IGN Interview: Joss Whedon
I'm not included the pictures, if you want to see them, click on the URL:
http://comics.ign.com/articles/769/769619p1.html
We sit down with the Master and discuss Buffy, Runaways, Serenity, Civil War and more.
March 2, 2007 - The modern master of nerds across the world is Joss Whedon. Starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then moving to Angel, Firefly and Serenity, Whedon has created some of the most memorable and brilliant original properties in recent memory. They're also cult hits. While Buffy and Angel were very successful, they still only reached a limited audience on small networks. Firefly/Serenity had an even smaller lifespan as the series only lasted 11 episodes and the movie wasn't exactly successful (though the DVD sales of both are doing very well).
Whedon's series and their spin-offs are deceptive. Buffy appears to be a mere story about a girl fighting vampires. Firefly/Serenity appears to be some sort of space/western crossover. To try and label these franchises in such a manner does them a great injustice. Buffy does feature a girl and vampires, but it's about love, friendship, life, laughter, death, happiness, hope, inner strength, sadness, courage and struggle. The same applies to Firefly/Serenity. These are stories about people and not simply concepts.
In comics, Whedon has accomplished much. Working on a futuristic take on Buffy, Whedon created Fray for Dark Horse, which was highly praised. The Buffy-verse has also seen multiple series, many in continuity and many not. Recently Whedon has been doing work for Marvel comics. Though his name is most associated with Astonishing X-Men, in April he will take over Runaways for six issues. Serenity has also found a small niche in comics with one mini-series published and another on the way some time towards the end of the year.
Recently Whedon has been working on two films. He was set to helm the Wonder Woman movie, a collaboration that was recently ended. He's also working on the mysterious Goners.
So why do a Season Eight for Buffy? Whedon has simply stated that there are more stories to tell. He initially toyed around with concepts and realized there was enough to really dive into. Being that Buffy is a very important (probably more than words can describe) concept to him, he decided to return.
The season will be broken into arcs, each with a different writer. Though he initially thought the series would run for 20 issues, Whedon has since revised his estimate to be well over 30. He's writing the first four issue arc as well as a one-shot in the fifth issue. Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Runaways) will be taking over after that. Whedon will return for various stories and arcs throughout the season, particularly to end the entire storyline.
As far as the popular characters go, Whedon has plans for all of them. Spike and Angel will definitely be returning, though will be used sparingly and when the storyline makes sense. Whedon has also said that characters that moved or "lived" within Angel will stay there unless it's absolutely necessary. The rest of the cast will be slowly introduced as it makes sense.
The series ships on March 7, 2007. IGN spoke with Whedon about his work on Buffy, Runaways, Serenity, Wonder Woman and the end of Civil War.
Editor's Note: Images throughout this article are from a variety of Buffy books published by Dark Horse comics. Not all of the art is indicative of what will be in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 (though some of it definitely is).
IGN Comics: The new status quo for Buffy and her companions removes them from every day situations and scenarios. They're in castles with decoys and whatnot. Did you intend to set that up or was it merely the direction of the story?
Joss Whedon: Um, both. I did start with that basic idea that they had left Sunnydale, but it was a very mundane storyline. I then had to shake myself loose from the show and say, "No, wait a minute. Not only are they in distant lands, but they are having an epic life." They are in a comic book. It's not a show and we can't recreate the day-to-day metaphor, but we can recreate the characters, concepts and emotions, and just put that on a grander scale.
IGN Comics: Do you think doing that will move the franchise too far from what made the show a hit in the first place?
Whedon: You know, I was talking to Brian Vaughan about his arc. Halfway through the conversation, because we were like, "This could be cool, that could be cool," and we said, "Wait. Let's just stop. What are we saying here? What do we need to say about Faith that we've never said before?" And these are the exact questions I'm asking when I'm running the show. So, I really don't think so… I think you need a certain amount of distance. You need to blow it up… well, most of all you need Giant Dawn, but you also need
George Jeantys is just doing a wonderful job. What he's doing an amazing job of is capturing the actors without slavishly trying to trace photographs. I can't say enough about what he's brought to this party. That's really the mission statement - yes, these are the people you love, but they're going to be interpreted, and George isn't going to be the only artist working on them.
