A serious fandom question

[sombrefan]

What would IDW (or Dark Horse) have to do to get LJ users interested in the Angel comic books again?

Comments

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Produce a comic that actually meshes with the storylines, the characters personalities and the series continuity.

edited to add: and hire an artist who's read Joss Whedon's forward for Fray.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

For me, the most egregeous sin has been the terrible characterization of Spike, making him some sort of shmoozy pimp daddy instead of badass closet poet - I feel they've eliminated all signs of William in their Spike to the point where he's unrecognizable. This constant pairing him with scantily clad women is also deplorable; Harmony has been the only aberration in his lifetime of serial monogamy, so their characterizing him as some kind of womanizing manwhore is irritating, to say the least. They do Spike as if season 7 never happened, then pull out cock and bull plotlines to excuse their bad characterization. So, the only thing they could do is a complete overhaul - the whole time it was a Spikebot programmed to be an ass, while the real Spike has been locked up somewhere.

[cmdrsuzdal.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading the Angel comic about a year and a half ago at the end of After the Fall I think, mostly due to muddy art and confusing story, so I don't know what's going on currently.

There were specific things I was less than thrilled with (Gunn, Spike) but really it just stopped being fun to read.

A full-on creative team revamp with good word-of-mouth would probably bring me back.

[gillo]

This. Exactly.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

In addition to the common complaints about characterization and art, I'd add that I'd like a continuation of AtS that respected the complexity of the source material. Angel is a complicated guy.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Bring back the ambiguity and stories that challenge the characters and the readers with complex moral situations.

Look what happened today, Maggie. Took long enough, huh?

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

I would like to see good stories, for a change. Hm, no, i worded that wrong. Meaningful stories as opposed to just milking off a franchise "same-same but different".

[ladydorotea.livejournal.com]

Merge the verses between S8 and Angel, and keep being consistent so there is no question of continuity for one. If they can drag Joss into at least giving them an outline for the Angel-cast characters during the 'end of times' - i.e. period of time between the end of S8, through S9 and into Fray future it would be the best of course. Many would still deny it's canon - even with Joss' involvement but the continuity should be sufficient to make at least half of the S8 readership return to Angel title.

[rua1412.livejournal.com]

Stay in character with them??!!

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

Have to agree with what's been said: the story is unengaging, the characters out-of-character, and the art is just plain ugly. I kind of get that they seem to be influenced by the old EC horror comics, and that's a legitimate approach, but they have to realize that EC appealed to pre-teen boys interested in "gore and guts" while the primary Angel audience is women 20-50 more interested in the melodrama. Plus EC was put out of business half a century ago, and only middle-aged comic nerds are semi-impressed by your visual references. (And in my case, not enough to drop the cash on a monthly magazine.)

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

All of the above, and to add actually have someone look back over the real show to remind themselves of how complex the characters were in the series before launching themselves into writing them for a comic readership.

Oh and try and rememeber that there's a fair old number of females who would want to read these titles too, and that they're not all 14 year old blokes....

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Actually that would not be to hard at least in my case.

All I'd want is for them to hire an actual fan of the show, someone who knows all the source material, is a bit obsessive about it and sees the progression of character development on the show. + has a vision where it could go next.

Essentially I don't care if it's canon or if it matches with S8 or anything. But I like to have the typical humor of the show in it and I would like to recognize the characters. I also would like the same mix of drama, psychology and action that made the show great.

The things that have to go are:

woodden dialoge
faulty charactervoices and characterizations

[makd.livejournal.com]

ITA with what's already been said, except: I always thought BtVS characters were less complex than the characters on AtS, most probably because AtS was aimed at an older audience.

JMO, but, for me, comic book characters tend to be one-dimensional, whereas the longer formatted graphic novels allow for more depth of character. Consequently, IMO, BtVS is better for comic books; AtS might be better for graphic novels.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I do not know.

Probably the most radical solution would be to write something good.

[shapinglight]

Seconded.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Thirded! *g*

[shapinglight]

Not bending characters to fit the plot would help. Also, consistently decent art.

