*faints from oversqueeing* ;-)

billz | March 02, 19:46 CET

Methinks this needs a spoiler tag, no? And I spy Spike on page three -- ZOMG!

karosurly | March 02, 19:55 CET

just added, at the same time as your post... sorry!

ajay42 | March 02, 19:55 CET

I knew it. Aren't there those giant rabbits in the UK? I bet they're pretty evil.



So nice to see him randomly make fun of the web-hipness.

Sunfire | March 02, 20:33 CET

Randomly? He does it all the time :) Joss, now with AJAX (that would be asynchronous java and xml, not the cleaning product - its a web joke)!

zeitgeist | March 02, 20:36 CET

Seeing those pictures makes me soooo excited! I can not wait until it comes out. Those sketches of Buffy (SMG) were so realistic! Can't wait!!!

Snoogins | March 02, 20:51 CET

Random as in, not in the context of an interview about internet culture, where I usually see that kind of thing. But yes, not at all unexpected from him.

Buffy 2.0-- story arcs now communicated with the E-Web? (it needs a shiny icon)

Sunfire | March 02, 20:53 CET

I really loved this interview, one of the finest from the latest batch.

Numfar PTB | March 02, 21:34 CET

He should do his Fantastic Four pitch on the Ultimate title once Carey leaves. If it works. And he says he still has to write six issues of Astonishing? I hope that's neither an estimate, or old info, because six more (I'm assuming #21 and maybe #22 are already written) would be fantastic.

CaptainB | March 02, 21:44 CET

Karosurly Don't worry. That image on page three with Spike in it isn't from the season 8 comic, or infact even new. It's an old page of artwork from the old Buffy comic book series. The same thing goes for pages two and four where they're using one piece of old comic art on each page, which is slightly misleading really.

*g* As if we'd see the wee Spikey in it that prominently!

Nice interview though.

[ edited by sueworld2003 on 2007-03-02 20:14 ]

sueworld2003 | March 02, 22:04 CET

Hrmph. Misleading, indeed.

Thanks for the clarification, sueworld2003.

karosurly | March 02, 22:21 CET

Yeah that's from one of the old Buffy comics in the previous Dark Horse series and not from season 8. Page 2-4 all had some artwork and stuff I recognize from the old Buffy series mixed in with already released covers and panels from season 8.

I love the idea of Jim Krueger doing some work on season 8.I followed his Marvel Earth X verse comics and I'm currently reading Justice.

I would really love to see Joss do one Spider-Man story at Marvel one day.I always felt Joss's creation of Buffy was somewhat influenced by Spidey.

[ edited by Buffyfantic on 2007-03-02 20:27 ]

Buffyfantic | March 02, 22:27 CET

It was sort of her journey to understanding what makes us the way we are, because she wants desperately to help and be a hero. It was basically her journey towards becoming a human being, without which no heroism is truly worthy. So it was about the ability to stand up and do the best you can, and to learn about the strength that comes out of weakness, which is what I often write about... but I'm not going to be writing about that anymore.

Sigh. I'm really loving Joss's Wonder Woman even more postmortem. And knowing whatever the Hollywood monkeys do, if they even manage to make a movie, is going to be awful.

dreamlogic | March 02, 22:59 CET

As I re-read that quote about Wonder Woman, I am reminded of Anya. She who had to learn how to become human and a hero.
Yes, we have really lost something.

Lioness | March 02, 23:14 CET

Man, his Wonder Woman sounds like it would have been awesome. I am actually more disappointed it won't happen now than I was when I first heard the news.

*sigh

Resolute | March 02, 23:29 CET

Joss said that he'd be able to give more interviews now that the WW issue was resolved, and he's been doing that in spades - it's such a nice change from the preceeding twelve months. This was a nifty little interview.

"... especially since I'm definitely going to be doing not just a four issue arc to cap the season, but a couple of arcs inside. I mean I already did a one-shot after I finished the first four. I just shot off a one-shot because I had something that inspired me. That could happen at any moment. It's like a hiccup; these things just come out."

