23. Where do you think Gunn’s head is at, and do you think his experience with Eddie Hope has changed him as a character?

WILLIAMS: There has to be a way to reconcile Gunn’s acts in hell with his current life and his survival. In the Buffyverse, the bad guys get punished just like in any morality play. Gunn lives. I have the feeling that it will be something with satisfying conclusion at the hands of the new writing crew coming onboard with Season Nine.

BCR: Is Eddie only after people who committed atrocities in Hell? He seems almost Rorschach-esque in his black and white morality, but then he works side by side with Spike, a known murderer. Why is he okay with Spike being alive but so opposed to Gunn (who wasn’t in control of his actions) living to see another day?

WILLIAMS: Eddie’s not a big objectivist. He’s more pragmatic than that. Assuming that we all want to change the world for the better, most of us fumble around for the best place to start. When Los Angeles went to hell, Eddie got up close and personal with truly evil people as a part of his devilish transformation. He knows the people that went through the process with him. Now that he’s out and about and a devil, he is pretty sure that one of the quickest ways to fix the world is to remove those people from it. In hindsight, he might have just left Gunn off of his list the way you might forget where you put your car keys.

As to Spike, one of the things that troubles me about the Buffyverse is the perfect relay of information. Everybody knows everything. Everyone knows that Angel and Spike are official heroes. If you look out your window, you see our modern society is polarized. People are said to have their own facts. That makes Eddie something of a skeptic. Eddie might come after Spike under different circumstances.

But if you reread the first issue, Eddie is ambivalent to Spike’s suffering as our beloved vampire hero is fighting the bodybuilder vampires. At this point, Eddie considers vampires evil because they eat people. At the least, they are the kind of predator that you should keep an eye on. Later, Eddie halfheartedly considers staking Spike. I think that they are both waiting to see what the other guy proves to be.

BCR: You worked with Willingham on the main ANGEL title for a year, and got a chance to pen your own SPIKE tale. Not many men can say the same. How would you sum up your experience working with IDW on such a landmark title?

WILLIAMS: I worked with Willingham before when I published his Pantheon mini-series through my little company back in the day. He’s a lot of fun to sit and have a story session with. Trust me, you’d better bring your ‘A Game’ because he’s sharp. The insight on the introductory script was a revelation for me.

The people at IDW have been nothing but nice with me. Chris Ryall and Mariah Huehner and Alonzo Simon have done their best to make this a smooth process and I’d love the opportunity to work with them again.

BCR: Now that you’ve worked on ANGEL, where can the folks who loved “Devil You Know” and the Eddie Hope stories find more of your writing?

WILLIAMS: It made sense to launch a website showcasing all of the stuff I’m doing for other publishers. So, last month I launched www.billwilliamsfreelance.com which has a load of fun stuff in addition to the shameless self-promotional plugs that the internet is famous for. Any of the pitches I manage to get greenlit will have an announcement on that page when the time is right.

Mystery fans might want to go download a trio of short detective stories at WOWIO. You’ll need a pdf reader, but I posted a free short story collection called Young & Foolish that is set in my hometown of Austin, Texas. http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=6702

And webcomics fans might want to go check out my weekly webcomic about Super-Powered female body guards. It’s called SideChicks and there is a hundred and fifty pages of free content parked at Graphic Smash. http://www.graphicsmash.com/comics/sidechicks.php I’d like to put the webcomic out more often, but the inking and coloring on top of the freelance writing keeps me busy.

Sidechicks- a webcomic written by Bill Williams

This image is also inked and colored by Williams

BCR: Were you a big ANGEL fan before working on the book?

WILLIAMS: To be honest, I never caught the wave when it first hit. But the Angel television series was in syndication here in Austin and it was on late at night when I was working on freelance stuff. It ran after something I was already watching so more than once, I looked up and caught the show. Slowly but surely, I got hooked on the mystery/ detective angle and watched the syndicated run through to the end of the last season. When I got the chance I picked up the whole series on DVD. I’d gone through the first season on DVD when Willingham called and gave me the good news that we were the new team on the Angel comic from IDW.

So I went through the next four seasons and put together a document that I called my Angel Bible so that when it came time to ground stories in that world, I had a road map. After doing the cross-referencing with the wikipedia pages, I was ready.

And of course, I read Brian Lynch’s Angel series from the relaunch. When Willingham asked me what was going on with that series, I was able to boil it down for him.

BCR: What do you think it is about ANGEL that makes fans so passionate?

WILLIAMS: Angel is a classic character in that he was caught in a star-crossed romance. Time had its way with Buffy and Angel, and they failed as a couple. I think Angel has a lot of charm because in many ways he is a very modern and a very adult take on the classic romantic hero.

Thanks a lot, Bill!

Readers, make sure to pick up SPIKE: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW #4! It's out in comic shops today. I just finished reading it, and it was a solid end to a cool Spike adventure.

Print and some video interviews with David Messina, Jenny Frison, Mariah Huehner, David Tischman, Brian Lynch, Stephen Mooney, and more coming soon!

Scott Tipton & Elena Casagrande Interview

2010-09-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

IDW EXTRAVAGANZA

Patrick Shand Interviews Scott Tipton & Elena Casagrande

HOLE IN THE WORLD

BUFFYVERSE COMIC REVIEWS: First, the obvious question that I feel somewhat obliged to ask: What drew you to the episodes Smile Time, Not Fade Away, and Hole in the World?

SCOTT TIPTON: Well, the obvious answer in terms of the work was simple enough: IDW bossman Chris Ryall coming to me on SMILE TIME and NOT FADE AWAY and asking if I'd be interested in adapting them. I'd been away from ANGEL for a couple of years at that point (save a single chapter of AFTER THE FALL that Brian Lynch was generous enough to invite me to co-write), so any chance to get back to the Angelverse (and work with talents like David Messina and Stephen Mooney) sounded like a pretty good deal to me.As for the episodes themselves, SMILE TIME is such an anomaly in the series, such a goofy lighthearted romp, that it was a joy to play with. And the epic, operatic scale of NOT FADE AWAY, the grand all-the-marbles tone it takes as a finale –well, I couldn't resist that.

ELENA CASAGRANDE: I was very happy to work on this project: “A Hole in the World” and “Shells” are two of my favorite episodes of ANGEL's fifth season, where you really didn't expect that so strong a character like Fred will die to be replaced with a powerful and fascinating one. I was excited and also a bit frightened that we wouldn’t be able to express the feelings and the atmosphere of the story, but I watched the episode so many times that in the end I felt very natural working on it. I know that the comic book never will be the same thing as the TV show, but I hoped that with our work, we could realize a good tribute and a different way to see of the show.

Elena Casagrande's HOLE IN THE WORLD 1-5

Linking covers

BCR: Scott, what about the Hole/Shells episodes made you want to pitch this comic?

SCOTT: For one, it's both an origin tale and a true tragedy, both of which didn't come up very often in the series. "A Hole in the World" was one of the few ANGEL episodes I never watched in repeats or on DVD, just because I loved the Fred character so much and the episode was brutally sad. (Of course, I wound up having to watch it repeatedly in the production of our series. Maybe I should have thought it through a little better…)

BCR: The Smile Time hardcover was packed with extras (the entire Shadow Puppets series and the Angel: Masks puppety tale) and the Not Fade Away trade included the entire illustrated script of the original episode. What can readers expect from the Hole in the World TPB?

SCOTT: First off, there's IDW's usual top-notch production. The art and coloring just look beautiful. And in the back, we have a real treat, the only ANGEL work by David Messina and myself that had never been collected or reprinted, our Illyria story "Unacceptable Losses" from the ANGEL Halloween special MASKS. Not only does the story take place chronologically just after the events of "Shells," making it a perfect fit for the book, but it was the first project Messina and I worked on together, kicking off a series of collaborations that would go on for the next four years. I'm delighted to see it back in print.

And the whole thing is under a gorgeous brand-new cover by Elena, maybe my favorite of all the covers we've done.

BCR: What other episodes would you have liked to adapt?

SCOTT: Elena and I were dying to tackle "Orpheus" – Getting the opportunity to play with Angelus, Willow and Faith would have been a real treat. And just on a personal level, "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" has always been a favorite.

Casagrande and Tipton's Vision of "Orpheus"

BCR: Big picture, now: Overall experience-wise, can you describe your experience working on Hole in the World?

SCOTT: If readers would like the long version of the story, they can always head over to my Web site, COMICS 101, and read "Adaptation: The HOLE Story," an account by Elena and myself of the entire process, start to finish here.

But in short, it was a fantastic experience, if a little intimidating. The episodes are so emotionally dense, trying to capture all of that on the page was daunting, to say the least. With something like SMILE TIME, we had room to add in some new scenes and have a little more fun with it, but here, fitting two episodes into only five issues, we didn't really have that flexibility. Plus, the tone was so serious, it didn't feel right to us to add in new scenes "just because." We kind of felt like we owed the Fred character and her story the proper respect, to re-tell her tale and do it right.

BCR: You two worked together previously on an issue of Angel: Auld Lang Syne and will pair up again on the upcoming Illyria: Haunted miniseries. How is it like working together?

SCOTT: Elena is a joy to work with. It's a true partnership, in that she's involved in plotting and breakdowns and story ideas from the very beginning and I help contribute in my small way to cover designs and the visual aspect of things. She has an excellent sense of story and is a fountain of ideas for these characters. And to be honest, working with her has spoiled me, as she always brings back with each page more than I had imagined in my script. I couldn't ask for a better partner.

ELENA: I love to work with Scott: initially, with Auld Lang Syne, my first comic book with him, I worked on his script and found it very easy and funny; after doing some other Star Trek issues and after we got to know each other in New York at the Comic-Con, we continue to find working together a good feeling; often we find a great solution for a drawing, a cover, or have cool idea for a story talking to each other and it's funny and stimulating...we're in harmony most of the time!

BCR: Elena, were you a fan of ANGEL before working on the title?

ELENA: The truth is that I discovered the Angel series when David Messina talked to me about his first project on it with IDW, The Curse. I was curious so I searched the episodes and I started to follow the show, which unfortunately here in Italy wasn't so famous yet. I liked the show episode after episode and I really appreciated the growth of all the characters (especially about Wesley, my favorite character...sigh!)... I was really sad at the end!

BCR: How did it feel to be able to translate such an important episode into comic form?

ELENA: Like I said before, I was very very excited to work on Hole, in spite of the responsibilities towards all the fans (but I'm a fan too, so it helped!)... I felt like an ambassador!

ILLYRIA: HAUNTED

BCR: So, basics. What can you tell us about "Illyria: Haunted"?

SCOTT: This one is all about Illyria, and her struggles both to find her place in this world she never belonged in, and her difficulties in dealing with how she came to walk this world: namely at the expense of an innocent, Fred. As my co-writer Mariah Huehner has said, "She has her own motives and reasons...and is now kind of literally haunted from the inside. Which is a poetic juxtaposition, since her resembling Fred is haunting for those who knew her, too."

And it bears saying here, by the way, that the genesis of this story comes very much from Mariah. Elena and I were actually working on another project that wound up being cancelled for reasons too dull to go into here, and when we became available, Mariah asked us if we'd like to come develop this ILLYRIA series with her, and we happily leapt at the chance. Mariah is the best kind of collaborator, full of ideas and willing to see them taken in any manner of directions, however they best serve the story.

Illyria: Haunted #1 (art by Elena Casagrande)

BCR: Recently, there have been some questioned posed about Illyria's character. In the recent arc, she's been seducing Connor, searching for meaning, and quite suddenly questioning her grammatical choices. Will this miniseries address her strange behavior?

SCOTT: The events in HAUNTED definitely dovetail with what readers have been seeing in the main book, sure. But it's less of an "x + y = z" situation, and more of a general progression of what we're seeing as Illyria's state of mind.

BCR: The cover for the second issue is a tender image of Spike putting his jacket on Illyria's shoulders. This seems to call back to AFTER THE FALL, when Illyria and Spike were close. They lived together; he spent most of his time in Hell trying to save her, and he wound up taking her down with his and Wesley's memories of Fred. AFTER THE FALL left them with a sad image of them standing in the rain, unable to talk, before walking away from each other. And now, in recent issues, they've been hanging out in the Hyperion, barely saying a word to each other. How will "Haunted" address the strange relationship between these two characters?

SCOTT: I've always been a big fan of the Spike/Illyria relationship, both in the brief, tantalizing tastes of it we got in the TV series, and in the marvelous way Brian handled it in AFTER THE FALL. And even more so was I a fan of the Spike/Fred relationship, in how we saw Spike genuinely care for someone else purely out of gratitude and affection. Both of these dynamics come into play in our series, and I'm delighted we got the chance to explore them.

Illyria: Haunted #2 (art by Elena Casagrande)

BCR: Illyria has been the subject of many miniseries. She frolicked about with Gunn and her pet in "Only Human," she crossed-over into Peter David's world in "Fallen Angel: Reborn," she killed Jim from The Office in "Spike: After the Fall," and she got angsty in a one-shot here and there. Where will "Haunted" take this fan-favorite character?

SCOTT: We'll see Illyria breaking heads and mending hearts, and facing challenges both gargantuan and cosmic as well as pedestrian and mundane. We really get to put her through her paces here, exploring her origins and her future.

BCR: What do you think it is about Illyria that fans are so interested in?

SCOTT: She's a classic "fish out of water" character, continually out of place in a world she never wanted to be a part of; I think a lot of people can relate to that. Also, her role as the outsider made her the perfect foil for Angel's crew, for pointing out the others' faults and foibles, and that's always going to be appealing to watch, especially with Illyria's trademark deadpan delivery.

PAGE TWO of Illyria: Haunted #1 (art by Elena Casagrande)

BCR: Wesley is arguably the person that showed Illyria, as ushy-gushy as it may sound, how to be concerned for another. We never really got to see her reaction to living in a Wesley-free world, post-AFTER THE FALL. Does "Haunted" address her grief?

SCOTT: We love Wesley. Even though he's gone, his influence on Illyria (as well as on Fred) plays a vital role in the goings-on.

BCR: How does "Haunted" tie into the main title?

SCOTT: It doesn't tie in directly, in that you don’t need one to understand the other. But readers will definitely know where it fits in the big picture.

BCR: I believe Mariah said that Illyria would be leaving the main title for HAUNTED. Do you know if she'll be back in time for the finale with #44?

