Customer Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Vol. 1: The Dust Waltz

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are two reasons that this graphic comic retelling of Buffy's beginnings as a Slayer: 1) it is based pretty strictly on Joss Whedon's original screenplay that the Buffy movie was based on, and 2) it is one of a number of superb Buffy graphic tales from Dark Horse Comics. For those who have exhausted all the Buffy and Angel episodes, and desirous of new sources of Buffyverse adventures, one can't do better than these comics. Many of them are scripted by Buffy screenwriters such as Jane Espenson. They aren't cynical and cheap attempts to rip off unsuspecting fans, but excellent stories in their own right.

Some people read THE ORIGIN and see a story remarkably similar to the movie, and others see enormous divergence. I see less difference in story than in tone, though there are a couple of hugely important differences. The two best known are the death of Merrick and the burning of the school gym, the latter referred to in the TV show and which appeared in Whedon's original script, but which was cut out for the shooting script.

The one difference in plot--and it is important one--that is more subtle is the frequent dreams that Buffy has of previous Slayers. In this story, Merrick has some trouble convincing Buffy that she is the Slayer until he mentions her dreams. Dreams play a gigantic role in the Buffy television series. In fact, the first time we ever see Buffy is in a dream she is having. Very nearly every episode has at least one dream sequence, and sometimes more than one, and the final episode of Season Four is almost all dreams. The brilliant thing about the dreams in THE ORIGIN is that it both contrasts Buffy with her predecessors and ties her into a long decision. She may be the Slayer, but she is not the only Slayer there has ever been. Also, by stressing the brute fact of being a Slayer--that you only become her as the result of another's death, and you will be the Slayer until your own--a sense of doom and foreboding permeates the story. Interestingly, we are not shown the moment when Buffy becomes the Slayer. I have always wanted Whedon to address that, explaining who the Slayer immediately before Buffy was. Also, I'd like to know why Buffy, who obviously was a potential for many years, had not been located before she had actually become the Slayer, and in fact was the Slayer before she was contacted.

The greatest difference between THE ORIGIN and the Buffy movie is tone and atmosphere. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, the movie, was a summer teen comedy. It overstressed the silliness of having a vampire slayer named Buffy, and focused entirely on the comic aspects of the story. The TV series was the genre-buster extraordinaire, being comedy, drama, horror, action, and soap opera all at once. The movie, however, is all comedy against a backdrop of horror. The graphic comic hints at the multilayered product the movie might have been had the studio and producers signed onto Whedon's vision. Instead of something unique and original, it was just another teen comedy with the quirk that the heroine was a bimbo cheerleader. Fortunately, Whedon was given the opportunity to correct a series of wrongs, with spectacular results for seven years.

It reads entirely differently than it performed in the movie - but it's exactly the same script.

This graphic novel version is fabulous. It's the script for the movie that started it all, done the way Joss Whedon obviously intended it. It's still got its good comedic bits, but the drama plays much better. The illustrators have depicted Buffy in her now most famous guise, as Sarah Michelle Gellar, though - oddly - they've opted to utilize the rendition of her first Watcher, Merrick, from his one cameo appearance in a flashback on the T.V. series instead of depicting Donald Sutherland from the film, where everything else is faithful to the movie.

"The Origin" is true to its advertisement: it's Buffy from the beginning, where she came to her calling at Hemery High, trained for her reluctant future role in life, first tested herself against a superior opponent, and prematurely outgrew her frivolous pre-teen youth to adopt a responsible persona. There are only minor changes from the film version, the most notable being that of the demise of Merrick, which makes more sense here than it did on screen, presumably because the movie altered Whedon's vision.

The best thing about this piece is simply the artwork. It's worth the cost for that, alone.

Enjoy the Buffy you never really knew, but only thought you did.

Christy Swanson was fine in the BTVS movie, but I'm so used to Sarah Michelle that it would be almost painful to watch the film after all this time. I like Buffy just the way she is now. So when I saw that Dark Horse Comics was bringing out a graphic novel version of the original story I decided to live dangerously and purchase my first Buffy 'comic.' I've stayed away from graphic novels, not because I don't like them, but because they are expensive for the amount of story one gets. But this looked like a good time to make an exception.

I'm not going to spend anytime elaborating on the plot. If any readers do not know the story of Buffy's entry into Slayerhood, suffice it to say that Valley Girl meets Watcher, discovers vampires, and kills same. With increasing aplomb. Buffy as Valley Girl is a bit more irritatingly mindless than Buffy as Slayer, but it's all in good fun. And, as all of us know, when Buffy grows up, she is as bad as they come.

Christopher Golden and Daniel Brereton have done a masterful job of the conversion of the original story line, with plenty of sarcasm, dry wit, and sight gags. And the art work is simply superb. If the comics of my jaded youth were as good I would probably never have switched to reading books. Joel Bennet is the penciller, and Rick Ketcham has completed the work beautifully with the help or Randy Emberlin and J. Jadson. The images are clear and crisp with a great deal of expression. Good stuff all around.

