Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Newsarama caught up with Buffy co-writer Nicieza, who’ll be taking over as the series’ sole voice when Lobdell exits.

"I’m taking over with issue #60, after Scoot’s next arc, ’Slayer Interrupted,’ which runs from #56-59," Nicieza said. "Since it gets confusing to have an editor and a co-writer both named Scott, I call Scott L. by his old X-Men nickname of ’Scoot,’ and I save the respectful endowment of Scott - or Mr. Allie - for my editor!"

As Newsarama readers will recall, Nicieza came aboard Buffy when Lobdell called him up to assist during a deadline crunch, and has stuck around since then. Together, the two have been bridging the Buffy gap, so to speak, writing stories set between the film version of Buffy (rejecting the Slayer role, uber-dreamy Luke Perry as Buffy’s boyfriend Pike, Rutger Hauer as the big bad guy, Donald Sutherland as her Watcher) and the first season of Buffy (new town, new school, new friends, new Watcher - a.k.a. Giles). Franchise speaking, the stories are the equivalent of the Clone Wars being told in Dark Horse’s Star Wars: Republic series - something fans have long wondered about, and have had to, until now, settle on making up their own explanations to make the Kristy Swanson Buffy work with the Sarah Michelle Gellar Buffy.

A thumbnail guide: "Viva Las Buffy" began in November with issue #51 and wraps in February’s #54, while "Slayer, Interrupted" begins with April’s #56 (following the "Dawn and Hoopy the Bear" one-shot story written and drawn by Paul (The Devil’s Footprints) Lee), and wraps in issue #59. Both arcs are set between the movie and Season 1.

"Scoot hit some deadline trouble and he asked me to help him out on the script for #48-50 [the conclusion of the "Hellmouth to Mouth" arc]," Nicieza said. "He had done most of the work, having written mostly in ’full script mode,’ but I had to flesh it out and clean it up for the licensor approval copy and the letterer.

"Then his Hollywood hoity-toity activities prevented him from doing more than a rough story outline for the ’Viva Las Buffy’ arc currently running in the monthly. The plot and script for issues #51-54 were almost totally my own, but they sprang from his working ideas.

"Now he is writing all of #56-59 without me. I only did the on-going Giles subplot story thread in those issues. So it’s been a weird ’co-writer’ situation, in that for the most part, we’re writing separate stuff."

Reuniting with Lobdell, who worked with Nicieza on the X-Men books in the nineties, was an interesting experience, Nicieza said. "Working with Scoot is always an adventure - in a fun way," Nicieza said. "If I hadn’t already lost my hair, he’d make me pull it out, but I must love the lug to bits `cause I have no problem always coming back for more! He is an idea machine and I’m the ’mature voice of reason.’ Which, if my wife heard me call myself that, she’d laugh, but compared to Scoot, I’m practically an adult!

"Scoot throws a lot of stuff out there, 90 percent of it is interesting, exciting, adventurous, daring and unique, then I try to find a way to reign it all in so it works within the context of a story. Usually that means butchering all his best stuff, but he doesn’t mind, cause he still has all his hair. The price I pay for maturity, huh?

"As for how my solo run will be different, I don’t know for sure. I approached the ’Viva Las Buffy’ arc in a very specific manner - a fast-paced, most-of-it-happens-in-one-night action story. It’s not about Buffy thinking, it’s about Buffy choosing to do. And we get to explore her actions and her new role as the Slayer through the narrative of her friend/wannabe boyfriend, Pike. Since he’s such an interesting clean slate and since he is giving his point of view on Buffy during a time in her life we have seen very little of, it provides a unique story for Buffy fans.

"I also tried to structure the arc like a TV episode, with chapter breaks that fell neatly into place the way they would as Act Breaks on a TV episode. It was very kinetic - a lot of camera-motion angles for the storytelling - because I wanted to show Buffy diving into her new role as the Slayer with a lot of energy. Conversely, the narrative slows down the pace of the action, giving us Pike’s conflicted and very human point of view to Buffy.

"I think Scoot’s plans for ’Slayer Interrupted’ are grander and more demon-y, because he wanted to bring that to the comic. I expect the last arc in our current ’Pre-Season One’ timeframe that I write will balance a bit of the two approaches. Since it will deal with the divorce of Buffy’s parents and her relocation to Sunnydale, the story will be a bit more about the demons inside us - like anger, guilt, etc. We’ll also see Giles settling down in Sunnydale ’waiting’ for Buffy to arrive and we’ll check out Xander and Willow the summer before they met Buffy."

The main difference that can be seen instantly when comparing the current run on the title to those previous is the amount of leeway being given to the creators. While not sure how his run compares to others, Nicieza is glad that writing the title comes with few headaches.

"Having not read the entire run of the monthly comics, it would be unfair for me to compare," Nicieza said. "I do know that the licensing approval process has not only been very generous to us, it’s actually been helpful in making the stories better. I’ve edited and written enough licensed comics where that wasn’t always the case, so it’s very much appreciated on my end. I hope that if we continue to give them interesting stories, they’ll continue to give us enough rope to hang ourselves."

Given the setting of their story, Nicieza said that he and Lobdell are somewhat limited in which characters they can use, as well as how they can use them - for example, while Xander, Giles, and Angel all make appearances throughout their storylines (albeit brief), their personalities and character development are back to Season 1 versions.

