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shadowkatJust grabbed issue one of the Faith arc - written by Brian K. Vaughan (of Lost, Y - The Last Man, Ex-Machina, [edited:DMZ - is actually by Brian Wood - thanks londonkds], and Runaways fame) and art by Georges Jeanty ( who has gotten a tad better in this issue or maybe I've just gotten used to him?).
Killed my feet getting the issue. Own fault - decided to wear new sneaks with low ankle socks, so as a result they rubbed pretty horridly against the back of my ankles - bad enough to have burst the blisters and gotten spots of blood on them. Gnarly to say the least. Not to mention stupid, since it's an oven outside and I should have just worn sandles - but I was trying to protect the soles my heel which have been giving me all sorts of problems lately. One of the prices of getting older is the body starts complaining about things it used to do as a matter of routine - such as walking long distances on hard hot concrete in sandles.
At any rate - when reading these comics it is important to keep in mind that they are written, produced, edited, drawn, and overseen by men. Narley (not) a female in the bunch unless you count Jane Espenson - who is slated to write, not plot mind you, write, possibly one or two comics and knowing Jane they'll probably focus on some supporting or subsidiary character and have little to do with the main arc or for that matter Jo Chen who does the paintings for the alternate covers - paintings I believe are approved and selected primarily by Whedon - so that hardly counts. This is not by the way a fault of the comic - it just happens to be the nature of the biz, and not just the comic book business but a good portion of the entertainment industry, not to mention the world at large. Heck - I work in a games company that makes games targeted at 30 something women, but is run by men. Like it or not, ladies and gents, we live in a patriarchial society, and being such, it is bound to be a bit on the authoritarian and violent side of the fence, it has been that way since well before Jesus Christ started preaching in the Middle East and I seriously doubt it's going to change in my lifetime. We can either scream and shout and throw a hissy fit over it, or we can accept it, and enjoy the parts that don't make us too crazy. I seriously doubt if the roles were flipped, ie. we were a matriarchial society with women running and doing everything - life would be much better. I keep hoping for a society of equals...but I don't see it happening any time soon. We are getting there, but it is taking a very long time - since people tend to be extremists by nature and really hate change.
So...it is not at all surprising to me that comic reads a bit like a male fantasy of Pgymallion** starring every little boy's favorite bad girl - Faith. Brian K. Vaughan feels much the same way about Faith that I do about Spike. The two characters are a lot a like in some respects - both represent the archetypal misunderstood, all narly on the outside bad girl/bad boy with a heart of gold. And I'll give Vaughan loads of credit - he writes Faith amazingly well - not to mention Giles, Xander, and Buffy - far better in my opinion than Whedon.
There's something to be said for a writer who happens to be a fan of a character - they tend to be more well-versed on the character's background that the writer who created them is - weird I know, but very common when it comes to comics and tv shows. I think part of the problem is the narrative structure of the two art forms - they take place over a long period of time, have multiple stories and installments and you'd need an encyclopedia to remember everything. Continuity? Pshaw. You try overseeing the writing of 155 episodes of a network tv series or a major comic book with mulitple writers, actors, artists, producers, and editors and see how well you do. Having worked with or watched online collaborative writing projects and watched people on fanboards disagree - somewhat vehmently- on what has occurred on-screen regarding something as simple as whether or not Xander over-heard Anya tell Buffy where Willow had gone in the last episode of S6, entitled Grave. Apparently it all depended on how quickly your affliate cut to commerical on whether or not you saw it. So I don't worry that much about continuity in regards to tv shows or comics - as long as it is on target about 75% or even 65% of the time? I'm happy. More than that? They've got superhuman powers and I'm in awe or a wickedly good filing system. (Which is why Whedon's response to the letter writer who wanted to know how the First could pretend to be Warren if he wasn't really did, made me giggle. "I forgot, okay!?" - LOL! I could have told her that. I honestly think he forgot most of what he wrote - people hate to break your bubble, but Whedon didn't have a plan when he wrote that series, he made it up as he went, like most tv writers have to do. TV is too fast, too furious, too grueling and too unpredictable to make a plan - sort of like life come to think of it. Those who try often get screwed.
