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Firefly Lives - New Comics in 2008
gambit3 writes "'Serenity: Better Days' will be released as a 3 part comic in early 2008. The series is a step back in time to the early years of the Firefly crew, and the fledgling gang's turbulent attempts to cope with success after they pull off their first successful heist. It features the same creative team as Those Left Behind, with the story by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad, and Adam Hughes providing all three covers this time." Ironic, considering today's brand-new poll.
It is "ironic" because the comic book form received 0% of the vote in that poll, yet it's the only one we get.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
You only caught it on TV, right? When some episodes were dropped and played out of order? Go rent the series and watch it for real. I think you'll be surprised at what you missed.
I liked Buffy, I loved Firefly. I like comics. I make comics (okay not for a living thank gawd but that's not the point). The Buffy comics, in my opinion, are nowhere nearly as good as the series was. Could be pacing, could be the layouts (they don't help), could be the fact that one issue of the comic seems to cover a bizzaro combination of a quarter of an episode and half a season. Whatever it is, it's lacking.
So, meh. I don't want an artist's attempt at facsimiles of Mal and Jayne - I want more Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin. With shows like BTVS and Firefly, my enjoyment doesn't come from the script. The script is corn. My enjoyment comes from the actor's execution of that script. In comics, you don't have an actor giving a performance - you have a penciller (and then an inker, then a colorist) executing their impression of what they think the writer is trying to convey.
I hobby in comics, I've done bit parts in short films and web serials, I've made my own shorts - a great - or even a good - actor can make a passable pulp script a cult phenomenon. Anthony Stewart Head and Nathan Fillion are great examples of this. You cut down the creative team (as opposed to scale UP the creative team), and something gets lost in the process.
It's one thing to turn a comic book into a TV series or a movie - going the other way has always felt like a giant step backwards - not only do you lose the acting, you lose the cinematography and the editing, And even if all of that wasn't an issue, there's the fact that individual comic issues are as saturated with ads as a nuclear reaction chamber is with radiation - and with comics, the shift in visual style between comic content and ad content is even more jarring than it is with television ads or movie previews.
So, it might be good but as far as I'm concerned it won't actually be Firefly. If I'm lucky it'll be available in trade paperback by the time I'm finished with my reading list of comics that only exist as comics (currently plugging through The Invisibles as the spare change permits).
Also, the director commentary (Joss) for many of the episodes is great to listen to. I enjoyed 'Objects in Space' *more* after watching some of the hows and whys coming from Joss as the episode played along. It was really quite engaging.
/appreciate/ until you realize there were no cuts, no different cameras ... all one take. It was so subtle and well done that I hadn't realized what Joss was doing (had done) until he mentioned it in the commentary.
You can see the basis for the long opening continuous shot in 'Serenity' at the end of this episode - something you don't
Firefly, canceled before finishing a full season. Does that seem right to you?
Um, if you weren't aware, there was a firefly comic book already released years ago after the show but before the movie, that dealt with the timeline between the two.
The characters were drawn as the actors, and it was very well done, with a forward by Nathan Fillion.
Obviously not as good as the return of the show, but so long as the series makes profit off the air there is a chance it will return in some form or fashion.
Check it out
"I only speak the truth"
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Yeah, count me another one who never saw the series until the DVD, saw them in order, whatever. I found it hackneyed and corny. Space-guns that make laser sounds, but look exactly like period Western firearms? Every space hooker has a heart of gold, particularly if they work at the Heart of Gold in an episode called "Heart of Gold"? And what the hell was with that assassin dude in the last episode? ("Am I a lion"? What? I was as confused as the doctor guy. Who the hell wrote that shit?)
Space/western fusion could be cool, and is, but Whedon seemed to only combine the parts of space opera and westerns that were lame and didn't make any sense outside of their genre. And also - yes, we've all seen Gina Davis in "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and watched "Dark Angel." We know that crazy amnesiac chicks who escape from government facilities have always been trained as assassins. Was there anybody in the entire world who didn't guess everything about River's back story after the second episode? That person is an idiot, if so.
Hackneyed, predictable, cliched, generic. There was nothing about Firefly that ever deserved its praise, which is why it had one season and BSG's coming back for a fourth. Cowboy Bebop is still the best space western show out there.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Interesting characters like this was the entire point of Firefly for me. If you wanted a western, I can perhaps see why you were disappointed; I've never liked westerns.