All the News; The End of BCR

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.

The Crown is Passed Down

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.

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: 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

Illyria Chats With the Exs

What Is It?: Angel: Only Human #2 (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 covered.

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

Gunn and Illyria Hit the Road

What Is It?: Angel: Only Human #1 (written by Scott Lobdell; art by David Messina)

Timing: After Angel #23; sometime during Angel: Aftermath.

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 covered.

REVIEW: So this is pretty much a dream come true for me. The thing that intrigued me most about the events of Angel #16 was the fact that while everything was physically reset, everybody remembered everything. Gunn, specifically, remembered the taste of blood in his mouth, the death gurgles of his own victims, and the look in Angel's eyes when he killed Connor. That would make for some interesting character development. Then, with Angel: Aftermath, Kelley Armstrong just threw Gunn (who was supposed to be comatose) into a car next to Illyria, and let someone else tackle that story. And it was for the best, because Brian set up Gunn's character arc nicely with the beautiful Become What You Are issue. Well, now we're lucky enough to have a Gunn/Illyria spin-off miniseries alongside of the main title that focuses on the two characters most in need of redemption.

Scott Lobdell is tackling scripts, which is fine by me, as I loved his Viva Las Buffy arc from Dark Horse's pre-Season Eight run on BtVS. His work here is even better than the Buffy arc; he is true to both the voices and characters of Illyria and Gunn, and throws them into a really interesting situation. Illyria, intrigued by the idea of a wake, decides to visit her family when Fred's uncle dies. Gunn accompanies her, trying to come to terms with his own inner darkness while also trying to understand Illyria's motivation... no easy feat. Despite Illyria's cold remarks toward Gunn ("Nor would it have mattered to me if you had a heart attack or not"), it's clear to see that the two of them are bonding, albeit in a very strange way. In true Whedonesque fashion, Lobdell gives Illyria and Gunn a moment together in the car that is both funny, true to the characters, so strange, and even slightly touching in a way. (SPOILER:) After Gunn recounts a beautiful memory of how his grandmother once promised to get him and his sister out of LA, Illyria--with just as much nostalgia as Gunn had--reminisces on Los Angeles in the ancient times, when she would "amuse herself by tossing any who dared oppose me into oceans of lava." It's clear that Gunn is put off by what she says, but the look on his face betrays him; now that he was a vampire, a lover of brutality and violence, he relates to Illyria on an entirely new level. As foreign as a story about a monster reigning over her land might seem to him, when he thinks about it... he was in the same shoes a month prior.

Though the character stuff is fantastic, the issue contains both the positive and negative stuff that comes with being the first of a series. As far as the good stuff, the plot hasn't really developed yet, so Scott Lobdell had some time to set the scene and have some fun. The issue starts with Illyria and Gunn putting a stop to demon drag racing, shows more of Gunn teaching Illyria to drive, and throws them in a couple of new settings; a diner, Fred's apartment, Fred's parents house (yup), and a farmland that just happens to be infested with (SPOILER:) what appear to be harmless demons. But on the flip side, I did feel like there was too much time spent explaining back story. Everyone that reads this is going to know that Illyria infected Fred's body and that Gunn allowed that to happen by signing the papers, so that exposition could have been a lot shorter or just not included. I do like that Lobdell is showing all sorts of ways that Gunn and Illyria are connected, from that moment to the picture of Gunn and Fred (which is lovely), but I think this would have been better handled in dialogue. We got that exposition and exposition about Gunn being a vampire and then not being a vampire (more necessary). I do like the first person narration by Gunn, but I would have preferred if some of that had been woven into the conversation.

All in all, a very strong start. I can't wait to see what Scott Lobdell and Messina cook up for us next month, because from what I've read in the solicits... well, it's pretty balls out crazy. And I'm excited to see how Gunn and Illyria, at once at their most fragile and most strong, handle their new and old foes.

Art: The art is great. Messina is better than ever, creating more explosive action scenes and more emotional down moments. His likenesses have never been stronger, and his panels have never been more detailed. His improvement from his early ANGEL work to this is utterly phenominal. We're lucky to have him, along with Brian Denham, working on the on-going ANGEL title this coming December. I do have one quibble, though. Gunn's beard is super inconsistent. He has from pages 4-7, no beard on 8, beard on 9, no beard on 10-11, beard on 12-14, no beard on 15-19, beard on 21-22. I really hope that gets fixed for the TPB, because otherwise, this is some of the best art we've gotten in the Buffyverse, period.

