Buffy : Season 8

When the news hit last Friday on CBR that the villain of Dark Horse’s "Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8" series, Twilight, would soon be unmasked as none other than longtime Buffy-verse hero Angel, to say that the response was big would be a gross understatement. However, amongst all the talk of what the reveal would mean for the future of "Buffy," one question that rang out from the legions of Joss Whedon fans was how this story would jibe with events in IDW’s ongoing "Angel" series.

At the time of the original interview, "Buffy" editor Scott Allie told CBR News, "I talked to Chris [Ryall] at IDW last night, and I’m going to talk to him today to reassure him that it all connects and it’s all going to jibe. That’s one thing we wanted to reassure him of and to make clear. This isn’t going to be some big conflict with the IDW continuity. It’s all going to be made to work." Shortly after the story was posted, IDW released an image of Buffy-verse character Spike burning a Twilight mask.

However, today writer Bill Willingham (who heads up IDW’s "Angel" series along with Bill Williams) contacted CBR with a response to the interview, posted in full below:

I would like to respond to your article of January 8th, titled BEHIND BUFFY’S TWILIGHT REVEAL, and clear up a few points, making clear that I am speaking only for myself, not IDW or Fox.

Five scripts in, and counting, on IDW’s ongoing Angel comic book series, I am not coordinating, nor have I ever coordinated stories with Scott Allie, Joss Whedon, nor anyone else at Dark Horse Comics. No one at IDW has ever instructed me, or suggested to me, ways in which I might conform my scripts to what is going on with Dark Horse’s Buffy comics, which I’ve purposely not read, specifically to avoid being influenced by them. I’ve had exactly one short conversation, in passing, with Joss Whedon, which took place years ago and had nothing to do with these matters. To my knowledge I’ve never had a conversation with Scott Allie, beyond being introduced to him, at conventions and such, though I doubt even that much contact has occurred. I have however been told, in no uncertain terms, that Mr. Whedon is not available for contact concerning anything to do with the Angel series at IDW, because he is only working with Dark Horse. So I’m not sure how Scott Allie imagines he and Mr. Whedon plan to coordinate IDW’s Angel series into their Buffy series, as is implied in the seventh paragraph of your article.

For Allie to suggest that he is in coordination with IDW, as he did in that seventh paragraph, is grossly misleading, at best. By intentionally allowing, encouraging in fact, the notion to exist among the comics reading public, that Whedon and Dark Horse are in any way steering, or influencing, the stories I help to produce in IDW’s ongoing Angel series, Allie and Whedon are committing what is tantamount to taking credit for the work of others, a repugnant practice in any business, although I understand it is all too common in some.

As long as I am writing the Angel series for IDW, I will not be coordinating stories with any Dark Horse comic, period.

Reached for comment on Willingham’s email, Allie responded, "I haven’t talked to Bill, but I’ve been talking to Chris Ryall, and I think we’re gonna work things out. My line about making the continuities jibe was something I’d said to Chris the night before I did any interviews, and he seemed okay with it. We never intended to go in and screw with what Bill’s doing, though."

No specific plans have been announced by either publisher on how continuity issues will or will not be addressed between "Buffy Season 8" and "Angel," but CBR will have the first word from the characters’ creator, Joss Whedon, later this week.