Exclusive Interview: Nicholas Brendon and Christos Gage SDCC

Last but definitely not least of our San Diego Comic Con coverage is this little gem of an interview coming right up. We have Buffy writer Christos Gage and actor/writer Nicholas Brendon talking about Buffy, Angel, Feet, Pancakes, Katherine Hepburn and there may have been some mention of diapers and sheep that landed on the cutting room floor. Maybe not, who's to say? The point is: We honestly don't know wtf happened here, but it is obviously whacked. Enjoy!

Thanks to Nick, Christos, everyone at Dark Horse and extra special thank you to San Diego for giving us a Hell of a time this year.

Nicholas Brendon & Christos Gage Interview Teaser

Look out for our final SDCC  interview tonight with Core Scooby Nicholas Brendon and Buffy main writer Christos Gage. It was a really weird time! DO. Not Miss. It.

Buffyfest's Whedonverse Schedule for #SDCC!!

San Diego Comic Con can be a wild and maddening place for any Whedonverse fan. There are too many fantastic titles at this point in the game - and the events for each one all overlap with each other, just to ensure our collective nervous breakdowns. Firefly panels crossing over with Buffy things…and now Marvel-verse screenings coming in to c-block as well! It can drive a con-goer insane.

Lucky for you, dear reader, we gotcha covered. With SDCC just a few days away, we finally have all of our interviews planned, dinner reservations handled and most importantly, the crucial event schedule in order! We made a special extra one just for you guys so you don't have to fend for yourself. Every little Whedon-related morsel should be on the below schedule. Check it out, pick and choose what is most crucial to see and kill the other babies. Wah!

Oh and Right Click the image below>Open in new tab to enlarge or print the high-res version! Good luck fellow SDCC attendee!

San Diego Comic Con Happenings!

We're gearing up for #SDCC! The schedules have been released and info is scattered all over the internetz. It can be very confusing! But don't worry if you're having trouble scouring for all of the fun to be had, we are here for you fellow con attendee. Look out for our full schedule in about a week which we promise will detail every. single. thing. No stone will go uncovered! And if you're not going, you can rely on us for live-tweets of course! Until then, here are but a few things to do for a Whedonverse lovah:

Thursday, 7/24/14, 6:30p.m. – 7:30p.m., Room: 24ABC
Experience the first live demo and walkthrough of the game Firefly Online: Bringing Back the Verse, as well as a first look at a new trailer. Fans in attendance will also get the scoop on many other elements of Firefly Online’s world building plus a chance to interact with the game producers. In Firefly Online, players assume the role of a ship captain as they hire a crew and seek out adventures, all the while trading with and competing against other players to try to survive in the Verse.

Friday, 7/25/14, 3:00-4:00 p.m. Ballroom 20
To prepare for its fall return at the new time of 9:00 p.m. ET Tuesday nights, Comic-Con International will be hosting a panel with all your favorite agents to talk about Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and "Marvel's Agent Carter"! Join moderator Jeph Loeb and Executive Producers Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jeffrey Bell, along with cast members Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Ming-Na Wen (Melinda May), Brett Dalton (Grant Ward), Chloe Bennet (Skye), Iain de Caestecker (Leo Fitz) and Elizabeth Henstridge (Jemma Simmons). Plus, learn more about midseason series “Marvel’s Agent Carter”, in this can’t miss Q&A panel that will take you behind the scenes and into the future of Marvel's live action television series.

Check out an autograph session for “Marvel’s Agent Carter” preceding the panel from 1:00-2:00 p.m. PT at the Marvel Booth (#2329) on the Convention Floor. Plus, on Saturday, July 26, meet the “Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” cast and Executive Producers for an autograph session from 10:00-11:00am at the Marvel Booth (#2329).

Saturday 7/26/14, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Hall H 
Marvel Studios President and Producer Kevin Feige and special guests will provide an inside look at the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe! No details as of yet, but speculation has been run amuck about appearances by some or all of director Joss Whedon and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo. Fingers crossed!!

Buffyfest Interviews Buffy's Tom Lenk!

At San Diego Comic Con, we had the extreme pleasure of chatting with Tom Lenk, who played "Andrew" on Buffy and Angel, of course. We talk about his one-man show, LGBT issues in hollywood, Comic Con and more! Check it out below. And if you want to see Tom's fabulous one-man show "Nerdgasm" in your area, make sure to tweet him here.