:> Very cool to hear - that he hopped back in with a one-shot 'cause he was overcome with inspiration and couldn't help hisself. Neato.

(Re: Civil War ending) "I think it was more the dramatic entrance. My long black coat and chiseled jaw - I had just had it chiseled down the street. I think it was the timing of the thing, coming in, hearing it, and just going, "Well, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah."

Isn't this just why we love Joss? That combination of Cary Grant, Davy Crockett and Henny Youngman?

(Re: Wonder Woman) "My take on the movie was simply the story of somebody who saw the world with fresh eyes. Somebody who saw that the Gods were still keeping us down, even though they might have changed their names or become companies."

Ahh. (cue penny dropping and Saje's lightbulb font.) Ahhh. Shit. Now I miss the Wonder-Woman-that-could-have-been even more.

And I liked Joss's "E-web" even better than I like my current "infra-webs" so I may be stealing misappropriating borrowing that for a while...

(Re: Goners) "I feel strongly that this film has a real shot. I would rather people find out what it's about by sitting through it."

We certainly look forward to sitting through it, but in the interim, folks could get totally misleading information about the mysterious Goners by going to the fan site - (Hey there, Lioness) and reading all about llamas and pie and dobermans with pie and llamas and Japanese pie.

QuoterGal | March 02, 23:38 CET

Thanks, Sue. Damn, that was quite a mislead!

Moscow Watcher | March 03, 00:20 CET

So we're up over 30 issues, huh? If any of you dare to give him a hiccup cure, you will be on my s**tlist!

cabri | March 03, 00:49 CET

I am loving this interview, Joss said: "I just shot off a one-shot because I had something that inspired me. That could happen at any moment. It's like a hiccup; these things just come out."
I find that incredibly exciting, because that is exactly what I want to hear: This comic book series should allow for a lot more free flowing (relatively speaking) storytelling than television, which helps to make up for the lack of actors for me. I love and miss the shows, but I am completely thrilled we are getting more than a year's (we are talking about more than 2 years now, aren't we?) worth of comic!

embers | March 03, 01:03 CET

It's good to hear that Goners is coming along nicely.

Derf | March 03, 01:23 CET

I would sacrifice some continuity of art to get multiple teams working on these scripts and make this a biweekly affair... waiting a month for these issues is gonna be brutal

ajay42 | March 03, 01:48 CET

Hm, didn't they used to caption the photos on that site? It seems like it'd go a long way to clearing up misunderstandings. Like the sketches of Buffy were done by Jo Chen (she does the covers) rather than Jeanty, even though his name appears closest to it in the article. (Or, his name actually appears in the article.)

It's cool to learn a little more about the interior art, but I'm really holding out to see Jo Chen get the chance to pencil since her likenesses are pretty spot on in sketch form, and maybe Adrian Alphona too. I have no idea how his likenesses would turn out but I already miss the guy.

Much like how I think I'm already going to be missing Joss on Runaways. Six issues hardly seems like enough time to establish much of a new course. (Plus I was expecting him to get his own full Runaways hardcover.)

orangewaxlion | March 03, 02:06 CET

"Six issues hardly seems like enough time to establish much of a new course"

1.) I bet dollars to doornails he ends up staying on for 12

2.) Six issues can fundementally alter any title. People like Bendis have fundementally changed the entire Marvel U in 6-8 issues on titles like New Avengers or in miniseries. Hell, no one really noticed, but Peter David added a whole new basic 'race' to the marvel U in one single issue of X-Factor recently.

[ edited by ajay42 on 2007-03-02 23:11 ]

ajay42 | March 03, 02:10 CET

Joss said:
"...most of [the Buffyverse actors] probably don't even know [Season 8] is going on. In fact, if I were to tell them something like, "Oh! Your character is doing this or that!" They'd probably look at me like, "Yeah… you know that was a part of my life that was over five years ago, right?" Then you feel small, so very small."

