Comic Woes...

[fenderlove]

You know that Darla quote from Season 1? "Do you know what the saddest thing in the world is? To love someone who used to love you." That's pretty much how I feel about the IDW comics. What the hell happened, comics?! You used to be at least decent reads even if not exactly adhering to canon! Sweet merciful Christ, the Spike comics are starting to make "Spike vs. Dracula" look like fucking Shakespeare. Kelley Armstrong's arc ruined everything after ATF. From the get-go Aftermath was just awful. Angel, the ultimate lapsed-lapsed-relapsed-lapsed Catholic vampire, moves into a fucking church?! Not just any church, but a cathedral with stained glass and everything that even a boatload of guilt and a century with a soul hasn't stopped Angel from hating. Even souled, Angel is kinda remorseless for attacking the Church (not to mention not having a hell of a lot of remorse for killing his own family), so him moving into one just does not jibe. Of course, him having sex in a three-way with Kate and that wretched Panther Girl while under the influence of Illyria's suddenly completely and totally female sex hormones didn't jibe either. (Now, a three-way with Spike and the zombified corpse of Lindsey? Yes, that would make perfect sense.) After that, Willingham and Williams, despite their claims of being fans of the show, wrote their stories like they'd never seen an episode, and then S8 effed up IDW's storylines, cue mad scrambling and flouncing, and the whole momentum of everything slowed to a soul-crushing crawl. Now, we've got Spike the series, a multi-year-series long plot that was in the making for two years that had to squeezed into 8 issues like I have to squeeze myself into skinny jeans... and the results of both are equally disappointing. What's sad is that, with Lynch, Spike's characterization is slowly recovering after being assassinated by Willingham and Williams, but it's just not enough to fix everything that was broken. I want to read the story that Lynch originally wrote, without the S8 references, without references to the other IDW comics post-ATF, without boundaries. I just want the story I've been waiting years for, the one that he used to get so excited talking about, the one where Spike and Dru meet again and you didn't know what the tone was going to be. I wanted something that isn't what I'm getting.

IDW had the chance to really show DH and Whedon up by writing good, solid stories that made an impact. Instead, they worried too much about profits and went with gimmicky writers (that sucked and sales declined sharply) instead of doing what they should of fucking done in the first place- either taken a break and let Lynch vacation and then come back with a story, or just get Tipton or Byrne to write the next arc. Instead of replacing Urru with the horrible artist they have now, why not just tap Dave Messina to do it? Why not go get anyone else!? How is it that a company that prides itself on winning accolades and awards for innovative art and storytelling cannot hold the same standards to its franchise comics that it does to its originals?! This is what's wrong with franchise comics!!1! ARGH!!!!!!!

Do you know what's saddest of all? There are old Dark Horse comics (like the old, old stuff that was coming out when the show was still on the air... you know the ones. The ones where they didn't give a single fuck the day they wrote them and were just using them to pad coffers) that are better than what Dark Horse and IDW are doing now. Hell, there are BtVS novelizations that are better than what either company is doing. What comes to mind are the one where the crossdressing Slayer's face was based on a feminized version of James Marsters and even the horrible Spike & Dru: Queen of Hearts comic. Oh, my heart... she aches.

One thing is for certain I am not touching S9. Not even gonna download it. I'm not going to look at it at all. If I do, I want someone to stop me and remind me of the pure hell that was Dark Horse's S8 and the nightmare of what IDW is currently doing to me.



In other news, reviews for Spike #3, #4, and #5 will be coming shortly as one long post. I'm currently doing revising because the first go around was nothing but a long stream of curse words followed by the sounds of me throwing my keyboard across the room.

Comments

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

I feel ya.
I very early on stayed away from Aftermath, Willingham and Williams arc. Same thing with Buffy Season 8. After the first couple of looks, I could see they were not for me. But I'm still enjoying Lynch's Spike now. Not perfect, but I'm enjoying.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I think within the first five pages of Spike #1, the whole series was pretty much wrecked for me. I never got over that initial anger, and now I can't find enjoyment in it. I guess I should have given up on it then and saved myself a lot of heartache. I really did want to enjoy it, which only makes me sadder the harder I try to give it more chances. :(

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

You know that Darla quote from Season 1? "Do you know what the saddest thing in the world is? To love someone who used to love you." That's pretty much how I feel about the IDW comics. What the hell happened, comics?! You used to be at least decent reads even if not exactly adhering to canon! Sweet merciful Christ, the Spike comics are starting to make "Spike vs. Dracula" look like fucking Shakespeare. Kelley Armstrong's arc ruined everything after ATF. From the get-go Aftermath was just awful. Angel, the ultimate lapsed-lapsed-relapsed-lapsed Catholic vampire, moves into a fucking church?! Not just any church, but a cathedral with stained glass and everything that even a boatload of guilt and a century with a soul hasn't stopped Angel from hating. Even souled, Angel is kinda remorseless for attacking the Church (not to mention not having a hell of a lot of remorse for killing his own family), so him moving into one just does not jibe. Of course, him having sex in a three-way with Kate and that wretched Panther Girl while under the influence of Illyria's suddenly completely and totally female sex hormones didn't jibe either.

