I was thinking about this after watching the two Hellboy animated movies, which were pretty excellent. Tad Stones did a great job at keeping the tone of the comic, but also bringing his own style to it. Plus, Ron Perlman is just a total beast. I like the Buffy comic, just like I enjoyed "Those Left Behind", but a huge part of the charm of the Buffy and Firefly universe was the actors. I'm pretty certain Joss feels that way, too. Adapting the comic to the screen could work, but I'd prefer for that to stay as it is.

Perhaps, those live action direct-to-DVD films about Willow/Spike/Faith could be turned into direct-to-DVD animated films instead. If those are successful, perhaps a proper series could be worked a couple of years down the line. Maybe an animated film could follow up Serenity, too. Could be an interesting avenue to explore. If the Babylon 5 anthology series/direct-to-DVD releases (and the Hellboy movies, too) are successful (they will be), maybe that could revive some interest in something similar with Buffy, Angel and Firefly.

Hope so.

Dirk | July 08, 14:13 CET

I would absolutely die with joy were Buffy Animated to ever see the light of day. I was always crushed by its failure to get off the ground, especially because they had animation, scripts, and voices all lined up.

Dirk Lance, about Serenity coming to animation...for that to work, it would have to be very high-quality, detailed animation. Like some of the stuff on The Animatrix (I'm mostly referring to the shorts that were about how the sky got turned dark, but I can't remember the titles). One of the most appealing aspects of the 'verse was its realness and naturalism. Buffy could work as stylized animation; it was a stylized TV show. I'm not entirely sure what I would think were Serenity to continue in animated films.

Also, one minor quibble with the article:

While Angel most certainly was canceled, Buffy was not. Mutant Enemy deliberately brought it to a close. I know, tomato, tomahto, but that kinda stuff always kind of bugs me.

UnpluggedCrazy | July 08, 14:29 CET

I'll go out on a limb and say Joss will announce at Comic Con that Buffy Animated will happen.

And I'd love to see the artwork for the Serenity animated prequel that never was. As far as I know it has never been leaked online.

Simon | July 08, 20:49 CET

Oh, Simon I hope you're right. And this will be with memories of Dawn, right? That will be quite interesting to see Dawnie thrown into the mix of Buffy's high school days.

Harmalicious | July 08, 21:08 CET

That'd be right nice.

Craig Oxbrow | July 08, 21:47 CET

I really hope in my heart of hearts this happens. The only thing I want more that to watch this show is to do some voice acting for it. I actually have a demo disc reading a lot of the parts from the Fray graphic novel. It's kinda my dream job :-D

InevitableTraitor | July 08, 23:09 CET

Simon...there was supposed to be a Serenity animated prequel? How did I not know this?!

[ edited by UnpluggedCrazy on 2007-07-08 20:35 ]

UnpluggedCrazy | July 08, 23:35 CET

There's some info about it here.

Simon | July 08, 23:42 CET

I really really want to see this one day made. But if it truly is never to be, then what are the chances that someone could accidentally leak the completed scripts onto the internet?

As far as I can tell, there are eight episode scripts that were completed)!:

"A Day in the Life" (by Jeph Loeb and Joss Whedon)
"Teeny" (by Jane Espenson)
"Lunch is Revolting!" (by Jane Espenson)
"The Back Room" (by Jane Espenson)
Completed episode script (by Steve DeKnight)
Completed episode script (by Drew Greenberg)
Completed episode script (by Doug Petrie)

paxomen | July 09, 02:26 CET

Honestly, the animated series thing looked kind of goofy to me. I know the writing would have been top-notch, but I just can't imagine watching Buffy as a cartoon. I'm glad we ended up with a comic instead.

RaisedByMongrels | July 09, 03:14 CET

I was never to keen on the idea of the animated series and I'm still not. The comics are great. If we ever got a live action film with everyone that would be even better. But a cartoon...eh.

maje | July 09, 03:49 CET

I don't know, I always thought Buffy would lend itself well to being a cartoon. There are so many things that would work so much better in animation. Not only that, but the characters that AREN'T meant to age CAN'T!

Dan Corson | July 09, 06:36 CET

How I posted that TWICE, I don't know...

[ edited by Daburcor on 2007-07-09 03:38 ]

Dan Corson | July 09, 06:37 CET

I'm not picky. In fact, I'd take anything Buffy/Angel at this stage- comics, cartoons, one-offs, you name it, it'll be going in the collection.

Hell, I'd even pay for a DVD of Joss drawing puppets onto bits of paper and making funny noises!

missb | July 09, 06:42 CET

I'd pay extra for puppets and funny noises.

Craig Oxbrow | July 09, 07:18 CET

I would love to see an animated Buffy finally go into production. Similar to Daburcor, I always thought Buffy would translate really well as a cartoon. Similar to the comic, the scale of the monsters are one again no longer tied to a tv show special effects budget, leaving the opportunity to do all sorts of cool things.

However, using the Hellboy DVD's as a model might not the best example since it's still up in the air whether or not DVD sales have been high enough for more Hellboy animated movies. I really hope they make more as the last one Blood & Iron was really, really good and quite an improvement over the first DVD Sword of Storms. Also the proposed next DVD movie The Phantom Claw, sounds really quite interesting, focusing on what happened to the occult technology that helped bring Hellboy into the world and plus including the great character Lobster Johnson.

Still, given time hopefully there will be other straight-to-DVD success stories to encourage someone to finally finance Buffy DVD movies, either animated or live action.

Matt_Fabb | July 09, 08:50 CET

Wasn't the the Buffy Animated Series an attempt to get young kids to enjoy the stories?... But the financial interest just wasn't there? The comic can sell over 100K copies ( and go into a second[?] printing) but they can't get the animated show off the ground?

I guess it may basically boils down to this. They get SMG to do the voice and maybe it'll happen.

moonliter | July 09, 10:39 CET

I'll go out on a limb and say Joss will announce at Comic Con that Buffy Animated will happen.

From your mouth to Joss's ear, Simon. If that happens, I'll post here from the room on my phone. It will be short with funny typing, and maybe not intelligible.

dreamlogic | July 09, 19:18 CET