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Mar. 3rd, 2019 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Read the second issue of the new Buffy comic -- put out by BOOM studios.
It's good, the art-work is really impressive. But, it's also building up really slowly. The comics come out once a month -- and well it appears five comics would make up one episode of the television series. The comics are more character centric than action oriented. And a lot of time is placed on setting each of the characters up.
Also some of the characters are set up differently than in the prior series, which does work -- since this isn't canonical to the original or a continuation of it, so much as a full-scale comic reboot, with different writers, and Whedon serving as a silent show-runner. In some respects -- it's more feminist than the prior series, empowering all the female characters. Cordelia, for example, is not portrayed as a mean-girl cheerleader, but a popular girl who has all the friends, comes across as really nice, and is running for president. Which is actually more realistic, the truly popular kids in school didn't notice anyone but their own friends and had no need to bully people. They just were oblivious to everything that wasn't centered on themselves. The kids who tended to be bullies were often bullied at home, and struggling to get noticed or be popular and not cutting it.
Xander is painted as the lonely kid, the outsider. With Willow more centered and having her own gang of friends, and a girl-friend. Willow is openly lesbian in this iteration and has a girl-friend. It's basically S7 Willow, but without the magic.
Which works better now. It wouldn't have worked in the 1980s and 90s, but now, it makes more sense.
Joyce has boyfriend that she's been seeing for a year, and just moved in with them. (Art wise -- he looks a lot like David Boreanze and until I read the dialogue, I wondered if her was Angel, he's not. His name's Eric.) This also makes more sense, in some respects.
Spike is introduced with Cordelia. And Cordy is the first person we see him with in the comic. While Drusilla is tormenting Anya. So far, Spike fits more what we saw of him in the series, than Dru does. Dru's less crazy.
I love the art though...and the dialogue is good. Among the best I've seen in comics or books of late. Dialogue is hard to do well. More people need to listen to how others talk. Good dialogue has a rhythm to it, a poetry. It shouldn't ring dull on the ear. So that works.
What's not quite working here and there is pacing -- I want to move it forward and bit and scale back a little on angsty characterization. Mainly because I find it a bit jarring in spots -- I know a lot about the characters, and some of the characterization feels like the writers are writing about entirely different characters and I find myself thinking -- if you are going to take that approach, why not make up your own?
So..it's about 3.5 stars, if that...not bad. Could be better.
2. The Passage is getting better as it goes. Doing a rather decent job of exploring why the scientists crossed various ethical boundaries and the consequences of doing so -- all in the name of the ends justifying the means. Truth of the matter is the ends never justify the means.
There's a rather good scene in one of the episodes, where Dr. Nicole Sykes is confronted by the woman she experimented on, Shauna Babcock. Shauna tells Sykes that she's the worst kind of person -- she thinks she's good, she befriended Babcock then abandoned her and locked her up, once she turned into a monster as a direct result of Sykes experiments.
The series is asking the question -- to what degree are the scientists who create the pathogens, weapons or do the experiments accountable for the consequences? If you play God, are you not accountable for massively screwing up?
Also when people play god, they have a tendency to create vampires. I rather like that metaphor.
3. Some social media is depressing. The problem with the information age -- is being inundated with information that well...I was perfectly happy not knowing anything about.
It's good, the art-work is really impressive. But, it's also building up really slowly. The comics come out once a month -- and well it appears five comics would make up one episode of the television series. The comics are more character centric than action oriented. And a lot of time is placed on setting each of the characters up.
Also some of the characters are set up differently than in the prior series, which does work -- since this isn't canonical to the original or a continuation of it, so much as a full-scale comic reboot, with different writers, and Whedon serving as a silent show-runner. In some respects -- it's more feminist than the prior series, empowering all the female characters. Cordelia, for example, is not portrayed as a mean-girl cheerleader, but a popular girl who has all the friends, comes across as really nice, and is running for president. Which is actually more realistic, the truly popular kids in school didn't notice anyone but their own friends and had no need to bully people. They just were oblivious to everything that wasn't centered on themselves. The kids who tended to be bullies were often bullied at home, and struggling to get noticed or be popular and not cutting it.
Xander is painted as the lonely kid, the outsider. With Willow more centered and having her own gang of friends, and a girl-friend. Willow is openly lesbian in this iteration and has a girl-friend. It's basically S7 Willow, but without the magic.
Which works better now. It wouldn't have worked in the 1980s and 90s, but now, it makes more sense.
Joyce has boyfriend that she's been seeing for a year, and just moved in with them. (Art wise -- he looks a lot like David Boreanze and until I read the dialogue, I wondered if her was Angel, he's not. His name's Eric.) This also makes more sense, in some respects.
Spike is introduced with Cordelia. And Cordy is the first person we see him with in the comic. While Drusilla is tormenting Anya. So far, Spike fits more what we saw of him in the series, than Dru does. Dru's less crazy.
I love the art though...and the dialogue is good. Among the best I've seen in comics or books of late. Dialogue is hard to do well. More people need to listen to how others talk. Good dialogue has a rhythm to it, a poetry. It shouldn't ring dull on the ear. So that works.
What's not quite working here and there is pacing -- I want to move it forward and bit and scale back a little on angsty characterization. Mainly because I find it a bit jarring in spots -- I know a lot about the characters, and some of the characterization feels like the writers are writing about entirely different characters and I find myself thinking -- if you are going to take that approach, why not make up your own?
So..it's about 3.5 stars, if that...not bad. Could be better.
2. The Passage is getting better as it goes. Doing a rather decent job of exploring why the scientists crossed various ethical boundaries and the consequences of doing so -- all in the name of the ends justifying the means. Truth of the matter is the ends never justify the means.
There's a rather good scene in one of the episodes, where Dr. Nicole Sykes is confronted by the woman she experimented on, Shauna Babcock. Shauna tells Sykes that she's the worst kind of person -- she thinks she's good, she befriended Babcock then abandoned her and locked her up, once she turned into a monster as a direct result of Sykes experiments.
The series is asking the question -- to what degree are the scientists who create the pathogens, weapons or do the experiments accountable for the consequences? If you play God, are you not accountable for massively screwing up?
Also when people play god, they have a tendency to create vampires. I rather like that metaphor.
3. Some social media is depressing. The problem with the information age -- is being inundated with information that well...I was perfectly happy not knowing anything about.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-05 02:19 am (UTC)They don't. I guess I don't see it as cashing in...but as just re-interpreting the story from another angle. But I also am a long-time fan of superhero comics, specifically Marvel, and they retcon, reboot, reinterpret the characters and verse constantly. You can't be a Marvel fan and not be able to hand-wave that sort of thing. The MCU films for example? Are completely different from the comics. Almost unrecognizable.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-05 02:54 am (UTC)While I enjoy reading a new take on a story I enjoyed, I don't understand the people writing it. Why would you want to write a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? OR Taming of the Shrew? Or Wuthering Heights? It's sort of similar to well...I don't understand people who follow recipes in cook books to the letter, I prefer to cook without the recipe. It's more fun.