-Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 2 : Halloween-

Cover Artists: Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend. Colorist: Liquid!

Regular Photo Cover

Writer:	Andi Watson
Penciller:	Joe Bennett
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Janice Chiang
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	32 pages - $2.95 US
Published:	October 28, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	Halloween

Buffy #2 came from the exactly same crew as in #1, so there wasn't exactly any surprises in the art work.

Writer Andi Watson continues to show off his taste of the Buffyverse, within the limitation of ending the story within single issue. There's a nice feel for the characters throughout, and he combines different aspect well. I also find the art work improving as they become more familiar with the characters and the Sunnydale feel,... maybe with an exception for Buffy's eyes on several occasions in this number.

Overall it's a strong single-issue story, but I can hardly wait to they start doing their continuous storylines in just a few numbers. Then they'll have the room to kick it up the notch to produce absolute gold on more regular basis.

★★★★☆ # 2 -Halloween-

The cover used for post-header is my Dynamic Forces exclusive Bloodchrome edition, one of five thousand, and here's the COA.

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz-

Writer:	Dan Brereton
Penciller:	Hector Gomez
Inker:	Sandu Florea
Letterer:	Ken Bruzenak
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Trade Paperback
Details:	80 pages - $9.95 US
Published:	October 14, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	The Dust Waltz

The Dust Waltz is a rarity. While most trade paperbacks released in the BTVS-series are collections of stories previous released in comic books, this one was released between #1 and #2 of the original series and contains a fresh and previously unreleased story.

I didn't exactly love the art-work here either. While Buffy is athletic, she's not an East-German project, and the latter is what springs to mind with the second drawing above. It gets better, and there's several really good drawings here, but it never quite manages to outlive that first impression. I guess Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea doesn't make my fav-list. Yet, anyway...

The story is better, and the first longer Buffy-story told in comic. Two demonic sisters with sibling issues comes for their own kind of pleasant Hellmouth experience, and our gang is quickly involved. There's banter to be had and demons to kill. It's as usual all sunny in Sunnydale. Still it doesn't quite get there. I guess Dan Brereton doesn't make my list (yet) either. All in all there's more potential than end product over The Dust Waltz.


★★★☆☆ -The Dust Waltz-

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 1 : Wu-Tang Fang-

Cover Artist: Art Adams

Regular photo cover

Writer:	Andi Watson
Penciller:	Joe Bennett
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Janice Chiang
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	32 pages - $2.95 US
Published:	September 23, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	Wu-Tang Fang

Whatever concerns I had with MacGuffins, wasn't exactly put at ease with the opening page of Buffy's own # 1.

It's not the semi-bimbo Ross gave us, but Bennett's opening Buffy isn't exactly oozing nailed-it either.

Thankfully writer Andi Watson only use a couple of pages to convince me he's nailed-it. He's captured the essence of Buffy in every way. I find myself hearing the lines as spoken by the actors and actresses them self in the TV-show, and a bigger complement is impossible to give. He understands the humor, he get the banter and puns in whether it's dialogue or fight scenes, and it balances the dark and the light in Whedonesque fashion. Add several small and bigger references to prior events and current circumstances in the TV-series, and it's pretty clear Mr. Watson and the editor knows exactly what is needed.

The artwork also draw me in as page by page run by, and soon enough it's familiar and almost there. The darkness and shadows are very well done, the bad guys and fight scenes are well drawn and only a few of the main characters remain an issue for me every so often. It still can't take away the joy of this comic, with its story that adds to the well known and familiar TV-series with a well deserved new life on its comic own.

Overall there's no doubt this is an incredible tight opening issue of own comic, and must have brought in a lot of the TV-audience as sure buyers for future releases.

★★★★☆ # 1 -Wu-Tang Fang-

Special and alternate variants I also own:

COA for Dynamic Forces Art cover signed by Art Adams as one of 10.000 copies. The comic used as header for this post.

