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.

Brand New COVERS and Brand New NEWS and some SEASON NINE information

I'll be, ahem, straight forward

COVERS TO ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL #3--> CLICK
(Tony Harris will no longer be doing covers. With this third one and on, Andrew Robinson has taken over)

Information on Buffy: Season Eight #10- Scott Allie says... "That’s a housekeeping issue. That’s how things start with Joss. He goes “I have to fill a blank. There’s this thing I have to address, and it turns into something so much more. Issue #10, we did a contest on MySpace where you write in and say “this is how BUFFY affected my life,” and Joss picks the winner and the winner will be drawn into an issue of BUFFY. Joss read all the entries, and was really moved by a lot of them and the winner he was struck by and he basically wrote Issue #10 about her, sort of. It’s a Willow and Buffy issue, with some Xander. It’s an issue that catches you up and shows you how things are screwed up with our characters." He also said, in an audio interview, that the issue is comparable to episodes like "Hush" and "The Body." Oh yeah, and it'll make you cry fan tears.

Information of Buffy: Season Eight #11- We find out who/what the Big Bad of the season will be.

Information on DREW GODDARD's arc (ISSUES 12-15): Some vampires get a new power that isn't very vampire-y. The Scoobs head to Japan to dig up some info on the case. *Sigh* Sounds so good.

SPOILER (Highlight to Read:) At some point in the season, Dracula will make a cameo.

SEASON NINE: Scott Allie says... "It’s a real ambitious thing and we’ve already sketched out what Season 9 would be. At one point, I was pretty sure Season 8 would be the end of all of this. The original idea looked like that was it, but now we have a Season 9, that would be much different than Season 8. We might take a break, but when Joss and I talked about it, Joss said he might want to take a break between eight and nine – “maybe a month.” That’s barely a break. It’s not even a summer, but yes, Season 9 should happen pretty soon after this"

Check out the Scott Allie interviews at the following links:
http://new.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2393
http://sl-podcast.livejournal.com/192735.html

Oh, yeah... And we'll be getting a release date on "After the Fall #1" by next week.

ndvkjbdiupehowj :]

I Can Hear the Squeeing Now...

BIG Joss Whedon news, straight from Comic Con. This entire post is pretty much thanks to those people who attended Joss' panel at Comic Con and were vigilant and quick fingered enough to type everything up.

So, here's a little summary of what's to come. I'll bold the things that I feel readers will find most interesting and, as always, please feel free to comment and debate which piece of news is most exciting.

RIPPER: We've been waiting so long to hear about this. It was going to be a series. It was going to be a movie. It was going to be one in a trilogy of movies about the Buffyverse characters. Hell, it was going to be a lot of things. But now, it just might get made. It's not set yet, but will likely be filmed sometime next year. It's a 90 minute made-for-TV-movie starring Anthony Stewart Head as Giles that'll be aired on BBC first. "Everybody is in the same frame of mind that it should happen and will happen soon. Been talking with Tony Head," says Joss Whedon. He went on to say, "(I am) getting sick and tired of not entertaining you enough, so I wants to do things, like Ripper, that can be done quickly. Lots of creepy things in the back of my brain that I need to get out."

BUFFY Season Eight COMICS: Oz will definitely be in the Season Eight comics at some point, which kinda kills the rumor that he'll be a star in Angel: After the Fall. Joss really wants to focus on filmed entertainment, but can't stop writing Buffy comic, almost like a drug. He isn't giving Brian Vaughn (who's writing the "No Future For You" arc beginning next month) a huge amount of notes. After Brian, two one-shots by Joss before Drew Goddard's arc.

BUFFY- SEASON NINE: There will, apparently, be a season nine of Buffy through Dark Horse comics as well. Joss said the following: "I know where season 8 of BtVS is ending, (and) I know what happens in Season 9."

GONERS: The new feature film, a fantasy/horror movie written/directed by Joss Whedon. This is the "biggest part of Joss' life right now". He's "been getting studio notes about how the script can be better. And they're right."

ANGEL- After the Fall: Brian Lynch is "doing a great job. It's about the FALL of Wolfram and hart, and the horrible things that happen subsequent to it." Joss says, "Wesley? He's dead, so obviously he's going to be the star..." Though this was likely said in jest, much like his "all about Anya" comment regarding Season Eight.

HEROES: Joss really wants to write/direct an episode, but feels that it isn't something he has time to do.

Harry Potter: Joss had previously shown interest in directing the final Harry Potter movie, but he just wants to concentrate on creator owned material at the moment. Plus, he kinda dosen't have much in the way of time to do something this major.

SUMMER GLAU: Joss is working on a ballet (wtf mate) with Summer Glau who played River Tam on Firefly. The ballet is called "The Serving Girl" and he is writing the music.

FRAY: He is doing more Fray, but he was pretty sure he wasnt supposed to tell us that.

CABIN IN THE WOODS: Joss and Drew Goddard have written a script together, for a feature length film. He says this about it: "it's the horror film to end horror films, literally."

ANGEL/BUFFY MOVIES: Joss would love to do a movie based on the ANGEL comic series coming out, but he knows that David and Sarah have both moved on.

SERENITY: There have been conflicting reports about this part of the Joss news. Some people say that Joss mentioned that the comic mini-series "Serenity: Better Days" will be released this winter, some said that Joss never mentioned. Personally, I just wish he'd leave that 'verse alone for the time being and stick to the Buffy/Angel comics, the movies he's doing, and new things. Firefly/Serenity works much better on screen than it did in comic books, as we saw in "Serenity: Those Left Behind."

Whew.