SCOTT: That, as they say, would be telling…

BCR: Elena, how do you manage to do the art for both ILLYRIA and ANGEL? Some artists can't even complete one book per month, and need super long delays. Are you magic?

ELENA: Hey, do you ask a magician how he does his tricks? :P Without joking... like everyone can see, I changed my art style from Hole to the ongoing series. This lets me work faster and I can say is also more fun, so, except for some hard scenes, usually I realize an inked page per day on Angel. About Illyria, I have precious help from my friend Walter Trono, who will be the inker, in this way I can work on pencils, covers and... special pages! :P

 Anyway, I can assure you that the coffee is my best friend....!

BCR: Your artwork has a nice sense of movement. How do you balance the task of getting an actor's likeness versus keeping the movement believable from panel to panel?

ELENA: I always work first of all on the likeness of the characters, I think this is a basic concept in a licensing comic. I think "How could this character tell this? Or how could he/she act here?"; then I focus on the direction, on the kind of shot that could express better a TV-sensation, especially during the talking scenes. For the action scenes I enjoy myself and try to use all my comic-culture!

BCR: Which likenesses have been the hardest? The easiest?

ELENA: I think the hardest is Angel...a wrong line on the face and he isn't David Boreanaz anymore! While the easiest is surely Spike: James Marsters has a very distinguishable face and he's so expressive!

BCR: How is it like working under David Messina, another ANGEL artist who, to say the least, must have some kind of dark magic ability?

ELENA: I love David's style, he taught me a lot of things and yes, he's perfect for the dark stories... you mean dark in that sense, right? Anyway I hope to learn a bit of his dark magic ability :)  

MISC.

BCR: Plug time. What other books are you working on?

SCOTT: Well, my DEEP SPACE NINE graphic novel, FOOL'S GOLD, recently was released in trade paperback, along with the aforementioned ANGEL: A HOLE IN THE WORLD. In stores this month is the grand finale of my Classic STAR TREK miniseries THE BURDEN OF KNOWLEDGE. And premiering next month is maybe the most exciting TREK project I've ever done: KHAN: RULING IN HELL. The best STAR TREK villain of all time, finally in a starring role. “KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

ELENA: ...I have time for other books and no one told me? :P

BCR: For fun- What other comics are you reading?

SCOTT: I read practically everything that comes out, I have to admit. I’m really enjoying Bendis' refreshed AVENGERS series, DC's JONAH HEX remains great month in and month out. Matt Fraction's INVINCIBLE IRON MAN is a lot of fun. And I recently got an early chance to read Darwyn Cooke's next PARKER graphic novel, THE OUTFIT. It's spectacular.

ELENA: I'm reading Tommy Lee Edwards' works, he really inspires me...I love Turf! Unfortunately I have very little time to read as I wish...!

BCR: I guess it'll be weird if I don't ask this. It was announced in another book's letter section that ANGEL is leaving IDW. We've heard various folks chime in on the matter, so I was wondering what your reaction was.

SCOTT: It's been a hell of a ride. I hate to see it go.

ELENA: My reaction was and is simply this: sigh!

BCR: Where would you have liked to take these characters, were they staying at home with IDW?

SCOTT: We had plenty of stories left to tell, but they'll have to stay untold for now…

BCR: Scott, with ANGEL at Dark Horse, any chance we could see you writing for the TRUE BLOOD title? I can't help but dream of Scott Tipton penned Lafayette dialogue.

SCOTT: TRUE BLOOD is in very capable hands with my pals David Tischman and Mariah Huehner. However, if an opportunity to contribute arose, I wouldn't turn it down.

BCR: You've worked with IDW on ANGEL almost as long as they've had the title. It's been a ride, reading your various ANGEL and SPIKE (and, soon, ILLYRIA) books. Again with the big picture: Can you sum up your experience working on this title?

ELENA: I had a wonderful experience with all those characters, I love them. I was able to grow up with them, in my job and in my abilities, and it's been a beautiful journey with all the team around.

SCOTT: The Angel books mean a lot to me. Other than a couple of small short stories, ANGEL was where I first made my break into comics as a professional. Working on ANGEL has also provided me with an even greater gift, in my two favorite collaborators (and close friends) David Messina and Elena Casagrande, people I hope to be working with for years and years to come.

There are only a handful of people in the world who have gotten to work with these characters and tell their stories. I know I've been very lucky to be among their company.

BCR: As a professional and a fan, what do you think it is about ANGEL that makes fans so passionate?

ELENA: I can't talk for the other fans, but I can say that I like Angel for what it represented, how it developed over the years and what it means to me. There are some characters so interesting that I think like other famous heroes we can't stop wanting to read good stories about them. There are vampires, blood, action and emotions...what more do you want?

SCOTT: It all goes back to the source material. Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt pulled off that most miraculous of feats in the world of television: the spinoff series that, to my mind, anyway, surpassed its parent. Those characters, with their willingness to do the right thing despite the often unbearable costs of doing so, really stuck a chord with me. Angel's dedication, Gunn's bullheaded courage, Wesley's longing, Fred's innocence, Illyria's confidence, Spike's heart. I think that's what fans really relate to, and we tried (and continue to try) to keep those alive in the pages of our comics.

The Return of BCR

2010-08-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

So, someone asked if I died.

Bwahaha.

BUFFYVERSE COMIC REVIEWS returns in a big way in September. Specfic date to be announced.

What do we return with? Eh, nothing much. Just an exclusive, in-depth interview with ILLYRIA writer Scott Tipton and ANGEL/ILLYRIA artist Elena Casagrande.

And that's just the beginning. More interviews (Brian Lynch, David Tischman, Mariah Huehner, and more IDW folks) and reviews (every Angelverse title, starting with ANGEL #37).

And perhaps the review of the last Season Eight arc. We'll see.

All leading up to a big surprise final entry sometime mid-2011.

Also, anyone read the latest Angel? That was some awesome stuff, huh? Thoughts below.

2010-08-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

I believe in IDW.

Angel: Last Night

2010-07-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hey all. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not dead. I just finished writing a novel, I'm in talks with a literary agent, I'm writing another novel, I'm directing an independent film (watch the trailer here, shooting wraps next month), and also I have a personal life and a day job... so the constant updates have been tough. I haven't gotten a chance to read some of the most recent comics, but I'll be catching up soon enough. Can't say I'll be able to post in-depth reviews of everything, but here's what I can promise. Every issue of Season Eight as well as every Brian Lynch penned comic will get a review in the ol' classic style.

But now.

Here's an original ANGEL webcomic I wrote a while back. Art by Pablo Praino, colors/letters by Ryan Marshall.

It takes place during ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL #16.

Here's the previously.

As a punishment for Angel's actions in the series finale, Wolfram & Hart has sent Los Angeles to Hell. Gunn has been turned into a vampire, Angel has been made into a human, Connor is dead, and it has been revealed that W&H is keeping Angel alive for nefarious purposes. He is destined to play a role for the bad in the apocalypse, and Wolfram & Hart has to keep him alive in order to do that. This comic takes place right after the climatic moment in AFTER THE FALL #16 when Angel realizes what he has to do. If he gets Gunn to kill him, he ends his timeline. Wolfram & Hart will have to send them back to the last moment Angel was alive in reality, back in the alley, back when Gunn was alive and Angel was a vampire.

This takes place between the moment of Angel's death and when W&H sends them all back to the alley. Click on the links to read.

Oh, and it features a surprise character that we haven't seen in, well...

CLICK THE LINKS!

PAGE ONE: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg128/pshand05/Angel_LastNight_page01.jpg

PAGE TWO: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg128/pshand05/Angel_LastNight_page02.jpg

PAGE THREE: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg128/pshand05/Angel_LastNight_page03.jpg

PAGE FOUR: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg128/pshand05/Angel_LastNight_page04.jpg

PAGE FIVE: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg128/pshand05/Angel_LastNight_page05.jpg

BUFFY #34, ANGEL #31, Angel: Barbary Coast #1

2010-04-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

Leave comments about the new format! Since I want to get reviews out in a more timely manner, and still be able to live my life and keep working on my own writing projects, this method seems a lot more doable than pages of content for each comic. Event issues and some issues will get longer reviews, but this seems like the best option for the regular comic issues.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #32

Twilight Part III: Them F#@%ing

Written by Brad Meltzer. Art by Georges Jeanty

It's good. It's a good ready. It's also the riskiest Buffy story ever penned. It accepts us to believe a whole bunch of sudden information that's given out through the most graphic sex scene in the history of the show. Essentially, Buffy and Angel have become gods, effectively fulfilling a prophecy that the best Slayer and the best Vampire will fall in love, become superpowered, and have world-changing/destroying(maybe) sex. It's a lot to swallow, which is a pun that would have way less ick-factor in a different issue. But again, the sex and the exposition (sexposition?) is handled well. It's just... since it's such a "This is why this is happening" issue, it's very hard to judge on its own merit. It needs the context of the arc, while Meltzer's last two issues didn't. Does all of that make it weaker than I'd hoped? A bit. Season Eight has been on such a good run since December, that I'm fairly happy that an issue this strong is now what I see as weak for the series. The art is good, the dialogue is great, it's risky as shit... I'm just not sure if I trust where the story is going anymore. This is big stuff, and I need to see the last issue in the arc to really have a feel of this issue. As of now...

SCORE: 8/10

Angel #32

Immortality for Dummies, part IV: The Big Dust Up

Written by Bill Willingham. Art by Brian Denham.

(Back up story: Eddie and the Crew: The Risk of Skipping Ahead

Written by Bill Williams. Art by David Messina)

I gave Willingham the benefit of the doubt. He's a good writer, yes. The voices were off for the first two issues, but we hadn't seen anyone speak at length other than Connor. That all changes here. Spike is off. Spike doesn't speak like Spike. Spike speaks a lot like Jack from Fables, only awkwardly British. Spike doesn't behave like Spike. Illyria continues to talk like not-Illyria. She second guesses herself, speaking in awkward sentences, asking Angel if her use of the English language is correct. There is a long, drawn out, and (of course) unnecessary scene in the beginning where a bunch of dudes talk as Connor and his army kill some vampires. Utterly boring. No impact on the narrative, not at all funny, no impact on the characters. Willingham so obviously doesn't care about this universe or crafting a consistent story that it's insulting to fans, insulting to Joss, and insulting to everything in the Angel on-going that came before his arc. Am I going to keep reading? It's Angel, I have to. But that sense of anticipation I felt when going to the comic shop is gone. It's become a chore. I guess, on the positive side, the final page with Angel is cool. Mostly thanks to Denham's art, which is awesome when he's not drawing vampires being dusted (they apparently turn into goop). Bill William's back up is actually really entertaining, but that just makes me more sad. I want the characters I love off the pages so I don't have to see Willingham butchering them, to the point where I almost read the book for this new character. I'm excited for William's Spike miniseries, because he does seem to bit a good writer. Willingham, though... I have doubts that he has seen all of--or even most of--Angel the series. This arc has become every bit as bad as Aftermath.

SCORE: 2/10

Angel: Barbary Coast #1

Written by David Tischman. Art by Franco Urru.

Ah, man. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A good Angel comic. An Angel comic that reminds me why I love IDW. Beautiful art from Franco as always, but now, get this... even the writing is good. Tischman crafts a suspenseful, character driven, and sometimes funny tale about Angel's quest to get rid of his soul. The setting is awesome, the supporting cast of (mostly) humans are as creepy as actual monsters, and you know what? I'm excited for the next issue. IDW, get this dude to write the main series. Really. A guy like this could get Angel fans excited about the on-going again. Really, really solid start to what looks to be a fun mini.

SCORE: 8/10

Coming Soon: REVIEW OF Scott Tipton's A Hole in the World

Coming Soon: Hey, Why Didn't He Review THAT Issue? (Five Reviews)

Most Important Issue of Season Eight

2010-04-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Issue #33: Twilight, Part 2- The Master Plan (written by Brad Meltzer; art by Georges Jeanty).

Timing: BtVS, Season Eight. Directly follows #32.

REVIEW: So, kinda late, huh?

Well. Here it is. The most important issue of Season Eight so far. In March 2007, Twilight creepily spied on Buffy in the first issue of the season. Later that year, in the conclusion to No Future For You, he made his first appearance. In a mask and a whole bunch of belts. People speculated that he was Riley (until Riley came into play later on as, well, Riley), people speculated that he was Xander or Giles, people speculated that he was a FUTURE VERSION of Xander or Giles. And some people speculated that he was either Angel or Spike.

Well, he's Angel. For my initial reaction, clicky here.

When Twilight's identity leaked to the interwebs, the speculation was crazy. But there was one thing I didn't really take into account. Maybe Angel as Twilight isn't evil. I probably didn't take it into account because... well, we've seen Twilight do outright evil things?

...Right?

Well, in this issue, Angel sure makes an argument against that. Buffy seems like she's on the edge of believing him. The fandom is divided. So I'm going to come at this from an angle that needs a voice. A fan, first and foremost, of Angel. Angel the character, Angel the show, Angel the comic. I care about the guy a hell of a lot more than I do Buffy, Willow, Xander, and most of the other characters in the Season Eight comic. And don't misunderstand me, I care about those characters a lot. A whole entire buttload, in fact. But Angel's different. Angel's hero journey is important to me, and so is the integrity of his character.

So understand how much this issue had to win me over.

The question is... did it?

Answer... well, yeah. I'm with it. Of course, I have to wait to see how the fallout and the explanation and all that good stuff gets handled. But Angel makes a damn good argument for why he was right to put on that mask and those very many belts. A part of it is this: that change Buffy is going through? The spike in her powers? Not because of dead slayers. There is a piece of mythology that both Angel and Giles understand (to be revealed next issue) that will reveal why Buffy has superpowers, why Angel does, and also why they were meant to love each other and why they can't be happy with anyone else.

Woah.

The issue itself is brilliant. Meltzer is complete winnage. Funny dialogue, so much geekery, and the tension and emotion brings on a physical reaction while reading. From the build-up, to the actual unmasking, to the long awaited confrontation, to when Buffy finally gives in and kisses Angel... it's a ride of an issue.

I can safely say I have no idea where it's going, but at this point, I've come to trust Joss's plan and also Meltzer for the way he writes these characters. According to Scott Allie, we'll have a better idea of the why behind Angel's actions after #34 and #35, but this was an epic installment that gave us enough information for me not to spend the month going crazy over the way Angel is being used, and to also look forward to next month's installment.

