Joss Whedon - "Buffy Season 8" Comic Book - Ign.com Interview

The modern master of nerds across the world is Joss Whedon. Starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then moving to Angel, Firefly and Serenity, Whedon has created some of the most memorable and brilliant original properties in recent memory. They’re also cult hits. While Buffy and Angel were very successful, they still only reached a limited audience on small networks. Firefly/Serenity had an even smaller lifespan as the series only lasted 11 episodes and the movie wasn’t exactly successful (though the DVD sales of both are doing very well).

Whedon’s series and their spin-offs are deceptive. Buffy appears to be a mere story about a girl fighting vampires. Firefly/Serenity appears to be some sort of space/western crossover. To try and label these franchises in such a manner does them a great injustice. Buffy does feature a girl and vampires, but it’s about love, friendship, life, laughter, death, happiness, hope, inner strength, sadness, courage and struggle. The same applies to Firefly/Serenity. These are stories about people and not simply concepts.

In comics, Whedon has accomplished much. Working on a futuristic take on Buffy, Whedon created Fray for Dark Horse, which was highly praised. The Buffy-verse has also seen multiple series, many in continuity and many not. Recently Whedon has been doing work for Marvel comics. Though his name is most associated with Astonishing X-Men, in April will will take over Runaways for six issues. Serenity has also found a small niche in comics with one mini-series published and another on the way some time towards the end of the year.

Recently Whedon has been working on two films. He was set to helm the Wonder Woman movie, a collaboration that was recently ended. He’s also working on the mysterious Goners.

So why do a Season Eight for Buffy ? Whedon has simply stated that there are more stories to tell. He initially toyed around with concepts and realized there was enough to really dive into. Being that Buffy is a very important (probably more than words can describe) concept to him, he decided to return.

The season will be broken into arcs, each with a different writer. Though he initially thought the series would run for 20 issues, Whedon has since revised his estimate to be well over 30. He’s writing the first four issue arc as well as a one-shot in the fifth issue. Brian K. Vaughan (Y : The Last Man, Runaways) will be taking over after that. Whedon will return for various stories and arcs throughout the season, particularly to end the entire storyline.

As far as the popular characters go, Whedon has plans for all of them. Spike and Angel will definitely be returning, though will be used sparingly and when the storyline makes sense. Whedon has also said that characters that moved or "lived" within Angel will stay there unless it’s absolutely necessary. The rest of the cast will be slowly introduced as it makes sense.

The series ships on March 7, 2007. IGN spoke with Whedon about his work on Buffy, Runaways, Serenity, Wonder Woman and the end of Civil War.

IGN Comics : The new status quo for Buffy and her companions removes them from every day situations and scenarios. They’re in castles with decoys and whatnot. Did you intend to set that up or was it merely the direction of the story ?

Joss Whedon : Um, both. I did start with that basic idea that they had left Sunnydale, but it was a very mundane storyline. I then had to shake myself loose from the show and say, "No, wait a minute. Not only are they in distant lands, but they are having an epic life." They are in a comic book. It’s not a show and we can’t recreate the day-to-day metaphor, but we can recreate the characters, concepts and emotions, and just put that on a grander scale.

IGN Comics : Do you think doing that will move the franchise too far from what made the show a hit in the first place ?

Whedon : You know, I was talking to Brian Vaughan about his arc. Halfway through the conversation, because we were like, "This could be cool, that could be cool," and we said, "Wait. Let’s just stop. What are we saying here ? What do we need to say about Faith that we’ve never said before ?" And these are the exact questions I’m asking when I’m running the show. So, I really don’t think so... I think you need a certain amount of distance. You need to blow it up... well, most of all you need Giant Dawn, but you also need Willow’s magic. You need access to the kind of world that she lives in that you could never have on TV. You need things to have a giant scope. People need to swing from the rooftops, and do the hero stuff, to keep a level of visual excitement that you have to achieve without the actors - without the actual people in front of you.

George Jeantys is just doing a wonderful job. What he’s doing an amazing job of is capturing the actors without slavishly trying to trace photographs. I can’t say enough about what he’s brought to this party. That’s really the mission statement - yes, these are the people you love, but they’re going to be interpreted, and George isn’t going to be the only artist working on them.

So we’re going to remove them a little bit from the actors. That’s why we didn’t do photo covers this time around. We need to take one step away. The opportunities are enormous, but the strict adherence and dictates of the show, where each episode had to be a certain moment in the life of an emerging adult, that we don’t adhere to. We didn’t hold to that in Angel either but that still had the same kind of ethos and people still responded to it.

IGN Comics : Will this season be as dark and moody as Seasons Six or Seven ?

