Joss Whedon

There’s room enough in the Whedonverse for both Firefly/Serenity Flans and Buffy/Angel Fans, in fact, we prefer it that way.

Polls, we don’t need no stinkin’ polls

A couple of weeks ago, Sci Fi Wire had a poll asking fans which project we’d like to see Joss Whedon do next. The choices were between another Serenity movie, a Spike Movie, or Wonder Woman. Why they left off Goners is still a mystery.

This lead to a flurry of fans voting their little hearts out, sometimes more than once, for the option they most wanted to see. It also resulted in a friendly rivalry between those wanting more Serenity and those wanting more Spike. The rivalry even became known in some circles as the Browncoats vs. the Blackcoats.

The term Browncoat derives from the series Firefly in which the characters Mal and Zoe fought in a civil war on the side of the Independents who wore browncoats as part of their uniform. Flans of Firefly/Serenity refer to themselves as Browncoats in honor of their big damned heroes. They’re called flans instead of fans due to a cute slip of the tongue by Nathan Fillion who plays the mighty captain on the show.

Blackcoat is a fairly new term deriving from a comment about the poll by a poster called Vampire with a Gun on Whedonesque who used the term Blackleathercoats to refer to Spike fans due to Spike’s trademark long black leather coat. It was later shortened to Blackcoats.

A more inclusive definition of Blackcoats includes fans of the entire Buffyverse or Angelverse, since not only Spike, but also Angel and even the Slayer herself wore black leather coats as well. Although, Ms. Summers, being more stylish than the vamps had an assortment of coats throughout the run of her series. Besides, a Spike movie just happens to be what’s currently most rumored about with regards to a return to the Buffyverse, perhaps as a starting off point from which other characters and their stories will follow.

In just a few short days there were more votes in the poll than Sci Fi Wire normally receives in an entire week. The activity should not have been a surprise to anyone, but apparently it was unexpected to the site’s editors who decided to shut the poll down due to the overenthusiastic voting.

That’s okay. We don’t need a poll to tell us that Whedonverse fans are among the most loyal and active on the ’Net.

Wear Both Coats

The Whedonverse Multimedia Project brings the world’s of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and now Serenity to those who may not have yet discovered them. We accomplish this by donating the DVDs to public libraries, military units, and charitible organizations.

Since the Project supports both the Firefly/Serenity universe and the Buffy/Angel universe, it can be said that we wear both coats.

We encourage fans to "wear both coats" too by supporting our campaign. That doesn’t mean we expect those who participate to love both universes or even to love them equally, just that you’re willing to reach out across the vast Whedon landscape to work together in order to spread the entire Whedonverse for others to discover and enjoy.

So, whether you are purely a Browncoat, purely a Blackcoat, or you wear both coats - you’re welcome at Whedonverse.org.