My critique of BtVS season 8 so far
The following is a critique of the BtVS comic book "season 8". I'm not delving into interpretion of a sentence or a panel, i'm aiming for a more formalistic approach. Nonetheless is the following more or less a "rant", despite my best intentions to disguise it as something resembling coherent thought, aka Meta.
Over the last days my friends here on LJ (and Buffy related forums) exploded with ideas and insight into the inner workings of season 8. The following does not reflect all of my ideas, or possibly the more positive aspects of season 8 - it is a critique. It is sometimes harsh, but in no way, shape or form my last word on the comic books, in fact, it summarizes some of my issues with season 8 without outlining the things i like about season 8.
Many thanks go out to 2maggie2 , angearia , local_max , aycheb and beer_good_foamy who massivley influenced me to write this. You want more Meta for season 8? Go read their LJs. It is seriously worth it.
The art:
Jeanty is both a good choice and a bad one.
I like it that Whedon went against the Leni Riefenstahl aesthetics normally found in the superhero genre, deliberatly going for a more playful style (which is also what this is: playing around in the Buffyverse). I like that especially as it is an art statement about what's wrong with the superhero genre, and that season 8 does not want to go into that direction. There is an academic field exploring the superhero genre and widely critizising it, and although the superhero genre has grown in maturity over the last two decades it's roots are firmly planted in racism, misogyny, romanticism leaning towards fascism and class superiority ("Watchmen" is a great commentary on this).
But then, a character driven story about emotions which works with stills only - it needs expressive stills, and rich text. Jeanty's panels are not these stills, in fact, the same facial expression can and will be interpreted by the fans in so many ways as there are fans interpreting it. Where one sees manic, the next sees happiness, another one amusement and some even dismissal. Which works a bit against what i said in the "good" column, i presume: While this shall not be a typical superhero comic it is not convincing in bringing forth what it attempts to do (emotional resonance, character growth and an in depth exploration of the human psyche).
The text:
Is very hit-and-miss, often contradictory from one writer to the next. Evidenced by the fact that readers are confused if something is just off, or deliberatly off, or important, or to be dismissed in the speech patterns of the characters, even though most readers are intimately familiar with the characters by not only watching, but also analyzing 12 years of TV show time (7 years of BtVS and 5 years of AtS) of these characters. The rich subtext of the TV shows is hidden beneath the changing quality of the text and the inadequate art. Whereas the TV shows inspired an academic level of analysis the comic book requires large parts of the audience to either just go with the surface stories or a desperate need to "make sense of it all".
The pacing:
Postponing, thy name is season 8. The audience breathlessly awaits the next issue and the next and the next to get into the story, to decipher meaning. Combined with the long strech from the beginning of season 8 to it's end in terms of real world time and the continuing hints that the stories will carry over into season 9 - another 2 and a half year worth of streching - it not only becomes confusing, but also tiring. From the first issue to the current one, the audience dropped below half it's starting point (taken from the sales figures: around 110.000 sold copies of the very first issue compared to approximately 40.000 sold copies of the current one). A slow beginning, different plot lines got dropped (adding more confusion) during the run of the comic book due to pacing problems. Now, well into the last arc with only 10% remaining show time, the decryption of the overall story takes away from the all important exploration of the inner workings of the characters, their interaction with themselves and the world. A prime example is the unveiling of the antagonist of this story, "Twilight is Angel". To make this twist work, the last 4 issues - as well as numerous interviews by the artists - were needed to just get a starting point from which to participate in this specific story line. The authors of the story admitted that they needed to produce a "one off" issue to further explain as well as deliberatly leaving out story lines and character interaction which was build up to in the coming 10% of the issues.
The editoring:
I am not a professional editor and thus will refrain from harsh critics of a field i have no knowledge of. Suffice to say that fans counted a myriad of continuity errors, leaks and, what i call the "Pretty Woman syndrome" (this is to my knowledge the blockbuster film with the most formal errors - like clothing within the same scene, etc - to this day).
