fenderlove | Comic Woes...

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

*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.

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

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