Brief bit on the poll posted below b/c unfortunately no time to respond to comments

[shadowkat]

I'm offline for the next two-three days for the Thanksgiving Holiday. When I get back will hopefully do a meta on poll results and respond to comments. Sorry about delay.

Thank you for answering my poll. If you friended me and are a fan of Buffy? And haven't seen or answered the poll? Please take the time to answer at least the first three questions of the poll. I really would like to see how many Buffy fans actually have read the comics, and how many gave up on them. I know it can't possibly be an accurate or scientific sampling (as I myself stated recently to someone else doing polls - such a thing may well be impossible)...but I'd like to get a snapshot, see the degree to which the mileage differs. Thanks!!

Regarding the canon question?

"I think how you answer that question has a great deal to do with whether you consider Joss Whedon the sole creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, or a co-creator/part of a larger collaborative effort. Think of it this way - you've written part of book, say one chapter, and there's a guy, JW, who hired you to write that chapter, he may have even edited portions, and given you notes , and he does the same with other people, including writing a few chapters himself, and he puts his name on the book - edited/created by J.W. Your name is listed in the table of contents, you are credited as a writer for hire. J.W does a sequel, he hires different writers, you either decline to contribute or aren't invited. He chooses to take the characters or information in the chapter that you wrote and write a sequel based on it, and states that his sequel is canon. It is a continuation of what you wrote - even though you haven't been consulted in any way. Since he or the publisher own the copyright, and you are a mere "work-for-hire" writer, you can't claim copyright infringement. He can do whatever he wants. Would you consider what he does with your characters, story, and/or ideas/information that you have concieved and written a true continuation of the work (ie. canon), if you are no longer part of the collaboration purely because he combined the original combination of stories, edited and put them together and is the one credited with coming up with the title and main concept?

Happy Thanksgiving for those in US who celebrate, elsewhere, have a great weekend!

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Well, I know you'll be more interested in responses by actual writers AND I did say that I wasn't willing to argue canon with anyone ever at any time....
But I did think I would respond to your scenario as I understand it:
Joss as exec producer hires writers, he outlines where the story is going and then he may (or may not) allow those writers to create new characters and new story-lines which work within the frame work of his show. Ultimately though he does (IMO) get to decide what is canon and what isn't: if he wasn't happy with a writer's work then he would fire them...
if he liked the writer but didn't like their take on a character he would edit them...
so as far as I can see it is still his story that is being told no matter now collaborative it becomes.

Joss has changed costume choices made by the those hired to dress the actors, and he has redesigned sets in spite of having highly paid set designers. Of course he has also allowed some actors to ad lib, and some writers to go off in weird/new directions, but he still had the last word. He as admitted to being a control freak control enthusiast, so I don't think the collaboration is ever an equal partnership....

Of course I haven't been there, and I can't know.... I'm just saying that for me what Joss says is canon is canon.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, I was just attempting to explain how I saw it. But after I posted it, I realized that STILL isn't it. But had no time to adjust or change the explanation.

I'll try again - I do not believe Whedon can tell us what is canon or not, because Whedon did not create the story by himself, he was not the sole executive producer, he was not the owner of the rights, he made decisions, but he did not have the final say in all cases. David Greenwalt was co-executive producer of the series for the first three years. David Greenwalt and Marti Noxon developed and came up with the characters of Dru and Spike, with Whedon.

To give an example from an artist perspective - the Marvel artists in 1990s got very upset with Marvel and specifically Stan Lee (who is the Marvel equivalent of Mutant Enemy's Whedon) - Lee had power. He had initially come up with concept of the X-Men, and was more or less credited over John Byrn (the artist).
The artists who created new characters, such as Gambit, Rogue, Bishop, Lady Deathstrike, Cable,
Psylock, got upset when they realized that it was only "canon" if Lee said so. They did not own their characters. Their ideas, their art - was well Marvel's and Lee's and Lee and Marvel could do whatever they damn well pleased regardless of whether it made sense.
So, they formed Wildstorm. A similar thing happened yet in reverse with the creators of Superman - who lost control of the character to DC, who became the controller. The same thing could happen with Buffy, by the way, the Kuzuis could get a new writer and director, change the story, get a following, get a fandom and in due course that fandom may state that whatever that director/writer states is "canon". Which is exactly what happened with Superman and the X-men.

Canon to me, is meaningless in collaborative environment. It only works with a work by say someone like Jane Austen - where you can locate a single source and single author.

Also, I don't care about canon. Canon...schamon. I read the comics because the story interests me and I find Whedon as a writer, to be interesting. I find his writing interesting, deeply flawed in places, but definitely interesting. ;-)

This isn't meant to be an argument per se, but rather an attempt to explain my point of view.

I think from your response above - you perceive Whedon as the God of the Buffyverse or the creator of it.
I do not for the reasons stated above.