The Series
TV's weekly Buffy the Vampire Slayer was cancelled and perhaps rightly so, as it Seventh Season seemed to paradoxically run out of creative gas yet grow to an almost epic scale at the same time. But enough fans clamored with "What if...?" that Buffy creator and reigning master of the geek universe Joss Whedon responded with the 19-issue comic book series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, published by Dark Horse. Written by Whedon and other respected scribes, it picked up where the show ended, a global army of slayers now battling evil under the command of Buff, Giles and a one-eyed Xander.
Oh, and sister Dawn is now a giant.
Comic books know no real budgets and the schedules are more forgiving than those for film and television, and so this ambitious endeavor might be the ideal medium for The Slayer and her vast entourage. Then again, the show always crackled with personality, and so the performance of the actors can make a big difference. All have been recast for the Motion Comic adaptation, which adds rudimentary digital production values to the original comic book art, a faithful dramatization that could bring Buffy's latest story arc to an audience that tends to shy away from the local comic book store.
The Picture
The look is interesting, definitely not full animation, but certainly more dynamic than the similar Watchmen Motion Comic that some readers might be familiar with. Panels drift before us, a character might move through the frame, but without moving her arms or legs. A few after-the-fact visual effects have been introduced as well. It's more engaging than, say, the Ken Burns Civil War approach, panning over old still images, but the technique can also look weird, as when character's animated features seem to float above her face.
Quality-wise, the 1080i, 1.78:1 picture is generally sharp and brightly colored, although some of the lines in backgrounds in particular can flicker a bit. There's also hard ringing in soft glows, common in this medium, with stair-stepping in the essential line art, since we are seriously zoomed into the action at times.
The Sound
A typical scene can be pretty dry, heavy in the front speakers and unspectacular, despite the 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio channels available. The pulse quickens a bit when the music kicks in, but even this tends to emanate from the mains only. Little rays of sonic sunshine begin to appear soon though: the resonance of someone's voice, a supernatural bellow filling the room, some basic directionality to some flying debris. There's a lot of whooshing as we go from panel to panel, or when character "moves," so an A for effort even if the results are not demo-worthy.
The Extras
"Under Buffy's Spell" interviews Buffy fans famous and non-famous at the San Diego Comic-Con last summer, where the disc was originally announced. The Buffy Season Eight Motion Comic Test Pilot is a rough proof-of-concept reel with some significant differences. These run about five minutes each, in HD.
The Buffy Trivia Experience grills us on-screen via the remote control as we watch the series, with a mystery prize if we score really well at the end. We are also treated to a Season Eight Comic Book Covers Gallery, variants and all. The disc supports BD-Live, with the exclusive clip "Covering Jo Chen," about the artist.
The second disc, a standard-definition DVD, includes the entire series and all of the above bonuses (except BD-Live of course) but with the added ability to "Create Your Own Buffy Comic with Tooncast Studio" via DVD-ROM.
A nifty miniature recreation of issue #1 is also packed inside.
Final Thoughts
Joss Whedon is back and in top form, combining scares, season-long plot twists and richly realized characters spouting some of the cleverest dialogue I've heard in ages. Motion Comics remain a curious art form, but this is as close to an eighth season of Buffy as we are likely to ever get, so I say pop in the Blu-ray and let it spin its magic.
Product Details
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