Buffy : Season 9

This weekend at WonderCon it was confirmed, to the relief of fans, that acclaimed comic artist Georges Jeanty would return to pencil Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9. Jeanty’s pencils combine the best traditions of American comics draftsmanship with a European flair that made Season 8 a smash hit with fans and proved the Buffy saga could continue beyond the television show. I spoke briefly with Jeanty about his return to the Chosen One. Read what he had to say after the jump.

On the announcement of Buffy: Season 9…

"Strangely enough they made an announcement here that Season 9 will be coming out in September. It will be twenty-five issues. Dark Horse has gotten the Angel property back as well. So Angel will also be coming out and they will be coming out con-currently for the next two years."

On what brought him back to the book…

As any fan will tell you it’s the characters. You feel so much for these characters that it was really a joy to come back. It wasn’t a chore. It’s funny because I did have a conversation with Joss. And I sort of asked him, "Are you coming back?" He said, "Well, are you coming back?" I was like, "I’ll come back if you come back." And he was like, "Alright, that makes me feel better about coming on then." It sort of went like that. I was like, "Yeah, if we can keep the quality level of what we were doing before, I would love to keep doing this." And, heaven help me, they’ve got me for another twenty-five issues.

On his reaction to the story he’s been given…

Joss has given me an overview of the next season. As a fan, I love to go directly to the source. Whatever’s in Joss’s mind, that’s what I really want to hear, and know he’s got a direction for these characters. He actually called me not too long ago and gave me a really good breakdown of where Season 9 is going, and what’s going to happen. I was excited. I was really giddy. I was like, "Oh my God. I really want to see this." I’m more excited about what he has planned than anything I’d really like to see necessarily. And a lot of what he’s got planned is what I would like to see. So it works out twofold.

On whether he’ll pencil every issue…

Let’s hope. That still remains to be seen.

On the new co-writer…

Joss is bringing on another writer, Andrew Chambliss, who wrote on Dollhouse and Vampire Diaries. So they’ve collaborated extensively. So where Joss can’t come in, a lot of the writing chores will be on him. Joss is still executive producing and he has all of the approval and the say, and nothing goes out without him looking at it. So it’ll hopefully be a nice tighter, leaner season.

On how much has been planned…

Everything is mapped out – "This is where we’re starting and this is where we’re ending." There’s some middle there that hopefully there’s room to play with. But essentially that’s where we’re going. Given what we’re doing now, if anything seems to warrant special attention and it’s not within the twenty-five issues, there will be a series of limited series, sort of branching out from this trunk of a tree that is Buffy. So if anything really needs to be told, we can do it in limited series as well. It doesn’t have to interfere with the twenty-five issues."