The plot arcs:
There are multiple interesting ideas found in season 8, well worth exploring but alas! with no time left to explore them. For me, here lies the richness of season 8, but also the shortcomings - so many resonating ideas, so few exploration, sadly. As an example, i'll name the "Harmony" story arc: The authors do a daring switch in whom the general populace of the Buffyverse admires as heroes, and whom it views as villains. This is a great story with rich metaphorical layers, grounded in the reality of our own world and lives. Vampires are, for most of the TV show, a metaphor for either inner demons the protagonists must overcome, or, on a more direct approach a metaphor for "inhuman humans", the individuals who treat their fellow humans as untermensch (murderers, rapists, imperialsts, sometimes mere selfish jerks - the vampire is the human without soul, compassion for his/her fellow human being). Now, society within the Buffyverse (or at least large and/or influencial parts of it) turn towards these vampires and set them up as the new social standard, the new image of the homo sapiens, an utterly destructive image of the human being: "homo homini lupus" has developed from a philosophical standpoint into a fully fledged ideology (everyone for himself; everyone against anyone). The real world parallels are convulsing. A story exploring a non-humanist ideology to which a lot of people subscribe in real world terms is certainly one i consider captivating (and ugly enough to create human tragedy - believe me, my grandparents made this tragedy happen!). Unfortunately, this extraordinary story line gets drowned instead of developed as the comic book drives forward, it succumbs to an irritating mish mash of destiny, prophesy, other dimensions, ascending into and creating new universes (as birth metaphors, no less!) and romantizism.
The Buffy story:
Due to certain problems i laid out in my previous reflection above, we don't know the exact nature of the story so far. A lot of my friends here on LJ made excellent observations which point to the themes of career/fame and trust/love and the illusions we have and create of these concepts. To explore these themes, the authors created - amongst others - "Twilight": the arc, the theme, the place and the character. "Twilight" plays off of S. Meyer's infamous "Twilight" saga (an utterly disgusting piece of contemporary pop culture drawing from some of the worst western ideology has had to offer in the last fivehundred years) which in turn plays off of Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". For a self proclaimed humanist and feminist like Whedon it is perhaps understandable to try to argue against such drivel. But then, BtVS always subverted the tropes of romanticism as played out in S. Meyer's books - the need to go back to that theme is therefore not driven by the narrative of BtVS, but rather by the present success of another wave of romantizistic pop culture. Which leads me to a reading of season 8 as a meta commentary on all of BtVS, it's tropes as well as the tropes it subverted while tying in to modern pop culture products in the form of novels, fantasy TV shows and superhero comic books. The narrative gets substituted by the commentary. Season 8 assembles all (former, potential) romantic partners of Buffy and comments on the current state of "Twilight" (the saga, the arc, the theme, the place and the character) through them. Unfortunately, all this is long explored already, especially in the fandom of BtVS in form of it's academic output. Whedon revisits a theme for contemporary reasons while he tells a story about stories - and the readership is lost without a narrative to follow.
In closing i want ot say that i don't want to diminish the joy others get from season 8 - in fact, the massively positive Emmie and Maggie keep my interest in season 8 alive.
Over the last days my friends here on LJ (and Buffy related forums) exploded with ideas and insight into the inner workings of season 8. The following does not reflect all of my ideas, or possibly the more positive aspects of season 8 - it is a critique. It is sometimes harsh, but in no way, shape or form my last word on the comic books, in fact, it summarizes some of my issues with season 8 without outlining the things i like about season 8.
Many thanks go out to 2maggie2 , angearia , local_max , aycheb and beer_good_foamy who massivley influenced me to write this. You want more Meta for season 8? Go read their LJs. It is seriously worth it.
The art:
Jeanty is both a good choice and a bad one.
I like it that Whedon went against the Leni Riefenstahl aesthetics normally found in the superhero genre, deliberatly going for a more playful style (which is also what this is: playing around in the Buffyverse). I like that especially as it is an art statement about what's wrong with the superhero genre, and that season 8 does not want to go into that direction. There is an academic field exploring the superhero genre and widely critizising it, and although the superhero genre has grown in maturity over the last two decades it's roots are firmly planted in racism, misogyny, romanticism leaning towards fascism and class superiority ("Watchmen" is a great commentary on this).
But then, a character driven story about emotions which works with stills only - it needs expressive stills, and rich text. Jeanty's panels are not these stills, in fact, the same facial expression can and will be interpreted by the fans in so many ways as there are fans interpreting it. Where one sees manic, the next sees happiness, another one amusement and some even dismissal. Which works a bit against what i said in the "good" column, i presume: While this shall not be a typical superhero comic it is not convincing in bringing forth what it attempts to do (emotional resonance, character growth and an in depth exploration of the human psyche).
The text:
Is very hit-and-miss, often contradictory from one writer to the next. Evidenced by the fact that readers are confused if something is just off, or deliberatly off, or important, or to be dismissed in the speech patterns of the characters, even though most readers are intimately familiar with the characters by not only watching, but also analyzing 12 years of TV show time (7 years of BtVS and 5 years of AtS) of these characters. The rich subtext of the TV shows is hidden beneath the changing quality of the text and the inadequate art. Whereas the TV shows inspired an academic level of analysis the comic book requires large parts of the audience to either just go with the surface stories or a desperate need to "make sense of it all".