I can't believe the season, after so many bad and mediocre issues, is back at this level of greatness, but I'm quite simply loving it.

Art: The art is good. Jeanty did a great job with some scenes and a less-than-great-but-not-bad job with others. He does struggle with Angel's face a bit, but not to the point where it really takes away from the story. The only truly sucky panel is where Buffy throws the tree-stake at Angel, and Angel looks like... well, I don't even know. But blegh. The rest of the issue is solid, though.

Covers: Both covers are pretty cool. Jeanty's features an unmasked Twilight (face blurred) surrounded by a shocked Willow, Xander, and Buffy. It's another homage cover (this time to Spider-man), and it's better than most of his recent covers have been. Jo Chen's cover is good, but flawed. She's an expert at Buffy's face, totally nailing the expression of a devastated, I-just-found-out-Angel-is-Twilight Buffy. However, Buffy's neck is like... as long as an arm.

Characters We Know: Buffy, Xander, Giles, Faith, Andrew, Willow, Satsu, Dawn, Amy, Warren, The General, Twilight... well, from now on, Angel.

Rating: 10/10

My B.

2010-03-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yup, the Angel #30 review was super late. Indeed, the Buffy #33 review hasn't come out yet, and yes, I understand how important that issue is. I've also yet to review some of the other Angel comics that have come out, and I'm sorry. It'll happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later. It's just been a bit difficult to get my reviews out on time... or at all. I'm trying to put all my energy that's not spent on my personal life on my writing. Putting aside the hour or so it takes to do a review has been a challenge, but I'm going to do better. I still care about these comics, I still want to eventually write these comics, and I still care about the fandom.

Buffy #33 review coming soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Or, you know, if you weren't patient, you can go to Buffyfest. They've got all sorts of stuff there to keep you busy. But I'd prefer if you stuck around here, 'cause... you know. You mah fwendz.

Dear On-Going Angel. Get Well Soon. Love, Me.

2010-03-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

What is It?: Angel #30- The Trouble With Felicia. Written by Bill Willingham, art by Brian Denham. (Back-up story: Eddie and the Crew- Intermission. Story by Bill Willingham and Bill Williams, script by Bill Williams, art by David Messina.

Timing: Angel, on-going series: Shortly after #29.

REVIEW: The comic starts off very fun. Spike and Gunn are on a mission to take down some gragot demons, which leads to some pretty entertaining hijinks. It's narrated by clips from both Spike and Gunn's after-action reports (which Connor is making them do), which are funny as well... sometimes. Spike isn't showing much depth, but he never really did around the characters we've seen him interact with (other than Connor), so I'm not that worried. Gunn, however is another story.

Willingham is using Gunn as a jokester. He's cracking jokes left and right. His report is as jokey as Spike's. There is no hint at all of the tortured character that we should be seeing. Willingham has turned Gunn into the Hurley of Angel, which is pretty bad, considering that was played as a joke in Last Angel in Hell. Gunn should be ripped apart. He should be worse than Wesley in Season Four. He should be that way, not only to respect the story arc and ramifications of After the Fall, but for some damn consistency. He was tortured in Become What You Are. He was healing, along with Illyria, but still quite ripped up about his days as a vampire in Only Human. Willingham is writing it as if it never happened. A fellow fan told me that he reads Gunn's depiction as a man who is overcompensating, which would be fine if it was at all hinted at. Besides a strange look that Connor gave Gunn in #28, which now that I'm thinking about it might not have even been a conscious artistic choice, there is no indication that Gunn went through anything except perhaps a stand-up comedian class.

Connor's characterization continues to impress and Spike's dialogue is decent. The first scene at the Hyperion, aside from the little bit where Spike oddly finishes his report by requesting Gunn be kicked out (would a man as fond of redemption as him really say that?), is pretty good. And that can sort of sum up the whole issue. It's pretty good. In fact, were this not Angel, I'd even say it's good. 'Cause the plot is interesting. It's a good beginning to what might be a good story. A slow beginning, yeah, but good. Thing is, though, this isn't just any comic. This is Angel. Joss Whedon's Angel. A series driven by multi-layered characters with exceptional dialogue and a consistent tone. When I read After the Fall, it felt like Angel. John Byrne's work and some of Only Human felt like Angel. This doesn't. It feels like Bill Willingham is starting a brand new series, and that worries me.

It never gets really bad. Reaches for and sometimes grazes good, but it mostly waffles about in decent. The worst scene has got to be the banter between James, Gunn, Spike, Kate, and Betta George as they're getting ready to go hunt vampires with Connor. The scene starts with them arguing whether the fight is a "stake 'em and bake 'em," a "bust 'em and dust 'em" or a "stab 'em and slab 'em." There are a few funny lines, but it's striving way too hard to reach the hilarious pettiness of the "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" argument. It would come off as an average scene, had Willingham not attempted Betta George. Now... as a writer and just a person who enjoys laughing, Betta George seems like he would be easy to write. He's the voice of the normal guy. The average Joe. He cracks jokes sometimes. He's funny. He's light. He's a down-to-earth dude. Willingham has him formal, explainy, and overall just... annoying. And the one joke he tells seems to be about a benign cyst in a region of Kate's that embarrasses her, and that's just crass and what-the-fuck inducing. I was initially excited when Willingham wanted to work George into this. Now I just wish he'd opted to have the telepathic fish float away.

Aside from some strange lines that attempt to capture character (Spike's "Sweet mother Mary in a shite halftrack, that smarts!" is particularly painful), there are also some lines that are just awkwardly written. Now, there were some typos in After the Fall. For sure. Typos that should have been caught. But I never read a line of dialogue and thought, "How did no one catch that?" Take this line of dialogue for example. Illyria says to Angel, "Perhaps I'll free you, but not before we have a conversation first." Huh. "Not before we have a conversation first." Just... yeah.

Back to some good stuff... Willingham has improved on the Illyria front. What he has planned for her in the overall arc seems strange at best, Cordelia/Jasmine-esque at worst, but I'm going to wait before I comment much on Illyria's sudden desire to make Connory babies. But Illyria's dialogue is better. There are still some screw-ups (Illyria asks Angel if "courting" is the proper term for seduction, but when was Illyria ever unsure of her word choice? She's not a foreign language speaker, she's a demon.), but considering that a good fifth of this issue is Illyria talking, it's a big improvement. She's less Vulcan and more Illyria, which is how it should have been from the jump, but I'm glad the transition went from terrible to decent this quickly. Her voice was the one Willingham had captured the worst, and now she's arguably third best, after Connor and Angel.

Overall, I'm pretty sad that the on-going series isn't impressing me. Willingham is a good writer and he's done great things. I just wish he'd done more research, more rewatching, and more re(?)reading of After the Fall before he started writing this book. It's painfully clear that he's giving his own take on the characters without bothering to match the tone of the show the way that Brian Lynch did. I expect a good story, because he specializes in longterm plots, but... I want a good Angel story, not just a random comic featuring bizarro versions of characters I've been in love with for years.

Back-up: The Eddie Hope back-up is pretty fun. I am getting impatient with the pace and the way the stories line up, and I can't help but wonder if the book wouldn't be better if Bill Williams co-wrote the whole thing and the Eddie Hope scenes were woven into the actual comic (which would make the inevitable Gunn/Eddie Hope confrontation a lot more tense), but I'm still enjoying it for what it is. It continues on last month's story, and it leaves us on a cliffhanger, so... still fun. Bit less intriguing, but still fun. William's writing in this is far stronger than Willingham's, so I'm very excited for William's upcoming Spike book.

Art: Denham's art is as good as it was last issue. The likenesses are excellent, the action scenes work well, but most of the conversation scenes are a bit too static. He definitely has what it takes to make this book better, and as he grows comfortable enough with the likenesses to have the characters move around a bit more, I'm sure he'll do just that. Messina's art in the Eddie Hope backups... great as always. This man is a wonder.

Covers: Both are the weakest of the run. Jenny Frison's cover is high concept, and it's mostly kick-ass, but Connor just looks awkward. His shirt, his body, his face... he just doesn't look right. And it's unfortunate, seeing as he's the centerpiece of this otherwise really cool cover. Messina's cover is essentially another variation of the same cover he did with #28 and #29. It's Angel and Eddie Hope, same hellish/LA background, and just... it's boring. It's well done, but it's boring. Bring us your fire, Messina! We know you have it.

Characters We Know: Spike, Gunn, Illyria, Angel, Kate, Connor, James, Dez, Eddie Hope, and Jacob Crane.

Rating: 5/10

Again With the Goodness

2010-02-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Issue #32: Twilight, Part 1- Buffy has F#@$ing Superpowers (written by Brad Meltzer; art by Georges Jeanty).

Timing: BtVS, Season Eight. Shortly after "Turbulence."

Warning: The bigger spoilers will be written in black text. Simply highlight to read. As this is a review, there will be some minor "spoilers" sprinkled throughout the text that don't warrant being hidden. If you have not read the issue and don't want to know anything about the plot, don't read this. Spoilers for previous issues will obviously not be hidden.

REVIEW: First of all, this one is extra long. It comes in at twenty-five pages. That's three pages above the normal count, and the story really benefits from it. Like the extra long "Angel: After the Fall #1" before it, this feels more like a full episode than an act of an episode, and that kicks ass. And, in a trend that began with the Willow one-shot in December, I just didn't want the book to end. From #20 all the way up until #30, I'd often count the pages, wanting the book to just be over already. But this, along with "Willow" and #31, was just too good to end.

The issue deals with the fallout of Buffy's realization that she has superpowers. As Buffy and a completely geeking-out Xander test her new skills and push her boundaries farther than they could ever imagine (not in a sexy times way), Dawn openly expresses her fear that these powers are not coming from somewhere good. Willow suggests that the powers are coming from the universe thanking Buffy for kicking the crap out of the goddesses... which doesn't make sense because Buffy used the powers to do that. There are two subplots, one featuring Warren, Amy, and the General (who seems randomly introduced, as all the characters are aware of him and consider him as big a player as Warren and Amy) approaching Buffy and co. with an offer of sorts, and one that follows Giles, Andrew, and Faith, who have been captured by Twilight. The eponymous Twilight makes a brief but epic appearance, delivering the best line of the issue.

(SPOILER:) "Who wants to hear a really cool master plan?"

If that ain't a way to leave me hungry for next month's issue, I don't know what is.

Meltzer is a great fit for Buffy. The dialogue is spot on, funny, and fits right in with the best writers of the series so far (inarguably Joss, Goddard, and BKV). The nerdspeak hits a new high, which totally fits in the issue, considering Xander's affinity for comics and Buffy's new superhero-like powers. He giddily makes her try out different popular superpowers and nearly squees when she discovers that, yeah, she can do some of them. The scenes are really well written, and the subplots are balanced very nicely. Meltzer is a master of pacing... and I think he delivered the most powerful opener to an arc thus far.

Also, a new weight is added to this somewhat light story when Willow discovers the true source of Buffy's powers. I'd assumed the powers were from being touched by a goddess, as it was the last thing that happened to Buffy before she'd woken up with new powers. But. The real source is so much more thematically charged, and man it works for the story. Buffy's powers are coming from (SPOILERS:) the mass genocide of slayers around the world. Since she gave them their power, their power is going to her when they die. Creepy, huh?

All in all, a fantastic issue. I was originally skeptical that Joss himself didn't want to write the unmasking of Twilight, but now I see why he trusts Brad Meltzer with such an important moment. 'Cause the dude can write. And the dude can write Buffy.

And also... just throwing it out there... the subtitle on this issue was awesome. Buffy has f#@$ing superpowers indeed.

Art: Again, I'm impressed by how good the art is getting again. I'm still a bit peeved that the shittier scripts of the series so obviously received shittier treatment from Jeanty, but if anything could make it better, its Jeanty doing such a kick-ass job of late. Buffy looks like she should, there are laugh out loud sight gags (THE RABBIT!), and it's just a solidly drawn book. Kudos for stepping it back up, Jeanty.

Covers: Jo Chen’s is simple. Decent, but simple. It could have been an iconic image, seeing Buffy taking flight like this, but... I'm not sure. She just looks kind of long. And she lacks detail. It's as if someone took the cover and then stretched it in MS Paint until it was slightly too narrow. Not bad, but not a standout, like Chen's usually are. George's is way more dynamic, and I do dig the concept--yet another homage--of having Whedon, Jeanty, and Allie bugging out as Buffy lifts a train. Though... what is Joss wearing? Otherwise, a decent cover. I dig how it says "Buffy Comics" too. The new look of the variants is very cool.

Characters We Know: Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Willow, Amy, Warren, Faith, Giles, Andrew, Twilight.

Rating: 9/10

Whedon, Whedon, Whedon

2010-01-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Issue #31: Turbulence (written by Joss Whedon; art by Georges Jeanty).

Timing: BtVS, Season Eight. Right after "Retreat part V."

REVIEW: “Retreat” was mostly hit and miss (some BIG hits, some BIG misses). Let’s move on.

Twilight was unmasked. Most of us know who he is. Some folks are scared, some folks are mad. I’m excited. Let’s move on.

And now, we’ve come to the first regular Joss Whedon issue since #19. And man. Man, oh man. Let’s start with the probably unexpected gushing.

This is the best Buffyverse comic that has come out since Brian Lynch’s pitch-perfect conclusion to ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL. This is the best issue of BUFFY: SEASON EIGHT since #16, which was the best of the whole series. So understand what I’m saying when I say how damn good this book was.

It was epic, with how it dealt with Buffy’s newfound superpowers. It picks right up from the end of “Retreat,” and her reaction to getting these new powers is just so perfect. She hides them from her friends initially, putting all this new and confusing stuff to the back of her mind to deal with the more pressing issues: taking care of the wounded and confessing her love to Xander.

Whahuh?

I’ll get there.

But when Buffy does reveal her superpowers—pretty much because she has to, which I loved—she delivers a super iconic line that reminded me of Angel’s epic “Cue the music” from AFTER THE FALL. As Buffy is about to take flight, she says, “Thanks for the vote of no confidence and shut your mouths and look. Up in the sky.” Anyone skeptical about Buffy’s ability to fly will likely join the “WOW, THIS IS AWESOME” crowd after this issue. Say what you will about the structure and consistency of Season Eight, but Joss has been planting the narrative seeds leading up to Buffy flying since Issue #1. And man does it pay off.

