Sorry to jump in late on the new game thing, but that actually looks like Ethan Rayne in the group shot rather than Angel. At least that was my first impression when I saw the character. If it is in fact Angel, then yeah, it's badly done.

Oh, I read somewhere that Joss is supposed to be a secret character in the game, and will have the powers of all the characters, which would be amusing, to say the least.

I just picked up the original Buffy X-Box game and have been playing it this week and I've been enjoying it a lot. Ended up staying up an hour later than I meant to last night because I lost track of time. There are a few fights that are frustratingly hard and sometimes trying to figure out where you're supposed to go next is difficult (generally because you have to shimmy across a pipe that's not easily visible from a distance) but it's otherwise a lot of fun and the dialogue is very Buffy-like. And the actress they got to do Buffy's voice does a pretty good impression of SMG most of the time. Though that makes it kind of jarring when she does sound off.

Joss is supposed to be a secret character in the game, and will have the powers of all the characters, which would be amusing, to say the least.

Ha! I think he should have the power to write any character out of the game, or turn them evil.

Curious. Anyone looked at the Marvel Epic comic deal?

Belated responses: We don't know who Dream's lover was at that point, Wolfram--I remember us all furiously speculating about on the Net when the comics came out. Aside from the main series, there's The Dream Hunters, a late Sandman novella with gorgeous illustrations by a Japanese artist; two Death miniseries by Gaiman; Sandman: Book of Dreams, a prose anthology by other hands, variable quality, though at least two very good stories (Delia Sherman and Susanna Clarke); and spin-offs of variable quality. I liked Alisa Kwitney's Destiny miniseries, although it's merely good, not great.

The Lucifer monthly is excellent, and there's an interview with its author, Mike Carey, at Comic Book Resources. Carey also did a decent Petrifax spin-off.

Gaiman's Books of Magic is tangentially related to The Sandman, and the spin-off series by John Ney Rieber was wonderful for most of its run, although he really lost it at the end. His miniseries Mythos is set in the same universe, and is very good.

A lot of people liked Caitlin Kiernan's work on The Dreaming, but I've never been a big fan of hers, in prose or comics.

Hey thanks Micole, I've bookmarked your post for later reference. I've never been a comic book person, but someone gave me a sandman comic once and it just grabbed me. And now of course I'll have to jump into the Fray one of these days. Please tell me they're going to put out a graphic novel at some point.

Has there been any word on Vol. Two of the short stories version of Tales of the Slayer?

I would be very surprised if they didn't, Wolfram.

Oh--and Gaiman's non-Sandman graphic novels are also fascinating, although not generally quite as immediately lovable. I'm particularly fond of Violent Cases and Signal to Noise.

And it's only now occurring to me that this should be in Literary, possibly because when I first started watching BtVS, it reminded me of Sandman more than anything else.

Has there been any word on Vol. Two of the short stories version of Tales of the Slayer?

It is out. I am still reading it, but of the stories I've read, there's been a story about a medieval Japanese Slayer that I thought was decent, and I enjoyed the story about the pirate Slayer (althugh some of the dialogue was cringe-worthy), but I don't think these stories are as good as the ones from the first collection. These Tales don't seem to be as dark as the first ones.

Mmm. Still probably worth picking up, yeah?

I thought so. I still have four or five stories left. I will say that two "current" (meaning stories about Buffy) are included in this collection, which is another break from the past volume.

Has anybody else read the collection? I tend to buy most things Buffy, so my objectivity isn't the greatest. I will go on record to say that I have not liked most of the tie-in novels (I found The Book of Fours an egregious waste of paper, for example). YBMV.