"We’ve focused on Angel and Giles in supporting roles right now," Nicieza said. "Giles continues to get a through-story, and by the time I write the last arc, which is set right before the series began, we will see Willow, Xander and Jessie in Sunnydale. Jessie was Xander’s friend who was killed in the series opener. And we’ll keep sneaking in some good cameos, like Wesley and Gwendolyn Post in #52. We’ll see Principal Flutie, who was eaten in the first season. We’ll see another obscure character cameo that affects Angel in the upcoming stories as well."

Despite the limited interaction any supporting character can have with Buffy in his stories, developing them is key to Nicieza, as Buffy would have little staying power without the different sides of the whole represented by the likes of Xander, Giles and Willow.

"They are as dependent on each other as three corners of a triangle are," Nicieza said. "Without one - or at least what the characters represent thematically - you lose the whole. The other characters - Spike, Dawn, Anya, Tara, Angel, etc. are all adjuncts to that triangle, all serving to help structure, conflict or support the storytelling decisions you make with one of the main three.

"It’s hard to say what we hope to do with all the characters later in 2003 and into 2004, since we still don’t know how - or if - the show will end. Scott Allie and I are planning to talk about a wide variety of possibilities real soon."

Another plus that comes with writing the title is getting to work with artist Cliff Richard, Nicieza says. "I think he is an excellent artist - he handles a very crowded book with realistic storytelling demands, including character likenesses - month in and month out in true professional manner," Nicieza said. "Hopefully, we’ll continue to give him more fun stuff to draw and big challenges. Part of the appeal of the Buffy comic should be that, unlike the show, we operate on an unlimited budget - so the scale should be grander, the pyrotechnics more explosives and the demons more demon-y."

While the last season of Buffy has created debate among fans and critics, Nicieza sees the darker, more brooding episodes as a natural step for the characters.

"I think for any complaining about last season being depressing, as a writer, I was thrilled with the road they took their characters on," Nicieza said. "It was a very logical progression for all of them - and I think as we’ve seen this season, they’ve come out of it as better people. Resigned, but consigned to their ’jobs’ and better able to balance ’real’ life responsibilities with the burden of saving humanity every Tuesday.

"I do think Buffy accepted her role a long time ago and is only now realizing how to juggle that role with the needs of an adult life."

While Buffy has a core TV audience that tunes in religiously, Nicieza is aware that not all of them pick up the comic. The key to changing that? Good product and getting them into the stores.

"Well, it’s a matter of drawing them into the comic shops or making them aware of the trade paperbacks. I try to bounce around on message boards and to spread the word," Nicieza said. "But ultimately, we have to give people a high-enough quality product to make them want to seek it out. We have to make them feel they’re getting an enhancement - and to sound totally conceited, hopefully something even better - than what they get from the TV show.

"Comic material of licensed properties have always been about brand-extension - providing more depth to the source material universe, backstory, supporting characters, and storytelling possibilities. Fans who want more have to go somewhere - novels, comics, videogames, toys, etc. - so our jobs are to make the comics something worth going to. I think they have been in the past - or else they would have gone away as so many licensed titles do - and they’ll continue to be that in the future."

Aside from the money, there are definite benefits to writing Buffy the comic, as opposed to the show, Nicieza says. "Well, Dark Horse pays me to write the comic, but I haven’t gotten Mutant Enemy to pay me to write a script yet - that right there is a plus for the comic!" Nicieza said. "But seriously, it boils down to what can a comic book do that a TV show can’t?"

"We can give you money shots that the show’s budget can’t approach. We can give you more exotic settings and more dynamic action confrontations. We can tell stories of the characters set in the past and the show can’t really make the actors look 10 years younger. We can tell "bridging stories’ that link here to there in ways the show can’t. We can focus stories on the supporting characters in ways the show might not be able to. Heck, we can do anything - we can do Buffy vs. Hellboy or a Fray and Firefly crossover! We are unlimited in our potential. We have to just keep playing to our strengths and stop worrying about any perceived weaknesses in the translation from one medium to another."

While there are some characters that pose a greater challenge to the writer, Nicieza doesn’t play favorites. "I honestly don’t have a favorite or least favorite," Nicieza said. "I enjoy writing them all depending on the story. For me, it’s who I think is the easiest or the hardest to write. Easiest for me is Dawn, because I’ve always been a sucker for the underdog - both in terms of the character’s place on the show and in the opinions of many fans. I find Anya the hardest, because the character’s dialogue and Emma Caulfield’s delivery are so particular, it’s hard to match in print - but I’ll keep trying! It might require a prolonged meeting with Ms. Caulfield… my wife doesn’t have to know…"

If Nicieza’s comfort level with the characters seems to betray a long-term relationship, well, it should. While the initial Buffy movie didn’t do spectacularly in theaters, Nicieza was one of the people watching it in a darkened theater in 1992, and he’s been a fan ever since.

"I was in L.A. for a business at the time and the Spectravision wasn’t working on the TV so I wasn’t able to watch any ’special’ movies," Nicieza said. "So off I went in search of something to see. I thought it was cute, but no offense to anyone, it didn’t exactly stick with me like Goodfellas or anything. I actually didn’t watch the show the night it first aired, because I didn’t expect anything out of it. Then a coworker at Acclaim, James Perham, brought a tape of the show in the next day and said, ’You guys have to watch this, it was really good.’

"So we all watched it together during lunch and I’ve been geek-hooked ever since. Haven’t missed a single episode since, except for "Superstar," cause I screwed up my VCR settings, but I just caught it a few weeks ago on FX."

So, once more, with feeling: Where do we go from here?

"Well, to tell you the honest truth, I don’t know right now," Nicieza said. "But once Scott Allie and I find out what the season’s last half has in store, then we’ll finalize our plans and that gives us the perfect excuse to tell everyone."