The epicness isn’t even the reason this issue kicks ass. In fact, it’s how restrained the thing is that really makes it rock. After Jane’s very, very busy arc, we needed this issue. The characters needed to have the conversations they had. And man, did Joss ever do an incredible job writing them.

+ Willow and Oz talk- This was mostly here to give a context to Willow (spoilers:) getting her powers back due to some unidentified mystical fallout, but this conversation also needed to happen. Willow apologizes for ruining Oz’s peaceful home. Oz makes everything okay. I’m glad this relationship is behind handled with such delicacy. Joss writes them with respect to their deep, connecty past, but not in a way that steps on the toes of Willow’s lesbianism. She’s a lesbian, yeah, but her love for Oz as a person will never go away. I dig that.

+ Buffy and Riley- Cute, funny, sad. Whedonesque.

+ Twilight talks all evilly. Man. Not saying anything. But man oh man. This is dire.

+ Buffy and a solider from Twilight’s army- Perhaps the saddest thing in the season since Xander’s collapse at Renee’s death. I won’t talk much about this, because I don’t want to ruin the punch this scene packs, but it’s short, surprising, sad, and so so necessary. Beautifully done.

+ And speaking of beautifully done. Buffy confronts Xander about Dawn, and also confesses her feelings to him. And he (SPOILERS:) approaches the situation from the same way I am. He doesn’t believe he. He points out that she went through trying to change her sexual orientation before she considered the option of liking him. Buffy remains adamant that she has feelings for him, and he accepts this… and, actually, I do too. Whedon writes the conversation with such tenderness that speaks volumes for how much he knows the characters and their friendship. And that dialogue. Would it be too much to say that it’s never been better? Because it’s maybe never been better.

Utterly fantastic issue. Season Eight looks like it’s back on track. Can’t wait to see what Brad Meltzer brings to the table.

Art: Jeanty’s art isn’t quite back to what it was in the first third of Season Eight, but it’s getting there. There are more standout panels than there usually are, and the only scene that jumps out as “just okay” is the scene between Oz and Willow. The rest ranges from good to… well, great. Jeanty handled the conversation pieces really, really well. The scene between Buffy and Xander just plays wonderfully. I’m not sure if it’s a case of “Uh oh, Joss is back, I have to make this one amazing” or if it’s how smaller the cast of this issue is, but Jeanty’s art here gives me a happy.

Covers: Jo Chen’s cover features Willow trying to blast back one of the Tibetan goddesses. I like the cover. It’s not one of her best, but she’s created such a catalogue of amazing covers that it’s going to be harder and harder for her covers to get that “Man, this is one of Chen’s best” reaction, because there are just so damn many great ones. Jeanty’s cover is a cheesy homage, which he’s been digging recently. And I do like this one. It works for the issue, for sure. In fact, because of the concept and its relevance to the issue, it might even be my favorite cover for the issue.

Characters We Know: Buffy, Oz, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Riley, Twilight, Faith, Giles, Andrew, Kennedy, Satsu.

Rating: 10/10

How Angel Became the Mummy

2010-01-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel #29- Immortality for Dummies, Part Two. Written by Bill Willingham, art by Brian Denham. (Back-up story: Eddie Hope in A Devil Walks Into a Bar, Part One. Story by Bill Willingham and Bill Williams, script by Bill Williams, art by David Messina.)

Timing: Two days after #28. The issue is full of flashbacks, too. Just wanted to cover myself, because there’s always the “WELL, PAGES TWO-SIX TAKE PLACE ELEVEN DAYS BEFORE #28, AND I HATE YOU!” guy.

REVIEW: Controversy! Angry blog posts! Turbulence! If you’ve come to get the scoop on the whole ‘situation’ between the writer of this comic and the team of another comic, you’ve come to exactly the… wrong place. This is about the story, the art, and the characters. Let’s get crackin’.

If Fred were real and also not dead, she might have called me and old fogey, eh?

So, last time, in Bill Willingham’s first ANGEL issue, it was revealed that our eponymous hero was captured at Innovation Labs, where he is being drained of his own vampyric blood and also being bored to death. Or not death, because he’s been there/done that. But super bored. So, through flashbacks heavy with internal monologue captions, we get to see how he got himself in that situation.

Willingham was smart to utilize Angel’s rise to fame in this book. Kelley Armstrong used a plot device—a city ordinance—to make her own writing easy, thus negating any plot developments that could come from Brian Lynch making Angel famous when LA came back to Hell. Willingham scratches the whole idea of the ordinance (no explanation needed, really, fans can fill in the blanks) and juices that plot for all it’s worth. When Angel goes to a coffee shop to… well, get coffee, everyone around him pretty much goes crazy. The guy who is famous for saving their lives and fighting demons is in the same place as they are, AND he’s about to order the same coffee that they’re drinking. But let’s back up a second.

1. Angel, coffee? Ahhhhhh! Why? I can fanwank the idea that Angel was getting coffee for someone else or even going on a coffee run for his whole time. But I can’t really see Angel as we know him going out with the express purpose to buy coffee for himself. What might have been fun is if Willingham made a comment akin to, “I got so used to the stuff when I was a human, I still find myself craving a cup of coffee, even now that I’m refanged.” I buy Spike liking bloomin’ onion, but I’d have preferred if this were done a tad bit differently, as to not make my eyebrow all Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsoney.

2. This is where the scene gets cool. There’s a lot of, “Look, Angel is famous, PEOPLE ARE TALKING TO HIM AND HE HATES IT” business, which is awesome, but the real purpose for the scene is to show the darker side of things. A guy gets trampled to death when Angel’s appearance makes everyone in the coffee shop think he’s come to fight a demon. Seeing Angel standing alone in the wreckage, completely innocent but with another man’s blood on his hands… well, it’s damn sad. And also true to the series, which is good.

Another flashback, a bad-ass fight between Angel and some vampires, shows how the dynamic between the hero and the people he’s saving has changed. Instead of being glad that they’re not going to die, they’re whipping out their camera phones to record a video of Angel for YouTube.

Also, there’s a True Blood reference (“But on TV vampires explode in bloody wet goo when they’re staked”), which gives me a happy.

The scene is also used to introduce Angel to a man who (SPOILERS:) wants to use him/his blood to sire rich people willing to pay five point six million dollars. Willingham finally integrates the idea of how easy it would be to ensoul massive amounts of vampires into the mythology, something that had been avoided since the rules about how to ensoul were introduced in Season Two of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. But even with the souls… Angel’s not down.

And this, of course, leads to him being captured.

There is another quick scene at Angel Investigations, featuring Connor running his first meeting. It’s fun seeing how awkward he was at leading these people that are used to looking toward Angel for direction, and the scene plays well enough. Willingham has a strong, strong grasp of Connor’s voice. Illyria, much less so. I can’t hear her voice at all when she speaks. Gunn… I don’t really feel the emotion or instability I should. I know this is such an expository scene, so I can’t judge his grasp of Gunn’s state of mind, but he does have the guy talk a fair amount in the scene. I feel like Gunn would be keeping quiet and be a bit less inclined to tell people what to do, based on the events of “After the Fall.”

On the not-so-good side of things, I feel like the book did drag a bit. Willingham likes long scenes, and that’s fine since he’s with the book for the longrun and seems to have plotted out a long arc, but everything in his section of the book could have been done in eight or nine pages. Which means that #28 and #29 could have been one issue, and would probably have been a much more solid story for it. The entire scene at Angel Investigations rehashes what happened to Connor in #28, and the coffee shop scene AND the vampire fight take too long to get where they’re going. In addition to the characters voices being off, what I’m sensing is an incredible writer struggling a bit to get used to the voices, tone, and pace of the Buffyverse. Willingham will certainly do it, because, as I said, he’s an incredible writer. I feel like it might take a few issues before he really hits his stride, however.

And the story seems like it’s going somewhere awesome, so I’m down to wait and see how his comfort with the characters grows over the course of his run.

As for the Eddie Hope back-up, it was cool. Bill Williams is a good writer, and I love how he integrated Jacob Crane, the villainous devourer of supernatural creates from the fifth season of Angel. Also, I love the flashback to Eddie Hope during Hell. It seems to be a fragment of a story that’ll be continued or concluded next issue, so there’s not much I can say, but it was a fun piece.

Art: Brian Denham’s art improves as a whole this issue. The fight scene has some nice, fluid action. But again, his likenesses seem a bit too rigid. Sometimes it seems a bit like the characters are posing, while, even in conversation, it should seem as if they’re moving. It’s not bad, though; in fact, it’s very good. I just hope that Denham continues to improve on the movement of the non-fighty scenes. Messina’s arc in the Eddie Hope bit was great, as always.

Covers: Jenny Frison’s cover is awesome. It pokes fun at Angel’s newfound fame by sticking a cigar in our hero’s mouth and putting two well dressed babes on his arms. It’s funny, looks good, and it overall a well-done, extremely stylized cover. Messina’s is good, if a bit boring. Unfortunately, the three covers we’ve seen of his this arc look very much the same. Let’s hope for some diversity for #31!

Characters We Know: Angel, Gunn, James, Dez, Illyria, Spike, Connor, Kate, Jacob Crane, Eddie Hope.

Rating: 7/10

Twilight Revealed

2010-01-11T22:38:00.000-08:00

The covers to Buffy #34 have leaked.

Twilight has been unmasked.

Some fans are pissed.

A certain writer is pissed.

But Buffyverse Comic Reviews? We're (again, using the plural very loosely) kind of excited.

Check out the article Pat Shand wrote because... well, it's essentially a way that this could work.

http://www.stinkyburgerproductions.com/uncategorized/geeky-reflection-on-the-new-buffy-villain/

Enjoy. Leave comments at the site, please! Spread the word... unless you want to avoid spoilers. Because they are aplenty.

Is Willow Redeemable?

2009-12-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Eight: Willow- Goddesses and Monsters

Timing: After "Chosen" and before "The Long Way Home." Likely set during the fifth season of Angel.

REVIEW: I recently had a conversation with a professor of mine about Willow. He mentioned how much he loved her, and I shrugged. "I'm over Willow," I said. He simply replied, "I'm not." I made the argument that it's less the character's fault and more the writers, but I just couldn't forgive Willow for what happened at the end of Season Six. Killing Warren, I got. Chasing Jonathan and Andrew, I got. But the whole ending the world thing was too grand, too villainous, and too much to ask for the fans to swallow. Then, in Season Seven, with the whole Kennedy thing, and Willow acting how she was, it was just too much. Then, she came back in Season Eight with a whole bunch of unexplained powers, and I was just so, so over her.

And then, Joss did little things that sort of made me see glimmers of the old Willow in her. The one that I loved, the one that my professor isn't over.

And then, Joss wrote this one-shot. In the best Buffy installment since #16, he humanizes Willow without really making it obvious that he's setting out to do that. He manages to suggest how she got her powers without really showing it. He shows how Saga Vasuki, whose real name is Aluwyn and whose role seems to be titled Saga Vasuki, was introduced to Willow and kind of what role she plays, but he leaves the rest up to the imagination. A few folks commented on the forums (snort, geeky chuckle) said that this feels like the first issue of a miniseries, but I couldn't disagree more. Joss gives us what we need here. We see sort of who the elemental goddesses are, because we don't really need specifics unless the story dictates that. And I feel sort of like a douche saying this, because it's such a Scott Allie line, and he uses that so often to cop out of editorial and story screw-ups. Stuff that should be in the story is an elaboration of how the world is so convinced that vampires rock. But this issue has a great balance of what we need to know and what we just need the suggestion of.

So yeah, Joss is a master.

Also, the balance between the drama and the funny is at a place it hasn't been in way too long. I got to used to Buffy: Season Eight being mediocre with splashes of good and splashes of terrible, but Joss really brought the greatness here. Scene after scene, idea after idea, it's brilliant. The dialogue is at a place is hasn't been in way too long, and Willow is damn likable. I feel her pain, I feel her happiness, and I'm both scared and excited for her when she takes control of her own journey and makes an important choice about who is going to be her guide.

I'm thrilled that Joss is on again for the next issue, and I definitely have hope for Meltzer. Espenson's arc, which was uneven at best and shark jumpy at worst, left me feeling pretty sad for the state of the series, but this one-shot showed me that Joss, as sucky as recent issues have been, does have a plan. I'll trust him. I can't really forgive how bad some issues, particularly #29, were, but now I have faith that he can redeem the series and make sense of all the stuff that, from here, looks nonsensical. I'm pretty excited for what's to come, which hasn't happened for me in a long time, so... that says something about how excellent this issue was.

My favorite story (well, aside from ANGEL) is in your hands, Mr. Whedon. Don't go breaking my heart.

Art: Man, does Karl Moline how to draw Willow. The quality of his pencils here are insane. So much so that I'd probably put him as my second favorite Buffyverse artist, after Urru. It's really just insane how much better this art is than the art of Jeanty, who seems to be sort of rushing through the "Retreat" arc. If Dark Horse is going to start looking for a series artist for Season Nine, they should look no farther than Karl Moline.

Covers: Really good stuff. Jo Chen's cover is elegant and really beautiful, with amazing colors, but I will say that Willow looks a bit too voluptuous here. Faith, that's okay. But Willow... eh. Tone down the boobage for the betterment of the cover. Moline's cover is excellent, for the most part, except for the random design on the bottom. I mean, what? The image of WIllow is just great, so why not stick with that? Good covers, but there are little things that take away from them, preventing them from being truly great.

Characters We Know: Willow, Kennedy, Aluwyn AKA Saga Vasuki, and (SPOILERS:) Tara.

Rating: 9/10

Lynch & Mooney's Last Angel. Get it? Because the book is CALLED "Last Angel," but it's also the LAST Angel book they're doing. See what I did there?

2009-12-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel Annual #1: Last Angel in Hell. Written by Brian Lynch, art by Stephen Mooney.

Timing: The story in this book, which is essentially a bad action movie based on what happened when LA was sent to Hell, never actually happens in the Buffyverse. However, the film was shot, and it exists as a fictional film in Angel's world. A preview of the film premiered at the Sci-Fi Convention in Angel #26.

REVIEW: So this is it. The last Brian Lynch penned ANGEL comic we're probably ever going to see. Thing is, though, it's not really even an Angel comic. While it uses a shitty screenwriter's version of the characters and slightly uses the situation of "After the Fall," it's way more a parody of bad action films than a parody of "After the Fall." There are definitely the kind of jokes this needed to have to make the book work ("What, like a reboot? That's kind of a cop-out, no?"), but the action of the film was so wildly misinterpreted by the fictional screenwriter that it doesn't comment that much on "After the Fall" itself.

