Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Exclusive: MORE SECRETS OF THE ’BUFFY SEASON 8’ COMIC - PART 2

Dracula returns? Need we say more. Editor Scott Allie certainly does.

With BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER – SEASON 8 keeping long time fans satisifed with the continuation of their favorite TV heroine in comic book form, Editor Scott Allie spoke of the future of the series, Dracula’s return and where things will be heading once the current arc with Faith ends and Joss Whedon’s fill-in issues begin with Part 2 of iF’s exclusive interview.

iF: What is the fill-in issue after the Faith arc going to be about?

ALLIE: That’s a housekeeping issue. That’s how things start with Joss. He goes “I have to fill a blank. There’s this thing I have to address, and it turns into something so much more. Issue #10, we did a contest on MySpace where you write in and say “this is how BUFFY affected my life,” and Joss picks the winner and the winner will be drawn into an issue of BUFFY. Joss read all the entries, and was really moved by a lot of them and the winner he was struck by and he basically wrote Issue #10 about her, sort of. It’s a Willow and Buffy issue, with some Xander. It’s an issue that catches you up and shows you how things are screwed up with our characters. And issue #11, another fill-in issue by him, sort of propels the next thing, and gives us our first real concrete knowledge of what the Big Bad will be. The Big Bad has been hinted at, so you’ll understand that a little more.

iF: What is Drew Goddard’s arc going to be after that?

ALLIE: There are some vampires that have attained powers, that are very unusual for vampires, and [the gang] has to go root it out, and they go to Japan.

iF: So it will be essentially take three and half years to tell the whole story. Have you thought of accelerating the production schedule on the comic?.

ALLIE: Everybody asks about that, because of TV, but, no, it’s comics, we’re trying to do comics, but we can’t make the book as good as we want it to be and faster than other people can do comics. The fact that we can keep it out monthly, compared to other books of this caliber, we’ve already accelerated the schedule.

iF: Are you allowed to use any characters in the BUFFY-verse including those from the ANGEL-verse?

ALLIE: Yes.

iF: Will Angel be coming back at any point? He always comes back every season for the most part.

ALLIE: He seems to. [Allie smiles]. I’m not going to say a damn thing about Angel. Yeah, Angel, Spike – much to do.

iF: Any other cameos from familiar faces coming back?

ALLIE: Dracula will come back – we’ll see him again.

iF: Will it be as humorous as it was when he appeared on the TV show?

ALLIE: I’m not sure it will be as humorous, but it’s the same interpretation of the character. It remains to be seen how humorous it will be or extensive.

iF: Could there be a crossover with the ANGEL – SEASON 6 comic book that’s happening even though it’s with a different publisher?

ALLIE: We couldn’t do a crossover, and the storyline Joss suggested to them, is very separate from the thing we’re doing and needs to stay separate. He told them the kind of story to do, but he’s not doing the whole “executive producer” thing that he’s doing here. He’s not writing anything, he’s not story editing the way he’s doing here. On our stuff, if he doesn’t write it, he edits the story and breaks the story with the writer and he’s not doing that stuff there. He would be spreading himself too thin.

iF: It’s a pretty ambitious endeavor.

ALLIE: It’s a real ambitious thing and we’ve already sketched out what Season 9 would be. At one point, I was pretty sure Season 8 would be the end of all of this. The original idea looked like that was it, but now we have a Season 9, that would be much different than Season 8.

iF: So this might be going on for a long time.

ALLIE: We might take a break, but when Joss and I talked about it, Joss said he might want to take a break between eight and nine – “maybe a month.” That’s barely a break. It’s not even a summer, but yes, Season 9 should happen pretty soon after this.

iF: How would equate your position in comics to someone on a TV series?

ALLIE: I’ve always been loath to compare the role I have on a comic book, to the role of a filmmaker or a TV person. I’ve always resisted this. When we decided to call Joss “executive producer,” it was really because, in this case, that’s really is what it is. He is writing many issues of the comic, probably more issues of the comic, percentage-wise than he would write of the TV series. But when he’s not writing, he’s overseeing everything. He’s choosing the artists, he’s giving notes on color and on the other writers’ stuff. He wrote a Bible for the whole 40-issues. He wrote two. He wrote one at the very beginning and after he had written four, he wrote another Bible, that nailed it a little tighter. All the writers adhere to it, I adhere to it, the artists understand what’s going on. The reason, calling him “executive producer” makes sense, is because there is no job on a comic that equates to what he’s going. He’s not simply the writer, because he’s not writing every issue, he’s not really the editor, because he’s not running schedules, and he’s not as removed as an editor-in-chief would be. To compare me to something on TV or a movie, the role I serve is bouncing ideas off him. My role on a comic, has always been — and on the old BUFFY comics, HELLBOY, etc. — my role is to figure out what the vision of the primary creator is. I have to figure out what their vision is and try to spread it across all the other stuff, in ways they can’t even pay attention to. Like the design of ads. Joss doesn’t pay that close attention to the design of ads. I wanted to match what he thinks to everything else. I do get in there. I contribute a little in terms of script editing, but mainly it’s all him. I go over the artwork, and make sure artwork matches up to the art. Maybe I would compare it to a producer role, generally that’s the best comparison for an editor, but with this, Joss has clearly taken the reigns, I feel like I’m his Assistant Producer or something.