Thursday, July 29, 2010

Me & Joss Whedon During the Writer's Strike

Joss Whedon is brilliant.

If you have watched any of Whedon's projects in the past you probably know the above statement to be true. From co-writing (and winning an Academy Award) for Toy Story to creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, & Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, or his work on other's creations such as Marvel's Astonishing X-Men and Runaways, Whedon is always at the top of his game.

He's also the master of taking a failure in one medium and creating a cult classic in another. Witness the life of Buffy, it started out as a failed movie, was turned into a long running, cult classic television series that was a hit with critics, and now it's a several year long Comic book.

Now 2 of Whedon's projects are heading to your home. On October 12 Dollhouse Season 2 hits shelves on DVD and Blu-ray and on January 4th the 8th Season of Buffy does the same.
Dollhouse is Joss Whedon’s take on the ultimate identity theft and follows a cast of Actives, or Dolls, who serve as agents of Dollhouse, an illegal underground organization providing elite clientele with programmable human beings. Personality imprints allow Actives to temporarily become anyone or anything—the perfect burglar, lover, spy or assassin. When the mission is completed, memories are wiped clean. The all-star Dollhouse cast is led by Eliza Dushku as Echo (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tru Calling, Angel) and Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard (Battlestar Galactica).

The second season comes with several special features including a
retrospective with Joss Whedon and cast roundtable about the series. A gag reel and deleted scenes from top episodes. But probably the coolest, and most anticipated extra is the 28 page exclusive limited edition comic book by Dark Horse Comics.

In the comic, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, joined by longtime Buffy the Vampire Slayer artist Cliff Richards, take us on an intricate trip through the precise moment when the Active technology went global, and how the protagonists from Epitaph One and Two narrowly avoided death, and worse. Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen wrote the Epitaph episodes of Dollhouse Seasons One and Two, and currently write for the Starz series Spartacus. This is their first work in comics. Artist Cliff Richards has drawn more Joss Whedon-related comics than any other artist, including issues of Buffy Season Eight.
If you don't follow comics, you might be wondering what Buffy season 8 is, as the television series ended with Season 7. Well for the past several years Buffy, as mentioned above, has lived on in comic book form. This 8th season picks up after the destruction of the Hellmouth in the explosive finale of the television series, Buffy and her trusted friend Xander have relocated to a citadel in Scotland to oversee the thousands of newly activated slayers from across the globe. Using their new home as command-central in their fight against evil, Buffy and her allies lead these new slayers as they take on vamps, zombies and now the U.S. government who declare, in the wake of Sunnydale’s destruction, that slayers are nothing more than international terrorists.

Those comics have been turned into Motion Comics, in which the frames from the comic are animated and voice actors read the lines, instead of their being text bubbles. The
very first episode of the motion comic series is available now on the iTunes Store (www.iTunes.com), with new episodes available every week from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. iTunes episodes are available for $.99/$1.99 HD each, or with a season pass for $14.99/$29.99 HD and can be found at www.iTunes.com/Buffy. All 19 episodes will make their official debut on DVD January 4, 2011 which will include limited edition Jo Chen packaging and a collectible reprint of Dark Horse Comic’s first book in the series.

And if that's not enough
Jones Soda has created 6 custom themed “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” Motion Comic labels which can be purchased on their website. You can see them below:

As a big fan of Whedon I can honestly say I'm eagerly awaiting these releases.

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