Wow! That sounds fucked up! I am so glad I decided not to read these comics.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I wish I had just stopped reading after ATF. Actually, I wish that I had never read Spike: ATF, personally but that's because Spike and the whole Spider dubious-consent-apalooza becoming a "canon" plot point makes my skin crawl. Actually, now that I think about it, IDW and Darkhorse both have a large amount of dubious consent sex in their comics. Spider and Spike; Angel, Dez, and Kate; Spike and Miss Valentine; Angel and Buffy. Not to mention that Illyria tried to have its way with Connor and Spike and Miss Watcher-Lady almost got struck down by the same hormone sex-inducing stuff that got everyone else in that issue. What the hell is with that?! I'm now more grossed out than ever. *head-desk*

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

I wish I had just stopped reading after ATF.

I feel your pain. I wish I had just stopped reading after Jeremy told Spike that he thought Spike might be in love with Fred (and before the plot dropped its ugly bombshell about Fred not being back after all.) Even the decent bits of ATF are ruined for me now.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Quick, Socky! Give me a Spred plotbunny! Something that I can turn into a short ficlet! XD

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

Uh, uh, uh...Fred and Spike and the bugs on his spaceship in BtVS Season 9! That's what I was gonna write about for Valentine's Day until bastard real life prevented me. I'm still going to try to write it, gawddammit. We'll compare our versions and then send them both to Allie to show him how much better Season 9 would be with Fred in it. (And then duck as he crumples them up and throws them back in our faces.)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I will try. Actually, there were two plotbunnies I wanted to do that could fill this. We'll see what becomes of them. XD

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Yeah I totally agree. Both companies managed to cock things up one way another. I could almost deal with IDW as they hadn't got Whedon back seat driving them, but DH did and yet they still managed to come up with bucket loads of OOC stupidity. :0

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

It still amazes me that the company that could come out with Spike: Auld Lang Syne, Asylum, Shadow Puppets, ATF, Angel vs. Frankenstein, Blood & Trenches, the Lorne one-shot, and even now the Illyria mini-series released some comics as horrible as Aftermath, Immortality for Dummies, and Spike: The Devil You Know. It boggles the mind how all-over-the-map the quality of the work is. It's like when it's not the main arc or having to worry about canon, they do fine, but the minute canon comes into play they panic and run around like chickens with their heads cut off... S8 failed and it didn't even bother with canon and it had Whedon at the helm.

Somewhere, in this world, has to be an awesome Buffyverse comic. Somewhere that's anywhere but DH or IDW. *sigh*

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Only thing I can think is maybe the people just stopped caring when they were told to stick to shitty season 8 and cared even less when they found out that after doing all that, they still gave the rights back to DH.

One thing is for certain I am not touching S9.

The only way I see myself touching S9 is in the blatant troll capacity. :P If/When it turns out Spike's new ship has a Tommyknocker engine and the real reason he helped was to save his human fuel supply, I won't be able to stop myself from troll-wanking that it all makes perfect sense and is in character because Spike sided against the Native Americans, built the Bot and wore a blue shirt when Uranus squared Pluto in 1966. And it's just a metaphor anyway, 2deep4u? Yes, comics "discussions" still leave a bitter taste.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

When it turns out Spike's new ship has a Tommyknocker engine...

As long as it's not the Langoliers. XD

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I WANT Spike's ship to be a Langolier! Season 8 and the shitty IDW comics are now part of the past, which means that a Langolier ship can shred them and eat them.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Haha! If only!

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

ROFL Feel better? Got to say, I agree with most of this, although little about the Angel or Spike comics has irritated me the way Season Eight did. The scramble to accommodate S8 can't go well, though. I was enjoying the way IDW's comics were ignoring the disaster at DH, now - I dunno.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I do feel somewhat better (ranting lifts about 30% of my rage). I think that if IDW hadn't tried to accommodate S8 so much I wouldn't be so angry. I know they're doing it to appease fans and keep the peace, but sometimes I just wish they didn't.

[findmeneverland.livejournal.com]

I have pretty much just decided to pretend the comics don't exist. They make me too sad.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I used to enjoy the IDW comics a lot even before the canon debate, but now... they bit off more than they could chew. Willingham stormed out of production after S8 revealed Angel as the bad guy which left a bad plot still bad but growing worse as now it had no context, Williams never gave a flip and gave a flip less when Willingham left, Mariah and Tipton tried their best to fix Willingham's plot and failed miserably (basically had to just ignore half the plot already there), and Lynch grew bitter and aggravated that his plot got stunted when Fox decided not to let IDW renew its licensing rights because Whedon asked that DH be given all the rights instead. Also, when they were told they had 8 months to wrap three in-production stories with no forewarning previous to getting the axe by Fox, I think that quality was just bound to suffer. They shuffled artists around, Franco had to leave for personal reasons, and it's just... Urgh.

[shakensilence.livejournal.com]

I'm coming to the conclusion that the comics have had a few pieces of glitter for good ideas but no good follow through on any of them. I stopped reading Angel ages ago when half the characters left (the characters I actually gave a crap about) and left me with only Angel, Connor and chicks that weren't really their characters and someone new that I didn't care about at all. So right after ATF. And I read Season 8 all the way through but the more I read the less I liked it.

