Jo Chen's Got Talent

It shouldn't surprise most when I say that I'm a little disappointed with the Buffy comics lately. It's more the pace of the thing and this ongoing Twilight mystery that has me somewhat annoyed and left a little...empty. I will say that the last issue with the Buffy/Giles love (eww, not that kind) was a refreshing improvement. Check out Bitsy's Bearded Buffyfest Review for a more entertaining and coherent explanation of the greatness of the issue.

There is one thing I never grow tired of in regards to these comics and that is the amazing cover art of Ms. Jo Chen. The girl has amazing talent. Most times I get more enthralled by the Buffy covers than I do when I venture inside the pages. And as if I was blessed with a gift of my very own, Jo Chen was given the task of drawing the inside art of Dark Horse's recent ecomic, "Always Darkest" which includes a few panels of Angel. Yay! Oh, and it was penned by Joss Whedon, too.

Slayerlit recently interviewed Jo Chen and her intelligence, artsy sensibility and humbleness really shines through. Go here: http://www.slayerlit.us/interviews/interview23.htm

Also, don't think that Chen is only able to draw one awesome female super hero. Check out this amazing sketch of Wonder Woman and more of her stuff here.

Review: Tom Lenk's 'Last Minute Show'

Photo courtesy of Mike, as we forgot our camera (like dumbasses.)

It was packed at Don't Tell Mama's last night and my ears were already ringing from all the excitement before the show even began. There were a lot of familiar faces around; people we'd met at CSTS, people from DWNY, and fans of a certain blog I like to call home. A few minutes after eight the lights dimmed, the crowd hushed and yes, my fellow Buffyfesters, Tom Lenk was in the house.

Neither Tara nor I had any idea what to expect. How surprised I was when Tom started singing! I guess I should have figured that would happen, given that the joint was a piano bar and all but, well, it had been a "fire bad, tree pretty" kind of a day so the obvious may have been escaping me at the time. At the risk of sounding like someone's grandmother: quite a set of pipes on that boy! I had no idea our young Mister Lenk was so multi-talented.
So he sang a little song about how he kind of threw this show together while on a five hour flight. He's in New York auditioning for the Broadway production of "Rock of Ages" (which would explain said golden singing voice). More on that in a bitsy bit.

The bulk of the evening was spent talking about Tom's nerdy youth. He was a marching band geek and a fan of Cher (and Andrew Lloyd Weber). He suffered many the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that I and so many other geeks did. For the record I was a theater nerd whose favorite musicals were Les Mis and My Fair Lady. Don't judge me. [Tara's note: Hey, look, I wasn't a youth nerd but I still cracked the hell up at those geek stories...right down to the prom photo Tom showed complete with pubescent "crustache".]

In order to explain where his mind was at back in the late 80's and early 90's, Tom broke out some of the songs he'd written to describe his own personal trauma. Some were homages to Cher ballads while others were destined to be B-52's number one hits on the top 40. What really impressed most though was that, in the midst of all this funny, Tom really brought a deeply personal story. He talked about his friend, the one who got him through it all, who he went to homecoming with, who he wrote his songs for, who he visited in the hospital whenever she was sick. The friend that made him feel like he was worth something. The friend he lost. Tom, you broke my heart with that one, sir. I just lost a close friend so the moment felt especially personal for me. It was really poignant and beautiful.

Then Tom dressed like a German Star Trek fan, complete with mustache and hilarious accent. No kidding. It was amazing.

What else, what else. Oh! He read a bunch of actual internet forum posts written by teenage girls on Alloy.com back in the Buffy days, when he was hoping to be a teen heartthrob. We have a bunch of low quality clips from that so I'll let Tom fuzzily speak for himself there.

One last thing from the performance that we found hilarious was Tom banging a 23 year old Buffy fan and having to look at an "Andrew" era photo of himself during sex. Oh my god, seriously? Seriously! I would die. But honestly he's super hot right now. Is it alright for me to say that? Tom, you wanted to be a teen heartthrob well I may not be a teen but, if I weren't an old coot I would have totally swooned for you like a 14-year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. I'm just saying.

Tara and I got to speak with Tom briefly after the show and he is honestly the nicest. He was kind enough to sign a comic to be donated to the CBLDF (I'll post a link whenever it gets auctioned off). He actually talked to pretty much everyone there. The line was epic and we were about in the middle of it. When we spoke to him he hadn't even broken a sweat. Really, this boy is so good to his fans. I can't say enough good things.

