Hee, that was good. I didn't realize he was such a silly person. :)

swanjun | March 25, 18:02 CET

I'm at the public library and tried to access that site but was dinied because I got the "porn" warning!

Reddygirl | March 25, 18:13 CET

I think he does an amazing job, myself. I'm not interested in comic book characters who look like the actors, and I think he's got the characters down. I enjoy the body language and nuanced facial expressions he brings to the art. To me that's really helped transfer the story from one medium to another.

Sunfire | March 25, 18:18 CET

That's strange, unless they consider "tatas" pornographic. :)

Buffy the Slayer Layer | March 25, 18:19 CET

That was a well-delivered interview. I'm all shiny with Georges personality... makes me think we'd get along quite nicely.

How do you pronounce his name, anyway? If it's French-derived, I gotta bet that not all the letters are pronounced, but that "s" at the end leaves me wondering...

korkster | March 25, 18:28 CET

Is the picture of Willow a preview of something to come?

ETA: Thank you, crazy but helpful golfa! (see below)

[ edited by Pointy on 2008-03-25 19:04 ]

Pointy | March 25, 18:29 CET

I don't believe her with that look on her face. Need contex!

korkster | March 25, 18:31 CET

Spoilers for Issue 12.

I believe that line was said by Andrew when she dropped him after their flight together.

crazygolfa | March 25, 18:36 CET

Really just a neat interview to read.

At first I thought Georges' drawings of Buffy were a bit too youthful, but I've come to really embrace them. Maybe beacuse I just adore the idea of Seasons 1 and 2 Buffy?

I also get a kick out of people who after-the-fact admit, "I'd never seen an episode of Buffy..." I understand that. Especially considering I've just been introduced to the greatness of the Buffyverse in the past year or so. It's never to late to come into the, uh... fray? (I know, I know.)

Kat Jetson | March 25, 18:38 CET

I've been assuming it's just like a normal French 'Jean' but with 'tee' on the end (so sort of like the English 'jaunty'). This may in fact be profoundly insulting but c'est la vie ;).

Saje | March 25, 18:40 CET

I think korkster meant his first name... is it like the plural of George or like Jorjes with the J's like the one in Jean....or the uhm..."Jah" in Der Kommisar by Falco (or After the Fire)

GrrrlRomeo | March 25, 19:59 CET

I think Georges is pronounced like "jorj."

Wyndam-Pryce | March 25, 20:04 CET

I did mean his first name, Georges.

From my limited French, most letters at the end (depending) are not sounded, like male American= americain, but it sounds EXACTLY the same as plural americains (s is silent). To determine which you meant (1 or many) would depend on the contex/situation. Now, for female American= americaine, which sounds DIFFERENT than the male...

I agree with you, GrrrlRomeo, tht the G's are probably pronounced as J's, but why the "s"? He's not plural, but that would typically sound the same anyway, so why add it? Is it different? Does he even stick with French pronunciation, or does he take a Spanish/American approach?

*heads hurts...

Oh, thanks Wyndam-Pryce. Jorj.

*head hurts no more :)

korkster | March 25, 20:14 CET

From this interview

GrrrlRomeo | March 25, 20:29 CET

Ah, thank you, GrrlRomeo!

*head explodes

korkster | March 25, 20:54 CET

Good heavens, "GEORG-ez"!? I'd never have guessed that.

Kirochka | March 25, 20:58 CET

I did mean his first name, Georges.

Ah, oops, mea culpa (you mentioning the 's' on the end makes a lot more sense now ;).

Strange thing with names, normally I guess it's polite to pronounce it how the bearer does but what do you do with stuff that's just "wrong" ? I've met one or two "Smith"s that pronounce it like "Smythe" in my time and I don't care what they say it's bloody "Smith" in my book ;).

Saje | March 25, 21:20 CET

Is it Sa-jay or Sage?

Sunfire | March 25, 21:25 CET

Or even Sah-yeh. It's just so flexible, it's really the made-up-name-from-backwards-initials for all occasions.

(I guess when I think of it I think "Sage")

Saje | March 25, 21:45 CET

Uhhh all of this hurts!
All's I can say is that it gets worse as a substitute teacher...especially the way some parents spell their kids' names (Rumer Willis? come on!).
One of my biggest triumphs was being able to pronounce Nguyen.

Saje, I always think "Sage" too. Like sage wisdom. Or, you know, Scarborough Fair.

BandofBuggered | March 25, 22:10 CET

Oh, what a wonderful article. He seems to have a lovely personality and I love his art. (Plus, I loved the line about Buffy the harsh mistress-hee!)