At any rate - I liked this issue a lot better than The Long Way Home. Brian K Vauhan's dialogue and story-writing skills remind me of Brian Lynch's - and cements my opinion that maybe we need new blood? Also maybe, Whedon, works better as a producer/diretor, script-doctor, than actual hands on writer? OR maybe I just find the story more interesting than Whedon's? Whedon has a tendency to get on a soap box and preach, while some of the other writers appear to just want to have some fun exploring the characters. And Whedon's over-arching message is still visible within the pages of the comic. It's pretty much an echo of what I said above - we live in an authoritarian society where men rule and fear to an extent powerful women. It's an amusing message considering the book is written, edited, drawn, and produced by men. Makes me almost want to go up to the guy and say - look if you are so keen on this whole female empowerment/feminist bit - why not employ a few women on your comic books? Hire a female artist? Or a female editor? Or maybe, cough, get a few female writers involved - I know there's a couple out there who would kill to write a Buffy comic. Maybe even have one of them help you plot one? Hello!
In short - he's basically writing a male feminist fantasy piece about powerful and beautiful girls who are lusted after by geeky guys yet ultimately controlled and threatened by men (often the geeky guys grown up) - feels a bit like an oxymoron, and incredibly amusing - that is if you happen to have my ironic sense of humor.
Ignoring all of that - the story was quite entertaining. Faith has apparently parted ways with Robin Wood. Not surprising. Wood was a smug and somewhat patronizing ass. (And no, I don't think that because of how he felt about vampires or Spike, I felt that way about Wood before he ever met Spike or we found out his back story.) At any rate, knowing Faith's background - her tolerance of Wood wouldn't have lasted long. He'd have tried to control her, she'd have come close to strangling him for it - and that would have been it. (By the way - a Faith/Spike/Wood tv series would have been interesting if just for the on-going conflict between the three main characters. Those are three people I would not want to put in a room together for an extended period of time. Keeping Spike a ghost for a bit would have at least kept the fisticuffs down.) In short - Wood represents the very authority that makes Faith want to scream bloody murder. The fact that she sleeps with Xander, Riley and Wood - is interesting. Xander - the boy virgin - the weakling. Riley - the solider - the guy who protects the little woman with his big gun. And Wood - Mr. Prinicipal - the guy who would have suspended her. All would have had power over her if she was not a slayer.
The fact Wood sends her off to kill kiddy vampires is fitting and does do a good job of nailing the coffin on their relationship or what little was left of it. Vaughan in nifty short-hand tells us all we need to know about it - in that one key stroke. While it is possible Wood didn't know the kids were vamps, it is unlikely knowing Wood's own background and expertise. The fact he does not want his slayers in training to deal with it, or himself, and asks Faith - re-emphasizes Faith's retort to Giles - you come after me whenever you need your dirty work done. Gile's rejoinder? You're not the only one who hurt an innocent or the only one to pay for your past. We're a lot a like you and I. We both have to pay. Giles remains one my favorite characters - and still underutilized. I started watching the show for him, gave up briefly when I realized he wasn't going to be used much, and came back when I found other things to like in it. The character has facets that have never been completely explored. His dark side for one. The feeling that he misses the old world - the one in which he and his brethren controlled the slayer and sat on the sidelines while she took on the monsters and ultimately got killed. A role - we see echoed by Roden - the villian of the piece. Note - the villian isn't really the Slayer Gigi, but in reality her co-hort, Warlock, who is egging her on. Continuing the thematic arc of men attempting to run the show - using women, here, slayers as weapons. Giles using Faith, Roden using Gigi. When in reality the two who should be duking it out so to speak are Giles and Roden.
