Dark Horse Comics

One of the conventions of comic books is the issue number, stamped in the corner so that readers can keep track of where they are in the series. Some series have been running for decades and have issue numbers in the high hundreds, a mark of their venerable longevity, while some are miniseries that only run for two or three issues at a time; others are restarted as the characters are reimagined, and the numbering starts from scratch. Sometimes there are even prequel issues marked “Issue 0.”

On the new Buffy comic, though, there is an entirely new notation inked in the corner next to the price: the season. Written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season Eight” marks Whedon’s return to the popular character after the show ended its seven-season run in 2003. It’s remarkable for that reason alone—while movies and television shows regularly spin off into comics, games and novels, they rarely pull their masterminds with them. Not only that, but the comic picks up where the show left off, continuing the story from the television show as it was left off four years ago, promising to tell the story that would have been told had there been an eighth season. But is it any good? Why, yes. Yes it is.

Whedon’s wonderful dialogue and affection for these particular characters carries over easily into the comic, making us feel immediately at home with a Buffy, Xander, Dawn and Giles who seem just like themselves. The fluid artwork of illustrator Georges Jeanty also does a good job of evoking the characters without being too self-conscious—too often when familiar characters are translated into comics, they either become jarringly distorted or suffer from awkward attempts to imitate the originals, resulting in panels that look like little celebrity portraits.

In “Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season Eight,” Whedon shows that he understands one of the key differences between comics and television: in a comic book, special effects don’t cost anything. A 15-foot-tall demon has exactly the same production cost as a lamp. The monsters are bigger, the sets are  grander (can you say “global command center”?), and the battles are more royale. It’s a more fleshed-out and muscled-up Buffy universe, like looking right into the mind of the creator and seeing what he was imagining all along.

It’s not a surprise that Whedon’s good at this, since it’s not his first time—his run as writer of “Astonishing X-Men” has also been great, although there he’s got the deliciously meticulous artwork of John Cassaday to buoy him. He’s also brought “Firefly,” one of his other television creations, to life on the paneled page.

There are some small moments when “Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season Eight” does feel like a lesser echo of its source, such as the frame where Giles cleans his glasses and we realize that on a comic book page, that gesture doesn’t look like anything—we’re just supposed to remember that it’s something the television Giles did.

There is a danger of losing energy, too, on the small flat pages. While the simple writer-artist creative relationship may make some aspects of story-creation easier, we lose the chemistry of the television show’s production team and all the individual talents of the actors. What we’re seing now is the creation of a tiny handful of people, mostly working alone, not the cumulative effort of a talented cast and crew, each trying bring their own special energy to the work.

Then again, Joss Whedon’s kind of a genius. If anyone can make it work—turn a beloved television series into a beloved comic book series—it will be him.