So Tom is here auditioning for "Rock of Ages". Tom, if you're reading this, everyone here at Buffyfest is hoping you get it so that you will be in NYC. Everyone reading this should comment here or on Twitter hoping he breaks a leg because, for real and for sure, Tom is awesome.

Tom Lenk with most of Buffyfest. Thanks to Maria for this pic.

Thanks for the Memories

Buffyfest would like to send an enormous thanks out to our amazing guest blogger, JayUnderscoreZero. Your posts were fun, insightful and you helped us out a whole bunch! Just like the relationship of Buffy and Angel, we know you have to go, but there will always be a place for you in our Buffyfest hearts. Cheesy, but true.

Also, I wanted to give an extra special thanks from me for taking on the work during my absence. You were really terrific!
Love, Michelle

We have 3 extra reservations for Tom Lenk tonight!

Tom Lenk's Stand-up and Musical comedy show at Don't tell Mama tonight is sold out! But we have 3 extra reservations and we'll share them with the first 3 people who ask for them! Email us at Buffyfest [at] aim.com and we'll give the meet-up details. It's $10 to get in plus a 2 drink minimum per person. Cash only!

A bientot

Well, that's it from me, Jayunderscorezero, aka Michael, for now. My brief tenure as guest blogger over here at Buffyfest has come to an end and I just want to extend yet another great big "thank you" to my gracious hosts for letting me come on board.

Say, let's make this a bit more audience-participatory, shall we? Feel free to gush, laud and otherwise show your appreciation for the original Buffyfest bloggers here in the comments thread.

Review - Fallen Angel Omnibus

If ever there were a comic I would recommend to fans of Buffy and Angel, it would have to be this one. In fact, as rumors continue to circulate about a potential reboot to the Buffy franchise, I'm kind of shocked that Peter David's name has never been mentioned as one of the few who could actually pull it off. Not only is he one of the most prolific genre writers out there, he's also without question one of the best. He's written for Trek, the Hulk, X-Factor, and that's just on Tuesdays. I could go on but what I really want to get across to you is the following: Fallen Angel is one of the best works of fiction you will ever read and Liandra, the story's protagonist, will absolutely resonate with those of us who found a certain Slayer so compelling. Let's get to it.

What it is: The Fallen Angel Omnibus collects the first 21 issues of the IDW run of the Fallen Angel series. It is written by the aforementioned Peter David and predominantly illustrated by the fantastic J.K. Woodward. It tells the story of a guardian angel, Liandra (Lee for short), whose betrayal of the dude upstairs left her exiled on earth, specifically in the ultimate city of sin, Bete Noire, a city that's changing nature shapes that of the rest of the world. There she gets drunk nightly at Furor's and acts as a sort of final court to the dispossessed. She faces off against angels, demons, ghosts, and any other bastards foolish enough to take her on.

The Review: As I may have already mentioned, this book is kind of awesome. Without giving too much away I'll try and give you a little of the why here. Let me begin with the first five issues that appear in this collection. Here David weaves an excellent origin story that, combined with the heart-stoppingly gorgeous art painted (you heard me) by J.K Woodward, provides one of the finest first arcs you're likely to read.

The rest of the remaining issues tell the story of Liandra's son, Jude's, joining the ranks of the damned in the city of sin. His ascension to magistrate and subsequent rule over Bette Noire, are the major focus of the anthology. It is through his unlikely journey that we get to know Bette Noire and its many inhabitants and they are quite a cast of characters. You can meet anyone there from the Snake who tempted Eve to a potentially reformed Hitler.

But of the most interest to me and to Buffy fans as well will always be Liandra. Watching her go from completely unflappable to white hot vengeance personified will never get old. Unlike so many female comic book characters, she doesn't fall prey to ridiculously tight and revealing costumes nor is she a subject to the whims of her male counterparts. Like Buffy she's taken her responsibilities into her own hands and to hell with what anyone else has to say about it.

So should you buy it?: Well, considering you can buy it on Amazon for around eighteen bucks.... uh, yeah. I would say so. It's over 500 pages. Do the math and you'll discover that's precisely 500 ridiculous amounts of bang for your proverbial buck. If you have any doubts though, keep in mind that you can begin by reading Fallen Angel Reborn co-starring a certain blue ancient one. What was her name again? Illy-something or other? For more information on that you can check out our interview with Peter David here.