Heh, aw. I wonder how true it is though. I'd have predicted that some of the actors wouldn't care that much, if at all, but I wonder how many or the regulars and important recurring types would at least be a little curious to know what their characters are up to in the canon comic book continuation. I wonder how many of the actors might even get around to reading the whole thing. Do you think they'll get free copies sent to them from Dark Horse or Joss? If not, it almost might be worth having some Season 8 trades in hand in the future at conventions, in case they do express some serious curiosity. A lot of the times, it's just the bother of going out and finding a book, comic, or DVD that gets in the way of people giving a story a chance.

Kris | March 03, 02:36 CET

We certainly look forward to sitting through it, but in the interim, folks could get totally misleading information about the mysterious Goners by going to the fan site - (Hey there, Lioness) and reading all about llamas and pie and dobermans with pie and llamas and Japanese pie.

Or by going to the blog to see what Joss has already said about it, especially since he's clearly moving hard and fast towards not saying anything about it anymore (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The One True b!X | March 03, 05:50 CET

Ooh, Fanwebsite wars! Well, if Joss doesn't want to say much about Goners, he had just better get that rewrite done and the movie into production! Because some of us are just going to keep chewing on every little thing he says.

Lioness | March 03, 06:13 CET

Hey ajay, I think in either this or the oher big interview posted today (or one of three?) he said that he's just on runaways for six issues for sure. I just get worried since like how Grant Morrison's New X-Men got pretty quickly overwritten or ignored and that was a pretty decent number of issues. I just get worried that Runaways could get cancelled without consistent runs of creators that actually get to play out ideas and have them last instead of an endless stream tons of writers who don't get the chance to actually play out any of their set up.

As for the thing about if any of the show's actors get involved... I've gotten the impression that of them all it seems like Amber Benson is the most likely. She's written comics and prose for the Buffy-verse aside from all her other personal projects.

orangewaxlion | March 03, 08:35 CET

Ditto on all the comments re: his take on Wonder Woman. I didn't feel much regret when the news came out that he wasn't doing the movie -- mostly because I don't think the U.S. really *wants* a WW movie right now -- but hearing his vision of what he could have made, I got sad at a little less Joss-work in the world.

dottikin | March 03, 11:54 CET

When I read Joss's comments on WW and on Goners, I was just nodding my head like a wobbly head doll, which people love, of course. Yep, The Boss's view of WW would have rocked -- Lioness, comparing her journey of human-to-hero to Anya, who I love so much, was just perfect. And being surprised by Goners, that could just rock -- sometimes it's really great to be 100% spoiler-free, if that is at all possible. (So far I'm managing to stay spoiler-free on BSG -- it's pretty great being shocked every week, whoo!) OTOH, I would also like to see a film about Japanese pie and Dobermans. Maybe that will be the 2-disc Special Edition DVD, with the llama key art? ;-)

billz | March 03, 12:03 CET

"Nobody will ever look cooler than Spike" :) hehe, gonna use that one in my signature on another site.

Shey | March 03, 14:49 CET

"Nobody will ever look cooler than Spike" :) hehe, gonna use that one in my signature on another site.

Shey | March 03, 14:50 CET

aarrrrg, double posted. Sorry, don't know how to delete one, or even if I can. Help??

Shey | March 03, 14:52 CET

orangewaxlion, 1.) great name.
2.) joss definitely said just 6, but it wouldnt be the first time he changes his mind.
3.) sure things can get written over, but thats just the nature of comics. fwiw, in many ways Astonishing is, imo, the logical conclusion of Morrison's run on New X-Men, so in some ways that run has not been forgotten at all.

ajay42 | March 03, 19:42 CET

Shey, you just hit a double post at a bad time for the mods. Even if they don't get around to it soon, it happens to everybody once in a while.

dreamlogic | March 05, 08:08 CET