Thanks Mr. Lenk for taking the time out of your crazy Comic Con schedule!

Sorry to Interrupt: SDCC Edition

A big thanks to Ivan from everyone at Buffyfest for all the help with filming and editing (not to mention carrying and carting!) at San Diego Comic Con. "Thank you, thank you.......thank you." Ha! Well, you'll laugh at that last bit more after you watch the 2 short videos below.

Jayne Hats!!

We've always wanted to do this and at San Diego Comic Con we had our chance. Every time we saw a Jayne Hat, we asked the owner of the head that held the beloved Jayne Hat for a photo. Asking to snap a pic of someone's hand knit JH always sparked a fandom conversation. Of course, there were many, MANY more than shown below, but with all the chaos we kept missing our chances. "Oh! Jayne Hat!", Michelle would say...but there they went. Off with their fuzzy orange heads to the Dr. Horrible sing-along or to a signing at the Dark Horse booth or wherever. We'll get those guys next time. Until then, Jayne Hats!

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1. Jayne Hat Trio!, 2. Jayne Hat Crew!, 3. Jayne Hat! 15, 4. Jayne Hat! 14, 5. Jayne Hat! 13, 6. Jayne Hat! 12, 7. Jayne Hat! 11, 8. Katie in a Jayne Hat!, 9. Jayne Hat! 10, 10. Jayne Hats in Ballroom 20!, 11. Mother and Daughter Jayne Hats!, 12. Jayne Hat! 9, 13. Jayne Hat! 8, 14. Jayne Hat! 7, 15. Jayne Hat! 6, 16. Jayne Hat on a plane!, 17. Jayne Hat! 5, 18. Jayne Hat! 4, 19. Jayne Hat! 3, 20. Jayne Hat! 2, 21. Jayne Hat! 1

Buffyfest Attends Round Table with Anthony Stewart Head

San Diego Comic Con holds "Round Table" press events just prior to a show's panel, where members of the press can get face time with the show's stars. Bitsy had the fine opportunity to sit in at the Merlin Round Table discussion and interview the legendary Anthony Stewart Head. He of course brought it right back to the Whedonverse and asked ASH about Dark Horses' Buffy Season 8 comic, but this is chock full of Merlin too. Check out the Round Table in it's entirety below, with Bitsy's question around the 2:46 mark. So glad he filmed it and brought a little piece of the press experience to the masses. And ASH sure is smoldering!

Fantastic Fanart of 'The Joss Whedon Experience' Panel

Buffyfest reader and tweep krystyna (aka @hellotyyna) was inspired by our SDCC video coverage of "The Joss Whedon Experience" and created this super-cool drawing. How awesome? We love it! Thanks a lot for sharing, krystyna!

Exclusive Interview with Whedonverse Costume Designer Shawna Trpcic

All Whedonverse shows have their trademark clothing. Whether it be Jayne's infamous hat, Dr. Horrible's lab coat or Illyria's form after taking over Fred's body, the outfitting in our favorite shows help shape the personalities and create visual icons of each beloved character. Shawna Trpcic is the fabulous designer responsible for not only those items mentioned, but many more costumes in the Whedonverse.

Shawna was nice enough to meet with us right before her SDCC panel Costume Designers: Designing for TV Production on Friday morning at the Hilton Gaslamp, directly across from the San Diego Convention Center. Check out our interview below where we talk about all things Whedonverse style. For us, this was one of the highlights of the now historic SDCC 2010, where Whedonites and Joss himself ruled the weekend. Enjoy!

A big thanks to Shawna Trpcic for taking the time out of her busy Comic Con schedule to talk to us!

Buffyfest Interviews Marvel Man and Whedon Fan, Arune Singh

We're not done with our SDCC wrap-up just yet! We still have interviews coming up with the faulous Anthony Stewart Head, Costumer Shawna Trpcic, even more from the entire crew at IDW including Scott Tipton and Mariah Huehner, and the cameras turned around when Buffyfest was interviewed by Brian Lynch for a twist. Fun stuff. Look out for all of that next week in part two of our SDCC wrap up.

To kick the second part off, check out our interview with a Marvel Executive who just happens to also be a hard core Whedon fan, Arune Singh. This was shot right on the SDCC convention center floor by the Marvel booth, just prior to The Avengers announcement. Good times. 