Sufficed to say it's an outstanding read and gets Bearded Bitsy's Pick o' the Month for things you ought to be reading. Right now. Well, what are you waiting for? Shoo!

Bump! Sarah Michelle Gellar is baking nicely.

Paparazzi shots!! Up top is Smidge leaving pilates and bottom image she's with her dog Tyson and mom Rosellen.

Images sourced from jfx images.

Just how many vamps can there possibly be?

I'm very wary of the fact that this may have already been posted on this blog and that I somehow missed it, which would make me a very careless blogger indeed for inadvertently reposting it. Still, just in case it hasn't come to your attention before, I present to you: Vampire Population Ecology.

Yes dear readers, that's right, some clever clogs (one Brian Thomas*, in fact) has taken the maths and science applied to analysing population sizes and changes and applied it to the vampires of the Buffyverse, ultimately calculating exactly how many there'd have to be in order to have a stable ecology (i.e. not die out and also not have a population explosion).

If you don't want to read the whole paper, there's some neat summaries at these two sites that link to the piece; the latter even throwing in a little dig at Twilight for good measure.

This is far from the first attempt to 'study' vampire populations, I know, but this is a fairly decent - and, hey, Buffy-centric - one.

Quite understandably, the study restricts itself to Sunnydale. No doubt at least partly because there was some much crazier stuff going on with vampire populations over in LA...


...and don't even get me started on the whole "the grandaughter will sire the grandmother" thing.

*I'm such a Buffy geek. I initially read this guy's name as Brian Thompson.

Hey NYC: Tom Lenk is in the House

He'll be performing at Don't Tell Mama this Wednesday, July 8th. We're totally going to see him in action. If you're going, see you there!

It's in the theater district. Go here to reserve seats in advance:

http://www.donttellmamanyc.com/reservations.php

fanvid sunday:friends are friendly edition

Having cleansed my personal need for venting about a certain network that shall go unnamed I figured it was as good a time as any to cleanse the palate with a video that's about the scoobies getting along and working together and just being in an upbeat place.



A head's up: this video only runs for 3:30 minutes but, for some reason, has a long blank spot at the end. Regardless, this new vid from KaileeA42 is very cute and just what the Doctor (he popped round in the Tardis to tell me so) ordered. Enjoy and, as always, Happy Sunday, Buffyfesters!

More crossover madness

Ok, I don't know why these have been playing on my mind so much lately, but here's some more ideas for crazy Buffy crossovers that I've been having; this time inspired by the world of literature.

Buffy/H.P. Lovecraft: Buffy may seem more suited to tackling slasher and monster movie cliches and turning them on their respective heads but I see no real reason why she can't also hunt down and dismember the eldritch horrors of the Cthulhu-verse and cheat both death and the madness that typically plague Lovecraft's protagonists. Plus, there's already a proven market for little ironic pokes and prods at Lovecraft. Surely you geeks out there are familiar with those "Hello Cthulhu" plushies, no? And I know for a fact that there're at least two H.P. Lovecraft/P.G. Wodehouse crossovers, so clearly Lovecraft's estate have a sense of humour about the whole thing. Could a Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover not be far behind? There've already been hints at a Lovecraftian mythology what with the whole the-world-was-once-overrun-by-giant-demon-monstrosities thing, and that beast under the Hellmouth didn't look too unfamiliar. Frankly, I'd be surprised if some very literary Buffy geek hasn't already written this one and I'm just currently unaware of it.


Buffy/William Shakespeare: It's no secret that Joss is a big fan of the bard and famously had the BtVS cast round for regular play readings. I'm almost surprised that he hasn't already referenced the guy directly by shoving Titania or MacDuff's ghost into the precedings (ooh, now there's a way that they could exploit that Scottish castle in the comics...by bringing in the "Scottish play!"). A lot of Buffy episodes even come across like Shakespearean comedies half of the time, with the love polygons, mistaken identities and magical spells of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" et al seemingly coming straight out of Twelth Night or A Midsummer Night's Dream. What with the fairies, witches and magical potions already present in Shakespeare, a crossover like this wouldn't be too much of a stretch at all. Hey, even Doctor Who has had a Shakespeare crossover or two, you know.