Covers: Messina's cover is good. It's a great image of Illyria, a pretty cool image of Gunn, and a creepy ass skull in the background. It's the weakest of Messina's covers for the series, but that is more a compliment to his covers for #2 and #3 than anything about this cover. Dave Dorman's cover, on the other hand, has a great concept and so-so execution. Illyria is trying to get in touch with her humanity in this arc, so it's cool to have her, in normal clothing, playing fetch with the dog (and a glowing frisbee of energy)... but her face just looks weird. She looks like Kirstie Alley got her hair dyed blue. Gunn looks pretty awesome, though; I dig the painted look, and how it looks half storybook/half sitcome... but I just can't get over Illyria's face.

Extras: For an interview with David Messina concerning this series and his other works, click here. Interview with writer Scott Lobdell coming soon!

Characters We Know: Illyria, Gunn, Fred (flashback), Wesley (flashback), Spike (flashback), the Burkles.

Rating: 8/10

David Messina Interview (With New Previews, Covers, and Major Major Stuff)

Just call this Buffyverse Comics-Con, because damn we've got some crazy stuff here. The main attraction is an interview with David Messina, who has been doing the art for ANGEL as long as IDW has had it. We were really lucky to get insight into the process of the most prolific man in comics, and get ready for some crazy images in the interview.

Buffyverse Comic Reviews: How did you originally get involved with IDW? With the ANGEL title?

David Messina: I was introduced to Chris Ryall by a common friend (Alexandra DeCampi) who told me that Chris was looking for someone to draw an upcoming miniseries based on a tv show: Angel.

The funniest part was that I'm a longtime fan of Angel (I've learned English watching the TV show DVDs) and when Chris contacted me, I had just finished some sketches of Angel that I wanted to show to the Dark Horse's people (I was ignoring that Angel's licensing passes to IDW) so I sent those sketches to Chris.

Preview pages from Angel: Only Human #1

BCR: The first comic I ever bought was ANGEL: Old Friend #2 (I know, I'm a noob). After getting and enjoying that, I collected the entire IDW Angel line, from "The Curse" all the way up to the current stuff. Watching your style evolve from your already amazing work in "The Curse" to your recent stuff has been a joy. Can you talk a bit about the progression of your style?

Messina: It's like I started a long journey, and it's still unfinished! When I started, I was really concerned about the likeness. So with "The Curse" I was really concerned to be realistic, to nail the likeness with the actors, and I was afraid to become stiff... Then I started to work on "Old Friends" where I tried a different way. My favorite artist in those days was Chris Sprouse and all the old Disney animation school, so I try to make my style more cartoonish and grotesque. I exasperated Angel's body (really bulk) and every characters likeness in order to make them more recognizable. But I was still unsatisfied... Each series was an experiment. An attempt to make the characters recognizable and find the best way to tell a story, which is the most important thing in this work. I had try different tools, for example Auld Lang Syne was almost entirely inked with common pen instead ink pen!

I start to feel in the right path (but even now, I don't know where it will bring me) during the work in progress of Star Trek: Mirror Images...

Preview pages for Only Human

BCR: Aside from your work on ANGEL comics, I heard that you were a teacher and mentor to the "A Hole in the World/Shells" artist, Elena Casagrande. How does it feel now that your student is on a title as big as ANGEL?

Messina: I'm really proud of her! I teach in the most important Italian school of comics, and I meet a lots of young people that loves this work. Several of my best pupils have become great artists. Aside from Elena, I'd like to remember Mirco Pierfederici (Doctor Who, Angel: First Night and now at Marvel) Sara Pichelli (with me on Mirror Images and now on her arc on Runaways) and Andrea Fattori my inker on Angel The Curse and now one of the greatest artist in the most important Italian Publisher.

I was often at work on several projects at the same time and I work with my best ex pupils as backgrounds finishers or as inkers. All those collaborations also become the start of a beautiful friendship.