And that is probably the one thing I would change. As awesome as it is that this is 100% friendly to newcomers, I do wish there had been a bit more in-jokes. There is the instant hilarity of seeing how they turned Spike into a lady, Gunn into Hurley-from-Lost with a gun obsession, Fred into a black chick in a suit of body armor called I.L.L.Y.R.I.A. that gives her Gwen-like powers, Spike into a lady, Betta George into a dog, and Angel into Nic Cage. Angel's loner-ness is made fun of, the idea of snow in Hell-A is played with, and there are even some specific situations and lines that are winks to fans, but in a project as meta as this, there should just be more meta. It should be the meta-est. Other meta things should look at this with envy and desire to hold a meta-stick to the meta of this issue.

Now, for the great.

The book is funny as hell. PUN! Pretty much every page has a great line (well, usually a line so purposely bad that it's hilarious), and that kicks ass because the thing is 48 pages long. If this comic went to a school of other comics, it'd spend most of its time kicking the shit out of punier comics. Probably stealing their lunch money, too. Oh, and definitely the occasional swirlie.

I never thought plot inconsistencies would be a positive thing about a comic, but Brian Lynch totally skewers action films perfectly here by hinging the entire story on a plot twist that doesn't make sense. (Lady) Spike (whose name is Sara, she's only called Spike because of an offhand reference Detective Angel Cartwright made to her teeth looking like spikes) essentially causes Hell to come to Earth by spilling a lot of blood at her and Angel's wedding (yup), but it turns out that she was on Angel's side all along and only pretended to be bad to kill the devil. Yup, sounds just like a Michael Bay film, right? Right. There are all the cheesy, big moments where the heroes conquer the one, random thing that always held them back that was awkwardly introduced for easy pay-off at the climax. There are all the expected, clunky action flick lines (at Doublemeat Palace, where the sign outside says "Over five billion serves," Angel Cartwright says to an employee "You just gotta do one thing... change the sign outside. Because three more are about to get served" before he kicks the ass of some vampiredemonperpscum. Also, there's the awesomely bad product placement, and not just the ads. The whole Doublemeat Palace thing is totally milked for all its worth in this. The existence of this book and the funniness of those scene almost justifies the existence of that Buffy episode for me now, which I'd thought was an impossible feat.

There are a lot of awesome lines, and it's pretty much page-for-page entertaining. I dig it, I'll come back to it over and over, and it's a good way for Lynch to end his stint on Angel. I hope to hell there's a sequel ("Next Last Angel in Hell"), and, I can't help it, I hope the dude comes back to the main title someday. Since Spike: Asylum #1, Brian Lynch has been my favorite comic writer, and he's made the recent years kick ass for Angel fans. I can't wait to see what he does with the SPIKE on-going, but until then, we've got all his Angel issues, all his Spike issues, and now this bad-boy to enjoy.

Art: And Stephen Mooney. This is also probably Mooney's last issue, and I'm pretty torn up about that as well. Not only has he been one of my favorite Angel artists, he's just an all around great guy. He puts his best work forward here, for sure. The art is cinematic, appropriately cheesy, and the characters just look great. If he has to finish up his run on Angel, this is the way to do it. Bravo, sir.

Covers: Two of Mooney's best. The main cover is probably the most epic ANGEL cover ever, which is kind of ironic, seeing as this isn't exactly an ANGEL book. It's an iconic image, and if there is ever one book that collects all of "After the Fall," this should be the cover. It's that bad-ass. Then, the B cover features the same characters, except as played by their "Last Angel in Hell" actors. Freakin' awesome.

Characters We Know: Hm... I never thought this would be a difficult section. Betta George actually appears as an extra in the movie, which was great. There are fictionalized versions of Angel, Spike, Gunn, Fred/Illyria/Gwen, Wesley, and Lorne.

Rating: 9/10

Brian Lynch, Stephen Mooney... thanks for this, thanks for the past few years of great work you've done, thanks for everything. I'll be following both of your post-Angel careers, so keep up the fantastic work.

The Crown is Passed Down

2009-12-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel #28- The Crown Prince Syndrome, Part One. Written by Bill Willingham, art by Brian Denham. (Back-up story: Eddie Hope in A Devil Walks Into a Bar, Part One. Story by Bill Willingham and Bill Williams, script by Bill Williams, art by David Messina.)

Timing: Weeks, maybe months, after Angel #27.

REVIEW: In many ways, this issue starts a new 'season' of Angel. Brian Lynch has written his final ANGEL issue and is moving over to the on-going SPIKE series. The characters are all back together (this happens after ANGEL: ONLY HUMAN), but they also haven't really had it out about any of the stuff that happened during the Fall. This new chapter of ANGEL starts out with a whole mess of potential, and it's up to new series writer Bill Willingman to turn that potential into a great run.

Now, I've read Willingham's stuff before, so I sort of knew what to expect going in. I read and enjoyed the first three arcs of his award winning FABLES series, and plan to read the rest when I get a chance, so I didn't have that "What's going to happen?" feeling that I had when Kelley Armstrong took over for the AFTERMATH arc. I look back on my review of her first issue, and I see that I was being so easy on the book, cutting her so much slack because it was her first try. But... I'm not going to do that this time. I'm going to review this as an ANGEL book, no strings attached, no "aw, but it's his first issue" stuff. The same way I reviewed Brian Lynch's first ANGEL issue, which just happened to be utterly fantastic.

So. Bill Willingham's ANGEL.

Actually, a good book. A legitimately good read. The thing that did annoy me was that it had the potential to be a great issue, but a few of Willingham's choices prevented that from happening. The book opens with Connor fighting a pack of horager demons for seven pages. Now, I love how this is a call back to the first issue of AFTER THE FALL, where Angel was fighting similarly green demons with a sword in an alley. Only thing is, that was a much quicker fight. Willingham spreads the fight out and uses the scene as a vehicle for exposition through Connor's internal monologue, which... why? Connor explains his whole "I have three fathers" thing again, explains how all of his lives were different and how only one of them are real, and--the only thing we needed to know--how horager demons actually come from Quor'toth, the hell dimension where Connor grew up. Connor's voice is pretty much spot on, and that is a huge relief since there is just so much of him, and Willingham is handling him very much in the same way that Brian Lynch did. Connor is cool. He's no longer the whiney kid from Season Four. He's the hero from AFTER THE FALL. And I dig that.

The focus remains on Connor for the vast majority of the issue, and things get all foreshadowy when a group of robotic(?)/metallic(?) demons(?) jump to Connor's rescue, just as he is about to be killed by a horager. The demons (spoilers:) claim that Connor is "The Promised One" and "The Honored One" and that they are his army. This is where the comic really picked up for me, and Willingham shows that he has a good sense of the trademark gothic juxtaposition that Whedon and Lynch utilized to such great effect. The mix of the high (an army of demons addressing Connor as their king, all proper-like) and the low (ending the scene with one of the demons giving Connor is card and saying "Call me later. We'll talk.") is hilarious. Unfortunately, Willingham ends the scene with the tired old joke "Funny. I thought he'd be taller" which, as small a moment as it is in the scope of the issue, annoyed me. It's been used so many times, so why not come up with something better? It's an easy line, and Willingham is better than that.

Now, here's the odd bit. Connor takes a cab ride back to the Hyperion, where Angel Investigations has moved to (thank God). All the exposition from the first seven pages is given to us again, just condense. And it reads so damn well. If the opening scene had just been the battle with no exposition except for the necessary horager stuff, and all the "I'm Connor, this is my life" had been left for the cab scene, it would be a much, much stronger book. The exposition in the cab scene works, because Connor is essentially comparing his oddness to the normalcy around him. To him, the cab driver is one of the lucky ones, one of the ones that Connor, is one of his lives, got a chance to be. And... well, to the cab driver, Connor is just a geek with a prop sword. Best scene in the book.

And now, the moment of truth... when we head back to the Hyperion to see the rest of the gang. The moment when we see how Willingham handles the rest of the characters, and the dialogue as a whole. So what's the verdict? Well... not bad at all. The majority of the scene is Spike trying to tell everyone what happened to him in Vegas while everyone else is wondering where Angel is. The dialogue doesn't have a really organic flow to it yet, but it is a damn crowded scene, so I don't really blame Willingham for that. Packs into the lobby of the Hyperion are Spike, Gunn, Betta George, Illyria, Kate, James, Dez, and Connor. Willingham isn't as spot on with the voices as Brian Lynch, but his Spike is hilarious and I can definitely hear Marsters in my head while reading Spike's dialogue. Gunn is also very well done. I didn't like Willingham's take on Illyria, who seems to be talking more like a logic machine than the Illyria that Whedon created and Lynch developed the hell out of. James actually gets a good chunk of dialogue, and he's... pretty funny. And you know what, I'm glad that Willingham kept Dez and James in the mix. As much as AFTERMATH outright sucked, the characters have been introduced, and the on-going story is canonical, so we can't just ignore a whole arc. I just hope that Willingham can make good characters out of them, or... well, kill them and make their deaths matter.

Now, the scene with all these characters isn't bad. It seems to say that, after the Fall, all of these characters really need each other, so they're grouping together... and that's interesting. But how much more interesting, and how much more organic, would it have been to actually see these characters come together? If Connor, Kate, Dez, and James (the AFTERMATH team) were the main crew, Willingham wouldn't have needed the awkward scene in which it's decided that, in Angel's absence (I'm getting to that), that Connor should be the leader. It would have been awesome to see Spike doing his own thing and finding his way back to the group, with George in tow. Also, I really needed to see the scene where Gunn and Illyria come back to the group. I mean, it's not as if Willingham is ignoring all the atrocities Gunn committed, because he makes sure to have Connor give Gunn a dirty look, and that subtlety for me is more interesting than an out-of-place and random argument (YOU KILLED ME?! HOW DARE YOU!?), but it would have certainly been great to see Gunn's apologetic re-entrance into the Hyperion, wondering if he's going to be accepted or denied. But, we've got what we've got.

And now, Angel. We only get two pages on him, because he's... well, he's (spoilers:) been kidnapped. His situation is really interesting and a bit sad and a bit funny, and I can't wait to see where Willingham takes it. From what we hear from Angel--a lot of internal monologue, because... well, he's not really in the position to speak right now--seems to be as spot on as his Connor dialogue.

It's a flawed but promising start to the new chapter in the on-going ANGEL saga. Now that all the exposition and "this is the new status quo" stuff is out of the way, I'm expecting Willingham to deliver a great ANGEL story.

Art: The art ranges from great to annoying. The likenesses are always spot on, and good enough to place new series artist Brian Denham among my favorite Angel artists. He's really got a handle on the characters faces, and the opening scene also shows that he's awesome at action. However... he can't seem to blend the two together to create the movement appropriate for the scene in the Hyperion. The scene has a lot of characters, so I can't imagine how hard that was, but a lot of it felt like still photographs with the characters posing. No one is ever really looking at each other, and way too often, the characters are facing the reader. Also, the characters are standing one place for one line of dialogue and then next to someone entirely different for the next line. It's not really well-staged at all, and if there are going to be a lot of Hyperion scenes, I really hope Denham works on that, because the rest of his work in the issue was stellar. He's great at expressions, faces, and action... now he just needs to work on his lengthy dialogue scenes. Oh, and I can't end this section without mentioning colorist Alfred Rockefeller, who does an utterly fantastic job. Holy crap.

Back-up Story: This was one of the highlights of the issue. We get a bad-ass, action packed, and morally ambiguous introduction to Eddie Hope... a devil who may either be a hero or a villain. He goes to a bar, seeking out folks who did terrible stuff when LA fell, in order to... well, kill the shit out of them. It's violent, gruesome, and really awesome. It's short, at just four pages, but it works. I also love that instead of making the main story of the issue feel short (it's 18 pages instead of 22), it just makes the book as a whole feel more complete. I can definitely see Eddie's story building a lot throughout the arc, and I'm already anticipating the moment when Bill Willingham decides to pull the character into the main story, because something tells me that Eddie Hope is going to want a piece of Gunn. And, er, not in the sexy way. The killy way.

Covers: A lot for this one. Unfortunately, I can't really afford buying all the retailer incentives anymore, because I'm producing a feature film which is woah a lot of money, but I'm still able to get the A and B covers, and give my take on the prettiness of the others, via internet pics. The main cover, by Jenny Frison, is decent. Angel looks pretty sick (well, he should, considering his situation), but he also looks a bit too bulky. It's not a bad cover, but there are a few details on it that make it pretty jarring. I do love the angels and demons that are crawling all over the cover, which really works well. The B-cover is by Messina, and it features Angel (who is looking a bit cat-like) and Eddie Hope. The style of the cover is pretty awesome, and the red city over the blue, demonic image looks cool. Brian Denham's retailer incentive cover is a badass black and white skull with a crown on it that has a crazy amount of detail, and Jenny Frison also offers a new years themed incentive, featuring Angel and Spike. All the covers range from decent to great.

Characters We Know: Connor, Spike, Illyria, Gunn, Betta George, Kate, James, Dez, Angel.

Rating: 7/10

Awful? Nah. Good? No way.

2009-11-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Issue #30: Retreat part V (written by Jane Espenson; art by Georges Jeanty).

Timing: BtVS, Season Eight. Right after "Retreat part IV."

Warning: Since this review is super late, no spoilers are going to be blocked. If you took as long to read it as I did to review it, go get the comic instead of reading this!

REVIEW: Sigh.

Well, it's not as bad as #29. Not nearly. It doesn't fix any of the stuff that is fundamentally wrong with the story, but it pushes the characters forward in a slightly more interesting way than I expected after the utter travesty that was the last issue. I had to sit on this book for a long time to really get a sense of my reaction, because I didn't want to go in with my #29 anger fresh in my head, and I also didn't want to keep you guys waiting too long. So here we go...

THE GOOD

+ The threat of the goddesses was actually handled rather nicely. As random and odd as their appearance was, the scene when the Scoobs realize that the goddesses aren't on their side was pretty chilling. I didn't really get why the goddesses didn't just stomp their temple for maximum killage, but that I can suspend my disbelief for.

+ Riley. We find out that he's been on Buffy's side all along and that Twilight might have known it. I hope his time spent undercover is elaborated on a lot in future issues, because all he gave Buffy was "You need a miracle." This, I'm excited to see. And in Buffy: Season Eight, anything that excites me is a rarity and a blessing.

