Some thoughts on the Buffy Comic
So I was out the other day coming back from a client when I decided to stop by Forbidden Planet - things have been sheer madness here and I haven’t been there in a couple months. First of all, when did the memo go out that good looking girls now can frequent and even work at such stores? Because that surely was not the case during my comic collecting prime. Comics were the sort of thing one had to hide from the ladies in order to further one’s romantic aspirations. I digress.
The only thing that particularly caught my eye was the new Buffy comic, penned by Joss Whedon himself. The first two are out, so I picked ‘em up to see what could be seen. The art I found to be decent, although in a style I don’t particularly like. The writing… I found to be a little weak. It is written as Season 8, so picks up where the tv show ended, with lots and lots of slayers. Reading it my brain automatically heard the text in the voices of the show actors, which was interesting. But, Buffy ended for a reason, it really was just ok. Sure season 7 was better than the few season’s prior, but it’s all relative. When I rewatched the first season sometime after it, I realized how stale the writing had become. To be sure, the Joss episodes were all stunning, but in general it simply wasn’t as snappy as it once was.
The comic, sadly, seems to continue with that. There wasn’t anything gripping about what I was reading, the banter was present, but not really funny, the plot par for the course. The whole thing - art, story, writing - was flat. Not bad, particularly, but not good either. I really don’t think it needed to be made, if Joss wanted to do another comic I wish it could have been either something completely different or at least a spinoff with different characters and a whole fresh perspective. If I happen by the store when the next one’s out, I might pick it up just to see, sometimes these things are slow in starting up, but honestly I don’t have a lot of hope.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Was wondering what your thoughts were regarding the “Fray” comic that came out a couple years back? (Haven’t checked it out myself.)
Darn! I hesitated too long! Amazon had the complete Buffy DVD set on sale last week. But now it’s back to well over $100.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I actually haven’t read Fray, although I hear a lot of good things about it. Still, I’ve read a bunch of people are digging on the buffy comic and I just can’t see it. I’ll get the next one just because it’s Joss, but if it’s keeps up, no more.
As for the DVD set, a wise man once said… you snooze, you lose!