With some of them I share a lot of passions, especially with Elena, we are great fans of Angel, so it was really fun working together on Smile Time, where we enjoy filling the pages with Easter eggs and details.

Smile Time B&W page

BCR: What is the process like when you collaborate with artists like you did with Elena on "Smile Time"?

Messina: It depends of what I need;I usually have a straight idea of how the book should appear, and I know very well the weakness and the strength of my assistants, so I choose them to help me according to their skills, without losing my mark on the book. Usually they work with me as inkers or background finishers.Smile Time was different: I had start with a rough pencil of the pages that Elena finished, then I supervise each page, and she starts with the inks that I finish. But sometimes you can find pages done completely by me because they are particularly exciting to do.

Eddie Hope (see the final question)

BCR: You've worked on many Angel books, as well as countless others for IDW. Out of all your work, what miniseries or one-shot are you most proud of?

Messina: Mmmm....usually I'm really hard with my own works. I'm really picky, but if I have to tell you which book I prefer I can say the Illyria short story and Spike’s First Night 'cause they had great stories with some of my favorite characters; and then my last work Nero where I'm not only penciler and inker but I paint most of background by myself...

BCR: I noticed that the September solicits have at least one thousand comics with your name on them. How do you find the time to work on all these books? Does your hand hurt? Are you magic?

Messina: Ahahhah!

I'm not magic...but honestly sometimes my hand hurts! I was working on Spock: reflections with my longtime friend Scott Tipton, when Scott Dunbier (my Star Trek editor) told me about Nero's series. The Nero's series was a project which Mike Jhonson (one of the two writers of Countdown) spoke me about when we meet at NYCC and I was so excited to draw it! So I shared my work on Spock with Federica Manfredi (in the same way I do with Elena Casagrande on Smile Time) and I started to work on Nero (where the secrecy of most of the references didn't allow me to work with any assistant.

After a couple of pages of Nero (and an issue of Spock:reflections) Chris Ryall (who maybe knows me better than everyone else!) told me if I was interested to work on a Illyria/Gunn's book...

I'm a really great fan of the character of Gunn and I'm really in love with Amy Acker and the Illyria characters, I thought to say no, for almost 2 seconds, then I put together a team with Ilaria Traversi at the colors and one of my pupils (Gaetano Carlucci) at the inks and I started to work on this other book too!

So, after I've done all the layouts of each issue of Spock: Reflections, Nero and Angel: Only Human, everyday I do the pencil of a page and ink one page of Nero, and I do another pencil of a page of Angel Only Human, and the late night I supervise the work of the colorists, and the pencils and inks of Spock's series...

...and I'm not mentioning Wide Awake and another secret project for another publisher...

Angel: Only Human #3 cover

BCR: Who is your favorite character from ANGEL to draw?

Messina: Illyria most of all! She's beautifull, creepy, and sad at the same time. She's an old one demon with the memories of the most sweetest girl you could imagine...how is it possible to not love her?

My other favorite character is Wesley. He's a great character grown episode after episode, season after season. The playing of Alexis Denisof is awesome, he carried Wes from a comic support character to one of most dark and sad characters of all, I really love his work.

Angel: Only Human #2 cover (B&W)

BCR: What can we expect from ANGEL: Only Human?

Messina: A lot of crazy action and some interesting revelations about Illyria and Gunn's past.

It's a story about the memories of who they were, and about who they'll become...

...and there's a lot of COOL demons!

Have I already said about the crazy action?

Eddie Hope pin-up (read on)

BCR: After that miniseries, is there any more ANGEL stuff we can expect from you?

Messina: Yep! It's something related to the new arc of Angel and a new really exciting challenge for me! He's called Eddie Hope, and he's the main character of the Angel's backstory in Willingham next run. It is a strong story of revenge and redemption in perfect Whedon's style and I think that Angel's fans will love him, and I'm pretty sure that they will ask for more.

Thanks so much David Messina! You've done so much for us fans and we really appreciate it. As long as you keep doing it, we'll keep reading!

"There's gonna be some stuff you're gonna see... that's gonna make it hard to smile in the future."

What Is It?: Angel- Smile Time adaptation #3. Original story by Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund, original teleplay by Ben Edlund. Adapted to comic script by Scott Tipton.