Whedon : No, you gotta bring the goofy on... a little bit. The goofy is where an enormous amount of the fun lies. Like the show itself, the series will ping pong. It will go from Greek Tragedy to French Farce between issues and sometimes between panels. Having the characters just talk, just yak and each other, is just so glorious for me. I love their voices and that’s always really fun. But Brian is doing the Faith arc and that’s not without the darkness. Drew Goddard is coming in and he’s not without the silly. It doesn’t mean that each won’t have some of the other, but yeah not a Season Six kind of comic. That would be pretty much all blacks with word balloons.

IGN Comics : Are we looking at a similar season structure to the show ? Will there be smaller threats in each arc with one big bad guy readying for the big conclusion ?

Whedon : Pretty much... possibly even more so than the show. I have certain dictates about what needs to happen, but I don’t have dictates about when. So when a writer comes on, I’m interested in what they’re obsessed with. What makes it exciting is that it’s not just me, it’s a bunch of people. In that I might say, "Well that feeds into our main story if we add a B-plot here or we do this," or I might just say, "You know what, just do your thing and I’ll come in after with a few issues to keep the momentum going." Generally everybody is pretty responsive as to what I’ve set out as our mission statement.

IGN Comics : We’ve seen Buffy battle vampires, former lovers, demons, slayers, the government, a god, a sorceress and even evil incarnate. It seems like the only thing left is... well, bunnies. What’s Buffy going to be up against this season ?

Whedon : Well thanks for the bunny spoiler ! Way to ruin it... yes, bunnies and midgets. Needless to say it’s all about Anya, which is weird because she’s dead. You know, what’s going to be new... again, that’s still something we’re feeling our way around for. Obviously we’ve got much cooler looking demons... well, not cooler than Skip... nobody will ever look cooler than Skip. -chuckles- So obviously certain budgetary restrictions have been lifted.

Creating a resonate character in the comic book that isn’t somebody people know from the show is something that’s going to take some time doing. I’ve got some new characters in there just to broaden the scope a little bit, but to create somebody whose got the kind of juice that anybody who’s been on the TV show has... that’s not going to happen right away. I think that’s going to happen when people are more comfortable with the comic book, when they live in that world. There are some people I’m introducing, some particular characters I’m developing, that are yet to come. You have to earn it.

IGN Comics : How are you managing the development of this as a season ? Did you get all of the writers together at once and break down the whole book like you might with the television series ?

Whedon : Well, that would have been fun, ’cause it would have involved beer. The fact of the matter is that it’s hard enough to get one of them free. They’re all really busy guys. What I did was write a manifesto for the basic arc points and sent it to everyone on the E-Web. I used the E-Web because I’m very, very hip and now. I will probably send updates to that. I’ve had a lot of different ideas. Stuff I’ve written has opened up different doors. Questions have gone unanswered. Other guys’ arcs are coming in and people need to be informed that this is being done or that is being done. Then, as I come to each writer in turn, they can know what their playing field is.

IGN Comics : I’m curious about the writing staff. We’ve heard about Brian K. Vaughan, Jeph Loeb and Brad Meltzer. We’ve also heard Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Doug Petrie, Drew Greenberg and Steven DeKnight. Is there anyone else writing with you or anyone else you’re seeking ?

Whedon : I think Jim Krueger (Justice, Earth X) is possibly going to join us which is cool because I’m also a fan of his. If you put most of those guys, some of them will get too busy, for four issues, you’ve already got a hell of a long season, especially since I’m definitely going to be doing not just a four issue arc to cap the season, but a couple of arcs inside. I mean I already did a one-shot after I finished the first four. I just shot off a one-shot because I had something that inspired me. That could happen at any moment. It’s like a hiccup ; these things just come out.

IGN Comics : Have any of the actors affiliated with the Buffyverse expressed an interest in contributing in any way ?

Whedon : So far no, they haven’t... it’s almost as if they’re busy acting, and what’s that all about ? I would totally be open to it but most of them probably don’t even know it is going on. In fact, if I were to tell them something like, "Oh ! Your character is doing this or that !" They’d probably look at me like, "Yeah... you know that was a part of my life that was over five years ago, right ?" Then you feel small, so very small.

IGN Comics : So Brian K. Vaughan’s arc is dealing with Faith. Drew Goddard is doing something in Japan. Can you share any more details on either arc ?

Whedon : Um, not a lot, because I don’t love to go into details and this is pretty far down the line. Brian and I came at Faith from a very psychological standpoint. We sort of found the story inside of that. It is a little darker, but I’ve read his first script and it’s also hilarious. His Faith voice is, for a guy who’s never written the show, he just swung and hit the lights. It was surprising, but exciting.

With Drew, he and I sit around and giggle about the things we’d like to do that are as silly as possible, and then our conversation calms down and becomes, well, if we took all of these elements, what does it actually mean ? What are we actually talking about ? Ultimately we get to, for us, as emotional a place as what Brian and I started out with. We work sort of from the outside in. Drew’s will be more specifically centered around the continuity of the arc. Brian’s is more of a side bar because people really do want to know about Faith. She’s one they care about a lot.