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shadowkatSplitting up my posts today and yesterday, partly for length and partly for content. This is the cultural post. The other was the more personal post. Didn't bother locking, because well it's not that private. I'm sort of vague.
Saw on flist plot bits about the Williams and Willingham Angel comics. Okay, does anyone else find it a bit funny that IDW hired two guys named, Bill Willingham and Bill Williams to
write the Angel comics? Especially considering the birth names of Spike and Angel are William and Liam (Irish version of William) respectively? It's almost as if they decided to get the real life versions of Spike and Angel to write these comics, (except methinks that Spike and Angel would have done a better job. Angel's a better artist, and Spike's a better writer.) Coincidence? Probably. But highly amusing all the same.
Should probably pause here and clarify a few things:
1. Outside of the first issue, I haven't really bothered with the Williams boys take on the Angelverse. Yes, it was THAT bad. Crappy art, and crappy writing. Fables it's not. Although I didn't like Fables either, but it was better written and the art was above standard comic fare. In short, me not like, me not buy. Life is too short to waste time or money on something you don't like, right?
2. I admittedly got curious about the comics again when the head editor stated that they had a plan. And a complex story arc for one of my favorite characters, aka Spike. So, I checked them out in the comic book store - to see if I'd missed anything. I didn't. So didn't waste any money on them. The story was clearly written for 12 year old boys with a low-brow and somewhat sexist, and definitely adolescent sense of humor. It's called Immortality for Dummies and features the amazing misadventures of Connor the wonderboy! (If you liked Connor in Angel S4 and think he was pod!Connor in S5, I wouldn't recommend the comics - which are basically told from pod!Connor's perspective and appear to be written by pod!Connor and drawn by Andrew.)
3. I pretty much view the comics, regardless of who is writing them or producing them as a type of fanfic, similar to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's basically a series of what-if scenarios, some better written than others. With one major difference - unlike fanfic, I can actually analyze, make fun of, criticize and review the comics without worrying about the writer's friends acting as if I killed their favorite puppy. Part of the reason for this - is well, the comic book writer and artist is being paid. Granted not all that much. But still. And the other reason? We have to pay for it - which means we should review it to protect poor unsuspecting souls from wasting their hard earned pennies on this stuff. Fanfic? Free. And yes, I know, some people think the comics are canonical to the tv series. I've yet to hear a convincing argument on this. I'm sorry, but Whedon is not God, he's the Wizard of OZ.
That said, I do have my preferences regarding the comics. I will read and take as comic Angelverse canon anything written by Brian Lynch and in some cases, Peter David. But no one else. Peter David did Angel Only Human - the Illyria/Gunn mini-series. And gave Spike - the only vampire to date, outside of Harmony and Webs, an actual last name. David's Spike is a bit too good for my taste, but what can you do? I don't buy any of the other writers comics at IDW.
And I won't. But I will make fun of whatever bits I hear about them.
As for the Buffy comics? I will most likely still read anything written by Whedon, even if the guy has gotten a bit creepy for my taste - a little sexual violence goes a long long way.
And anything drawn by Joan Chen. Also, more or less anything written by Drew Goddard.
Brian K. Vaughn and Doug Petrie were also not that bad. Jane Espenson was okay. The rest?
No way in heck. Brad Meltzer? You couldn't pay me to read - well you could, but the going rate is five billion.
Now that the clarifying is over with...the latest plot spoiler from the Angel comics is...
wait for it...Spike is acting like a jerk or berk, because he lost his soul. Okay. Apparently
Spike without a soul is just a womanizing, snarky, jealous, narcissitic show-off who saves people to make himself look good - hmmm reminds me of some famous actors and writers who shall remain nameless...does this mean they don't have souls? Did Mel Gibson lose his soul sometime around the filming of The PAssion - because that would explain a lot, wouldn't it? While Angel without a soul - is a psychotic killer who pulls hearts out of women, and kills people. Good to know. What throws me is that somehow Spike lost his soul without noticing that he did? Alrighty then. The soul drove him nuts in S7 and plagued him in S5 Angel, it's the thing that he worked so hard to obtain, it burned so badly, and it is how he burned up in flames - yet he doesn't notice when it what disappears??? Yeah, right. Also he's apparently asking Hollywood to write him a prophecy that makes him the hero who gets the girl - a prophecy that ironically looks a lot like what Whedon is doing in the Buffy comics? Are we supposed to take these things seriously? I doubt it. It sounds like a complete parody to me.
Other bit that read on flist...apparently someone on Whedonesque thinks Angelus would make a sophisticated and talented lover? My reaction? Well yeah, if you happen to be a masochist who is into heavy BSM, or a sadist for that matter. If so, may I recommend the works of the Marquis de Sade?
Saw on flist plot bits about the Williams and Willingham Angel comics. Okay, does anyone else find it a bit funny that IDW hired two guys named, Bill Willingham and Bill Williams to
write the Angel comics? Especially considering the birth names of Spike and Angel are William and Liam (Irish version of William) respectively? It's almost as if they decided to get the real life versions of Spike and Angel to write these comics, (except methinks that Spike and Angel would have done a better job. Angel's a better artist, and Spike's a better writer.) Coincidence? Probably. But highly amusing all the same.