I still have a problem with sticker shock when looking at graphic novels but I have agree that the end product can often be worth it. Given what it sets out to be, this is a great gift or collector's item for the Buffy nut of your choice. Even if that nut happens to be yourself!

In the beginning there was the movie script of Buffy the Vampire Slayer written by Joss Whedon, that was turned into a rather campy movie version. Miraculously given a second chance, Whedon created a Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series that was more true to his original conception. Both the original movie and the two-part television pilot were novelized by Richie Tankersley Cusick. Now we have this collection of a three-part comic book mini-series that essentially revisits Whedon's original script in light of the current television series, which is truer to the original conception of Buffy that is in the original script upon which this graphic novel is based.

Follow all that okay? This stuff gets a bit confusing after a while.

You have to appreciate the idea of revising the movie so that it is more compatible with the television series in terms of the overall Buffy mythos. Writers Daniel Brereton and Christopher Golden do a nice job of making the parts fit. The artwork by penciller Joe Bennett and inker Rick Ketcham is more than adequate, although certainly not as stylized as I would really like to see in a gothic horror/high school comedy comic book. If you have only seen the original Buffy movie, you are not going to appreciate the revisions contained herein. These are for the fans of the current television show. We are legion.

Just like the title says, here's the Whedon-and-most-respected-company tweaking of the BTVS film into what would be now considered the true Buffy-verse.

It comes not in a TV episode, nor a film, nor a novel...but in the comic book, and somehow it feels like that's where it should have started. It fits this format perfectly.

A synopsis is pretty much unnecessary, as there are many noted above and below, yet the great thing about this little story is that it fleshes out the Buffy Summers character nicely.

In quick, deft images and dialogue, much of Buffy's pre-Slayer history is vividly portrayed. Family relationships, educational priorities, social ideologies...you get a fuller picture of the immediate pre-Sunnydale Buffy that dovetails precisely with the TV show.

I am finding that this universe created by Joss Whedon is one that can be entered in a variety of ways (TV, comics, novels...) yet maintain depth and integrity. I cannot think of too many other concepts that can manage that.

The absolute WORST thing about reading this tome is that now I have obligated myself to get ALL of them...quite a bummer, no?

As one of the people who thinks Sarah Michelle Gellar makes the best Buffy, this trade was a great way to start off my Buffy collection. This trade is made up of three issues, "Destiny Free," "Defenseless Mechanisms," and "Disco Inferno." In "Destiny Free" we meet carefree Buffy. . .okay, not so carefree, but the more Cordelia-like version of Buffy complete with careless parents. She is having dreams/flashbacks of past slayers and vampires, meets her first watcher, and stakes her first vampire. The artwork isn't bad, it isn't incredible, but it gets the story across. One qualm is that a lot of the male characters are hard to tell apart, maybe its just me but some areas are a bit hard to follow as if they crammed too much in one panel. The neatest thing about the first issue is where Buffy asks her watcher "they can't come in, right? Unless you invite them, is that true?" I think that line captures how it must feel to suddenly find out vampires are real -- I would certainly be concerned about whether or not they could pay me a visit as I slept. The next issue is "Defenseless Mechanisms" is very eventfull with Buffy trying to juggle slaying, school, and cheerleading. Merrick explains a bit of vampire history, Buffy deals with her nasty classmates, gets some Perrier water blessed, and sets out to fight vampires. We also see more of Pike. The ending is very sad so I won't ruin it. On to issue three, "Disco Inferno" where Buffy is still reeling from the end of issue two and already her so called friends aren't on her side. There's a dance, vampirey chaos ensues and finally we realize that all this is being told by Buffy to Xander and Willow over lunch. Aside from a bumpy first issue, the trade overall is very good and great for those of us that can't sit through the original movie without fast forwarding here and there.

Once thought to be legends only, they walk among us still, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the light of day. They were once ordinary people, someone you might see on the street, but something ... changed. Yes, they are fans of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the movie, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the long-running television series. Rarer even than those who claim to like both versions of M*A*S*H, these dual-natured Buffyites have longed wrestled with the inconsistencies that exist between the two. Writers Christopher Golden and Daniel Brereton, with the aid of artist Joe Bennett, decided to solve that problem in the comics.

The popular Dark Horse series of Buffy books proved the perfect place to build a bridge between Los Angeles and Sunnydale. Working with creator Joss Whedon's original movie screenplay, Golden and Brereton wrote a version of the movie that takes the inconsistencies into account: there are now many Watchers, instead of just one; vampires put their evil faces on when attacking and go *poof* into dust when they are staked; and Buffy looks more like Sarah Michelle Gellar than Kristy Swanson. Oh, and she finally gets to burn down her high school gym.

Fans of the movie will recognize many of the memorable lines -- "Does Elvis talk to you? Tell you to do things? Do you see spots?" -- but may be disappointed at just how much of the story was cut out. At a mere 80 pages, "The Origin" doesn't have room for basketball games, "retro" jackets and little kittens to snack on. Maybe it should have been a little longer. Otherwise, it does a good job of carrying the tone of the movie; Buffy is not yet so serious or angst-ridden as she will become in the series, retaining her So-Cal attitude and humor.