So we're going to remove them a little bit from the actors. That's why we didn't do photo covers this time around. We need to take one step away. The opportunities are enormous, but the strict adherence and dictates of the show, where each episode had to be a certain moment in the life of an emerging adult, that we don't adhere to. We didn't hold to that in Angel either but that still had the same kind of ethos and people still responded to it.
Whedon: No, you gotta bring the goofy on… a little bit. The goofy is where an enormous amount of the fun lies. Like the show itself, the series will ping pong. It will go from Greek Tragedy to French Farce between issues and sometimes between panels. Having the characters just talk, just yak at each other, is just so glorious for me. I love their voices and that's always really fun. But Brian is doing the Faith arc and that's not without the darkness. Drew Goddard is coming in and he's not without the silly. It doesn't mean that each won't have some of the other, but yeah not a Season Six kind of comic. That would be pretty much all blacks with word balloons.
IGN Comics: Are we looking at a similar season structure to the show? Will there be smaller threats in each arc with one big bad guy readying for the big conclusion?
Whedon: Pretty much… possibly even more so than the show. I have certain dictates about what needs to happen, but I don't have dictates about when. So when a writer comes on, I'm interested in what they're obsessed with. What makes it exciting is that it's not just me, it's a bunch of people. In that I might say, "Well that feeds into our main story if we add a B-plot here or we do this," or I might just say, "You know what, just do your thing and I'll come in after with a few issues to keep the momentum going." Generally everybody is pretty responsive as to what I've set out as our mission statement.
IGN Comics: We've seen Buffy battle vampires, former lovers, demons, slayers, the government, a god, a sorceress and even evil incarnate. It seems like the only thing left is… well, bunnies. What's Buffy going to be up against this season?
Whedon: Well thanks for the bunny spoiler! Way to ruin it… yes, bunnies and midgets. Needless to say it's all about Anya, which is weird because she's dead. You know, what's going to be new… again, that's still something we're feeling our way around for. Obviously we've got much cooler looking demons… well, not cooler than Skip… nobody will ever look cooler than Skip. -chuckles- So obviously certain budgetary restrictions have been lifted.
Creating a resonate character in the comic book that isn't somebody people know from the show is something that's going to take some time doing. I've got some new characters in there just to broaden the scope a little bit, but to create somebody who's got the kind of juice that anybody who's been on the TV show has… that's not going to happen right away. I think that's going to happen when people are more comfortable with the comic book, when they live in that world. There are some people I'm introducing, some particular characters I'm developing, that are yet to come. You have to earn it.
IGN Comics: How are you managing the development of this as a season? Did you get all of the writers together at once and break down the whole book like you might with the television series?
Whedon: Well, that would have been fun, 'cause it would have involved beer. The fact of the matter is that it's hard enough to get one of them free. They're all really busy guys. What I did was write a manifesto for the basic arc points and sent it to everyone on the E-Web. I used the E-Web because I'm very, very hip and now. I will probably send updates to that. I've had a lot of different ideas. Stuff I've written has opened up different doors. Questions have gone unanswered. Other guys' arcs are coming in and people need to be informed that this is being done or that is being done. Then, as I come to each writer in turn, they can know what their playing field is.
IGN Comics: I'm curious about the writing staff. We've heard about Brian K. Vaughan, Jeph Loeb and Brad Meltzer. We've also heard Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Doug Petrie, Drew Greenberg and Steven DeKnight. Is there anyone else writing with you or anyone else you're seeking?
Whedon: I think Jim Krueger (Justice, Earth X) is possibly going to join us which is cool because I'm also a fan of his. If you put most of those guys, some of them will get too busy, for four issues, you've already got a hell of a long season, especially since I'm definitely going to be doing not just a four issue arc to cap the season, but a couple of arcs inside. I mean I already did a one-shot after I finished the first four. I just shot off a one-shot because I had something that inspired me. That could happen at any moment. It's like a hiccup; these things just come out.
