Vol 2. has 10 or so stories and is worth it for the one by Jane Espenson alone. I'd get it.

Vol 3. has four longer stories. The good is pretty good - the bad is horrible - the writers are buffy novel writers, and Golden just writes one of the stories, IIRC.

There is a pretty cool site that gives stats and histories for all the various slayers mentioned in all three books here.

Ken, it sounds to me like there might be some confusion. There are two kinds of "Tales of the Slayers".

There is a comic tpb, which has stories by Joss, Jane, and others (I think Amber Benson maybe did one).

There are are three volumes of "Tales of the Slayers" that are short story collections and have no illustrations at all. Joss hasn't written any of these, but Jane had a story in the second volume that blew me away. The stories in the first two volumes are interesting. I haven't seen the third, so I can't comment on it.

On a completely unrelated note: If anyone is a fan of Bill Willingham's The Sandman Presents "The Thessaliad", he has written a sequel (first issue came out this week) called "Thessaly: Witch for Hire". It's off to a promising start.

There are two kinds of "Tales of the Slayers".

Yeah - I was confused too - sorry. I thought Ken was just asking about the Vol 2 and 3 of the short stories. Vol. 1 of the short stories has none of the TV writers either, but it is pretty good.

If anyone is a fan of Bill Willingham's The Sandman Presents "The Thessaliad", he has written a sequel (first issue came out this week) called "Thessaly: Witch for Hire". It's off to a promising start.

Glad to hear it. I met Bill at a small con back when he was doing the Elementals (mumble-mumble years ago -- Good God, it's how many?), he is a real hoot. He and George R. R. Martin got everyone telling Most Embarrassing Moments stories. George's was hilarious. Good times.

t /ramble

Bill Willingham is currently undergoing a sort of renaissance at DC.

His Vertigo title, Fables, is very popular, and he was just given the DC superhero title, Robin, last month.

Be interesting to see what he does with that...

Thanks all. I definitely went for the comic book Tales compendium, which I heard has an additional Fray story, so all is good.

Is he behind the new "Monolith" series that's coming out?

Is he behind the new "Monolith" series that's coming out?

I'm fiddling with a sidebar for the book on indie-comics and music crossovers. So far I've got:

Victor Banana's sdtrk for Like Velvet Glove Cast In Iron

Dame D'arcy singles

Aimee Mann's "Ghost World" song.

I seem to remember Alan Moore doing something for V for Vendetta. "This Vicious Cabaret"? Something like that.

Anything else come to mind? I'm trying to stick to indie comics here since there are a berjillion Superman songs.

I don't believe so. It is a DC mainstream title that has as its major influence the Jewish golem stories, rather than elementals...