Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Wow, I haven’t posted a new one of these since July? What a slacker. What the hell have I been doing in the meantime . . . ?

That last posting was right before the Equality Now auction and the San Diego Comic Con. That auction raised over $60,000 for Equality Now by auctioning off five places at a dinner table with Joss, on the Friday night of the big Comic Con. We held the dinner at Greystone’s, in the Gaslamp neighborhood of downtown San Diego, and they took royal good care of us. Joss spent three hours in a back room dining and hanging with the five highest bidders, after which my assistant Sierra Hahn dragged us around to the DC Comics and Entertainment Weekly parties, after which Joss looked for a dance party, or a room with an iPod doc at the Omni hotel. DH Publicist Jacq Cohen was sent on a mission that fortunately did not lead to me dancing to Prince in a hotel room.

That was also the day that we launched Dark Horse Presents on Myspace, with the first installment of "Sugarshock"—which we celebrated with a giveaway poster that flew out of the Dark Horse booth. The three-part "Sugarshock" is wrapping up any day now (October 3!) on www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents. At the show, Joss got "Sugarshock" artist Fabio Moon to make him a T-shirt. (He wore it all weekend. Check the photos.) If by some chance you’re reading this but have not read Joss’s newest creation, free online, go check out Myspace right now.

At Joss’s panel in San Diego, he made some announcements that rattled many a Browncoat and Buffy fan in the audience, including the fact that he’s in the early stages of working on a Ripper (Giles) series for the BBC, finally spinning a Buffy character into a new project. Joss said a lot of good things about Dark Horse during that panel, which was real rewarding to everyone here who’ve been working their asses of promoting and creating these books with him.

It was also right around San Diego that Joss turned in the script for Buffy #10, the issue in which Myspace contest winner Jerrod Balzer—actually, his wife Robin—will be drawn. Joss blew us all away with this script. As you may remember, the contest required people to write in about how Buffy had changed their lives, and the winning entry depicted a woman plagued by mental illness who found sanctuary in Buffy’s world, including the character of Drusilla. As Joss said, Anyone who finds grounding with Dru is our kind of people. The prize in this particular contest is a real gift, to be made a part of this fictional world that’s meant so much to so many people—and what Joss has done to bring Robin into Buffy’s world is just staggering. Here’s a first glimpse of Robin with Willow and Buffy, care of Georges Jeanty and Dave Stewart.

Another highlight of my summer as part of the Whedon world was at a local theater where they serve beer and show second or third run films—the Mission Theater and Pub, where, this summer, Tuesday nights were Firefly nights, playing two episodes of the show, culminating in a screening of Serenity. Michael Russell, a cartoonist who I’ve known for ages, was the host, and each episode was introduced by local radio dial knobs Cort and Fatboy. The turnout was real good, a line around the block prior to the doors opening. This for a show Fox canceled . . .

But one of the greatest places in all the land for Joss fans has to be Dragon*Con, the sci-fi and fantasy fest in Atlanta, Georgia—Georges Jeanty’s hometown—where you can see more Browncoats than in any other spot. Georges and I did a lot of panels for Buffy fans—I did a lot of panels for various topics and audiences, but the Buffy crowd was always the most intense, the most rewarding. The panels are fan-driven, and one of the fans that stood out was Skitty the Great—I know her real name, but it’s privileged info, honest—who works at Midtown Comics in New York, but was there in Georgia to talk Buffy.

Now Brian K. Vaughan’s first issue of Buffy is out, with a second out any day. Anyone who was worried that Joss’s temporary departure would ruin the title should be convinced, with some reviewers suggesting that Brian does it even better than Joss. As of this writing, a week before issue #7 hits the stands, Georges has finished penciling Brian’s last issue, and is getting started on #11. And we’re right about to get the first script by Drew Goddard—one of the best of Joss’s Buffy scribes from the show, one of Joss’s best friends, one of Brian’s peers on Lost—Drew is also the writer on the very hush-hush J.J. Abrams film coming this winter. Joss only rolls with the best.

Please, everybody write in to the Buffy lettercol—and feel free to comment on "Sugarshock" there. Check out the second part of Brian’s Faith arc, and I’ll try to check back in here in a month ...

Thanks for making Buffy the biggest hit of a very great year for Dark Horse—