Jon, I posted some links upthread post #350 re Spike figurines available in Australia. If you saw it and the info is useless, cool.

I saw those, moonlit. It seems like the mini-statue is less expensive, but I just realized that your links are in $AUS so maybe not....

is there a consensus on the best buffy TPBs? it seems like there's a whole lot of them, and i'm not sure where to start.

Has anyone talked about Amber Benson's new series on BBC online yet?

I read Buffy #55 over the weekend, and it wasn't bad. The entire issue was written and drawn by Paul Lee, who is one half of the team that has been doing the art covers for the series for about a year now. As noted, the issue focuses on Dawn and what happened while she was at home when Buffy ran off to Vegas.

The art has very good likenesses of Joyce and Dawn (Hank, not as well, but not too far off). Also, Lee remembers that Dawn is 9 or 10 at this point in the storyline and draws her that way, rather than how Cliff Richards drew her in those flashbacks in the "False Memories" arc.

The plot (such as it is) involves an attack on the Slayer that misfires. I don't recognize the people/demons that set up the attack, so I assume they may come into play later on. The bear itself is a Pooh bear, only labeled "Hoop" for legal reasons. It is sent to the Summers' house as a gift, and Dawn thinks that Buffy sent it to her to keep Mr. Gordo company (a nice touch, I thought). The bear is enchanted in a monkey's paw kind of fashion; it comes alive as a real bear to carry out the wishes of the owner.

When I think about it, what I liked about this issue is the subtlety in the details, which was a welcome relief after the last couple of Scott-Lobdell-influenced arcs. You see the Summers' marriage as it starts to fall apart, and the over-protectiveness that Joyce has of Dawn because of Buffy's behavior, but we are not beaten over the head with it.

Special note: the "demonization" of Hank continues apace. Further down the line, the comic will tackle the breakup directly; I expect (Season 7 spoiler here:) that Buffy's revelation that she thought Hank cheated on Joyce will get played up.

is there a consensus on the best buffy TPBs?

Not that I have seen. Here are the ones I would recommend.

Tales of the Slayers (everyone agrees on this, it's a collection of short stories, written by the series writers themselves, that covers various Slayers through time)

Ring of Fire (an original GN, written by Doug Petrie, set in Season 2 after Angelus had killed Jenny Calendar)

Spike and Dru (collects the 3 Spike and Dru issues, one co-written by James Marsters himself)

I also liked the Oz series, even if they did rush things a bit too much at the end. Still, Oz. IJS.

cool, thanks. how's the "death of buffy" one? they seem to have it everywhere.

There's today at Whedonesque a link to a synopsis + review of two spec scripts written by Joss during his struggling years in Hollywood, when he was selling his soul rewriting multimillion-dollar blockbusters. Pretty interesting ("Die hard on a bridge"??? Bwhahahaha).

cool, thanks. how's the "death of buffy" one? they seem to have it everywhere.

I liked the arc, but as in most cases, there were some questionable decisions made by the writers. One of the problems with writing a licensed product is that you know so much of the story can't change, in order to fit into the parameters of the show. (Actually, this is a criticism levelled at long-running comics in general; you know that Batman isn't going to die, for instance, so threatening his life holds much less drama than it could). This doesn't mean that you can't create good stories, but it does mean that certain cliffhanger endings may seem ridiculous, rather than dramatic. In a collected trade, though, this becomes less of a problem, since they usually don't end on cliffhangers.

So, to sum up, I liked the story and think it will play better as a trade than it did as a monthly.

(("Die hard on a bridge"??? Bwhahahaha).

The review just makes me want to read the scripts. It's like somebody describing his reaction to a picture of Alyson Hannigan wearing leather chaps. It's not enough if you can't see the original. (btw the spoiler warning on the review is for the scripts, not Buffy.)