Meanwhile - back in Scotland - we get a little interlude with shirtless Xander - who looks much better in the comics than he did on the screen in the later seasons, I can see why Xander fans were not fans of Seasons 6-7, those seasons were not kind to Nicholas Brendan who was playing the role. Anywho - Xander and Buffy discuss the big mysterious baddie entitled Twilight. Xander's book anthology confused me at first - I kept linking it to the book with the twilight symbol that Roden was holding. Then realized the misplaced book he said that Giles wasn't focused on was Buffy, while the new books Giles was shelving were all the other slayers. Another reference to the male/female dynamic. Women are books to be placed on the shelf - to be pulled out only when needed. An analogy, Xander, quickly back-peddles out of.
Then we are back to Giles and Faith - whom Giles has convinced to learn the nicieties of the British class system which he insists are far harder to navigate than the American one - he may be right. (By the way - for anyone who is remotely curious - the Yanks, us Americans - are as obsessed with class as the Brits, just in a different way. Trust me - if you weren't raised knowing which fork to pick up, who to sit where, and the proper titles - it stands out in the States as well. True you can get up to the top of the ladder from dirt poor roots, but you'll never get into the inner circle without knowing the proper etiguette. In short? People can be unbelievably snooty/snobby regardless of what corner of the planet they happen to originate from - it's a human quality not a cultural one.)
Faith dresses up as a proper lady, complete withprom dress ballgown designed to make men swoon - due to the low cut clevage. And Giles decides upon one look at it - she's a success.
Again - with the male/female dynamic. The female power is in cunning/subterfuge and well being pretty. When Faith says she knows wet-works better than Giles and doesn't need the lessons. HE states - if it just required that, he'd go with his rifle and take her out. No, we require, cunning, subterfuge, getting you in the inner circle - hence the Pygmallion routine.
Like I said at the get-go, if you read the book as a male fantasy piece it's actually quite enjoyable. If you try to see it as furthering whatever message Whedon thinks he's conveying about female empowerment? You may find yourself rolling your eyes and chuckling a bit.
Either way, worth the two bucks. And I'll buy the next one.
* Added: Don't know how many people have read the original Pygmallion play by George Bernard Shaw? Shaw for those who haven't read the playwrite was a biting political and social satirist and wrote interesting plays about the male/female dynamic, politics, and the class system such as Major Barbara. His most famous play may be Pgymallion which was later turned into the sucessful if less biting musical My Fair Lady, (after his death - since he hated musicalizations of his works and prohibited them, once dead they became public domain and he lost control) - which loses some of the satire of the original in translation as do all the fantasy pieces that follow including the Julia Roberts vehical Pretty Woman - which was originally intended to be far darker and more biting in nature before Disney acquired the property. The original title - For $2,000 Dollars or something along those lines.
At any rate in the original play - Eliza is turned from a hard working and happy street seller - with a hard working family, she's part of the lower class. Higgins, on a bet, turns her into a "lady" - but she has no money and no real social standing. So she marries a man, who is weak but pretty with no real ability to get a job and since she isn't from money and he's not the eldest - she ends up supporting him off of a small stipend at a flower shop - that she's gotten a job at. Sure she can speak beautifully and has wonderful manners - but she is never accepted. And her husband is not the hard working man that she may have met if she'd never met Higgins. Is she happier? Did Higgins do her any favors? Or was it just to stroke Higgins own pride? In Shaw's play - Higgins is a bit of a monster. Yet, Eliza chooses to do it. She believes she'd be better off in that flower shop.
What is fascinating to me regarding it - is Shaw satirizes the fantasy - both male and female. The idea of changing your exterior to get the better life. Is it possible?
If I change what I look like, how I behave, how I talk, how I walk, how I dress - will I get ahead? I become what you want - will I have the better life? To me - this is a nightmare, because somewhere along the way you lose yourself much as poor Eliza does under Higgins care. Yet, part of me fantasizes about it - wonders if I can get the makeover. If I looked like this or cut my hair like that or changed my accent...
