Other Media
Discussion of Buffy and Angel comics, books, and more. Please don't get into spoilery details in the first week of release.
Maybe whatever caused the X-Men and the other heroes to appear 400 years early also pulled her in early?
Possibly, it's just they seem to be treating her as if she's a not particularly unusual companion to Dr. Strange. And I don't think this version of him is capable enough to have gone to the Dark Dimension and brought her back. (If the effort he had to put into astrally projecting in issue #2 is anything to go by...) I think revamping an alien character into an earthborn human being is a bit bigger a change than altering their national origin, which is what seems to have happened with most everyone else.
One thing I rather liked in 1602.3 was the fact that the X-Men
regularly got together for chapel. Religious observance was such a part of day-to-day life back then that it makes total sense that they'd do something like that. What was interesting was the attention given to the characters' poses. John/Jean looking guilty, Scotius glaring at John/Jean, Hank appearing to be reasonably devout, Robert looking way bored, Werner appearing mildly uncomfortable (unsurprising, given his last experience with organized religion).
Anne, I was thinking the same thing. It's also the replacement for
all the classes they'd have taken at the Xavier's school that don't exist in this era, like science or calculus. Also, far fewer possible books to read for English class. :)
Related to that, I thought the Papal assassin attempting to murder the Grand Magne-quistor, who we know is a bad guy, was interesting. Shades of grey evil. The X-Men observing the church service, although it wouldn't be Catholic in England, was a good counterpoint to the villainy from Rome.
John and Scotius sitting near each other was nice also.
I'm really liking the fairy-tale feeling of the art. It's not 60s comic art, but also not quite the current idiom either.
In my dearest dreams, I would love for Neil Gaiman and Tim Minear to collaborate on a sequence of episodes for AtS.
It would be even better if Dave McKean joined them to design monsters & sets.
Jess Nevins' annotations for
1602
#3 are here.
His note for page 21 is from issue #1. Whoops!
I finally picked up a copy of
Drawing on Your Nightmares
which introduces the Tales of the Vampires. Comments:
Weird. I read that Joss wrote it - nope. Brett Matthews w/ art by Sean Phillips. There are no Jossverse characters at all I'm pretty sure. It looks different than any Buffy/Angel/Fray comic I've ever seen. The story isn't bad - but it's your average "how I got vamped" thing. But again, these ain't our vamps, I'm pretty sure. I've read that the comic will follow Buffyverse vamps - I just don't see them here.
Sorry to post this late, but
Buffy
# 62 came out yesterday, the next-to-last issue of the monthly series.
I found it to be interesting, and it actually had some interestingly disturbing horror visuals - a surprise in this book. Also, the action wasn't as straight-forward as past issues have shown, which is a good thing (but perhaps a tad confusing) in my book. If the monthly had more moments like these, I think it would have been a stronger title. However, they probably had to tone down horror elements for the franchise at 20th Century Fox's behest, and don't have to worry so much now that the book is ending.
This isn't exactly another media, but does another country count?
The BBC has also commissioned a British-based spin-off of the Buffy show, called The Watcher, which Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, is writing. Now that Head is back at home with his partner Sarah Fisher and their two daughters, he hopes to divide his time between acting and working with animals that have behavioural problems.
(from an article about ASH's animal place in England)