+ Another thing that excites me... Buffy flying. Yup. It happens at the end of this issue. It seems to be the one thing that Scott Allie said they were building toward this season that actually seems as if they were building toward it. It's a great moment, and I'm thrilled to see where that is going. It has the potential to continue the terrible, shark jumping trend of making everything so damn large scale, but it also has the potential to inject new life into a story that, at this point, seems kind of tired.

+ Fun stuff between Twilight, Warren, and Amy.

THE BAD

+ Still with the guns and the not caring. It was sort of touched on when Buffy asks everyone to give even their wounded enemies shelter, but how how how can you have Xander, Dawn, Buffy, and these characters shooting humans and not show any sort of emotional reaction? What is going on?

+ While it might be necessary, the mass murder of the slayers here--as well as their loss of power and Buffy's gain of super power--seems like a really obvious way of putting things back to the status quo of Buffy strong, everyone else weak. Is it important for the story? Probably. Does it cheapen Chosen? Unfortunately.

Art: Jeanty's busy panels continue to suffer. It's impossible to tell any of the males, aside from Xander for obvious, eye-patchy reasons, apart. You have to skim through the book to see who is wearing what color shirt in order to see who is who. The first time we see Andrew and Giles, it looks as if two new characters with mushy heads have been introduced into the fold. The close-ups of the faces for the non-war moments, however, are the best they've been in a while. Jeanty's really handling the Buffy/Xander/Dawn love triangle well through his art, even though I have no idea how the whole new found Buffy/Xander connection makes sense, story-wise. An improvement over what Jeanty's been doing, but I wish he were as consistent as he used to be.

Covers: Jeanty's cover is... eh. I have no real opinion about it. It's the same way most of his covers have been recently. Terrible compared to what he's done before, but, on it's own, just boring. Adam Hughes is on A cover duties, and his coer is the better of the two, but also really weird. Buffy has "realistic face, cartoony body" syndrome, and the rest of the cover is blocked by snow. It's not bad, but not particularly good either. Seems to be going around a lot in this issue.

Characters We Know: Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Willow, Giles, Andrew, Oz, Kennedy, Amy, Warren, Twilight, Riley, Faith, Satsu, Leah, Rowena.

Rating: 5/10

"Meep."

2009-11-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel: Only Human #3 (written by Scott Lobdell; art by David Messina)

Timing: Directly after Angel: Only Human #2.

Warning: The bigger spoilers will be written in black text. Simply highlight to read. As this is a review, there will be some minor "spoilers" sprinkled throughout the text that don't warrant being hidden. If you have not read the issue and don't want to know anything about the plot, don't read this. Spoilers for previous issues will obviously not be blocked.

REVIEW: I'm way less jazzed about Angel: Only Human after reading this issue. The first issues were solid 8/10s, and while the story is still continued effectively here, some of the dialogue is just sloppy. And an in continuity book set in the Buffyverse should have anything but bad dialogue. Lobdell didn't show an amazing skill for Whedonesque dialogue with the first two issues of the book, but at least both Gunn and Illyria seemed in character. If you can't amaze me with the dialogue, at least don't jarr me. A few turns of phrase here jarred me, especially in Illyria's narration. However, nothing came close to when Gunn, in reaction to seeing Illyria get engulfed in an explosion of flames, said, "Meep."

"Meep."

"Meep."

Really.

Charles Gunn.

"Meep."

I... don't know. I can't hear J. August saying this. I can't picture Gunn ever saying this. I can't really even picture a grown man saying this at all. I don't know.

Moving on, the rest of the issue is fairly good. While it's definitely brought down a few notches due to some seemingly rushed writing and Gunn's odd utterance, there are some really cool bits here. We get some cool insight into Gunn and Illyria's past, Illyria through explicative flashback and Gunn through a plot device called "soulfire." But I don't mind plot devices, and it worked well. We got a pretty emotional look at Gunn as a child on two separate occasions: When he saw his first vampire and when his grandma died. The latter is a really emotional and effectively done scene, especially considering how it's cut up with bits of Illyria's flashback. Also, a great little touch was seeing Gunn walking with his sister at the hospital. The connection between Gunn's memory of his sister hasn't really been explored yet in his post-vampire life, but at least showing her is good attention to continuity.

The majority of the issue is flashback and action. The action is handled rather well, without too much narration, and the flashback is solid. While my review might seem negative, this is still a pretty decent book. Lobdell just needs a better sense of Gunn and Illyria as characters in order to understand how they would speak in a given situation (as in, never ever "Meep.") Also, the pacing in the issue was a bit wonky, especially how it ends on such an odd note. We've got an epic fight going on between Illyria and Baticus. So many great places to end. Then, Baticus, towering over Illyria, says "Why won't you fall, Illyria!? At long last... fall!" And Illyria replies with a simple "No."

The end.

Er... what?

It literally seems as if Lobdell was writing this, realized he was on page twenty-two, and said, "Eh, good enough."

Art: Messina's art is as amazing as always. He's gotten to the point, like Franco and Mooney, that there isn't much I can say about him that I haven't already been said. His art is beautiful, violent, vibrant, and graceful. I dig it.

Covers: Only one cover this time around, and it's the best so far. The green and pinks are amazing here, and Illyria's likeness is fantastic. Though, I have to say, maybe the whole "Illyria's true form looks like a vagina" could have been a taaaaad bit more subtle here. The watering lips (I feel like I'm writing a porn here... COME BACK NEXT WEEK FOR ILLYRIAPORN) are a bit too much.

Characters We Know: Illyria, Gunn.

Rating: 6/10

"And Men Shall Call Him... SPANGEL!"

2009-11-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel #27- Boys and Their Toys, Part Two (Written by Brian Lynch; art by Stephen Mooney)

Timing: Directly after Angel #26.

REVIEW: This was a bittersweet reading experience... kinda. It's hard to define, really. In a way, this is the last Angel story that Brian Lynch and Stephen Mooney are going to tell. And nope, I don't mean as a team. They're both spent a lot of time with Angel, and both of them have said that after this, they're moving on. So this is sort of an end. But they do have the Last Angel in Hell annual next month, which is kinda Angel, so that made this a bit less sad. Also, Brian is signing on as the writer for the Spike on-going next year, so again, less sad. It didn't have that "Is this really the end?" feeling that the final issue of After the Fall was laced with, but that might just be because it's a funny issue.

It continues the story from where the last installment left off. Everyone at the Sci-Fi Convention has become the characters that they were dressed as... and Spike was dressed as Angel. I was thrilled to see that Spike wasn't just behaving as his grandsire would... he was behaving as he thinks Angel would. Saying things and thinking things and doing things that he thinks Angel would. It gives a funny, critical, and at times sweet look at how Spike really thinks of Angel, which is something we rarely got on the show, as it's pretty hard to chip through Spike's sarcastic exterior. This issue has way more action than anything else, though, so it's not as if it's a full out character study. It's a glimpse into Spike's head, and as I mentioned in my review for #26, a really cool launching point for his solo series.

So, the action. There's a lot of it. It doesn't feel like too much, because the characters never really get lost in the action, but I do wish we had been able to spend a little more time with Spike, while he was (as he called himself) "Angel #1." Spike's emotional reaction to realizing that he wasn't Angel felt pretty quick, and though it was earned not only through this issue, but since the first time we saw how much Spike looked up to the guy (Buffy, Season Two), I do wish there was a bit more back-and-forth dialogue to play with there. And the thing is, there certainly could have been. There is an entire page where Angel essentially recaps what happened in the previous issue. But why? This is a direct follow-up of the issue, so we shouldn't really have to hear Angel talk about it in page space that could otherwise be used for more character development and action. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a page, but I do think it could have been better utilized.

There also aren't as many laugh-out-loud moments as the previous issue, but I don't fault that much. Most of this is battle dialogue and quick interactions between Spike/Groo and Angel/Jeremy (no, not in a shippery way, you slashers), so there isn't room for any full comedy scenes like the Last Angel in Hell bit and all the funny Groosalugg stuff from the previous issue. What we have here is still funny stuff, though; especially the scene where Spike as "Angel #1" and Groosalugg face off against a group of squishy-headed "aliens" that believe they're from the planet Skrum. One of the lines that I did lose it on was when an alien holds a laser to Groo's chest, saying "You! Carbon based, Fabio-esque lifeform! Take me to your leader!"

All in all, it's a fun comic with a little bit of character insight. It's not as much of a riot as the previous installment, but I don't feel like it's trying to be. It's nothing earth-shattering or shocking, but it is a highly enjoyable reading experience that, as with all Brian Lynch's writing, feels 100% like Angel. If this is indeed the last Angel comic that Brian Lynch ever writes (though, I have a dream that one day he'll come back, years later, when the series is past #100, to finish off the series with one last, epic, final arc), then it was a solid end to my favorite run of my favorite comic.

Art: Stephen Mooney's likenesses are stellar, as always. He's less fluid with the action in some parts than I would like, but the vast majority of the panels here are really good. I've written paragraphs and paragraphs about Mooney's art, and I feel like I've watched it grow so much. This is good stuff; not his best (his best certainly seems to be Last Angel in Hell, because from what I've seen damn), but still solid stuff. The panels are just super busy, what with all the fighting fans-turned-warriors in the background, so sometimes the details of a character's expression loses some of the time that could have been spent on it in a quieter panel. The story called for it though, so I'm certainly not faulting the art at all. It was definitely something different from Mooney, whose last two Angel projects were the epic and tragic After the Fall and Not Fade Away adaptation, so the jump to comedy here must have been tough... but it was well done. I wish the man would stay on Angel, because it's clear that the title is better for having him play a part in it, but if we can't have him now, all we can do is wish him luck in his next projects and cross our fingers that he'll want to play in Angel's world again someday.

Covers: Both of the covers are better than last time's, which were already fantastic. Mooney's Spike/Angel split might be his best likeness of both Spike and Angel ever, as well as his best use of shadows. The faces are just perfect, and wow I hope this cover is used for the Volume Six hardcover. It's simply a perfect piece of Angel art. Nick Runge's is also very cool, featuring Angel and Spike standing in front of a poster of Angel that Spike's face has been taped over. Similar idea to Mooney's, but completely different execution. And I dig both.

Characters We Know: Angel, Spike, Groosalugg, Jeremy.

Extras: In the back of the book, there is an interview between IDW Publishing and Angel himself (likely written by Bill Willingham) that talks a little bit about what to expect in Willingham's first arc, Immortality for Dummies, which kicks off with #28 (which has it's own title: The Crown Prince Syndrome). Angel's voice is funny, and slightly mocking, which is perfect for a piece like this. I love this kind of meta stuff, and it's just getting me more excited for this arc that I've been looking forward to since the announcement at Comic-Con. Also, we get a quick interview with Bill Williams, who is going to be writing four page back-up stories in each of Willingham's issues. Angel is going in a whole new direction, and I can't wait to see how the two Bills handle it!

Also, my Angel: After the Fall fan film came out today! Check it out and please leave feedback here or on the YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtbCo61IIXs

Rating: 8/10

A Halloweenie Treat

2009-11-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

What Is It?: Angel vs. Frankenstein- The Heir (by John Byrne)

Timing: Early 1800s, after the action of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

REVIEW: Much like John Byrne's Blood and Trenches, this was a treat. It was told in a different style than the Angel stories we've been getting that have been set in modern times, offering a dark, gothic, and truly creepy tale just in time for Halloween. Unfortunately, I'm not in time to review it for Halloween, but... yeah. I really enjoyed it, and I think it's just what the doctor ordered.

These kinds of tales should be what IDW looks for to spice up the Angel title. Brian Lynch's one-shots and the current Boys and Their Toys two-parter (Part Two still hasn't come out in NY! No matter how busy I am, I do tend to drop everything to get my Lynchcomic reviews out, because, to be honest, they're at a higher level than any Buffyverse comic being published now) have been fantastic, but it's clear that the series is in a transitional period before Willingham takes over with the Immortality for Dummies arc in December. Stories like this one, though, help remind us where Angel comes from. As much fun as we can have with the comedy issues, and as heroic as Angel is now in the more dramatic issues, this served as a harsh reminder to me where he comes from. And that, at this point in the series, is essential. Each season was loaded with flashbacks, but the on-going series really hasn't seen much of that until now, other than Blood and Trenches, which showed a troubled but essentially good Angel. This... not so much.

It's a battle of the villains as Angelus and Frankenstein go head to head for an inheritance that neither of them really deserves or, considering what the inheritance has dwindled to, really want. It's more of a war of ego and honor between two monsters, one whose heart turned cold because of the way people treated him, the other who likes to snap necks and ravage virgins. So yeah, it's clear that Frankenstein is the better of the two here, but his nonchalance about taking human life to get what he wants throws this story into a dark, dark place. There really are no heroes, no one to root for or get behind. It's just two dark forces clashing, and it's damn chilling.

The language Byrne uses to tell the story is great. It genuinely feels like it takes place in that era, and besides a few awkward turns of phrase ("...He has been called Angelus. A name given to him as an ironic joke." Eeek.), Byrne uses dialogue and Frankenstein's expository monologue to set the tone here. Despite the idea having comic book fight written all over it (I mean, what hero hasn't fought Frankenstein?), Byrne takes the realistic route and totally succeeds. It's nothing earth shattering, but it's an enjoyable and well-written comic that works as an Angel tale, a Frankenstein tale, a standalone horror tale, or a start to a longer Angel vs. Frankenstein saga. And man, I hope for that last bit.

Art: So, so different than Blood and Trenches. I loved the washed out, newspapery look of that book, and I thought we might get something similar here, but nope. Byrne's likenesses are as strong as always, but the darkness of the story seeps through into the art. It's shadowy without being too dark, bright in places without breaking the mood... actually, it's almost as if it's a comic being told by candlelight. Colorist Ronda Pattinson should just color all the Angel comics, because her work here isn't just attractive, it also works perfectly with the story. Great, great art.

Covers: Not my favorite by Byrne. There are a lot of arms, and it is sort of messy. All I can think of when I see it is, "Is that Frankenstein's leg? How is it there. He's so tall that his knee caps are at Angelus's shoulder. Heh. Why? They're in a forest? Why is Angelus holding her that way? Looks uncomfortable for him. Why is her hand bent that way? Looks uncomfortable or her. Is Frankenstein stroking Angelus's hair. Sexy. But no." So not the best. Byrne showed in Blood and Trenches that he's way better at interiors than covers, but this is definitely below his usual standards. There are some very cool things about it, but they're all trumped by the sheer awkwardness.