And no annoying OCs. Also, where DH is concerned, hire a better PR person.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Oh christ yes!! *g*

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Well, for IDW, I'm already interested again in their comics again what with #36 greatly improving the story in a single issue thanks to Mariah Huehner and David Tischman which leads me to have hope for the final arc. Also, the Spike series and Illyria mini-series I've always been looking forward to.

For DarkHorse, I have no idea. Maybe pretend that all of S8 was the fevered dream of a child in a hospital staring at his Buffy action figures, ala Silver Spoons, and start over? Other than that, I don't know how they would fix things to make me care about what's going on in them. Their characterizations aren't accurate, the artwork is awful, there are giant unexplainable plotholes, and the explanations they do give do not make any sense, so I just gave up. Even if they fixed those things in some miraculous way, I can't think of how they would move on from there to make me interested in reading anything else from them. If Franco Urru did the artwork for them and Brian Lynch wrote it, I might give S9 a chance, but other than that, I can't think of anything.

[lilithbint.livejournal.com]

here via sueworld2003

If they want to appeal to a comic book audience only perhaps they should just call it a reboot and never leave the high school.

If they want to appeal to fans who watched the entire series of both BtVS and AtS, or at least to me, then give the characters back all the development they made through the television series and not draw them like they were still teenagers.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I think the question isn't so much "Why aren't fans reading the IDW titles?" but "why should they?" The show's been over for years, Joss' involvement with IDW ended a few years ago as well, there's tons of other fanfic and novelizations and stuff out there, not to mention tons of other exciting TV series and comic books... Just because they bought the license doesn't mean they bought the fans' loyalty as well; that has to be earned. DH got it for free by sticking the words "Joss Whedon" on the cover; IDW have to do something exceptional. It's not enough for them to put out a comic called Angel and have it Not Suck, they need to make people go "Wow!" Adequacy is for franchises that already have a huge fanbase who are too lazy to stop watching.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

*hugs you* Thats the best thing I've read al day. :D

And of course I totally agre with every little bit of it.

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything that everyone else here has said, and to it I would add:

> Bring back the canon characters that have been dropped, sidelined, or killed off. Bring back Cordy, Fred, Lorne, Wesley, Doyle, Tara, Anya, Halfrek, Nina, etc. Keep Oz as a regular ongoing character instead of confining him to Tibet. Stop trying to replace our beloved TV canon characters with new ones made up by the comic book writers, especially their big fat Mary Sues. (Yes, Eddie Hope, I'm looking directly at you. I'd also look at Spider, except that I can't do that without vomiting.) Fanfic is wonderful for reading about the return of beloved characters, but I want to see them, too, and for it to be canon that they're all back. A comic book can do that without being dependent on the availability of actors, and the fans of those dead & missing characters would likely buy the comics, thrilled to have those characters back, and sales would thus be boosted. Again, fanfic is wonderful, but nobody discusses the fanfic stories, and I love and miss the episode discussions. Give us stories like the shows had, with the characters that were on the shows...ALL the characters.

And speaking of Tibet...

> Give the stories a normal setting. Like Los Angeles, or Sunnydale. One of the attractions the TV shows had for me was that the existence of the supernatural wasn't known by most of the population; it was hidden, like an undercurrent, in the kinds of towns and cities that most of the audience was familiar with. A few unusual locales every now and then is fine, but the 24/7 globetrotting to exotic places, complete with equipment and technology that NASA would envy (submarines, military helicopters, base station bigger than the bridge of the Starship Enterprise...come on!) Also, take that damn double-naught spy outfit off of Xander, and put him back in regular clothes. He looks like Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies trying to be 007 in that get-up.

Another help towards a normal setting would be the elimination of all those hundreds of slayers constantly standing in the background, posing and waving weapons but never saying anything. Yes, we know that there's now a bazillion slayers, but either give them personalities and something to do or get them the hell off the page!

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

ETA: It just occurred to me that you asked about the Angel comics and I veered off into Buffydom, but I think it'll still apply because I'm guessing that Dark Horse will merge the two series quite a bit.