How cute is he? Big thanks to Arune for taking the time to speak to us in the middle of Marvel chaos.

And below, in place of our (sometimes) usual fanvid Sunday, check out our Bitsy (who is 5) display his loot from Comic Con. Trust me when I tell you, he'd rather skip a convention-center-quality-meal than pass on a toy Tardis. Priorities, people!

Podcast Interview with Brian Lynch from SDCC 2010

Ready for the Spike comic? This next installment of our SDCC 2010 wrap up week features a podacst interview on the balcony of the San Diego Convention Center. There we spoke with the writer of the upcoming IDW Spike series himself, the very funny Brian Lynch. Proceed with caution, Spoilers ahead!







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Exclusive Interview with Scott Allie at SDCC 2010

Spoilers for Buffy S.8 and beyond:

A big piece of Whedonverse news coming out of SDCC this year was Joss Whedon's announcement that Scott Allie would be co-writing the tail end of Buffy Season 8. The World Wide Web's still a buzzing with questions about what this all means. We were able to talk to Scott minutes after the announcement was made right in the middle of all the craziness that was Dark Horse's booth at San Diego Comic Con. Scott elaborates on co-writing and also gives us some info on Spike, the Riley One-Shot, Season 9 and more.

SDCC 2010 Wrap Up Week!

At this point it's obvious that Whedon ruled San Diego Comic Con 2010 and we were so lucky to witness and share the whole thing...but we're not done yet! Coming up is our wrap up featuring even more secret details from all of the upcoming Whedonverse comic titles and interviews with:

Dark Horse editor and soon to be Buffy S.8 finale writer Scott Allie
Costumer to the Whedonverse, Shawna Trpcic
Angel:After the Fall and upcoming Spike writer Brian Lynch
Angel editor and writers Mariah Huehner and David Tischman
The one and only super-sexy Brit Anthony Stewart Head (eeeeee!)
and more!

Until then, check out our personal photos from Comic Con:

1. Michelle & Ivan on a Rickshaw, 2. Bitsy and Tara on a Rickshaw, 3. Joss Whedon & JJ Abrams Walking out, 4. Joss & JJ Panel, 5. Joss Whedon & JJ Abrams 2, 6. Joss Whedon & JJ Abrams, 7. IDW Booth, 8. IDW Banner, 9. Angel in the IDW Booth, 10. Scott Allie introduces Joss Whedon, 11. Joss walks out, 12. Joss Whedon signing, 13. Whedonverse Buttons Cloak!, 14. Michelle & Ivan at SDCC 2010, 15. Michelle & Tara at SDCC 2010, 16. Buffyfest at SDCC 2010

Buffyfest Interviews Whedon Fan at SDCC 2010

While at SDCC, we've been taking photos of as many of the gajillions of people we see in a Jayne hat as possible. After the Joss & JJ panel, we met up with Katie for a pic to add to this "Jayne Hat Compendium" and decided to do a quick interview about the panel we just saw, why Joss Whedon is awesome, and of course, the man they call Jayne's fantastic head wear. Check it out:

Video: Joss Whedon Announced as Director of 'The Avengers'

Here's the video of Joss Whedon being announced as the big cheese of 'The Avengers' after the star-studded cast was revealed on stage just a few hours ago. He looks so proud and excited, deservedly so.

Live Blogging the Marvel Panel

Ok, so at the exact time we were on line for Hall H someone got stabbed in the fucking eye, pardon my French, and I'm not going to lie: I got freaked out. There was chaos and gossip trickling down the long line and no one knew what to believe. Once we saw photos of the attacker getting arrested, I decided to talk to the SDCC green shirts who said the show *might* go on and if it did, it could be about 45 minutes late. Now I don't know why they would allow the panel to go on with blood still drying on the floor (hint: money already $pent), but we high tailed it to the Press Room anyway to check. Now we have learned that the panel is starting exactly on adjusted schedule and here we are. Actually, it's kind of peaceful in here.

Ok, here are the short panel details:

Chris Evans & Hugo Weaving are discussing Captain America. They're
showing clips. Now Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth & Natalie Portman &
Kat Dennings are here for Thor. More clips.

Uh Oh, Ed Norton Drama in the Q&A! The answer to that was "The Panel's
not over yet"

Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Fury, Announces in order:

Scarlet Johannson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.,

RDJ says "Inception was the most Ambitious movie of the year. But then I
thought, Marvel Studios is going to take all the top Super heroes? Most
ambitious movie I've ever seen!"