The pacing:
Postponing, thy name is season 8. The audience breathlessly awaits the next issue and the next and the next to get into the story, to decipher meaning. Combined with the long strech from the beginning of season 8 to it's end in terms of real world time and the continuing hints that the stories will carry over into season 9 - another 2 and a half year worth of streching - it not only becomes confusing, but also tiring. From the first issue to the current one, the audience dropped below half it's starting point (taken from the sales figures: around 110.000 sold copies of the very first issue compared to approximately 40.000 sold copies of the current one). A slow beginning, different plot lines got dropped (adding more confusion) during the run of the comic book due to pacing problems. Now, well into the last arc with only 10% remaining show time, the decryption of the overall story takes away from the all important exploration of the inner workings of the characters, their interaction with themselves and the world. A prime example is the unveiling of the antagonist of this story, "Twilight is Angel". To make this twist work, the last 4 issues - as well as numerous interviews by the artists - were needed to just get a starting point from which to participate in this specific story line. The authors of the story admitted that they needed to produce a "one off" issue to further explain as well as deliberatly leaving out story lines and character interaction which was build up to in the coming 10% of the issues.
The editoring:
I am not a professional editor and thus will refrain from harsh critics of a field i have no knowledge of. Suffice to say that fans counted a myriad of continuity errors, leaks and, what i call the "Pretty Woman syndrome" (this is to my knowledge the blockbuster film with the most formal errors - like clothing within the same scene, etc - to this day).
The plot arcs:
There are multiple interesting ideas found in season 8, well worth exploring but alas! with no time left to explore them. For me, here lies the richness of season 8, but also the shortcomings - so many resonating ideas, so few exploration, sadly. As an example, i'll name the "Harmony" story arc: The authors do a daring switch in whom the general populace of the Buffyverse admires as heroes, and whom it views as villains. This is a great story with rich metaphorical layers, grounded in the reality of our own world and lives. Vampires are, for most of the TV show, a metaphor for either inner demons the protagonists must overcome, or, on a more direct approach a metaphor for "inhuman humans", the individuals who treat their fellow humans as untermensch (murderers, rapists, imperialsts, sometimes mere selfish jerks - the vampire is the human without soul, compassion for his/her fellow human being). Now, society within the Buffyverse (or at least large and/or influencial parts of it) turn towards these vampires and set them up as the new social standard, the new image of the homo sapiens, an utterly destructive image of the human being: "homo homini lupus" has developed from a philosophical standpoint into a fully fledged ideology (everyone for himself; everyone against anyone). The real world parallels are convulsing. A story exploring a non-humanist ideology to which a lot of people subscribe in real world terms is certainly one i consider captivating (and ugly enough to create human tragedy - believe me, my grandparents made this tragedy happen!). Unfortunately, this extraordinary story line gets drowned instead of developed as the comic book drives forward, it succumbs to an irritating mish mash of destiny, prophesy, other dimensions, ascending into and creating new universes (as birth metaphors, no less!) and romantizism.
The Buffy story:
Due to certain problems i laid out in my previous reflection above, we don't know the exact nature of the story so far. A lot of my friends here on LJ made excellent observations which point to the themes of career/fame and trust/love and the illusions we have and create of these concepts. To explore these themes, the authors created - amongst others - "Twilight": the arc, the theme, the place and the character. "Twilight" plays off of S. Meyer's infamous "Twilight" saga (an utterly disgusting piece of contemporary pop culture drawing from some of the worst western ideology has had to offer in the last fivehundred years) which in turn plays off of Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". For a self proclaimed humanist and feminist like Whedon it is perhaps understandable to try to argue against such drivel. But then, BtVS always subverted the tropes of romanticism as played out in S. Meyer's books - the need to go back to that theme is therefore not driven by the narrative of BtVS, but rather by the present success of another wave of romantizistic pop culture. Which leads me to a reading of season 8 as a meta commentary on all of BtVS, it's tropes as well as the tropes it subverted while tying in to modern pop culture products in the form of novels, fantasy TV shows and superhero comic books. The narrative gets substituted by the commentary. Season 8 assembles all (former, potential) romantic partners of Buffy and comments on the current state of "Twilight" (the saga, the arc, the theme, the place and the character) through them. Unfortunately, all this is long explored already, especially in the fandom of BtVS in form of it's academic output. Whedon revisits a theme for contemporary reasons while he tells a story about stories - and the readership is lost without a narrative to follow.
In closing i want ot say that i don't want to diminish the joy others get from season 8 - in fact, the massively positive Emmie and Maggie keep my interest in season 8 alive.