JessicaMelusine | March 25, 22:51 CET

Or, you know, Scarborough Fair.

Or the stuffing. There's a joke in there about being full of it but i'll leave it as an exercise for the reader ;).

Saje | March 25, 23:35 CET

Since we're on the subject of pronunciation, Winther is pronounced like the season. Mostly because Win-Thur sounds kinda stupid, and it's my surname, damnit, I'll decide how it's pronounced! In fact, I hereby declare myself the somewhat benevolent, if slightly megalomaniacal, dictator of Pronunciation-land. Look upon my way of saying words, ye mighty, and DESPAIR!

Wow. That post really ended up in a different place than I thought it would.

Winther | March 26, 00:11 CET

Georges seems to pick good interviewers, it doesn't look like he's been misrepresented at all here.

As we're all talking about pronunciations: I believe Londinium is pronounced with a silent "K" somewhere.

(LON-din-EE-um) the "LON" at the beginning might be pronounced "LUN" depending on your accent, but "din"['s working day] is never "done" cause girls just want to have fun.

The Londinium Sun | March 26, 00:21 CET

This is the first I've heard of anyone complaining about Georges' likenesses. I didn't find the questions all that inspired, his last interview was far and away more insightful, but Jeanty still gave some good responses.

septopus | March 26, 01:38 CET

I think Georges is great. I read "The American Way" before BtVS was even a comic and thought his art was fab-tastic.

As for pronounciations, a silent K? Ooh, boy. I always think about how long it took me to grasp the prononuciation of "Gren-itch" and "Lester"
Then again, I'm a bloody colonial, not a member of the Nancy Tribe.

[ edited by BandofBuggered on 2008-03-26 04:28 ]

BandofBuggered | March 26, 04:19 CET

Wait until you try Towcester ;).

Round these parts there's a - very likely apocryphal - story about a yank asking the way to 'loogaborooga' or Loughborough as the askee finally figured out ;). Londinium's easy since you'd probably hear it in history if you went to school over here (we also have a lot of practice through pronouncing 'aluminium' properly ;-).

Septopus: This is the first I've heard of anyone complaining about Georges' likenesses.

Hooh boy, you must be new here (welcome - and to all the other new arrivals ;).

(check out the archive for the early "season 8" threads on the previews and first issues - lots of people even just on here had a problem with his likenesses at first, some presumably still do)

Saje | March 26, 07:51 CET

Yeah, although, personally, the only problem I have with them is that they tend to be kinda inconsistent - the same character's appearance can be totally different from one panel to the next. Not that I could do any better, and, in general, I like his artwork. (Just as long as the colorist remembers that Willow's eyes aren't frikkin' blue!)

Rowan Hawthorn | March 26, 12:26 CET

I think the colour of Willow's eyes depends on the weather. If the weather's nice where the colourist lives he maybe rushes a wee bit so he can get out and enjoy it ;-).

Generally I think the art (by which I mean pencils/inks/colours) has been fine but certainly earlier in the run there were a few panels where either the original pencils were off or somewhere between the pencils and the final product something happened - one drawing of Faith in particular shouldn't really have passed editorial quality control IMO (and i'd speculate may well only have got through because of time constraints).

(likenesses have never really bothered me that much in general, capturing the "essence" of the character is both harder and more important and Jeanty does a pretty good job of that IMO though I must admit, I wouldn't hate seeing a few completely different styles just to see some different takes on the characters - maybe in an oversized anthology issue in the 'Angel: First Night' mold ?)

Saje | March 26, 13:22 CET

That's pretty much the way I feel, too: as long as it looks like Buffy and Willow, I'm not concerned if it's a dead-on likeness of SMG & AH or not. Buffy's "panic-face" in Issue #12 was a bit over-the-top, but, eh - scythe happens, right? I wouldn't mind seeing different styles, either, just as long as they restrain the urge to do the apparently obligatory manga-cized issue (hurl...)

Rowan Hawthorn | March 26, 13:45 CET

I like Georges okay, but I like Karl Moline better. I can't wait for his arc.

randomfire | March 26, 17:45 CET

Yeah, I really liked Karl. Fray is up there with my favorite comics (graphic novels? Oops, wrong thread).
I do think that Georges has been very faithful to the characters themselves, especially little details like Xander's ducky pjs or Mr. Gordo on the floor during 8.12. Stuff like that isn't necessary, but really adds to the story for crazy fans like me, but also shows that the man respects the show and its little quirks.
As for Willow's eyes, I think they change color a little bit in the show even. Sarah's eyes are green for the most part, but sometimes looked more brown-ish. Stuff like that doesn't bug me.