In an era of plastic surgery and other medical procedures - Shaw's Pygmallion may be worth a second look.
Killed my feet getting the issue. Own fault - decided to wear new sneaks with low ankle socks, so as a result they rubbed pretty horridly against the back of my ankles - bad enough to have burst the blisters and gotten spots of blood on them. Gnarly to say the least. Not to mention stupid, since it's an oven outside and I should have just worn sandles - but I was trying to protect the soles my heel which have been giving me all sorts of problems lately. One of the prices of getting older is the body starts complaining about things it used to do as a matter of routine - such as walking long distances on hard hot concrete in sandles.
At any rate - when reading these comics it is important to keep in mind that they are written, produced, edited, drawn, and overseen by men. Narley (not) a female in the bunch unless you count Jane Espenson - who is slated to write, not plot mind you, write, possibly one or two comics and knowing Jane they'll probably focus on some supporting or subsidiary character and have little to do with the main arc or for that matter Jo Chen who does the paintings for the alternate covers - paintings I believe are approved and selected primarily by Whedon - so that hardly counts. This is not by the way a fault of the comic - it just happens to be the nature of the biz, and not just the comic book business but a good portion of the entertainment industry, not to mention the world at large. Heck - I work in a games company that makes games targeted at 30 something women, but is run by men. Like it or not, ladies and gents, we live in a patriarchial society, and being such, it is bound to be a bit on the authoritarian and violent side of the fence, it has been that way since well before Jesus Christ started preaching in the Middle East and I seriously doubt it's going to change in my lifetime. We can either scream and shout and throw a hissy fit over it, or we can accept it, and enjoy the parts that don't make us too crazy. I seriously doubt if the roles were flipped, ie. we were a matriarchial society with women running and doing everything - life would be much better. I keep hoping for a society of equals...but I don't see it happening any time soon. We are getting there, but it is taking a very long time - since people tend to be extremists by nature and really hate change.
So...it is not at all surprising to me that comic reads a bit like a male fantasy of Pgymallion** starring every little boy's favorite bad girl - Faith. Brian K. Vaughan feels much the same way about Faith that I do about Spike. The two characters are a lot a like in some respects - both represent the archetypal misunderstood, all narly on the outside bad girl/bad boy with a heart of gold. And I'll give Vaughan loads of credit - he writes Faith amazingly well - not to mention Giles, Xander, and Buffy - far better in my opinion than Whedon.
There's something to be said for a writer who happens to be a fan of a character - they tend to be more well-versed on the character's background that the writer who created them is - weird I know, but very common when it comes to comics and tv shows. I think part of the problem is the narrative structure of the two art forms - they take place over a long period of time, have multiple stories and installments and you'd need an encyclopedia to remember everything. Continuity? Pshaw. You try overseeing the writing of 155 episodes of a network tv series or a major comic book with mulitple writers, actors, artists, producers, and editors and see how well you do. Having worked with or watched online collaborative writing projects and watched people on fanboards disagree - somewhat vehmently- on what has occurred on-screen regarding something as simple as whether or not Xander over-heard Anya tell Buffy where Willow had gone in the last episode of S6, entitled Grave. Apparently it all depended on how quickly your affliate cut to commerical on whether or not you saw it. So I don't worry that much about continuity in regards to tv shows or comics - as long as it is on target about 75% or even 65% of the time? I'm happy. More than that? They've got superhuman powers and I'm in awe or a wickedly good filing system. (Which is why Whedon's response to the letter writer who wanted to know how the First could pretend to be Warren if he wasn't really did, made me giggle. "I forgot, okay!?" - LOL! I could have told her that. I honestly think he forgot most of what he wrote - people hate to break your bubble, but Whedon didn't have a plan when he wrote that series, he made it up as he went, like most tv writers have to do. TV is too fast, too furious, too grueling and too unpredictable to make a plan - sort of like life come to think of it. Those who try often get screwed.