Whedon: So far no, they haven't… it's almost as if they're busy acting, and what's that all about? I would totally be open to it but most of them probably don't even know it is going on. In fact, if I were to tell them something like, "Oh! Your character is doing this or that!" They'd probably look at me like, "Yeah… you know that was a part of my life that was over five years ago, right?" Then you feel small, so very small.
IGN Comics: So Brian K. Vaughan's arc is dealing with Faith. Drew Goddard is doing something in
Whedon: Um, not a lot, because I don't love to go into details and this is pretty far down the line. Brian and I came at Faith from a very psychological standpoint. We sort of found the story inside of that. It is a little darker, but I've read his first script and it's also hilarious. His Faith voice is, for a guy who's never written the show, he just swung and hit the lights. It was surprising, but exciting.
With Drew, he and I sit around and giggle about the things we'd like to do that are as silly as possible, and then our conversation calms down and becomes, well, if we took all of these elements, what does it actually mean? What are we actually talking about? Ultimately we get to, for us, as emotional a place as what Brian and I started out with. We work sort of from the outside in. Drew's will be more specifically centered around the continuity of the arc. Brian's is more of a side bar because people really do want to know about Faith. She's one they care about a lot.
IGN Comics: Skipping over to Runaways - Vaughan's out, and now the pressure's on!
Whedon: Dude, yeah! I read the last one yesterday and I was like, "Oh my God." I mean, he told me the arc and everything, so I could have some smidgen of continuity although it's not perfect, because I wrote the first one some four issues ago. So I sort of knew this thing was coming and was waiting for mine, doing the business of the thing, but then I got to the end of this one and was like, "Oh my God. I just read the last issue of Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona. I mean how cool… yet how sad.
IGN Comics: So what's the concept behind your six issue run?
Whedon: The concept is… the first thing Brian said to me was, "They really haven't done a lot of running…" So that stuck in my head and I pitched him, well as you can tell from the cover, that they're headed to
IGN Comics: Do you think you'll stay on after these six issues?
Whedon: No, no. I have a really definite arc. My thing was really that I wanted to really examine the concept of teenagers and children, and how they've been treated - what that means. I mean I'm having a great time writing it. It's different than anything I've written before. For me though, it's a bunch of super-powered kids so it's not completely different, but I simply just can't carry the load. I've got these six issues planned out. I have six more issues of Astonishing X-Men to write, and then I have to lie down.
IGN Comics: Your Runaways favorite character? Favorite moment in
Whedon: I think… I would say my favorite character… you know, every word out of Molly's mouth makes me happy. Brian just nails that "tweener" voice. Her logic is so her own.
Favorite moment… I think probably… the most amazing thing to me was probably the end of the first issue #18, when we saw the title of it being "Eighteen" and there was that quote about being 18. I knew the comic was folding, even though it was coming back, and it was extremely moving. Of course, the end of the next #18 wasn't bad either.
I would also single out the moment Chase appears to be dead and Gert starts to give him mouth-to-mouth and they start making out for two reasons. I never saw Gert and Chase as a couple in a million years and I thought that was awesome and secondly because Molly, when she sees them, yells out, "Bonus Life!" It was at that moment I realized not only how much I love the comic, but also how much younger than I am Brian is, because I would have never thought of that line.
IGN Comics: Shifting over to Civil War - We've heard repeatedly from Marvel that you crafted the ending. What did you contribute and why did you see it ending the way you did?
Whedon: You know, my first pitch was that, at the end of Civil War, Captain
Pretty much everyone has explained it. They had a bunch of endings and ideas. The one they pitched to me was the woman whose son was killed ends up breaking up the fight and I was sort thinking, "I don't really want to see the lady break up the fight. If Iron Man and Captain
So my pitch was that Cap outsmarts the armor, gets it off Tony, is beating the **** out of Tony, and then realizes, "Wait. What am I doing? This is exactly what he was talking about. He's a man with no powers. I'm a physically enhanced person, and I'm essentially taking this out on a man who is now basically a civilian." And that was it.