Towcester=Towser? Or tosser--as in poncy tosser? I might be inviting some real teasing, here! Aluminum= Al-oo-min-ee-um in the UK, yes? Yay, edits as I keep on thinking of different ways to phoneticize (cise?) pronounciations!

[ edited by BandofBuggered on 2008-03-27 00:20 ]

[ edited by BandofBuggered on 2008-03-27 00:21 ]

BandofBuggered | March 27, 00:19 CET

It's pronounced like 'Toaster' in fact - bloody Romans, what did they ever do for us ? ;).

And yep, assuming your "oo" is more "you" than "ooh" then that's how we say aluminium so it's al-you-min-eeum (early on over here it was called aluminum and Americans used to call it aluminium up until the turn of the last century when they switched to aluminum. Twisty turny ;).

Saje | March 27, 01:02 CET

I was guessing "Tower" based on the idea that you leave out half the letters. (Maybe that's not the phonetic principle behind it after all)
I'm thinking that "loogaborooga" story probably isn't apocryphal.

I like Georges, but I can't get behind the way he pronounces his name. Although my husband had a student once named Lamarj, and he pronounced it Lamar-jay.

I thought Saje was sa-jay. Kind of like Sah-jhan. Not that Saje is grudge-bearing demon or anything. Probably.

jcs | March 27, 01:10 CET

That's awesome! "I'm going to Toaster tomorrow; wanna come? We'll get a tan!" Though, if it's pissing with rain, maybe not.
...I think I'm funny, but if I were at full slayer strength, I'd be punning right now.

I'm proud that I got aluminum right, though.

There are some pretty crazy American pronounciations, like Nevada. It's Ne-va (rhymes with cat)-duh, not Ne-vaw-da.
Or Ely, which is "eelie."
Or Genoa, which is "gen-owe-uh," instead of how the crazy Italians say it.

BandofBuggered | March 27, 01:30 CET

By its nature, there'll be criticism, and I've had my own issues with Jeanty's panels. But I find them usually r ecognizable. And also attractive, which is a nice change from what I've seen of the older comics. (I've flipped thru a few but don't have many, the Chaos Bleeds prequel, the Willow-Tara omnibus -needless to say- Ugly Little Monsters and one other) and well, generally the characters looked ugly before. Unbeleiveable "cosndierign" the models. I like the new material.

Haitian is considered Hispanic? Dood ut ondergong, the intricacies of the American legal system.

I read the earlier articles about how to pronounce his name but my mind keeps wanting to say "Zhorzh Zhahntee." Like I always called Raul Julia (RIP) "Rah-ool Hoolia" and I always want to pronounce Georg Stanford Brown in German fashion, "Gay-orgk."

(In my main ficverse one of Cordelia 's collection of ex-husbands is named Georges Bergerac and, to keep pronunciation stable, in one story I have Xander addressing him "Hey, Zheorzhey.)

(I'm veering off topic more seriously now so anyone who's not interested....)
In defense of Bruce and Demi, they named their oldest daughter after author Rumer Godden. Altho whenever I see odd spellings I always really want to gimmick up the pronunciation, like saying Pik-AH-boh Street or Ee-RYE-Ka Badu.

I'd imagine "Loughborough" is pronounced "Lo-burry" altho personally I'd tend to say "Lo-boro" since small towns in my state are called boroughs and I'm used to it.

The borough I grew up in, called Kutztown, and the first syllable rhymes with puts not cuts, is very close to the only place in the world where Greenwich is correctly pronounced Green-with-along-"e" Witch. It's the name of a nearby township, teh street in our town leading to it, and the street at the county seat named after it. In my grandparents' day it'd've been pronounced more like "Grrrreenvitch" though.

I liked in The List of Adrian Messenegr where the I assume fictitious ducal seat of Bruttenholme is pronounced Broom. Fiction is best when credible.
I use that in a fantasy novel I occasionally work on. The hero Sir Harold is a younger son of the peer who holds Bruttenchase. When he's introduced to the Dowager Queen Elaine of Burgundy she, to her credit, doesn't give it a Frenchified pronunciation. She says it much like an American would if there were any in that universe. He respectfully corrects her and says it's pronounced "Brunches." (He's respectful enough that she eventually beds and later weds him anyway.)

[ edited by DaddyCatALSO on 2008-03-27 01:35 ]

DaddyCatALSO | March 27, 01:34 CET

Loughborough = luff-buh-ruh (in my accent, anyway). Saje, the apocryphal story I always heard was with an Aussie - and loogaborooga sounds better in an Aussie accent, I reckon.