Timing: Directly after Angel- Smile Time #2. Two-thirds into the episode.

Note: Adaptations are now ranked on this scale: EPIC FAIL, FAIL, BAD, OKAY, GOOD, VERY GOOD, GREAT, OUTSTANDING.

REVIEW: That was an enjoyable little issue.

The one thing I noticed right off the bat is that, unlike the first two in the series, there are no new scenes added. I'm fine with that, because it must have been extremely difficult to squeeze all that episode into a three issue miniseries, and the climatic fight and romantic resolution in this issue really did deserve the page time it got. One thing I'm slightly unsure about, though, is Spike. The two additional scenes with him in the first two issues set up the expectation for an appearance in this issue, if only for a one-liner to sort of wrap up the sub-subplot he had going on in this issue. As much as I would have liked that, the series feels complete enough that the lack of such a scene doesn't bother me.

As far as the translation of the episode to the page, this issue does a better job than the last one did. There are no awkward scenes at all, with the majority of them flowing exceptionally well. Could certain scenes have been improved? Sure. On page one, when Lorne is walking down the hall, there definitely should have been a shot of Angel before Lorne said "My little prince!" There were also a few panels, particularly the discussions between Fred and Wesley, that I thought more attention should have been given to the other person's face. There seems to be a lot of attention to reaction shots, and while that is fine, I think it's nice to ground the conversation with a shot of the person whose talking instead of doing two reaction shots in a row.

One thing that this series, particularly this issue, has done very well is setting up the tragedy to come two episodes later. I was originally unsure about including the Gunn subplot due to the time constraints of squeezing forty-two minutes of screen time (plus some extra fun scenes) into three comic issues, but I think it really paid off in the end. The dichotomy between seeing Gunn unknowingly sign Fred's death warrant and seeing Wesley and Fred's relationship finally move to the next level thrives on the tension of what we know is coming in A Hole in the World. The ending of this seemingly cheery episode is probably the biggest eucatasrophe in the Buffyverse; the tortured hero gets the girl after years of pining over her. The reversal of this happy ending is what gives those scenes a second, more powerful meaning, and this comic explores that nicely. Tipton was really right to include both of those subplots, because when paired together, they make this a more dark, more foreboding tale. And in an Angel episode about puppets, you kinda need that.

And that's a wrap for Angel- Smile Time. I was skeptical about episode adaptations, and in some ways I still am, but this issue served its purpose. As I said in the review for #2, it revitalized the source material, added some cool new stuff, and convinced me to like an episode that I never really gave a chance to. Job well done, Mr. Tipton.

Art: The art is a bit shabbier than I expected. Angel/Star Trek artist David Messina was the main artist advertised for the series, but it seems that the artist who was credited alongside of him, Elena Casagrande, had an increasingly important role as the series continued. The title was already released every two months, instead of the normal monthly status of Angel miniseries, to accommodate Messina's busy schedule. However, there are only a handful of pages where I can really feel Messina's presence. He does seem to come back for all the important or close-up shots, but the conversation pieces, especially the Wesley/Fred scene, seem to be a bit off. The art is definitely passable as a whole, and often awesome in the important shots... but I was looking forward to Messina's ever-improving likenesses, which I didn't quite get. Overall, though, still a pretty neat job. Just not quite at the level I expected.

Covers: These are my favorite covers from the entire Smile Time series. Messina's covers have been consistently awesome (we really need him back on the main Angel title in any capacity), but this takes it to another level. He paid homage to the famous Hulk cover with #1 and to Fight Club with #2... so it makes sense that, for the conclusion, he takes it home and pays homage to Angel. In tribute to the Angel: Season Five promo poster, Messina draws our two favorite vampires as puppets, with a reel of the other characters below them. It's one of the best Angel covers I've ever seen, no exaggeration. I believe this is getting collected into a hardcover with Spike: Shadow Puppets and the Angel/Nina story in Angel: Masks, but if there is ever just a Smile Time trade paperback, I think this should absolutely be the cover. The other ones were great, but they can't really measure up to this. The variant, a photo cover of Angel hugging Fred, adds just the right amount of cute to compliment the badassery of the regular cover. Plus, any cover with Amy Acker is a good cover in my mind.

