Book talk: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Library Edition Volume 1 HC

They were just so young. First season promo photo. Copyright 20th CenturyFox Television.I've never made a secret of my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A big, huge, titanic-sized reason for that love is the dialogue of series creator Joss Whedon. Whedon makes the language his characters speak dance, do jumping jacks, and do the shimmy. And for all of that, he has a rare ability to get at emotional truths like few other screen writers I can think of. (And I know there are people out there who don't like Whedon's writer. There's a term for these people. That term is: "wrong.")
Previous attempts to bring Buffy to the comics page failed, in my estimation, because try as they might, the writers couldn't quite capture the voice of the TV series writers. And there were some good writers on that original comics series, Andi Watson among them.

And so, we get a new comics series that starts where the TV series ended, and its original arc is written by none other than Mr. Whedon. Glory be! It's really nice to once again be visiting the world and the characters he created, and to have him, initially at least, at the helm. And Brian K. Vaughn, who takes over after Whedon leaves, does a good job of maintaining that voice.

The art by Georges Jeanty captures the likeness of the actors who played these characters on the show without being slavish to them, and he has a fine eye for storytelling. A bonus, for me at least, is that Cliff Richards gets to draw a stand-alone issue in this collection. Richards was the regular artist on the original back when I was its assistant editor. Seeing his art again is like a blast from the past. In a good way.

The whole tone of the comic just feels right. Seriously folks, this is as close as we're likely to get to another season of one of my favorite shows. And that's close enough.