SoddingNancyTribe | March 27, 05:19 CET

Yep, it'd sound better - their "oo"s are ace - thing is, you'd maybe expect an Aussie to get it right (they have 'Clough' etc. as surnames whereas you don't see that much in US credits) ? So I think my apocryphal version, while probably completely untrue, is less probably completely untrue than yours SNT ;-).

Stuff like Edinburgh is understandable given Pittsburgh (in fact, my Granny would insist on pronouncing it Pittsbu-ruh despite that being, y'know, wrong ;). Makes me think of GB Shaw and his attempts to rationalise English spelling - to demonstrate how bonkers it is he used words like 'ghoti' which can be a phonetic version of ... wait for it ... 'fish' ;) - the 'gh' like 'clough' or 'rough', the 'o' from 'women' and the 'ti' from 'nation'.

(probably my favourite weird Brit pronunciation is the - rare - surname "Featheringstonehaugh" which i'm gonna invisitext for those that want to try a few ways first ... it's pronounced 'Fanshaw' - which leaves even most Brits wondering "WTF ?" ;)

Saje | March 27, 11:02 CET

I love this place... :-) Say, for anyone close to Wales (or close to being Welsh,) how is "Gawaine" properly pronounced? I once heard it was "Gavin," but now I don't remember where.

Rowan Hawthorn | March 27, 12:33 CET

We go off down some interesting roads don't we ? ;)

Not close to being Welsh - though I guess we're all Celts - but i'm close to Wales (from the US perspective everywhere in Britain is close to everywhere else in Britain, right ? ;) and have a Welsh mate and i'd say it's said pretty much as you see it (a surprising amount of Welsh is said as it looks) so kind of ga-wayne to rhyme with 'vein'. Sometimes 'w' is an 'ooh' sound as in 'Clwyd' (like 'clooh-id') but not here (and AFAIK it's never a 'v' sound - 'f' is a 'v' sound in Welsh, not to be confused with 'ff' which is, well, 'f' ;).

Saje | March 27, 13:24 CET

I'd always heard it as "ga-WAYNE" but my 12th .grade English teahcer said (at elast when he faced the Green Knight) it was supposed to be proronounced "GOW-en."

(I recal a trilogy of Arthurian novels whose author assumed the Gawaine of Chretien, Mallory was an uncle of the "young Gawain in Sir Gawian and the Green Knight.)

DaddyCatALSO | March 27, 15:44 CET

"Ga-WAYNE" is how I've always heard it pronounced, but somewhere along the way, I came across a reference that gave it as "Ga-vin", and I wish I could remember where I found it. (On a side note, I used to work with a Welshman named "Gwilt", whose name was pronounced "Gwohlt", so "Gawaine" could be pronounced "Bob" for all I know...)

Rowan Hawthorn | March 27, 16:21 CET

You know, I think i'm just going to pronounce every Welsh person's name as 'Bob' from now on, even my mate's (his name's John but he could be a Bob very easily, he just needs to be flexible in his thinking ;).

Digging through some pronunciation guides, 'aw' is a dipthong in Welsh and so one way of saying it is indeed GOW-en (like 'cow'). As I say though, a single 'f' stands in for 'v' in Welsh (it doesn't have an actual letter 'v') but Gawaine is a variant of Gavin (they mean the same thing), maybe that's what you remember Rowan Hawthorn ?

(typing it into dictionary.com BTW gives several variant pronunciations, at least according to the American Heritage dictionary so it could be one of those rare occasions when everyone's right ;)

Gwilt is a puzzler, from the pronunciation guides 'i' sounds like 'ee' as in 'tree' or short as in 'pin' but never 'oh' - if it was spelled 'wy' (another dipthong) it'd sound like 'oo' as in 'gooey' but that's still not 'oh' as in 'boat', which is what I assume you mean . Or maybe be was taking the mickey, as in 'piss' ;).

Saje | March 27, 18:04 CET

I don't think so, he and his wife, and the entire department pronounced it that way (might have been closer to "gwahlt" than "gwohlt". Kind of in-between.) I dunno.

That variant thing may be what I remember. I was doing a quick search a little while ago and found the same entries, but I also found one that did, indeed, show the the pronunciation as "ga-vin".

I also found "gow-in", "ga-win", "GA-wain", and "ga-WAIN", so maybe I'll just stick with "Bob"...

Rowan Hawthorn | March 27, 18:20 CET