Buffy/Frankenstein: Yes, we've already had Dracula turn up (after all, as Joss pointed out, he is public domain now, you know) and yes, there's already an episode or two in the Buffycanon that owe a debt of gratitue to Mary Shelley's monstrous classic for their inspiration, but still, just try and tell me that you wouldn't be excited at the prospect of Frankenstein's monster actually showing up. Frankenstein's monster was last seen wandering around in the arctic, right? Ok, so imagine the scene...Buffy and pals go North after some vamps who are going in for a sort of 30 Days of Night deal and exploiting the months-long nights that regularly affect human settlements within the Arctic circle. Buffy at first finds herself a little out of her depth, but don't worry, because soon supernatural help arrives in the form of - drum roll - Frankenstein's monster! Since he's already a character in the Buffy universe, maybe Dracula could even show up again, giving us a little taste of the old Universal horror flicks that would ofte shove these characters together.


Buffy/Nancy Drew: Buffy owes a lot to the 'teens solving mysteries' genre, and wow, would I love to see Buffy pastiching the whitebread world that Ms. Drew and in particular the Hardy boys seem to inhabit, maybe even introducing a little much-needed supernatural horror (at which point they truly would become the Scooby Gang, I guess). Nancy Drew fans would likely have kittens, but I still think it'd be a laugh, no?


Buffy/The Brothers Grimm: I've already briefly mentioned that series that Marvel Comics did a little while back in which they had their characters appear in adaptations of various world fairytales, and I still think that it's the kind of thing that the Buffyverse easily lends itself too. Just imagine, Buffy, Angel et al as postmodern heroines & heroes, princesses and princes in a series of feminist fairytale reimaginings that, in true pre-Disney fairytale tradition, don't for a moment skip over the bloody supernatural violence inherent to a lot of tales. Both Hansel & Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood have had their mentions in the TV series, so there's clearly an undercurrent of fairytale sensibilities, I'd just love to see it get truly exploited some day.

Ok, wow, I really didn't think that I'd think on this anywhere near as much as I have. Still, any more ideas for literary crossovers that you can think of? There's a couple of blindingly obvious contemporary literary series that I haven't mentioned, but feel free to bring up them and any others in the comments.

An old 'fest picture

Ok everyone, ready to see me break with internet anonymity by actually posting a photo of myself on the internet? Ok, it's a couple of years old and I am wearing vampire-style prosthetic make-up, but still...
Just to prove that Buffyfests happen across the pond too, here's me at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer 10th anniversary night (March 10th, 2007) that I organised in Colchester, England. There were episode showings, prizes for best costume and general merriment all round (there's a somewhat more embarrassing pic out there of me doing the "YMCA" dance in that make-up; it's truly terrifying stuff, believe me). My friend and flatmate pictured above as Lorne won the fancy dress, quite deservedly, really. That green make-up took a lot of time and effort to put on. Plus it didn't come off for days afterwards, as I recall. Speaking of which, my shirt collar seems to suggest that I could have perhaps been a bit more careful with my make-up too; oh well.

There are dozens more pics, but my friends get antsy when I post pictures of them without their permission. Plus, this is the single best photo of the night to not feature any 'norms' (i.e. people just enjoying a normal night out at the club we'd appropriated, or more likely having been tempted by our aggressive PR to come and lurk). You'll have to trust me when I say that more than just the two of us did dress up though. There was a girl there who came as a scarily convincing Spike, actually.

A handful of games

Now, there are a decent handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer games out there, right? The console games are pretty ok although from all accounts the handheld games are in the oh-my-god-when-will-the-hurting-stop category. Still, what if one was really gaming on a budget? What BtVS games are there out there for free? A quick Google search will turn up a handful of fan-made flash games to experience. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Ok, first up there’s Be the Slayer, available here, amongst other places. Frankly, this thing is pretty horrible, largely because it’s so unbelievably taxing! You will have a sore clicking finger after about five minutes of this thing, if you even give it that long. The gameplay basically involves throwing stakes (?) at vampires who spring from out of graves and from behind tombstones, essentially making this a very simple kind of first person shooter. The problem? Those vampires are just too fast! If you don’t stake them the very moment that they appear, they will slash out at you with their claws (??), doing you a lot of damage. How on Earth they can reach you with their claws when you’re halfway across the graveyard and throwing stakes is anybody’s guess. Anyway, after a few attempts at this, all ending in your swift death, you’ll soon realise that the only way to beat the game is to learn the pattern in which the bad guys appear in order to pre-empt them appearing and slashing at you (!!!). Trust me, this is a game for people with a lot of time on their hands. Time that they don’t mind spending on horrible but mercifully short games. Here, let me save you the trouble of playing: this is the screen you’ll see most often:

