Buffy: Season 8
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I am not a comic book girl. I've read Alison Bechdel, and maybe one issue of Tank Girl, but that's about the long and short of my comic book experience.
However, I love Buffy. For an eighth season of Buffy, reading a comic is the least I can do. That being said, please take the following review as the opinion of someone who knows quite a lot about Buffy, but almost nothing about comics. For a great feminist blog dealing with comics more competently, check out Girls read comics (and they're pissed).
The Buffy Season 8 comics, now sixteen issues in, are a "canonical" (meaning the story line, as well as the actual writing of some of the issues, comes from Joss Whedon) continuation of the television series. Buffy is no longer a lone slayer, but the commander of an international slayer army, with the help of Willow and Xander. Given that comics aren't budget or time constrained the way television is, the technology (and magic) used in the comic is much more intense than what was reasonable to do on the show, and the action takes place in lots of exotic locales (including the Scottish castle home base of the new and improved Scoobies). The characters, however, remain consistent with those viewers of the show came to love, and the dialogue, particularly in the issues written by Joss, is very familiar. These are definitely the same characters, with both the strengths and flaws they had on television.
But, of course, they are drawn, and they are drawn like comic book characters.