Characters We Know: Lorne, Angel, Doctor Sparrow, Gunn, Fred, Wesley, Knox, Smile Time puppets, Nina.

Rating as an adaptation: Very good.

Let's Put a Smile on that Face

What is It?: Angel- Smile Time adaptation #2. Original story by Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund, original script by Ben Edlund. Adapted to comic script by Scott Tipton.

Timing: Directly after Angel- Smile Time #1. One third into the episode.

REVIEW: Gotta make something clear. I rate adaptations on an entirely different scale than original material. While I gave both Angel- Smile Time #1 and Angel- Aftermath #18 both 7/10s, the experiences were totally different. I think that, from now on, my rating system should reflect that. From now on, original material will be the only stuff rated x/10. Adaptations will be rated as either EPIC FAIL, FAIL, BAD, OKAY, GOOD, GREAT, OUTSTANDING. Three levels of negative, one in the exact middle of the road, and then three levels of positive to even it out. I think separating the systems will definitely give a more accurate rating to the books.

One more note before I get into this. Sorry for the delay. I read Angel- Smile Time #2 the day it came out, as I do with all Angel titles, but I just haven't had the time to review. My plate has been more full than Balthazar's of late, and I'm just glad to be getting the opportunity to squeeze this in before Angel- Aftermath #19 comes out in... wow, ten and a half hours. So here we go.

I liked this. I don't think it worked quite as well as the first issue did, but it was a fun read. To tackle the negative stuff first, let's get to the big conversation scene. There's a three page conversation between Angel, Lorne, Wesley, Gunn, Lorne, and Fred that just doesn't work for me. I'll talk about the bad choreography of character movement in the art section, but even the things that Tipton chose to keep and add didn't really work. It must be so hard to script such a big conversation when things like this don't really vibe well with the medium, but I think he tried to fit too much into too few pages. Had he cut a few more lines of dialogue, as he has done liberally throughout the first issue and this, I think the scene might have worked. Instead, it is totally dependent on the actual episode to be understood. Added lines such as "Thought so, still don't have a reflection" interrupt the already stilted conversation. Dialogue that worked in the show, such as Wes/Gunn's "Proportionate excitability of a puppet your size--" bit don't really work here because a) the bubbles are placed so it looks like Fred is saying "What?!" when Angel is supposed to.

The four scenes that follow, however, generally work much better. Three of the four are the best I've seen in the Smile Time series thus far, because they work both as good homages to the source material and as comic scenes that can be read on their own. The comic, which I thought might shy away from the subplots in favor of big puppety action, gives the spotlight to Angel and Nina's relationship. A great example of a scene that works as well in the comic as it did in the episode is the scene in which Angel, afraid of being seen as a puppet by the hot blond werewolf, hides under his desk. The back and forth between Nina and Angel was great, and it's all paid off by the scene that ends the comic. Werewolf costumes were always pretty cheesy in the show, so this episode really shied away from showing Nina in here werewolfy glory, but the adaptation gives us the chance to see her as a truly badass werewolf. The scene that starts out touching, with Angel opening up to Nina, whose heart is firmly planted on her sleeve, quickly turns hilariously horrific when she wolfs out and starts to tear Angel Puppet apart. Gold. Very well done.

What fans might find most interesting is that there is another brand new scene featuring Spike. After the famous "Wee little puppet man" fight that Angel and Spike had in the actual episode, they tumbled into an elevator, the doors closing on them. When the doors opened, Spike had been beaten. In the comic, we get to see the actual fight, which was hilarious. I was skeptical at first, as I loved that we never really got to see what went down, but then I realized it worked because this is what the adaptation is supposed to do. It goes places that the episode didn't really need to go, elaborating for the sake of elaborating... because it's fun.

Though this issue definitely had the worst scene of the series so far, it also had three of the best. I love that it's making me rewatch, dissect, and give another look at an episode that I never really enjoyed. After reading the first two issues, and after giving Smile Time another try both in the comics and on DVD, I've grown to love the story. For that, I am grateful. Looking forward to the finale, as well as Tipton's next adaptation: Not Fade Away, the best piece of film ever broadcast on the small screen.

