Buffy Breaks Up
After 5 weeks of reading & posting comments on the past two issues of Buffy, I've concluded that the show was able to cross audiences as well as genres, I never intended to watch the show, but I turned it on out of sheer desperation at a time when the airwaves were awash in propaganda & it sounded like a nice escape. I know at least one person who was told by his then-teenage son who became a fan. These were just two instancees, but the show spread not just by tv critics, but by word of mouth. People became enthusiasts accidentally; people became fans by word of mouth; a select but unusually diverse fandom came into existence.
But it's an audience that responded to very different interests & needs, and the show answered those audiences, sometimes within a single episode, sometimes from week to week, but pretty much everyone found something to enjoy to keep them watching.
Many quit watching the show on Angel's departure, because they were solely interested in Buffy & Angel, and some left because S4 lost them. Many left after Buffy switched networks because they wanted a return of the warm & friendly confines of the Scoobies, and didn't get it; many left after the death of Tara.
But there remained the possibility of gaining fans while some peeled away. The show will continue to gain fans through its run on Logo, and by dvd. There may even be fans who come in through the comics.
But while the tv show could address a diverse fanbase, the comics will increasingly be confined to those who enjoy the comics medium as such. Even tho' that medium grew in ways never anticipated even 20 odd years ago, and now spills over into movie-going public oriented towards action folms, in itself, it isn't a genre-crossing medium. Each panel has to be sketched & inked, each bit of dialogue penned on the page.
Buffy the comic simply does not and can't address the people who loved the show for the way it overcame & defied its own medium.
But it's an audience that responded to very different interests & needs, and the show answered those audiences, sometimes within a single episode, sometimes from week to week, but pretty much everyone found something to enjoy to keep them watching.
Many quit watching the show on Angel's departure, because they were solely interested in Buffy & Angel, and some left because S4 lost them. Many left after Buffy switched networks because they wanted a return of the warm & friendly confines of the Scoobies, and didn't get it; many left after the death of Tara.
But there remained the possibility of gaining fans while some peeled away. The show will continue to gain fans through its run on Logo, and by dvd. There may even be fans who come in through the comics.
But while the tv show could address a diverse fanbase, the comics will increasingly be confined to those who enjoy the comics medium as such. Even tho' that medium grew in ways never anticipated even 20 odd years ago, and now spills over into movie-going public oriented towards action folms, in itself, it isn't a genre-crossing medium. Each panel has to be sketched & inked, each bit of dialogue penned on the page.
Buffy the comic simply does not and can't address the people who loved the show for the way it overcame & defied its own medium.