My shop didn't get the issue. They seem to have a lot of problems with Diamond filling their orders.

[Edit - I was going to ask if it was any good, but I realize I already know the answer. As soon as I get the issue, though, I'll work up a reiview of the 4-part run.]

[Oh, and I went back and pulled out "The Origin" series of the Buffy comics, and Pike has a very small role in those books. Nothing that could imply he would even care about Buffy seven years later.]

My copy of the Scriptbook, Season 2, #3 came yesterday.

Classic!

Innocence
Surprise
Phases
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
and
Passion

Sadly, it looks as though the Buffy animated series has officially died. The link should take you to the specific news item. I don't know if the rest of the page has any spoilers.

[link]

Don't click on the link at the end of the paragraph that says "click here."

Sorry. I didn't click on the link at the end, so I didn't think to issue a warning. I hope you weren't too spoiled Michele T.

I'm a spoilage-lite companion, so no blood, no foul.

I can't believe that they couldn't find a network to pick up the animated show. IIRC, though, I think Disney was involved with the rights somewhere, so that may be the sticking point.

Is it expensive to run an animated series? (I mean, with decent animation, but not Pixar quality).

[Edit - you don't know how tempting it was to avoid clicking on that link, especially after reading "don't click on the link".]

I think the average cost of decent animation for a half hour show in the American market is about 900k-1.5mil range.

Probably cheaper than the current season on a per episode basis of the show.

Average fee paid is the same per half hour no matter what the animated show, since the network fee is relatively fixed for new shows.

My guess no one knew where to put it in their schedule.

I can't believe that they couldn't find a network to pick up the animated show.

Fox Kids used to produce a lot, but they've cut way back and stocked up on dubbed anime. It's a shift in philosophy, and it probably cost the Buffy animated series it's most obvious home. Fox would've been producing for its own network which is more profitable too. Too bad. I wonder if the scripts that were written will be leaked to the script site eventually...

I picked up Buffy #50 yesterday, and there are no words to say how bad it is.

(Actually, there are quite a few words - "cliche-riddled crap" comes to mind, but falls short.)

Masochist that I am, I think I'll dig out the other issues of this introductory run and detail exactly where things went wrong. (Aside from hiring Scott Lobdell, that is). Stuff this bad just doesn't come along every day.

The back-up stories weren't mind-numbingly awful, but sure didn't make me feel that I was getting much extra to justify the increased price of the issue. I sure was disappointed that the story about Buffy's first vampire kill did not match what we saw in "Becoming, pt 1". I can fanwank it away by saying this is the Dawnverse version, but there really is no reason that it has to be different.

The Andi Watson story was cute, overly so, and far too short.