Art: Some good, some bad. As with the writing, most of the bad stuff can be found in the big conversation scene early in the issue. All of the character's faces other than Angel's lack detail. When Lorne takes the remote from Angel, you can't even see what he's doing. It's so badly blocked that sometimes characters are directly obscuring someone who is talking, so that the speech bubble points to the wrong person. On the other hand, Messina gives the best Nina likeness we've ever seen. He's illustrating Angel and the various characters with more finesse than he used to, setting aside protruding muscles and button-popping bosoms for realistic depictions of what these characters looked like. He still very much has his own style, and it's not too reverent to the actor's likenesses, but just reverent enough. His detail on all the characters improves after the scene I spoke of before, even in the other large conversation Gunn and Lorne have with David Fury (can't call him anything else, sorry) later in the issue. The art is credited to both David Messina and Elena Casagrande, but I suppose their art is similar, for the most part, so I can't really separate them. If anything, there are a lot of refined pages here, and just a few not great ones, so that might mean something. Don't know. Overall, I thought the art was very good. Only wish a bit more time had been put into the choreography of the big conversation.

Covers: One of the best Angel covers from IDW, ever... is David Messina's Fight Club cover. In the brilliant homage to the famous poster, you see Puppet Angel on one side and normal Angel on the other, with--you guessed it--a pink bar of soap above them. Messina is probably one of the best cover artists I've seen, and the covers he's provided for this series are absolutely no exception. The B cover is a photo of Puppet Angel torn apart after the Nina attack. Not nearly as nice as the photo cover from the last issue, but still pretty enough that I had to grab it even though I promised my poor wallet that I would only get the Messina cover when I went in the store.

Characters We Know: Angel, Fred, Wesley, Gunn, Lorne, Nina, Spike, Harmony, whole Smile Time gang

Rating: Good.

Tipton and Messina Comicize "Smile Time"

What Is It?: Angel- Smile Time adaptation. Original story by Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund, original script by Ben Edlund. Adapted to comic script by Scott Tipton.

Timing: First thirteen minutes of the Angel: Season Five episode, "Smile Time."

Review: I'm not very keen on the idea of adaptations, because I keep day dreaming about how David Messina's art would be better used for an original Angel one-shot or even a mini-series. But I knew I would buy the book for two reasons. One, I've got major love for IDW, who have made 2008 all sorts of good with their Angel line (and some other books of theirs I've been getting into), and they have a lot on their plate for 2009 also, and that looks to be an exciting year for Angel fans. The whole team, from Brian Lynch, to Chris Ryall, to Stephen Mooney, to Scott Tipton, to David Messina and more have all been so great with communicating with the fans, that I knew I'd be buying "Smile Time," if only to support my favorite comic publisher. The second reason was because Tipton, who wrote the fairly entertaining "Auld Lang Syne," promised a few extra tidbits that weren't in the episode. And, he delivered on that front. But I'll get to that in a bit.

As an adaptation, it mostly works. There are a few scenes that come off as rushed and awkward, and some that actually benefit from the medium. The Knox/Fred conversation went somewhat well, but there was an ill-placed speech bubble that almost entirely blocked the Valentine's Day card he was handing Fred, which was a bit odd, visually. Had I not just seen the episode, I'm not sure I would have followed until he began talking about the card. Also (and this is minor), the final beat of the conversation has Knox saying "I do?" when it should be "I do," as in the original script, and to make his walking away make sense. The next two pages are where the awkwardness peaks, because there was a lot of conversation crammed into these two pages. In these scenes and the previous scenes, which were already a bit crammed with conversation, Tipton added some lines here and there, but they don't really benefit the overall flow. New stuff is cool, new stuff is why I came, but a few extra lines (that are mostly exposition where exposition isn't needed) at the expense of the flow is not worth it. In the scene I just talked about, Knox originally said "I know, Valentines was last week. But, um, I didn't take the discount on the card." This time around, he says "I know, Valentines was last week. But I didn't take the discount on the card. Even though the cashier begged me to--no, ma'am, I paid full price." And that expansion of dialogue was what led to the obscuring of the card. Sorry for going back there, but as long as we're on the topic of new lines I'm not sure we needed... Now, I'm not really fond of the concept behind the "Smile Time" episode, but it does have a lot of classic Angel lines. Especially his awkward "Oh, you know... drinking blood" in response to Nina asking him what he's doing for breakfast the next day. I'm not sure why, but in the comic, Tipton decided to change the line, and have him saying "Oh, you know... drinking blood, I guess." Again, I'm all for new stuff, but I think there has to be a balance, so that the new stuff matters, as opposed to new stuff that takes away from the way the lines read.