Characters We Know: Angelus. Oh, and he hasn't appeared in the Buffyverse until now, but... Frankenstein, who you should know. If you don't, leave this blog now. Go. Shoo.

Extras: So I'm a geek. Know this before you read what follows. I love TPBs and hardcovers, and I love seeing what goes into them and what doesn't make it. As of now, it seems that this book doesn't really have a place in any collection. So, geek that I am, here are a couple of suggestions.

Angel- Volume __ - Short stories- Make it a part of the on-going series. Throw it in a hardcover. And no, not randomly. Wait until there are a bunch of one-shots. Fables, Sandman, Y: The Last Man, and so many other series do it. Have it start with Masks, then this, then Last Angel in Hell, and and the next few one shots that come out. Whatever volume hardcover has been published by then (I'm thinking Angel- Volume Seven- Immortality for Dummies) make it the next one!

Or...

Angel vs. Frankenstein TPB- I know what you're saying. "But Pat! It's only a one-shot! It would just be the very same comic in an ill fitting larger cover!" But "wait," I say! Make it a friggin' series. It works. The ending calls for it. It should happen.

Rating: 8/10

Updates

2009-10-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

Reviews will be back on track soon.

Reviews for ANGEL: ONLY HUMAN #3, FALLEN ANGEL: REBORN #4, and ANGEL vs. FRANKENSTINE will be coming by Wednesday.

Also, I'm closing down the sister site to this blog, http://patshand.blogspot.com

Keep up with my new stuff at these sites:

STINKY BURGER PRODUCTIONS: www.stinkyburgerproductions.com

YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/stinkyburger

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/stinkyburgerproductions

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/stinkyburger

E-MAIL: stinkyburgerproductions@gmail.com

The Closest "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Has Ever Come to Jumping the Shark

2009-10-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

What Is It?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Issue #29: Retreat part IV (written by Jane Espenson; art by Georges Jeanty).

Timing: BtVS, Season Eight. Right after "Retreat part III."

REVIEW: This was my first reaction to the issue, the day it came out:

"Okay.

I'm sorry. I love Joss Whedon. Out of every writer I've ever worshipped, his work has just GOTTEN to me. It's great. They played Dr. Horrible today in my New Media class, and I basically cheered. And my favorite Whedon work? The Buffyverse. It's close to my heart, and, in my opinion, one of the best stories ever told.

I've had my issues with Season Eight since #17, that's for sure. It's see-sawed from bad to really great, but it's been consistently (at least) good for a while now.

But after reading this issue, I don't know what to think. It felt like Buffy as done by Michael Bay if Bay had a slightly better ear for dialogue. It was a mess of action, melodrama, and people who resemble the characters I've come to love fighting and killing faceless humans. What was the big end to the whole getting rid of magic thing? Not showing the world that the slayers were demons. It was to start using guns and torpedoes against an army. What was the RESULT of the whole getting rid of magic thing? Colorful goddesses coming out of the ground. What? Super cartoony, and utterly non-Buffyesque. In tone, characterization, and even down to the ever changing, maybe non-existent theme, this is not the Buffy I've grown to love for seven seasons and a whole bunch of wonderful comics.

I don't know what to think. It's the same team. Is Whedon spread too thin? Maybe. Dollhouse is great. Maybe that is taking up all of his time. But what about Espenson? Her last two issues were very good, and the one before that was also decent. And "Briar Rose" was phenomenal. What is going on? I'm just left scratching my head. Are the flaws inherent in the plot? Is the story just too big?

Whatever it is, my suspension of belief was completely blown, and it's breaking my heart."

I decided that, before I posted my review, I'd let myself cool off. I read it again. I felt no better about it. Then, one night, I turned on "Surprise," one of my favorite Buffy episodes. From the dream sequence in the beginning, to the cliffhanger ending, the whole thing has a very foreboding, Gothic tone that really defined the early series for me. But here's the thing. All the way to the end of the televised series, I was never really let down. Sure, Season Six and Seven had some clunkers, but they also had incredibly strong moments that made up for the problems. These seasons were still good Buffy stories, and they were great television. And Season Eight started that way too. #1-16, excluding #5, were great Buffy stories. The season was on its way to becoming the best season since the epic fifth year. But then, things started getting messy. The plot started making no sense. Scott Allie kept having to explain things that were happening off stage, shaking his head at readers for not realizing that these things--which are essential to the plot--didn't matter for "the story." We were expected to believe that humans no only accepted vampires, but knew that vampires were killers... and that this was basically a unanimous view amongst humanity. Okay. Very strange, very un-Josslike, but sure. I trust the man, so I'll rock with it.

And then Jane Espenson started cleaning house a bit. The first installment of her game-changing arc felt way too rushed, but did set things in motion. The idea of slowly getting rid of magic was suspect, but then again, the arc had just started. The next issue was better, and the next issue--last month's #28--was actually really great. Things started to seem real again. I started to allow myself to reinvest in these characters.

So I don't know what the heck happened this month, but this is not Buffy. This isn't the same series that "Surprise" was a part of. Not even close. It's sloppily written, silly, and doesn't even take itself seriously. The scenes where the slayers and friends are handing out guns should be grave and solemn, because that is the one thing that they never wanted to do. But the scenes are played for comedy. They're long, expositiony, and outright boring. The emotion isn't there in those scenes, or any other scenes in the issue. Willow has a random breakdown, after the calm she achieved in last month's issue, and it reads like a soap-opera gone the way of comics. I really, really don't get it.

The rest of the issue is basically a war comic. None of the human life seems to matter to any of the characters or the creative team, because it isn't even a plot point that they're killing humans. All we see is guns and torpedoes firing, no reaction, just a lot of ohshittery when the slayers realize they're losing, and then yayness when they get a bit of a break. When Angel killed a human in his series, it was a major thing... but in this issue, this choppy, speedy, sloppy narrative doesn't miss a beat. It doesn't matter in the book, and that is just weird to realize that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has become this.

Can Joss Whedon save it? Yeah, obviously, he's Joss Whedon. But it's going to take a lot. Angel: Aftermath was bad, and that was a somewhat standalone arc by a writer who won't be returning. This is a key piece in the puzzle of Buffy: Season Eight and it's written by Jane Espenson. What the...?

By far the worst issue of Season Eight and the lowest point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a whole. Boring, badly written, and damn near insulting. I don't care about what's happening to the characters because it doesn't feel like them. It's not just a bad Buffy story... it's a bad comic.

Art: Busy, busy panels. I really can't fault Jeanty in this one like I have in the past for opting to not include a lot of details, because there is so much going on in any given panel. Some emotion from the characters in the art might have made the book a slightly better read, but in this instance, Jeanty isn't really at fault. It's the story. The art isn't great, but it's passable.

Covers: The main cover, by Y: The Last Man cover artist Massimo Carnevale, is really cool. It features Twilight flying over a stretch of mountains, and it's the best cover image we've gotten of this season's Big Bad. It would have helped if Twilight was featured in this issue, but it's still a very cool cover. Jeanty's, not so much. While it attempts a #9 like effect, both in cartooniness and the pop-culture reference, the cover is just ugly. The faces are sloppy, and everyone is nearly unrecognizable besides Buffy, Xander, and Rowena. I guess the girl on the far right could be Satsu, but there is no definition to her face. The girls on either side of Xander might be Faith and Kennedy, but which is which? They both look like interchangeable, angry brunettes. Thankfully, Jeanty's cover for next month's #30 is better than this, because this is just ugly.

Characters We Know: Xander, Dawn, Oz, Giles, Faith, Andrew, Satsu, Buffy, Willow, Kennedy.

Rating: 1/10

Most Anticipated Since #17

2009-10-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

What Is It?: Angel #26- Boys and Their Toys, Part One (Written by Brian Lynch; art by Stephen Mooney)

Timing: Things are finally back in chronological order. A while after Angel #22.

REVIEW: The idea has been going around for a while. Brian Lynch first mentioned that a hack screenwriter would be making a crappy movie out of the events in LA, and that our heroes would go to check it out. Back then, it was said to be part of the SPIKE series. But instead, it kicks off something that is as sad as it is hilarious... Brian Lynch's last three issues of ANGEL ever.

Why funny? Well, the plot is insane in the best way possible. Angel goes to San Diego Sci-Fi Festival ("Rip-off of the Comic Con," says Connor) and catches a screening of "Last Angel in Hell." It's starring Nick Cage as Angel, Jorge Garcia as Gunn, a dog as Betta George, and a lady as Spike, who is Angel's love interest. To top it all off? It's directed by Michael Bay. Okay, it's doesn't say that exactly, but the director is a spitting image of Bay, and has a similar love of explosions. So it's Bay. Along with Angel, we get a sneak peak of the film that is glorious in its complete cheesiness (get the entire thing in Brian Lynch's "Last Angel in Hell" Angel annual this December). The scene with the movie and the crowd reacting is just sheer brilliance, commenting on shitty action films, the nature of fandom, and the canon issue in five of the best comedic comic pages ever. While the "Last Angel in Hell" material is funny for obvious reasons (and even funnier to watch Angel witness this complete mockery of his life), the bespectacled fellow that asks Bay about the canonical status of a "Last Angel in Hell" tie-in comic is Brian Lynch's wink at his loyal readers. It must be frustrating writing for a fandom as canon-obsessive as this one can be, and this little fun-poke is just what the Buffyverse fandom needs to lighten up about the canon issue. Why are we like this guy, who has "lost much sleep" over the canonical status of a story? If the story is good, the story is good. That's it.

And this one, even putting the hilarious "Last Angel in Hell" stuff to the side, rocks. Groosalugg's flaming sword--the weapon that killed Angel and Connor--has gone missing. Why? "Not many weapons can claim it killed you. Three or four, at most. So far." A standout line, though it isn't as shiny as it would have been if the grammatical error had been caught. It should have read "Not many weapons can claim to have killed you" as opposed to "it killed you." The former refers to the idea that few weapons killed Angel, the latter makes it seem as if there aren't many weapons that would claim the flaming sword killed Angel. English major. Sorry. The moment is actually really cool, and not only because it's awesome to see Angel, Groosalugg, Connor, and Kate (in her normal clothes, thanks to Mr. Mooney) hanging out together. It also shows how Connor is web-savvy, how research is going to change drastically with use of the interwebs.

Okay, rambling. It's late. This is what happens when I try (ahem and fail) to get reviews out on time with my schedule.

The issue essentially becomes an Angel and Spike team-up when their paths cross at the Sci-Fi Festival. It's got all the comedy of The Girl in Question, though more arc significance. Instead of seeing Angel and Spike chase around an ex-love (which was admittedly fun), they simply deal with each other in a very post-After the Fall way. Their relationship has changed, and this reflects it. Angel is aware of Spike's unspoken affection for him, and despite the consistent snarkiness, they're able to... almost hang out. As friends. Spike openly admits his lack of direction now that he has a completely open path before him, and Angel understands that. These characters have come a long way since Not Fade Away, and it's great to see some of the seeds planted in #17 finally starting to grow.

Also, Jeremy is in this. Yup, Spike's buddy from Spike: After the Fall that bit it, thanks to Illyria tragically misunderstanding something. He fits in perfectly with Angel and Spike in the setting, which makes me thrilled that Brian Lynch confirmed the character would appear in Spike Unlimited.

There is a big surprise at the end (though it isn't a surprise if you've been following the covers), that makes this episode at sort of sequel to the Buffy: Season Two episode, Halloween. The same spell goes down, turning evil assassins that came to the festival to purchase the fiery sword (guess why?) into cute cuddly bears and it turns Spike into... well, read the issue. It's great, and it's going to make for some hilarious and possibly heavy and character-reveally moments in the next installment.

Brian Lynch excels as much at a funny issue as he did with the heavy stuff in After the Fall. It's the funniest thing I've read from him yet, and that's including all the amazing stuff from Shadow Puppets. I mean, check out these lines:

"Angel, I have planted a flag at the beginning of the line to enter the auction room. A few similarly dressed warriors tried to invoke something called 'cutsies' but I held my ground."

"Hey, look at you yelling, which is the opposite of subtle."

"Horses, prepare to be played!"

"It had commentary on the human condition and love and drama and that stuff is great. Also I love explosions. And hell, with its flames and crap, was like one big ongoing explosion."

But yeah. You get the point. Very funny. Very appropriate for the characters at the point in the series. Forward movement, engaging storytelling. Just what the series needed.

Brian Lynch is on the regular ANGEL title for one more issue that ties up this storyline, and then after The Last Angel in Hell, he's said he's done with the title. He'll be writing the on-going SPIKE series, but this sort of feels like the end of an era. So sad, but I can't wait to see what Brian Lynch brings to our other favorite ensouled vampire and what Bill Willingham brings to ANGEL.

Art: The art is very good. Not Stephen Mooney's best or most consistent, but still very good. The opening pages are all out great, and there are a lot of perfect panels spread through-out, but there was one character that seemed to really suffer... and that's Jeremy. I wasn't really a fan of the way Mooney drew Jeremy, and while that would normally be a footnote, it's a bit more important here because a) we haven't seen Jeremy in a long time and b) he's in the issue a lot. Mooney's Angel, Spike, Groosalugg, Kate, and Connor likenesses are as great as they've been since Mooney's wonderful After the Fall arc, and he does great with the comedy here. I just would have liked a bit more details on Jeremy, who seemed to get pushed to the side a bit here.

Covers: Two great ones. Nick Runge's cover shows Angel and Spike surrounded by fans at the Sci-Fi festival. Spike looks great, and the setting is really cool, but something is off with Angel's face. Still a very cool cover. Stephen Mooney's is just as interesting, appearing to be Angel as an action figure. Both covers work hand in hand to show how big Angel has gotten in his own fictional world, winking at the real world Angel fans with a bit of meta-fiction.

Characters We Know: Angel, Spike, Connor, Kate, Groosalugg, Jeremy.

Rating: 10/10

As Fun As You'd Expect

2009-10-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

What Is It?: Fallen Angel: Reborn #3. (Written by Peter David; art by J. K. Woodward)

Timing: Directly following Fallen Angel: Reborn #2. The miniseries takes place in Angel: Season Five, between "Time Bomb" and "The Girl in Question."