Next up, there’s Chronicles of the Slayer by Chromeshark. This is actually a fairly fun little fan-made game that was clearly made with a lot of affection for the show and its characters. The game also features a couple of different game modes, multiple characters, weapons... In essence it’s like a simple, fan-made version of one of the console games. Still, the emphasis here is on simple, as this thing really could do with a bit more polishing all round and the gameplay is, once again, definitely going to end up hurting your fingers after about five minutes of play. Pressing Q, W, A and S in rapid succession in order to hack away far too slowly at wave after wave of vamps and other monsters is going to end up killing your left hand. Still, I can’t fault Chromeshark for his cute takes on the characters. With the artwork it seems as if he just deliberately decided to eschew realism and go straight for making things cutesy and, well, square.

Cute!

Chromeshark has several other flash games available at his website.

Phew! After all that I need to give my hands a rest. They are dog tired! Ooh, here’s a simple, relaxing little ‘game’ (or so it calls itself): Dress Up Buffy. If you’ve ever spent a spare second wondering what an almost-featureless Sarah Michelle Gellar decoy would look like in a series of blander-than-bland outfits, please, feel free to give this a try. Believe me though, it gets painfully dull after about thirty seconds. What’s next?

Ooh, it’s good to see that the BBC Buffy site is still around, and it includes a ton of quizzes and a couple of games. Well, one ‘which character should you date’ quiz, something that’s hardly exclusive to the BBC, and one simple Top Trumps game (that appears to be impossible to lose, might I add). It’s not too flashy, but I still have some affection for this site, so can’t find myself being even remotely harsh towards it.

Ok, now let’s see whether the Dark Horse Comics Buffy page has any...

Gahh!!

Eek; I’m never going there again. I’m really not in a hurry to see a super-deformed, ghostly pale ‘Buffy’ looming at me like that.

So, in summary, if your curiosity regarding free Buffy games just cannot be sated, I guess I’d recommend Chronicles, but you may need some kind of futuristic, high-tech prosthetic left hand before even attempting to start.

Buffy and Angel Comics: Vlog Review

Greetings and salutations, dear readers, old and new. Today is not only an important day in the 'verse but also for our little site. Forbidden Planet (my favorite comic book shoppe) has graciously agreed to include free Buffyfest inserts (read: awesomely smexy bookmarks) with the purchase of any Buffy or Angel related fare. These are some tasty hotcakes though, kids, so they be goin' fast!

In honor of our newfound readership and the release of both new Buffy and Angel comics today, we present to you Bitsy's Bearded Buffyfest Review! Please enjoy with Darjeeling.

Spoiler Alert below for current Buffy comics:



In conclusion: welcome once again to our new readers. Feel free to take a gander around this little site of ours. Since you are likely (like me) a comic book nerd, might I reccommend our recent articles with Peter David and Scott Allie? Go on. Click 'em. You know you want to.

P.S. You can follow Forbidden Planet on Twitter here

NYC Can't Stop the Serenity Recap

Can't Stop the Serenity in New York's East Village was definitely shiny! Bitsy and I had a fantastic time. There was dancing, there were prizes, there was of course, Serenity. From what I hear, the Browncoats of NYC raised somewhere around $6000 for Equality Now! This bunch really knows how to throw a party all while doing something amazing and important. We were very proud to sponsor and attend this sold-out event. Can't wait for next year!

Bitsy and I - Browncoat Style.

Buffyfest with part of the NYC Browncoat crew.

Fabulous door prizes and Silent auction items. There were so many prizes that many walked away with 2 or 3 gifts. And party favors to boot! Chinese food containers full of Firefly-esque charms and Serenity comics. Class.

Browncoats of NYC.

Buffyfest's twitter pal @_adair in a very Buffy-esque city setting.

Check out the slide show below with more great pics from this CSTS event. 

Oh yeah, and we got really, really drunk. Again.