Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Editor Scott Allie joins a table of faces to talk Star Wars, Buffy and Serenity at Dark Horse Comics in ‘07

Some of the best stories in comics come from unexpected scenarios. Dark Horse Comics’ resident horror guru, editor Scott Allie, set the tone for the Dark Horse Q&A Panel at New York Comic Con Sunday with his anecdote recalling the genesis of Joss Whedon’s first script for his upcoming Buffy: Season 8 comic-book run that begins this year.

“When the show ended we also decided to end the monthly series,” Allie explained. In the wake of the show’s conclusion, however, he also discussed picking up on the Buffy saga in a new series. The only problem was putting together a plan and creative team that would be faithful to the original material. Allie said that he worked closely with Joss at that point and told him, “If we’re going to continue within this universe, I need you tell me where to go.”

“We kept talking about who we might get to write it,” said the editor. Choices were difficult, and the project stalled while Whedon focused on his other projects, including his Serenity comics at Dark Horse. Allie was waiting on a Serenity script from Whedon when the writer surprised him with an email attachment indicating who the series’ writer would be.

Whedon wanted to do it. “Now it’s probably spread out to about 30 [issues],” Allie said. “Along the way we’re going to drop in other writers.” Fill-ins will include the show’s former writer Drew Goddard, who will take the slayer tales to Japan, and Brian K. Vaughan, who will come in for the series’ second story arc.

Also from Whedon, Allie promised a new Serenity series hitting in the fall written by Whedon and Brett Matthews, which will take place before the movie.

Rex Mundi writer Arvid Nelson commented on two upcoming projects for Dark Horse, his alternate history story Zero Killer and Kull, starring Robert E. Howard’s original barbarian. “Zero Killer is post-apocalyptic science fiction,” said Nelson. The book takes place in a 20th century where the U.S. never dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. Then, in 1973 a nuclear holocaust kicks off when New York City gets destroyed in a nuclear attack during the Cold War and the city sinks because the bedrock beneath the island melts. Nelson characterizes the story as “’The Warriors’ meets Akira,” focusing on a tribal culture that develops around the city’s half-submerged remains.

“We have a ton of new Mignola projects coming up,” Allie added, citing a new Lobster Johnson miniseries, an Abe Sapien miniseries and a new B.P.R.D. series that will begin a higher-frequency run of B.P.R.D. minis coming out consecutively, with an issue shipping every month. Future series include B.P.R.D. Killing Ground and B.P.R.D. 1946, taking place in Berlin at the beginning of the Cold War.

Writer John Ostrander was also on hand to talk about his Star Wars: Legacy series, which flashes forward to an unwritten chapter in the Jedi-Sith struggle. “The idea when we started was to try to get out in front of the continuity curve,” he explained, stating that they wanted to work in a time period after what has been covered in the Star Wars novels.

Part of creating that story involved writing a hero that would be distinguishable from other Skywalkers throughout the Star Wars saga that have come before. “What if Han Solo had had a lightsaber?” Ostrander proposed. He said Kade Skywalker, the rebellious descendent of Luke that they settled on, needed to be an updated version of the scruffy man that Han Solo was. And now that they have established him, it’s time to take him to the next level. “We’ve got him to the point where he’s finally admitting that he’s a Skywalker,” Ostrander stated.