Another Universe exclusive Gold Foil edition of photo cover

Another Universe exclusive Gold Foil edition of photo cover, signed by Joe Bennett (COA below)

Dark Horse 1 for 1 re-release

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: MacGuffins-

Cover Artist: Mike Mignola

Writer:	J.L. Van Meter
Penciller:	Luke Ross
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Steve Dutro
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	64 pages - $4.95 US
Published:	August 26, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	MacGuffins

Buffy's first comic release, -MacGuffins-, was just a short story in this publisher collection alongside Hellboy and others.

I doubt anyone could have predicted the impact Buffy's entrance into the comic-world eventually would have. No disrespect to any of the artists involved, but they didn't exactly catch the spirit of Buffy in this attempt. Well, with the exception of writer Van Meter. He actually managed to write a little story that captured a lot of Buffy's core and that Sunnydale-feel, despite not even taking place in Sunnydale. The art-work from Ross and Ketchum did however leave me feeling like they had no idea who Buffy was. Their Buffy felt like a semi-bimbo, and that's no way to threat The Chosen One.

★★☆☆☆ -MacGuffins-

-Dollhouse: Epitaphs-

Phil Noto's cover of the one-shot

One-shot, comics #1-5 incl. a special edition

Wanting to ease back into comics, I went for the one-shot and the shorter mini-series based on Whedon's Dollhouse, rather than opening with the monstrous volumes of the Buffyverse, or my fan illusions of Firefly and its 'verse. Comics based on popular shows or movies are difficult. You'll always have the prior knowledge of the created universe, the character's habits and core and so on, and it isn't always easy to accept other artists takes on those.

In Whedon's cases that's usually no problem, at least not since the release of Buffy Season Eight and then the later releases from any Whedonverse, as it's become a habit of himself and his own staff-writers from these shows to get heavily involved. In the case of these six releases (one one-shot and five comics in the mini-series), the writers are Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Andrew Chambliss, all staff-writers from the Dollhouse TV-show. It ain't hard to take their take on these characters then, as they're all involved in the creation to begin with.

For those familiar with the TV-show, and my opinion is you should all be or become, these comics takes place in a timeline closely related to the events in the show's episodes "Epitaph One" and "Epitaph Two: Return", which ended each of the two seasons of the show. They offer some answers to stuff we wondered about after watching the show, but mostly they offer a lot more insight into some of the show's characters.

Overall it's interesting enough to stand on its own legs, and I would most definitely buy more Dollhouse comics from these guys when they're ready to tell new stories. They have the characters down and they understand the humor. Still. They're not quite great, mostly thanks to the storyline they chose to open with. I would've hoped they opened in another direction to help gather the fans of the show behind its release.



★★★☆☆ Epitaphs one-shot & mini-series (#1-5)

I did love the cover art for each of the issues... Here Fiona Staples's #1 cover.

-Morning Glories-

I came late to the party, but Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the following drips of Angel and Dollhouse have also awakened an interest in comics again, as they've all had comics released and many of them with Whedon somewhat involved. I haven't read comics much the past twenty years, since I left behind The Phantom and Disney's Donald Duck. The one exception is Modesty Blaise, which I've read all along. As I've now fallen in love with the Buffyverse, I've had to invest in the comics as well. I'll be reading them in their released order once I begin, but for now I've tasted a little of other comics including those based on Whedon's Dollhouse.

The first comics returning me to the form are still unrelated to Whedon in any way, but somehow I've picked up the name Nick Spencer along the way. As a result I invested in the first two tradebacks collecting the first 12 issues of Morning Glories, each with six issues collected, written by Spencer, art by Joe Eisma and cover art by Rodin Esquejo.

It's as ambitious as any great TV-show you've ever or never watched, and has a certain Lost feel to it. We follow the six newest students at the Morning Glory Academy, a boarding school unlike anything you've ever attended. There's a lot going on behind the scene, and our new students early realize there's a lot wrong about this place. Spencer give us drips of information, but spreads it out over time. He still manages to keep it very interesting, where others often fail to do so when keeping their story going for a while, and I for one am hooked. I'll keep buying these tradebacks as they're released. Hopefully Spencer manages to keep the interest going.

Oh. I wouldn't be very surprised if this is the next comic to make adaptions into the TV-show format following the success of The Walking Dead. There's just a lot of great storytelling here, easily adaptable onto the silver screen.


★★★★☆ Volume 1
★★★★☆ Volume 2