There are downsides, certainly: the Watcher Merrick, unfortunately, loses the wonderful eccentricity that Donald Sutherland brought to the role; Luke Perry's reformed stoner Pike never gets fully developed; and vampire minion Amilyn lacks the brilliant comedic flair of Paul Reubens. But I guess those are sacrifices we must make so that Buffy has room for a complete retrofit.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

First a confession--this is the first graphic novel I have ever read. As a Buffy fan in withdrawal, I picked it up at the local library. After all, there are no new episodes coming of either "Buffy" or "Angel." That said, I was favorably impressed by the novel. The style is very different from the Silver Age DC stuff I read as a child, but it certainly conveys a punch. I won't compare the graphic novel with the movie, although the general fannish concensus is that the novel is closer to the spirit of the series. At any rate, the switches between drama and comedy that characterize the series are here in the novel, although in abbreviated form (that goes with the genre), as are the power fighting scenes. The drawings have a terseness (the unfinished faces, for instance), but they get the message across. Buffy's transformation from airhead to Slayer, her jerk of a boyfriend, the shallowness of her girlfriends, and the impact of Merrick's sacrifice on her are well-portrayed. This may be the first graphic novel I've read, but it won't be the last.

The Good: -The art is all to the good. The graphics and color are clean and appealing, and Hector Gomez (who's been out of comic-dom for about 2 years) does a better job overall (IMO) than does Joe Bennet, who works on the main series (at least when it comes to drawing the guys... Xander looks too old and grungy in the main series).

-Brereton knows the series, and the characters, and really has a lot of affection for them. Brereton's main passion is a series called the Nocturnals, which he both draws and writes script for -- so he knows the genre.

-Brereton proposes several interesting ideas in the Dust Waltz.

-Giles niece ('Death Wish Spice') was pretty cool :)

-Lilith comments that 'no good has ever come from one of our Kind feeding on a Slayer' -- she cites the Master's failure as an example.

-And Lilith can show up again later, which is all to the good :)

The Bad:

Plot holes you could drive Oz's van through.

-Lilith thinks that the Slayer is dead, but also knows that 'her son' the Master is dead. The Master was killed BY the Slayer, so what's the Flum? Seems awfully weak.

The Annoying:

I appreciate that Brereton likes the show, and watches it with his family every week, but I became increasingly annoyed by the constant show references in this story -- some is good, too much is TOO much -- it stopped feeling like conversation from the characters and started feeling like the author saying 'See? I know the show!'

Logic jumps with nowhere to land. Some of the characters (notably Giles' niece) do some things that had no support in the story.

The Summary: -If I sound overly harsh above, that's only because I /am/ being overly harsh. I admit that, and I think I know why: I'm used to analyzing a Buffy story line ad nauseum and finding it essentially airtight -- this works fine with the show, because JOSS analyzes everything for airtightness too. This doesn't work on the comics as well, because while Joss signs off on the concepts, he isn't involved with the story itself, so you get holes, logic problems, annoying character things, and timeline goofs.

Brereton ain't Joss, and he ain't never gonna BE Joss. I can forgive him for this, because he really did do a good job, and if he, like all the script writers for the show, had had Joss there to go over the story, his story would have been as airtight -- the fact that Joss isn't there isn't his fault :)

Because the book /is/ good. The story is solid, and presents some fun ideas, even if they aren't strictly canon. The art is great -- both accurate (more so in some places than the comic series, especially with Xander) and visually exciting. The only problem I had with the Big Monster is that there wasn't ENOUGH of him -- Brereton /did/ do a good job of telling a legitimate Buffy story that we HAVE to see in a comic, because we could never really see it in the show... or in a Movie, for that matter. The characterization of the show's main characters (Scooby Crew et al., Cordelia, Giles) were all good.

Basically, if I take a step back from the comic and put down the magnifying glass that I usually pull up to go over an episode on the second viewing, than I really, really, enjoy the Dust Waltz. Your Mileage May Vary, so I'd suggest picking up a copy. :)

Ever since I read about this graphic novel I wanted to own it. While I thought the movie was decent, it paled incredibly to the wonderful Buffy show and I was anxious to see what writer Joss Whedon originally intended the show to be like. Unfortunately, when I actually got down to reading the graphic novel I was dissappointed.

Whedon is an excellent writer - there are times when his clever dialogue shines through, as well as his wit (I love how Buffy eventually destroys her foes). Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the adaptors. The story, as well as the art, feels incredibly cramped and rushed. I would have loved to have gotten to know characters such as Merrick and Pike, but the book seemed to be more concerned with advancing the plot rather than deepening the characters. It feels like an adaption, and not a true story on its own.

I do like the book to an extent, and am glad it exists. Still, reading this cramped graphic novel I wondered if just reading Whedon's original script would have been better.

P.S. Why were the vampires green?