Should probably pause here and clarify a few things:
1. Outside of the first issue, I haven't really bothered with the Williams boys take on the Angelverse. Yes, it was THAT bad. Crappy art, and crappy writing. Fables it's not. Although I didn't like Fables either, but it was better written and the art was above standard comic fare. In short, me not like, me not buy. Life is too short to waste time or money on something you don't like, right?
2. I admittedly got curious about the comics again when the head editor stated that they had a plan. And a complex story arc for one of my favorite characters, aka Spike. So, I checked them out in the comic book store - to see if I'd missed anything. I didn't. So didn't waste any money on them. The story was clearly written for 12 year old boys with a low-brow and somewhat sexist, and definitely adolescent sense of humor. It's called Immortality for Dummies and features the amazing misadventures of Connor the wonderboy! (If you liked Connor in Angel S4 and think he was pod!Connor in S5, I wouldn't recommend the comics - which are basically told from pod!Connor's perspective and appear to be written by pod!Connor and drawn by Andrew.)
3. I pretty much view the comics, regardless of who is writing them or producing them as a type of fanfic, similar to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's basically a series of what-if scenarios, some better written than others. With one major difference - unlike fanfic, I can actually analyze, make fun of, criticize and review the comics without worrying about the writer's friends acting as if I killed their favorite puppy. Part of the reason for this - is well, the comic book writer and artist is being paid. Granted not all that much. But still. And the other reason? We have to pay for it - which means we should review it to protect poor unsuspecting souls from wasting their hard earned pennies on this stuff. Fanfic? Free. And yes, I know, some people think the comics are canonical to the tv series. I've yet to hear a convincing argument on this. I'm sorry, but Whedon is not God, he's the Wizard of OZ.
That said, I do have my preferences regarding the comics. I will read and take as comic Angelverse canon anything written by Brian Lynch and in some cases, Peter David. But no one else. Peter David did Angel Only Human - the Illyria/Gunn mini-series. And gave Spike - the only vampire to date, outside of Harmony and Webs, an actual last name. David's Spike is a bit too good for my taste, but what can you do? I don't buy any of the other writers comics at IDW.
And I won't. But I will make fun of whatever bits I hear about them.
As for the Buffy comics? I will most likely still read anything written by Whedon, even if the guy has gotten a bit creepy for my taste - a little sexual violence goes a long long way.
And anything drawn by Joan Chen. Also, more or less anything written by Drew Goddard.
Brian K. Vaughn and Doug Petrie were also not that bad. Jane Espenson was okay. The rest?
No way in heck. Brad Meltzer? You couldn't pay me to read - well you could, but the going rate is five billion.
Now that the clarifying is over with...the latest plot spoiler from the Angel comics is...
wait for it...Spike is acting like a jerk or berk, because he lost his soul. Okay. Apparently
Spike without a soul is just a womanizing, snarky, jealous, narcissitic show-off who saves people to make himself look good - hmmm reminds me of some famous actors and writers who shall remain nameless...does this mean they don't have souls? Did Mel Gibson lose his soul sometime around the filming of The PAssion - because that would explain a lot, wouldn't it? While Angel without a soul - is a psychotic killer who pulls hearts out of women, and kills people. Good to know. What throws me is that somehow Spike lost his soul without noticing that he did? Alrighty then. The soul drove him nuts in S7 and plagued him in S5 Angel, it's the thing that he worked so hard to obtain, it burned so badly, and it is how he burned up in flames - yet he doesn't notice when it what disappears??? Yeah, right. Also he's apparently asking Hollywood to write him a prophecy that makes him the hero who gets the girl - a prophecy that ironically looks a lot like what Whedon is doing in the Buffy comics? Are we supposed to take these things seriously? I doubt it. It sounds like a complete parody to me.
Other bit that read on flist...apparently someone on Whedonesque thinks Angelus would make a sophisticated and talented lover? My reaction? Well yeah, if you happen to be a masochist who is into heavy BSM, or a sadist for that matter. If so, may I recommend the works of the Marquis de Sade?
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Date: 2010-07-31 04:17 am (UTC)Hmmm, how to explain?
Okay, after George Lucas did the Star Wars films, people wrote novels about what would happen next. The story has continued in another format. Here Whedon has decided to take the Buffy series into comics to continue the story. What Whedon has done is no different than say a Alan Dean Foster writing stories about what happens next in the Star Wars universe, or Rockne S. Obannion writing what happens next in the Farscape, or Brian Lynch writing what happens next in Angelverse or Willingham for that matter.
All are legitimate stories. All are continuations. Fanfic? Same deal - they are that writer's take on what would happen next.
Canon? Doesn't exist from this point forward. You can say it is canonical to Joss Whedon/Brad Meltzer/Scott Allie/and George Jeanty's vision of how it would continue, with Drew Goddard, Doug Petrie, Brian K. Vaughn, Jeff Loeb, and Jane Espenson contributing. But it is not a continuation of what the cast, crew, writers and producers of the tv series would envision. Same deal with IDW - the Angel comics are canonical to the writer writing them.
Does that make sense? Canon discussions can be head-ache inducing because everyone defines it differently, apparently. So we end up arguing about semantics.