Casting rumours: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Access Hollywood has published an article where Glee's Heather Morris says she's being considered for the role of Buffy Summers.


Here's an excerpt:

“They’re considering me! I found out and I almost peed my pants ‘cause I was so excited!”

“If they make [‘Buffy’] when [‘Glee’] is on hiatus, I don’t even care what I do,” Heather laughed. “I can just run through the shot and do nothing – even if I’m not Buffy!”

I'm not a huge fan of Glee, but from the few episodes I've seen, Morris is easily my favorite part of it. She's odd, and her comic timing is really sharp. He character is dim, so I'll be interested to see if she can get Buffy's Spider-Man-esque witty banter down, but I'd be okay with her as the Slayer.

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the casting of the rest of the Scooby gang than anything else.

Buffy Season 8, Usagi Yojimbo and Spider-Man

I just finished reading the first arc of Buffy season 8 from Dark Horse, and I liked it well enough. I feel that the writing was quite good, and again than Joss Whedon has continued to develop as a comic book writer. I also like that the book is firmly rooted in continuity, and has continued with a quick-witted dialogue and fun. The art is passable, whith good renditions of characters, though at times, I found there to be a lack of dynamic action on the page. All in all, however, the book is a must read for Buffy fans.

Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo continues to be one of my favorite books every month. Every book is a little gift, in my opinion, and the characterization is always sharp and fresh. It is one of the great mysteries to me why this title continues to only appeal to a niche, when it is consistently excellent and has great re-readability. The recent arc has him poisoned and fighting through fever dreams, and maintains the high drama and grit and quality story telling I expect from Mr. Sakai every month.

I've also just recently started picking up Spider-Man again, catching the tail end of the "Back in Black" and leading into the "One More Day" arc. Following Civil War, I felt that I needed to mix up the Marvel books I was reading, dropping "Mighty Avengers" and with "Nextwave" getting canceled, I had some space to play with my pull list. Spidey seemed to be the character that had benefitted the most from the shakedown of Civil War, in term of storytelling" so I figured I'd give it a run. Amazing Spider-Man #542 has a black-costumed Spider-man hunting down the Kingpin in prison, only to unmask and give ol purple pants a humiliating beat-down in front of the crown of inmates. Peter's again in a situation where he's been pushed to his limits, and it's taken a turn for the darker. Especially nice work by penciller Ron Garney, who draws a very good fight scene.

That's all I got for now, but I expect to be making more regular postings again around here now that I've gotten a few technical issues sorted out.

Pride of Baghdad, Buffy Season 8

From DC's Vertigo line, I recently picked up a gorgeous hardcover edition of Brian K. Vaughn's "Pride of Baghdad". You might know Vaughn's other works in "Y: The Last Man" or "Runaways", but as much fun as I've found those two titles great fun, Pride of Baghdad was just: wow.

It's based on a news snippet from 2003, when in the initial attack on the city by American forces, a pride of four lions escaped from the Baghdad zoo. After that, though, everything is the writer's playground. Think "Lion King" meets "Watership Down" and toss it together in a bowl of current affairs, and you can start to get an idea of what Pride is.

And the art by Niko Henrichon was just awe inspiring. A Quebec artist himself, he really burst out on to the scene with his moody and dramatic offerings in this work. He'll be a big star, I've no doubt, should he continue to produce work of this caliber.

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I also had shipped this week the first two issues of Buffy Season 8 from Dark Horse Comics. I was nervous about this title, because even though Buffy-creator Joss Whedon is writing it, much of his previous work on Buffy comics hasn't resonated with me like the show.

Whedon has been working on "Astonishing X-Men" for the better part of two years now, and his comic-writing chops have gotten better with experience, and as such, The new Buffy comics read more like an episode, and fans of the show should be pleased that all the little quips and the timing that made the show so great read really well in the first two issues. Continuity is also a factor, and thus far it has slid easily into the gap it left when Buffy ended and Angel ran for one more season.

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There you have it. A pretty good week in comics for me, and from some unexpected sources no less.