Buffy : Season 8

Some fans have voiced concern about Angel’s time travel in Season 8, feeling that it undercuts the story they’ve followed for three years (it’s not the real Angel, but future Angel). Can you talk about how Angel’s future world will impact the conclusion of Season 8? How about time travel in Season 8 in general?

SCOTT: Time travel is a big pain in the butt, it’s been in a bunch of my comics the last few years, but I don’t know what you mean about Angel. He didn’t time travel to get here. Is that what fans are thinking? I think I might not understand the question.

Season 8 took Buffy to another level with its mature content rating for Issue 34 “Them F#©%ing”. The show has never been easily defined in terms of age appropriateness, but many fans began watching at a young age. Buffy has always had a huge appeal to a teen audience and as the Season 8 letter columns show, a youth audience remains. Is there a point when Buffy becomes exclusively for adults? How do you weigh the loss for young fans (some who see Buffy and the other characters as role models) if they’re not old enough to read the comic?

SCOTT: I didn’t get complaints from parents or retailers about the contents of Buffy #34, so I don’t know how much of an issue that last aspect of your comment is. As role models all these characters are pretty imperfect, and having sex, in space or otherwise, is not the worst thing about them. We pushed that imagery in #34 pretty hard, indeed. For me, if I compare #34 to some Buffy/Spike stuff in the show, I feel like it’s simply the difference between having to deal with actors and TV—Joss got away with some intense stuff on television, and we got pretty extreme in the comic. I know that I don’t have a very sensitive gauge on these things, myself. I let some things into the Conan book that I thought were okay in context, and retailers freaked out. Joss and I were talking about this sort of thing, the other day, not in terms of Buffy, but our own kids, and what is okay for them to watch. We both think we know, but when it comes right down to it, how can you be sure? As with so many things, we rely on the kids’ moms to know better. It’s so hard to know what’s right in terms of mature content—the Star Wars movies are supposed to be pretty all ages, but they get pretty violent. Anyway, yes, Buffy #34 might be too racy for a fourteen year old, but there were some bits in Season 6 that’d pose problems too. So I know it pushed it, but I didn’t think it was wildly inconsistent.

The TV series ended with a strong feminist message about empowering women. In the DVD commentary for “Chosen”, Whedon says “it was very important to me to say ‘Okay, it’s great that you’ve worshipped this one iconic character: but find it in yourself.’” How do you see this extending to Season 8? Is Season 8 still telling a feminist story?

SCOTT: Sierra made a comment to me, when someone wrote in to tell us that Angel had raped Buffy in #34. I think her point was basically that while we can argue about how predestination conflicts with free will, Buffy very clearly CHOSE to have sex with Angel, even if it was a bad choice. We can make bad choices, and people certainly do. But we make them. I’ve seen people say that Dollhouse is anti-feminist, because the characters are turned into prostitutes. If you make a film that involves racism, and you fail to explain clearly in the text that RACISM IS WRONG, it’s not that you’ve promoted racism, or turned your back on equality; it’s just that you’ve failed to make a piece of propaganda. Buffy Season 7 left us with this wonderful female power in the world—Season 8 turned that into an army, and that army has been far from perfect. I don’t think that’s a poke in the eye to feminism. I hope that Buffy’s continued complex romantic decisions don’t ruin her as an example of female empowerment. That thread about the Slayer army, the shared power, which began in Season 7, will continue to evolve in Season 9, and that extension will likely be viewed as more clearly supportive of feminism.

The lack of real-world creative-budget limitations has long been cited as a great strength for the comics—scenes that would’ve been impossible on the show (e.g. Buffy and Angel getting groiny in space or the Giant Dawn versus Mecha Dawn Tokyo showdown) became reality. Has this new creative freedom changed the series on a fundamental level?

SCOTT: The move to comics changed the series in a lot of ways. I don’t feel they’re fundamental ways, but until there’s an agreed-upon list of the fundamentals of Buffy, we can’t say for sure. The things we would agree on as fundamental are unchanged. I don’t think the ability to make Dawn giant is a fundamental change. I’m pretty sure that was something Joss wanted to do on the show, and they decided they couldn’t pull it off with the budget. So is it a fundamental change that he now can pull it off? I’d be a lot more worried if Buffy started dressing like Lara Croft. Then, I think something fundamental would have changed. On the other hand, you could say that it’s a fundamental change moving from TV to comics. That’s not what I see as fundamental to the story, but I couldn’t convince someone else to see it the way I do.

Fans are looking forward to the deluxe hardcover edition of Season 8. Any update on the release date? What special features might it include? Is Dark Horse considering publishing a Jo Chen artbook?

SCOTT: No updates. We’re doing that Tales hardcover first, to sort of warm up to it. Got the cover from Jo today and it’s amazing. We’ve got to put some thought into special features for the Season 8 hardcovers, though. There just hasn’t been the volume of supplemental material that some series generate. Comics sometimes are just designed on the page, a lot is worked out on the comics page itself, so there’s not the great behind-the-scenes stuff you get in other media. But of course we want to do something special, so we’re not rushing into getting them made until we can put our heads together. Right now our heads are very much focused on wrapping up Season 8.

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