RDJ goes on: The most important thing was that we found someone to helm
this film that you'd approve of..our director: Joss Whedon!

Joss: [He sounds hoarse, must be all that partying he did last night)

I had a dream, and it was NOT THIS GOOD. These are The Avengers. My
dream team! A team more than the sum of it's parts! More than I could
ever dream of working with.

I'm going to blow it, I'm not up to it, I'm very nervous...I need your
love and your support (applause) thank you, I feel better. We're done,
take care, see you soon!

Will have the video up shortly.

Exclusive: IDW to Announce Illyria Comic

Jenny Frisson cover art for Issue 1

We're proud to be the first to announce that there will be an Illyria miniseries coming soon.  More details will be available at IDW's panel today but, for now, here's another part of the interview that we conducted with Mariah where we talk a little bit about the particulars from this forthcoming series.  The IDW panel will be today at noon in Room 8.  Come check it out.  Who knows what other news they'll drop?

Buffyfest: This is Dan aka Bitsy from Buffyfest here at San Diego Comic Con and it's just been announced that there's going to be an Illyria mini series comic and that it will be written by Mariah Huehner.

Mariah: And Scott Tipton.


Buffyfest: Unbelievable. And, unexpectedly, I'm here with her again (and certainly not just been standing here the entire time). So Mariah, let's talk about it. First of all, who is doing the art on the book?

Mariah: Elena Casagrande is doing it, the one whose been doing the main Angel series, but we're deviating a little bit from that art style so there will be a mix of different things we're playing with.


Buffyfest: And how many issues is it going to be?


Mariah: It's four issues.


Buffyfest: I really want to talk about Illyria. Who is she?

Mariah: Well, you know, that's kind of the question, I think. Up until now I don't know that we've explored that fully. I think she's a really difficult character to grasp. We're talking about a demon that, and I know this has been brought up a lot on the (IDW) boards, for instance, like is she really a gender because she burned out all of Fred's organs and questions like that. I think we don't really know. We have absolutely no idea, with a massive, old demon, if that really applies. I think it's a character who has fascinated me since she was created not the least because she killed Fred and that was a horrible, heart-breaking moment but also because she's so alien. I mean she's just so completely different from everyone else and it's unclear what her motivations are. She doesn't really know what her place is and she has all these different memories from different people floating around in her head. I think, it's been a long time coming that there be some big changes for her, there needs to be a significant arc between who she is and where she'll be and that's what this story will be tackling.

Buffyfest: Now usually arc follows a certain flow. Is this going to be like so many Angel character stories? Will it be a redemptive arc?


Mariah: I wouldn't say redemptive, but I think ultimately it does let her have some closure on some things that she hasn't had before, that's never been allowed for her character before because it's always been about how other characters relate to her and less about how she's handling things because it is so hard to get into her head. That's what we're going for in the story.

Buffyfest: Do you know where in the continuity the story will be taking place?


Mariah: It will be taking place around Issue #38 of Angel and then it will be in the same time frame so she won't be in the Angel book for a while but then she'll come back.

Buffyfest: Will any of the other characters from the Angel series be turning up?

Mariah: Spike will be there for a bit, he'll help her a little, Angel will be there a little and then, though, it's really Illyria, it's all about her and what's she's doing.

Buffyfest: Do you 'ship the Spifrillyria, the Spike and Illyria relationship?

Mariah: You know, not really. I think they are a really interesting friendship. Illyria is very strange sexually.

Buffyfest: Do we have a date for when the first issue is going to drop?

Mariah: November. It should be out around the same time as Angel issue #38.

Full Panel Video - "The Joss Whedon Experience" SDCC

Another day filled with the ups and downs of SDCC. The "ups" started with "The Joss Whedon Experience" panel and the "downs" come from the usual internet woes that have been plaguing San Diego (and us) with a vengeance.

Let's not focus on the problems right now, though, and just bask in the words of Whedon instead. Check out the video below from Joss's solo panel on Friday.

**And make sure to check out the surprise at the very end!**

Full Panel Video - Joss Whedon & JJ Abrams 'The Visionaries'

A bad WiFi connection at our hotel prevented us from getting this up last night, but now we're golden. Here is the first Joss panel of 2010 SDCC from Thursday in it's entirety. Enjoy!