Talk about Canon-Shafted!
As the HP fandom hunkers down in anticipation of DH’s release this summer, its fanfic writers are wondering what to do when all of their effort may become decidedly AU.
Well, let’s ponder how bad it could be. After all - we could all be writing about Buffy instead. The show ended in May of 2003, and Joss Whedon said: “Go and write fanfic.” So people did. Buffy has spurred one of the most prolific fanficdoms in existence. There is years worth of material covering the supposed season 8 and onwards by hundreds, if not thousands, of different writers. And as time went on and no major movie was in sight, everyone thought there was no way they could ever be canon-shafted.
Then Joss discovered comics as a medium for his work. The result - in March the official 8th season of Buffy starts coming out in comic form written by Joss himself. The opening four pages of the first issue have been shown at Dark Horse’s website, and just those four pages alone are enough to canon-shaft a ton of the fanfic out there.
I’m absolutely thrilled to get more official Buffy that’s written by Joss Whedon, and most fans appear to agree. But I’m sure there are fanfic writers who are highly distressed by it all. In fact, when I check the sites of my favorite writers, they seem to be purposefully ignoring it.
I suppose I’m trying to say it could be much worse - the HP fandom at least always knew Book 7 was coming. And we can take a cue from the Buffy writers if need be - so what if our fanfic is AU?
[On a completely happy note, look at how incredible Jo Chen's cover is for issue three: Willow. That's one beautiful, intelligent, spunky witch! And Jo Chen, in and of herself, shows that women can kick it with the comics big boys - go girl!]
Well, let’s ponder how bad it could be. After all - we could all be writing about Buffy instead. The show ended in May of 2003, and Joss Whedon said: “Go and write fanfic.” So people did. Buffy has spurred one of the most prolific fanficdoms in existence. There is years worth of material covering the supposed season 8 and onwards by hundreds, if not thousands, of different writers. And as time went on and no major movie was in sight, everyone thought there was no way they could ever be canon-shafted.
Then Joss discovered comics as a medium for his work. The result - in March the official 8th season of Buffy starts coming out in comic form written by Joss himself. The opening four pages of the first issue have been shown at Dark Horse’s website, and just those four pages alone are enough to canon-shaft a ton of the fanfic out there.
I’m absolutely thrilled to get more official Buffy that’s written by Joss Whedon, and most fans appear to agree. But I’m sure there are fanfic writers who are highly distressed by it all. In fact, when I check the sites of my favorite writers, they seem to be purposefully ignoring it.
I suppose I’m trying to say it could be much worse - the HP fandom at least always knew Book 7 was coming. And we can take a cue from the Buffy writers if need be - so what if our fanfic is AU?
[On a completely happy note, look at how incredible Jo Chen's cover is for issue three: Willow. That's one beautiful, intelligent, spunky witch! And Jo Chen, in and of herself, shows that women can kick it with the comics big boys - go girl!]