I think it was more the dramatic entrance. My long black coat and chiseled jaw - I had just had it chiseled down the street. I think it was the timing of the thing, coming in, hearing it, and just going, "Well, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah."
I think somebody said they had even talked about that ending before anyway. And then, you know, my work is done! And then I disappeared into a mist. Which I think makes the story more interesting than the actual contribution. You know, ultimately, I was hearing everything for the first time. I had the advantage of hearing about this before I started writing about them. "Oh! They've killed off some of my characters! I probably should stop writing them…" It was exciting and a lot of fun, but I don't really think I changed the face of anything. They knew what they wanted to do, they just didn't know how to get there.
IGN Comics: Are there any other Marvel properties that you'd like to work on at some point when you have the time?
Whedon: You know… I think my Marvel time is winding down. That's not to say there are no properties, but right now, everything is so connected that I can't get my head around it. Obviously this is doing great business for both Marvel and DC, and bringing out some of the best writing, is some of this enormous event stuff. Identity Crisis was amazing and spin a bunch of stuff - that's really cool.
But I kind of like it when the Hulk's doing his thing, and Cap's doing his thing, and you buy it once a month and get excited. Everything is so complicated that, you know, "Um… is… is Marrow?" and then, "Yeah we're using Marrow! She's part of the New Brunswig Avengers!" So you're like, "Oh! OK, great, nevermind, sorry!" I don't understand… And also again the workload.
There are definitely characters I like, but I have no idea if they're going to be dead, rebooted, Ultimated or be wearing a black costume by the time I get to them. I was going to pitch a Fantastic Four story, I did pitch it, saw what they were doing and said, "Actually what you're doing is cooler." I wish somebody had just told me before I wasted all this time, but this is a cool story, and I think my thing doesn't work in this universe as it's progressing. So, not to go on, but I kind of feel like, "Ehhh, I'll just play with my toys until they break… in about six issues… and then maybe it's time for me to rest."
IGN Comics: You're starting a new Serenity comic book series this fall. It actually takes place before the movie similar to the last one. Are you planning on doing any stories that take place after the movie?
Whedon: Ummm, it could happen. We came up with a story that we liked that was set before. Before involves Walsh and Book, and those are characters we're certainly not done talking about. In fact the thing is called "Better Days" for good reason. -chuckles- "Fewer Of Us Are Dead Days"… yes, yes it's a working title. I wouldn't rule it out at all, but [artist] Brett Matthew's work load has been rather large, as is mine, so we've both been sort of going, "Wait. Did you? I thought? Uh. Did you? Are we gonna?" So it's been taking a little bit longer than it needs to.
The last one was well received and sold well, and we certainly had a lot of fun doing it. I'm not pushing it hard about continuing the Serenity-verse in comics as I am with Buffy because I think the Buffy-verse lends itself in a different way to comics. I mean they are a super hero team. People in Firefly are not - very deliberately not.
IGN Comics: Wonder Woman. What was your take on the movie?
Whedon: My take on the movie was simply the story of somebody who saw the world with fresh eyes. Somebody who saw that the Gods were still keeping us down, even though they might have changed their names or become companies. And the world is horribly out of balance and not as good as it should be.
It was sort of her journey to understanding what makes us the way we are, because she wants desperately to help and be a hero. It was basically her journey towards becoming a human being, without which no heroism is truly worthy. So it was about the ability to stand up and do the best you can, and to learn about the strength that comes out of weakness, which is what I often write about... but I'm not going to be writing about that anymore. I don't honestly know what turned the studio off. They never told me, so I can't say what you can expect to see should they make the movie, because I don't know what they're looking for.
IGN Comics: What is Goners? What can you tell us about that?
Whedon: It's a supernatural thriller. I can't tell you much more than that, for the better reason that I'm very close to finishing the rewrite. I feel strongly that this film has a real shot. I would rather people find out what it's about by sitting through it.
IGN Comics: Thanks, Joss!
Whedon: Thank you!
Labels: buffy, the god that is joss
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