At any rate - I liked this issue a lot better than The Long Way Home. Brian K Vauhan's dialogue and story-writing skills remind me of Brian Lynch's - and cements my opinion that maybe we need new blood? Also maybe, Whedon, works better as a producer/diretor, script-doctor, than actual hands on writer? OR maybe I just find the story more interesting than Whedon's? Whedon has a tendency to get on a soap box and preach, while some of the other writers appear to just want to have some fun exploring the characters. And Whedon's over-arching message is still visible within the pages of the comic. It's pretty much an echo of what I said above - we live in an authoritarian society where men rule and fear to an extent powerful women. It's an amusing message considering the book is written, edited, drawn, and produced by men. Makes me almost want to go up to the guy and say - look if you are so keen on this whole female empowerment/feminist bit - why not employ a few women on your comic books? Hire a female artist? Or a female editor? Or maybe, cough, get a few female writers involved - I know there's a couple out there who would kill to write a Buffy comic. Maybe even have one of them help you plot one? Hello!
In short - he's basically writing a male feminist fantasy piece about powerful and beautiful girls who are lusted after by geeky guys yet ultimately controlled and threatened by men (often the geeky guys grown up) - feels a bit like an oxymoron, and incredibly amusing - that is if you happen to have my ironic sense of humor.
Ignoring all of that - the story was quite entertaining. Faith has apparently parted ways with Robin Wood. Not surprising. Wood was a smug and somewhat patronizing ass. (And no, I don't think that because of how he felt about vampires or Spike, I felt that way about Wood before he ever met Spike or we found out his back story.) At any rate, knowing Faith's background - her tolerance of Wood wouldn't have lasted long. He'd have tried to control her, she'd have come close to strangling him for it - and that would have been it. (By the way - a Faith/Spike/Wood tv series would have been interesting if just for the on-going conflict between the three main characters. Those are three people I would not want to put in a room together for an extended period of time. Keeping Spike a ghost for a bit would have at least kept the fisticuffs down.) In short - Wood represents the very authority that makes Faith want to scream bloody murder. The fact that she sleeps with Xander, Riley and Wood - is interesting. Xander - the boy virgin - the weakling. Riley - the solider - the guy who protects the little woman with his big gun. And Wood - Mr. Prinicipal - the guy who would have suspended her. All would have had power over her if she was not a slayer.
The fact Wood sends her off to kill kiddy vampires is fitting and does do a good job of nailing the coffin on their relationship or what little was left of it. Vaughan in nifty short-hand tells us all we need to know about it - in that one key stroke. While it is possible Wood didn't know the kids were vamps, it is unlikely knowing Wood's own background and expertise. The fact he does not want his slayers in training to deal with it, or himself, and asks Faith - re-emphasizes Faith's retort to Giles - you come after me whenever you need your dirty work done. Gile's rejoinder? You're not the only one who hurt an innocent or the only one to pay for your past. We're a lot a like you and I. We both have to pay. Giles remains one my favorite characters - and still underutilized. I started watching the show for him, gave up briefly when I realized he wasn't going to be used much, and came back when I found other things to like in it. The character has facets that have never been completely explored. His dark side for one. The feeling that he misses the old world - the one in which he and his brethren controlled the slayer and sat on the sidelines while she took on the monsters and ultimately got killed. A role - we see echoed by Roden - the villian of the piece. Note - the villian isn't really the Slayer Gigi, but in reality her co-hort, Warlock, who is egging her on. Continuing the thematic arc of men attempting to run the show - using women, here, slayers as weapons. Giles using Faith, Roden using Gigi. When in reality the two who should be duking it out so to speak are Giles and Roden.