From that point on, however, things are looking up. The beefy Angel/Wesley conversation, which took up the more time than anything else so far in the actual episode, is done exceptionally well here. It could have felt bloated or rushed--and, perhaps, it SHOULD have felt bloated or rushed--but Tipton defies the laws of physics and makes this incredibly heavy scene flow nicely. The pages are packed with panels to be sure, but the placement of the speech bubbles and the staging of the conversation really helps it flow smoothly. The conversation Angel has with Lorne on the following page, where a few things are cut, also works very well here.

Now we get to the meat an potatoes... an entirely new scene. On his way to drop by Smile Time studios, Angel goes to the parking garage to get his favorite car... which Spike is already in the process of taking. Tipton is fairly skilled at writing Spike dialogue, and has a nice handle on the relationship between the two characters. I'm not sure that Angel would let Spike take his favorite car under any circumstances, but I'll buy it, citing his rush to get out and save some kids. This scene was my favorite, because it's new and helps push the story forward, and the dialogue is decent.

Tipton helped the next scene--which is mostly Angel walking through the Smile Time studio and, of course, being turned into a puppet--read nicely by adding some of Angel's internal thoughts. This, again, is a nice example of the kind of new stuff I was looking for. His thought process here is fairly by-the-books, with lines like "Uh-oh. Company." and "There's your first sign of weirdness." and "Over there." and "Here we go." I wish it had a bit more of that Whedonesque quirk in it, because Angel does have some really interesting thoughts, but I also understand why it was the way it was. It's hard for comics to capture the movement of live action, and I did think that the internal thoughts did help to establish the feel of Angel moving through the building, looking for something.

The last page also has a pretty awesome reaction to Angel turning into a puppet. Again, a great new tidbit.

Overall, I did enjoy reading it. I hope the comic gives me a new appreciation for an episode I never really liked, especially since "Spike: Shadow Puppets" showed me that the whole puppet thing definitely works better in comics. Tipton's new scene here is better than the stuff he wrote in "Auld Lang Syne" and on par with his "Spike" one-shots, which I really enjoyed. I'm not excited for the book the way I'm excited for "After the Fall," "Aftermath," and "Blood and Trenches," but I will continue to pick up the series in hopes that the established scenes will be handled as well as the Angel/Wesley scene and that there will be more new stuff, a la the Angel/Spike scene.

Art: David Messina was the artist behind the earlier Angel books, and I always found that he did the male characters a bit too angular, too muscular, and too square-jawed. But no longer. Messina has been improving with every page he turns in, and the progress from "The Curse" to Spike's "First Night" tale to this is incredible. Everything about his art, from likenesses to the movement to landscapes to the way he draws people in general has improved astronomically, and now it's hard to find much of a fault in his art at all. I do wish he was a bit better at capturing the mood of the characters on their faces, such as Fred's reaction to Wesley not interpreting her signals. She seems more or less happy/sleepy there, when I'm not sure that's what they were going for. Other than the facial expressions--and his Wesley likeness--Messina's art is flawless. The coloring is also great.

Covers: We've got two covers. One is a great David Messina work, featuring Angel turning into a puppet. We see all the in between stages too, which is pretty cool. With the "egg" thing in back of him and the blueish black tone of it all, it's a cool, slick cover. The B cover is a photo from the show, featuring the ironically iconic image of battle-wounded puppet Angel leading Gunn, Fred, and Wesley through the lobby of Wolfram & Hart, a sword slung over his shoulders. I was just going to buy the Messina, because as much as I support IDW, it's an adaptation... but when I saw this, I had to pick both up.

Characters We Know: Smile Time crew, Knox, Fred, Nina, Angel, Harmony, Gunn, Wesley, Lorne, and Spike.

Rating: 7/10