Warning: The bigger spoilers will be written in black text. Simply highlight to read. As this is a review, there will be some minor "spoilers" sprinkled throughout the text that don't warrant being hidden. If you have not read the issue and don't want to know anything about the plot, don't read this. Spoilers for previous issues will obviously not be hidden.

REVIEW: If you caught the first two issues and liked them, you'll like this too. It's nothing really surprising, nothing super insightful, but it's a fun action-adventure starring two awesome female characters. Illyria and Liandra, the Fallen Angel, really play very well off of each other. Illyria's first person narration gives insight into Liandra due to Illyria's cold, almost scientific observations, and the snark that Liandra throws Illyria's way makes this pairing both funnier and more tense.

I usually like to give really long reviews that really get into why the issue was good, but the fact of the matter here is that there isn't much plot or character development to talk about. And that's not a bad thing in this case. The plot is simply that Illyria is trying to get her icons in order to become her full self once again. It's your essential epic quest. And we already know what happens to Illyria after this, so, as a rule, this book can't really do anything character-changing. And yet... it succeeds. Partially because it revels in the endless fun that is making Illyria fight creatures. Illyria fighting creatures never fails. What it also does, though, is tell the story through visuals. In a way, it excels at what ANGEL #25 failed at. It takes the story from point A to point B, but still manages to tell an almost entirely visual story. It has sight gags, cool kills, and a stunning setting.

This seems to happen once in every Fallen Angel: Reborn issue, but there is one line where Illyria speaks out of character. Peter David loves sarcasm--hence Liandra--but Illyria doesn't. Illyria just wouldn't say "Oh, wonderful-" when she's being attacked by a polar bear. But the rest of the issue, which is narrated by Illyria's inner monologue, is consistently in character, so give it up for Peter David!

Art: Very nice. As I mentioned before, the issue is very visual, so Peter David really leaves a lot of the storytelling to J. K. Woodward, who does a phenomenal job. Get this dude to do some more ANGEL books! I've got an interview with Mr. Woodward coming soon, so keep a look out.

Covers: The three covers all feature Illyria and Liandra in this snowy dimension. J. K. Woodward's main cover is consistent with his interior work, and my favorite cover of his we've seen so far in this miniseries. It features Illyria and Liandra staring at a lanky, looming monster covered in a sheet of ice. Woodward's other cover pays homage to MADAGASCAR, and it's a riot. Runge's cover is also exceptional, featuring our two heroines in more iconic comic book poses as snow falls on them. Me gusta.

Characters We Know: Illyria.

Rating: 8/10

It's a mad world

2009-10-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

If you missed my super late review for ANGEL #25, click here.

My review for FALLEN ANGEL: REBORN #3 will come out by Monday.

My reviews for ANGEL #26 and BUFFY #28 will be up on Wednesday, on time!

And now, I have some me to talk about.

I've been doing short films with my production company, Stinky Burger, for a while now. We've made a lot of comedy and a lot of horror, so I figured it was time for something a bit... as in a lot... different.

So I wrote and shot this film called "The Dreams in Which I'm Dying." It's a dramatic short, starring two great actors that I had only worked with in theatre stuff prior to this. They are Dennis Allen and Kari Nicole Washington, and you should really check them out.

Also, check out the film:

Coming along with the ANGEL #26 review is the first video promo for my ANGEL fan-film, "Gamers: After the Fall." It features Gunn (as played by Dennis Allen) calling out... eh, well you'll see.

Stay tuned!

Sorry! At last, the review for ANGEL #25

2009-10-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

What Is It?: Angel #25- Drusilla, Part Two (Written by Juliet Landau and Brian Lynch; art by Franco Urru)

Timing: Directly after Angel #24. During the fall.

REVIEW: Well, #24 was great.

I know I took too long to review this. I actually planned on writing up my opinion right after I read it, but then I sat down, read it, shook my head in confusion, read it again, cocked my eyebrow in confusion, read it again, and then sighed in confusion, figuring I needed some time to digest it. Since then, I've seen a lot of people's opinions, from any of the many Slay Alive users to Brian Lynch himself. There are a lot of theories about it, and I guess I just kinda had to come to my own... and I think I've got it figured out, but I'll let you be the judge.

First of all, this two-parter should have been a one-shot. Would it take away from the graceful, exercise-in-how-much-Franco-rocks that #24 was? Yeah, definitely. Franco had the entire first part of this two parter to strut his stuff and make the entire issue a beautifully bloody mess. But the success of that issue depended entirely on what the next issue did with all the set-up. And unfortunately, the answer is not much at all. The structure of the issue is this:

Pg 1-4: Drusilla continues to walk through her massacre.

Pg 5-14: Drusilla, suffering from visions, predicts some of the big events Heroes style by drawing various LA-in-Hell scenes.

Pg 15-22: A lot of audience confusing, little to none audience explanation.

It might have made an interesting little one-shot that explored the crazywonky place that is Drusilla's mind, but for a two-parter... you just expect more. There were some cool flashbacks popping up throughout the issue. We get to see how Angelus and Darla destroyed Dru's life and then turned her, which was interesting... but even the flashbacks weren't organically inserted, as they were in the show and in "After the Fall." ANGEL #4 starts with how Angel found out he was human because ANGEL #3 ended with us find out out he was human. Perfect. THE GIRL IN QUESTION had flashbacks of the Immortal screwing Spike and Angel over, because the episode was about the Immortal screwing Spike and Angel over. I can't think of any way to relate Drusilla's flashbacks to what happens to her in this issue.

Now, onto the speculation. I won't black text these spoilers, because a) the issue has been out for a while and b) this doesn't really have any impact on the overall arc of the series. First, it's never really revealed who wanted Drusilla locked up. Is it hinted that it's Wolfram & Hart? Um, kinda? Only because they are the default ANGEL villains. It doesn't really matter in the long-run, but the idea that there was a larger plan in keeping Drusilla locked up was one of the most interesting ideas in #24, and it isn't elaborated on at all in this issue. I remember writing in the review for #24 that "(the) second part will surely reveal who is behind this wonky experiment and why." Optimistic me.

Then, Drusilla draws a bunch of stuff and levitates. While she levitates, one of her drawings (a bunch of people, including KENDRA the Slayer she killed and the Chaos demon) comes to life. The people from the drawing swarm her and presumably knock her out. Well... what I think happened is this. Hell amplifies power. Hell screws with power. Just refer to the opening monologue of #3 and Illyria's entire After the Fall arc for that. So my best guess is that Hell is amplifying Dru's power, hence her levitating, and hence her psychic abilities amplifying so much that she is able to make her own artwork come to life. There's nothing in the actual text of this two-parter to justify that explanation, but it's context in After the Fall seems to suggest that. It's such an interesting concept, and I wish it was played with more. While #24 needed to be super visual and succeeded at that (it's probably my favorite post-After the Fall comic of the year after Become What You Are), this issue absolutely needed to be more ploty and spend more time on certain things. And it really, really didn't.

The issue ends with Drusilla waking up. She's in LA gone to Hell, only she doesn't see it as Hell. She sees it as her homeland, before she was sired. It's all golden (literally) with memories and warmth and love. She goes into her house, hears her mother's voice, and rejoices in her teddy bear. It's a sweet and interesting ending to an otherwise confusing issue, but it also brings up a few questions. I'm fairly certain that what Landau intended us to think that this is how Drusilla sees Hell. That she can rejoice in Hell. That, to Drusilla's messed up mind, Hell is the closest she can get to the happiness of her human home. But if that's the case, there should have been some cutaway shots that show Drusilla walking through how Hell actually looks to show the juxtaposition to how she sees it. To really make the point instead of just hint at it.

Basically, #24 stands as a brilliant, beautifully executed issue. #25 isn't a bad read, but it is a bunch of potential wasted. There should have been more time spent on the actual plot, and I do wish some of the stranger sequences had been executed a bit differently. At this point, while I really enjoyed Gunn and Illyria in Become What You Are and Drusilla in #24, I'm ready for the dream team, Brian Lynch and Stephen Mooney, to bring back our two favorite vamps with the Boys and Their Toys two-parter.

Art: Fantastic, as always. Franco Urru is my favorite artist working today, and most of the points I'm going to give this book are thanks to his wonderful pencils an Fabio Mantovani's great colors. Drusilla continues to move like Drusilla does (like a dancer), but this time, the highlight is the creepiest scene ever in an ANGEL comics. Drusilla picks up a severed head and attempts to talk at it. Franco pulls off the macabre as good as he does the action and the emotion. I can't wait until the SPIKE series starts so I can get a steady dose of Urru.

Covers: Oddly enough, none of the covers are as great as the ones for #24, but let's be honest... the covers for #24 were uncommonly great. Urru and Runge both turn over decent covers, featuring Drusilla reveling in LA gone to Hell. The photo incentive is Angelus hugging Drusilla, and the superexpensiveincentivethatiunfortunatelycouldn'tafford is another great one by Sam Shearon, who should definitely stay on the series as an on-going cover artist if they can't nab Alex Garner!

Characters We Know: Drusilla. Angelus and Darla, via flashbacks. Angel, Connor, Gunn, Cordelia the Dragon, Spike, Illyria, Wesley, the Chaos Demon, Kenda, and Spike's harem also appear via Drusilla's artwork.

Extras: There is another photo gallery, and it's a lot more... random than the last one. Juliet Landau really shows how she can look like totally different people. I love the short-haired Fight Club homage photos, and the two paintings by Mark McHaley and Sam Shearon at the back are really great.

Rating: 5/10

Illyria Chats With the Exs

2009-09-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

What Is It?: Angel: Only Human #2 (written by Scott Lobdell; art by David Messina)

Timing: Directly after Angel: Only Human #2.

REVIEW: Not only is Only Human the best non-Lynch, post-After the Fall tale IDW has told so far, it's also the funnest. Which is weird, considering the dark place both Gunn and Illyria are at, mentally. But while this issue does explore the ramifications of their actions in Hell, it keeps the emotions as an undercurrent instead of letting them take over the plot. And the plot is damn interesting, as it involved The Scourge using (SPOILER:) a device from Illyria's recent past to revive another Old One. Yup, The Scourge is back, and these demon baddies are up to their old ways of killing the "impure" breeds of demons. To tell the truth, the set-up that re-introduces The Scourge is way too similar to "Hero" (the last episode they appeared in). I mean, they had the sympathetic demon kid, they had the big but friendly group of demons, and they even had the flashback with them being hunted. I know, The Scourge doesn't do much else but hunt these kind of folk... but a different way of introducing them would have been nice.

That said, the motif of purity that runs through this issue is pretty amazing. The Scourge claim to be pure, going so far as to dedicate their lives to cleansing the world of the impure. But... in the face of Illyria, an Old One, a true pure demon... what are The Scourge? How can they be pure if only the Old Ones are pure? And now that Illyria is inhabiting Fred's body, is she pure anymore? She's exploring her humanity, which she admits is there, but she's still the closest thing the Earth has to a pure demon (SPOILER:) Well, until page 20. And going with the motifs of purity and humanity, Gunn was a vampire. A moment later, he's a human. But doesn't what you were in the past always inform what you are today? If Gunn was a vampire, how can he be purely human--only human--now? I'm stoked that Lobdell's series is posing these questions only two issues in, especially in the midst of such a fun and action packed story.

Sometimes, though, Scott Lobdell has trouble finishing a thought. During Fred's uncle's funeral, Gunn's thought caption reads, "It doesn't last long... but honestly, every word is agony." We know he means that being at a Burkle is painfully ironic, as the Burkle's don't know Fred is dead and her demon-possessed corpse is walking around, passing for Fred-gone-goth. But make that connection. If the thought is good enough to be started, it's good enough to be finished. Also, there is some syntax confusion that rubbed the English major in me the wrong way. After Illyria has a conversation with Fred's old prom date (which makes a great connection to her behavior in Spike: After the Fall #3, elaborating on how she's beginning to use Fred's romantic/sexual side to her advantage; great continuity!), Gunn's thought captions say, "I let her digest whatever it is she's feeling. Just grateful it isn't Jason Polt." Again, we know he means to say that he's grateful she isn't digesting Jason Polt. But the way the sentences are written, it is saying that Gunn is grateful Illyria isn't feeling Jason Polt. The "digesting" needs to be repeated, or the sentences need to be rephrased.

Grammatical issues aside, the issue was crazy good. Better than the first one, which was already a really cool read. It's not a full number grade better, but it's damn close. I saw a TPB solicited, but really... IDW should give Only Human the hardcover treatment. This is a badass series, and is definitely going between my Volume Six and Volume Seven hardcovers when they come out.

I know, I'm a geek.

Art: You may as well copy and paste my praise for David Messina's art from #1 in here. One thing you can leave out, though, is my gripes about Gunn's inconsistent beard. The art in this issue is 100% consistent, and Messina added that he would be fixing Gunn's beard for the collection.

Covers: Both of these covers are considerably better than the ones from the first issue. The Messina cover is at once brutal and beautiful, featuring an image of Gunn in creepy blue lighting that makes his eyes all shadowy, with an image of Gunn as a vampire slicing through the middle of the issue. The same format is used for the rest of Messina's covers in this arc, and I love it. And this time, Dave Dorman's cover is just as great as Messina's. Over a beautiful blue and purple backdrop, Gunn and Illyria, all promed-out, are dancing. Gunn dips Illyria, and to his horror, demonic tentacles whip up in front of them. That could be collection cover status.

Extras: If you have a question for Mr. Lobdell, ask it here! I'll be conducting an interview soon.

Characters We Know: Gunn, Illyria, The Scourge, Wesley (flashback), Fred (flashback)

Rating: 8/10

I Love Knowledge

2009-09-10T10:40:00.001-07:00

I'm back in college, so updates won't be as immediate as usual. They'll just be a few hours later at most, but still... I love you guys enough to give you a bit of a heads up.

Here's when stuff will be posted:
REVIEW FOR Angel: Only Human #2- Tonight
REVIEW FOR Fallen Angel: Reborn #3- Tomorrow night
REVIEW FOR Angel: Blood and Trenches TPB- Before October
REVIEW FOR Angel: Smile Time HC- Before October
REVIEW FOR Angel Volume Five: Aftermath HC- Before October

Also, I was lucky enough to be chosen by SLAY ALIVE to be a member of their blogging staff. Check my stuff out over there!

Wondering what the title is a reference to? Check out this song, I Love Knowledge, a parody of Asher Roth's hit. It's by the lead MC in one of my best friend's bands, and I must say... it's better than the original.