I don't know if I'm going to subject myself to Season 9 or not. (I read better fanfiction.)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I just can't put my heart through the wringer anymore. I do feel that DH has gotten all the breaks from the start of things, and that IDW got the crap stick from Whedon, Allie, FOX, and even from fans, but I don't have enough brand loyalty in me to stay. Marvel pulls this kind of stuff, and I stay because I'm "Marvel Fangirl 4 Life" but I've got fanfiction to sustain my Buffyverse needs and maybe that's what I need to stick to.

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading Angel ages ago when half the characters left (the characters I actually gave a crap about) and left me with only Angel, Connor and chicks that weren't really their characters and someone new that I didn't care about at all.

THIS.

We could explain to them 'til they're blue in the face, but I don't think the IDW staff will ever understand that we came to their comics to read about the further adventures of ALL THE MAJOR CHARACTERS FROM THE TV SHOW! That means Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, Spike, Lorne, and Angel, along with the canon peripheral characters such as Harmony, Connor, Illyria, etc. We did NOT come to read about substitute characters and OCs. Nor did we come to read about canon characters written out-of-character to suit IDW's adolescent male fantasies. IDW (and Dark Horse, too) changed the 'verse into something so different that it's completely unrecognizable -- and completely unacceptable.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

There's a major consistency issues with characterization. This tends to happen in comics from series to series, but generally in the main continuity there's supposed to be some consistency even if the writers change. I think IDW never got out of the mindframe it had collectively from how it produced its Angel comics before the whole "canon" thing was important. Look at Spike: Old Times and then look at Auld Lang Syne. There is no consistency. They don't need it as they weren't really part of the same universe. Then look at Spike: Asylum and Shadow Puppets. There's amazing consistency as they take place in the Lynchverse. Because they wanted to work with "respected" writers like Armstrong and Willingham (and by extension Williams), neither Ryall nor Huehner had the balls to intervene and try to corral the plots and characterizations to make them cohesive. Though seeing how easily Willingham could fly off the handle, I don't blame them.

I love to point to Auld Lang Syne as an example of really awesome franchise writing without worrying about canon. It's obvious that both vampires are souled, Spike's corporeal, Cordelia's dead, but we never learn when exactly this story takes place. Angel suddenly is a solo detective, and Spike's sorta off doing his own thing, both are still in L.A., and they come together and easily form a nice duo. The story is solid, and the voices are spot-on. There's no need to worry about canon or timelines because the mini-series stands nicely on its own. That's how franchise comics should be. Sticking to major elements already established by canon, and then picking a good launching off point. Angel's on his own? Well, let's not waste too much time explaining that. As long as he's in character as the audience remembers him with no major changes to him or anyone else, then the audience can make up their own minds about how he got here as that's not important. In a way, I think this is what S8 tried to do, but it failed because there were too many leaps from where the characters had been to where they suddenly where with no explanations. There's only so much an audience can stomach before the unanswered questions just become too much to stand.

[shakensilence.livejournal.com]

I know!!!! When they drew Angel he didn't have his tattoo and Kate wearing a midriff? Huh? Don't even get me started on Gwen. And I completely missed Gunn, Illyria, and Spike. I just couldn't read.

I have no idea why I stuck it out with Season 8.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Anytime Angel didn't have his tattoo it was from an artist mistake. Usually they correct it in the hard-covers. Although, the first time Franco Urru forgot it, I think Lynch came up with the idea that W&H, when they made Angel human in hell, removed his tattoo just to fuck with him. I don't think that's the official explanation they are going with though.

[shakensilence.livejournal.com]

*slaps forehead* silly people. I guess I should say that at least it got fixed for the hardcovers. But still that's a pretty big mistake.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I think that IDW has a quality control problem with not enough editors and too many books, comics, and other media that they have to pay attention to. While their original comics that win awards are pristine and perfect, their franchise comics are rife with errors, both grammatically and artistically. Sometimes, it seems like, "Hey, wouldn't things be simpler to just make sure these things stop happening before they get released so that you don't have to worry about them later?" but sadly, no, they keep happening. I blame too many artists and not enough editors. Mistakes can happen and do happen to every publisher, but that's no excuse. I mean, DarkHorse was two seconds away from releasing the only solo Spike cover it had for S8 with a brown-eyed Spike. His blue eyes are sorta iconic to his look, but Jenny Frison really thought they were brown. Promo images got released, fans went batshit on the DH forums about the mistake, and it was corrected, but I'm guessing that some already printed copies had to be pulled and replaced before shipping.

Another problem for both DH and IDW- neither company does full maquettes of the main characters nor do they have consistent style guides or design sheets. Buffy's hair is not piss-yellow. Buffy's eyes aren't really bright olive green. Spike's eyes are blue. Spike is not right-handed. Franchise comics just don't get the same kind of care that they probably deserve.

Of course, mistakes like this also happen on the show. In TGIQ, Angel described Buffy as being "blonde, blue-eyed." Allow me to quote Cordelia, "My eyes are hazel, Helen Keller." XD