
I get a little excited whenever the library gets in a new Joss Whedon-related title. New to the catalogue (not yet available so get your reserves on now) is MySpace Dark Horse Presents, a cool little mixed bag of tales from established comic artists and writers including Whedon, Mike Mignola, and Fabio Moon. I cannot claim anything approaching objectivity when it comes to Whedon’s work as I freely admit to an enduring love of everything that he has ever done, touched, or let’s face it, glanced askance at. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly…it’s all good. But fans of Whedon’s televisual back catalogue may not be aware of his comic book work.
One of the great things about the medium is it can give the author an opportunity to carry on, or flesh out stories that were begun in the television show without having to get studio buy-in or gather the actors together again. So if you want to know what happened to Whedon’s characters after the final episode, then you’re in luck. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly all have follow-up comic stories penned by Whedon (in particular the Firefly book fills in the gap between the end of the TV series and the beginning of the feature film Serenity) and what kind of a library would we be if we didn’t have those in our catalogue? Well, no kind of library at all, I reckon.

Fans might also be interested in this Bfm interview with Whedon. It’s from last year (so it’s not brand-spanking new) and it’s a meaty 20 minutes long, but it’s fascinating. In the interview Whedon discusses all sorts of things about being a writer and the challenges of working within a studio system. He also talks about the lack of strong female characters in films and his desire to offset that with the “super” capable women he creates.
He considers his work as “feminist” but admits to “gussying it up with fun” because “People don’t like bald statements. They like statements with lots of hair on them…” And you thought it was all about killing monsters, and lip gloss. For shame.
Oh, and he also uses words like “trope” and “ossified” which makes him a total word nerd in my book but still one of the coolest writer/directors in Hollywood.