July 20th, 2012Top StoryGeeking Out About Storytelling with Joss WhedonBy Charlie Jane Anders
We were lucky enough to spend some time chatting with Whedon at Comic Con, so we asked him some geeky questions about storytelling. Here's what he told us. This interview was very kindly set up by Dark Horse Comics, so we tried to keep the interview pretty focused on the comics that Whedon is doing with them — including Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9, Angel and Faith, and some upcoming Firefly comics. But we also took this opportunity to geek out about comics versus other media, and the nature of serialized storytelling. You've said in the past that TV shows are a question, and movies are an answer. What are comics?
That kind of feeds into our next question. Historically, both TV and comics depended on the illusion of change. You were part of a generation that challenged that, adding more arc-based storytelling and actual change. Like, Buffy graduates high school, drops out of college, moves to San Francisco, and so on. Do you think that was a good move, in retrospect? Click to view It was good for us. It was good for the kinds of storytelling that I want to do. Is it good for all comics? I don't think so. Some things really should stay the same. Reed Richards should always have exactly this much gray. [Gestures at the sides of his head.] But um... You know, the problem is, when something goes on for as long as most things have, then they're just looking for any change. Either they reboot it, or they do something drastic, because they can't write the same thing over and over. I mean, TV shows don't run since the Sixties. Whereas some of these comics have. But with the newer stuff, the more graphic novel-y stuff, when you get a story that's just about the progression of the story, for me it's harder to dive in than when I know, "This guy is going to have this power and that's the thing." It's a different experience. And for me, I feel like comics — that sort of comfort food that I refer to a lot of recent TV as — I seem to want that from comics. You want the comfort food. A little bit. I want to see the costume. I want to see the power. I want to know what the sitch is. And from there, I like the comfort food... but there's a lot of exceptions. Like with the Luna Brothers' Girls, which was a book that I never knew from issue to issue what was going to happen. I just adored it. But when I think about creating comics, I think more in terms of, "Why are we coming back? What do I love?" Not, "What can I change?". When a character makes the transition from film to TV to comics, like Buffy, or comics to film like the Avengers, what is gained and what's lost in those transitions between media? Click to view Well, you know... A ton of stuff gets gained and lost, obviously. Every medium is different, you have to respect that. Let's use the Avengers as an example. The wardrobe — on the one hand, you absolutely have to respect what people understand as iconically that character. On the other hand, some of that stuff looks idiotic. You can't give Captain America the big swashbuckler boots that he has in the comic, because they look dumb. And so you're always looking for what you can pull. And one of the things I give Marvel a lot of credit for is, they're good at knowing, "This is sacred. This is something we can approximate. And this, we don't need."
In Season 8 of Buffy, I lost one of the sacred things, which is "This is about us." But I kept... I mean, I love Season 8. I think there's good stuff in it. But I felt there was one element that belonged in both [the TV show and the comics]. And with The Avengers, it was the same thing. The real question was, "Can I evoke the ethos and the feeling I had when I cracked that book every month when I was 11? And at the same time make a grown-up movie?" What would Buffy Season 20 look like? I think the real question is, "What will Buffy season 20 look like?" A little creaky. She's probably going to have some work done. Some Botox. You know... I am trying to think. She would be in her thirties. And believe me, there's a lot of stories to tell about that. Actually, it's sometimes easier to tell stories about people in their thirties than people in their twenties. So you feel that Season 8 lost sight of the relatability of the characters? A little bit. I was so excited by what a comic book can do that a TV show can't, that I lost a little bit of that thing of "What was sacred," what must go from one thing to the other. So this is kind of a weird question, and you probably answered it years ago. But why did you choose not to retell Buffy's origin in the pilot of the TV show? Why pick up where the movie left off? Click to view I don't like to tell the same story twice. Now, I repeat myself all the time. I have the same themes that I go to. And I have more than once actually written the same scene twice and then realized it too late. One time I caught it, and one time it aired. That was awkward. But I really don't... Once I've told a story, I kind of want to move on. And I didn't feel [like retelling it], even though not many people had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer [the movie].
And this was before everybody rebooted everything. This was before Ultimate Everything. And so maybe now, I'd go, "Oh, we'll just start again." Because people do that. But for me, I'm like, "I told that story. And I get bored." Do you think you'll go back to TV at some point? Click to view I absolutely hope so. I love TV, in a way that I don't love any other medium. But it's a huge commitment, and right now I just got out of a huge commitment. And I'm trying to figure out what my next one will be. So when Angel moved from IDW to Dark Horse, he crossed universes. Is there something about crossing universes in that way that turns someone evil? Well, you know, you just don't want to do it. You cross universes [and] first of all going through Security is hell. OK, and you usually get a horrible stomach. And the lag. It's really evil-lag, is what it is. So the most important thing for me, and I can't say enough — I thought IDW really did a wonderful job, and was also enormously gracious about the fact that for me, I just needed [Buffy and Angel] to be back on the same network. And then, for me, it was also like, if we're going to do that, we have to ring a change. And how evil he was or wasn't, or thought he was, is the cause of some debate — even among the writers. I'm not sure we agree. I'm not sure all of us could totally follow the story [in season 8.] Is that a problem? [laughs] Click to view Later on during Comic Con, we ran into Whedon at the Entertainment Weekly party, and took the opportunity to ask him just two more questions... Is there anything you can tell us about Dr. Horrible 2? Not a huge amount. Because we're still building it. And we don't want to give away the plot. And we're not even sure of the platform. People like Tom Hanks and Bryan Singer are starting to create webseries now. Do you feel like this is a vindication of your faith in that format? I felt vindicated the moment we finished filming it and I liked it. And other liked it, that was good too. And other people are doing it, that's fine, I guess. But I think everybody's got their own reasons, their own agenda, their own story to tell. It was important for us to do it on the internet. But what comes next — I'll be more interested in what the people with no established identities at all get to make than what we all can already make.  |
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