Meanwhile - back in Scotland - we get a little interlude with shirtless Xander - who looks much better in the comics than he did on the screen in the later seasons, I can see why Xander fans were not fans of Seasons 6-7, those seasons were not kind to Nicholas Brendan who was playing the role. Anywho - Xander and Buffy discuss the big mysterious baddie entitled Twilight. Xander's book anthology confused me at first - I kept linking it to the book with the twilight symbol that Roden was holding. Then realized the misplaced book he said that Giles wasn't focused on was Buffy, while the new books Giles was shelving were all the other slayers. Another reference to the male/female dynamic. Women are books to be placed on the shelf - to be pulled out only when needed. An analogy, Xander, quickly back-peddles out of.
Then we are back to Giles and Faith - whom Giles has convinced to learn the nicieties of the British class system which he insists are far harder to navigate than the American one - he may be right. (By the way - for anyone who is remotely curious - the Yanks, us Americans - are as obsessed with class as the Brits, just in a different way. Trust me - if you weren't raised knowing which fork to pick up, who to sit where, and the proper titles - it stands out in the States as well. True you can get up to the top of the ladder from dirt poor roots, but you'll never get into the inner circle without knowing the proper etiguette. In short? People can be unbelievably snooty/snobby regardless of what corner of the planet they happen to originate from - it's a human quality not a cultural one.)
Faith dresses up as a proper lady, complete with
Again - with the male/female dynamic. The female power is in cunning/subterfuge and well being pretty. When Faith says she knows wet-works better than Giles and doesn't need the lessons. HE states - if it just required that, he'd go with his rifle and take her out. No, we require, cunning, subterfuge, getting you in the inner circle - hence the Pygmallion routine.
Like I said at the get-go, if you read the book as a male fantasy piece it's actually quite enjoyable. If you try to see it as furthering whatever message Whedon thinks he's conveying about female empowerment? You may find yourself rolling your eyes and chuckling a bit.
Either way, worth the two bucks. And I'll buy the next one.
* Added: Don't know how many people have read the original Pygmallion play by George Bernard Shaw? Shaw for those who haven't read the playwrite was a biting political and social satirist and wrote interesting plays about the male/female dynamic, politics, and the class system such as Major Barbara. His most famous play may be Pgymallion which was later turned into the sucessful if less biting musical My Fair Lady, (after his death - since he hated musicalizations of his works and prohibited them, once dead they became public domain and he lost control) - which loses some of the satire of the original in translation as do all the fantasy pieces that follow including the Julia Roberts vehical Pretty Woman - which was originally intended to be far darker and more biting in nature before Disney acquired the property. The original title - For $2,000 Dollars or something along those lines.
At any rate in the original play - Eliza is turned from a hard working and happy street seller - with a hard working family, she's part of the lower class. Higgins, on a bet, turns her into a "lady" - but she has no money and no real social standing. So she marries a man, who is weak but pretty with no real ability to get a job and since she isn't from money and he's not the eldest - she ends up supporting him off of a small stipend at a flower shop - that she's gotten a job at. Sure she can speak beautifully and has wonderful manners - but she is never accepted. And her husband is not the hard working man that she may have met if she'd never met Higgins. Is she happier? Did Higgins do her any favors? Or was it just to stroke Higgins own pride? In Shaw's play - Higgins is a bit of a monster. Yet, Eliza chooses to do it. She believes she'd be better off in that flower shop.
What is fascinating to me regarding it - is Shaw satirizes the fantasy - both male and female. The idea of changing your exterior to get the better life. Is it possible?
If I change what I look like, how I behave, how I talk, how I walk, how I dress - will I get ahead? I become what you want - will I have the better life? To me - this is a nightmare, because somewhere along the way you lose yourself much as poor Eliza does under Higgins care. Yet, part of me fantasizes about it - wonders if I can get the makeover. If I looked like this or cut my hair like that or changed my accent...
In an era of plastic surgery and other medical procedures - Shaw's Pygmallion may be worth a second look.
