Do you like the comics?

[Spanky]

Serenity comics: Couldn't have asked for anything better.

Weren't they prequels?

 

[The Ferg]

Weren't they prequels?

A Shepherd's Tale was. Most take place after Firefly actually.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

There is no simple answer so I shall break it down:

Angel After the Fall - IDW: Above average.
Buffy S8: It's been a while since I read this season and I remember that it was hard for me to adjust to comics (which I had never read) but I started off really liking the story and then Twilight came and I cannot forgive them for what they did to Angel. I'd say first half of season: Good; second half of Season: Fail.
Buffy S9: ehh, not very memorable... average?
Angel and Faith s9: The best comic title in the 'verse in my opinion.
Buffy s10: I'll be honest I couldn't get through it. I thought it had some decent plotting and story but it was so Spuffy heavy I skipped around alot and just caught up with reviews on them. I was not the target audience there.
Angel and Faith s10: Above average.
Buffy s11: Below average.
Angel s11: Epic and monumental fail.

 

[AndrewCrossett]

Yeah, if you read the comics you have to come to terms with the fact that Spuffy is the winner of the great Buffyverse ship war. (Not that they'll be happy for long, of course.)

One thing about the comics, at least post-season 8, that indicates less direct involvement by Joss is the rarity of major character deaths. And almost every dead character has been brought back in one form or another. Joss's "kill your darlings" philosophy of storytelling is no longer much in evidence.

 

[Mylie]

Yeah, if you read the comics you have to come to terms with the fact that Spuffy is the winner of the great Buffyverse ship war. (Not that they'll be happy for long, of course.)

Personally, that's not stopping me from reading the comics. I can enjoy them even if Spuffy is together, like I did with most of the issues in s11 and some in s10. But I'm not invested in the ship so if the seasons are Spuffy heavy, then there's a chance I just won't be interested in whatever's going on. Thankfully, season 11 had a lot that wasn't about Spuffy and I was able to enjoy it. In the end, I'd say I enjoyed season 11 a lot issue by issue (except for maybe 2/3 issues), but I was disappointed with it as a whole.

The only thing that can really turn me off for good is if I feel like the writers no longer care about the characters, and just care about the relationship. I did feel that way at times but I think s11 had some great moments for Buffy and Willow's characters so I think I'm good.

 

[Alittlegrim]

I don't like them as much as the shows on an emotional level. I think human actors connect a bit more strongly than drawings, particularly if that is what you are used to. That said, on a practical level I love the comics. Despite some shenanigans in Season 8, which Whedon has admitted to, it is great to get more stories in the Buffyverse and as a comics fan I appreciate the massive milestone of having a successful medium shift from T.V. To comics, with the majority of the fan base seeing the latter as canon. Something that has never really been done before.

 

[Monkey Pants]

I somewhat enjoyed what I read of them but there's just so much spuffy that I was put off lol

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

At it's best, comics allow creators to tell stories that you cannot tell in any other medium. At their worst, bad fanfic event comics. On average, "Buffy is going to the school dance with Angel, but already asked Spike! Will Buffy be able to juggle two dates at the same dance? Maybe with the help of Willow and her robot friend. Also Xander's Jokes." Darn, now I want Archie Buffy.

 

[thetopher]

Somewhat enjoy them with a pattern of diminishing returns. The more it went on the poorer it got.
Here's how I break it down:

Angel: AtF: Pretty good. Feels like a decent stab at writing a continuation of the TV show.
Angel: IDW. I remember them mostly being weak to poor but my memory of them is very spotty. Certainly nothing memorable.
Buffy S8: Great first half (20 or so issues) pretty terrible second half. Or basically; when they go to Tibet it gets pretty trippy, messy and skull thuddingly stupid towards the end. The last issue did have some promise.
Buffy s9: Mostly a snorefest and a bit of a struggle but with a strong opening arc and a decent enough ending. We shall not mention Dowling, Billy or Severin because they were all bland/meh.
Willow mini: Okay...ish?
Spike mini: yawn.
A&F S9: The best comic the Buffyverse had to offer. By a fair margin. Faith and Giles especially are given real depth. Not one story is a dud and it has a blend of new ideas and creative call-backs to the show (Morah demon, Drusilla made interesting again, Eyghon, Whistler)
Buffy S10: A promising start but then quickly becomes badly written tosh. Awful villains. Some of the plots are okay but Andrew, Willow and Giles are totally wasted. Spuffy is boring. Xander/Dawn is the only redeeming thing.
A&F S10: Kinda meh. Some promise but it never really amounts to much.
Buffy S11: BETTER. A sharper plot and some interesting ideas. The only disappointing thing is that the Faith/Buffy stuff is flat and underutilized.
Angel S11: A terrible waste of time and effort. Angel has never been dumber. This makes his Twilight-self look like a super-smart decision-maker.
Giles mini: Oh. My. God. It's worse. Truly dire.
Buffy S12: A decent enough, if underwhelming end to the series, but a simple plot and some decent character moments.

 

[katmobile]

Should've had another option
Sorry about that

There needed to be a few more in there like indifference and I liked some bits and not others. I'm not a big fan of first and second Buffy seasons but I love pretty much all the Cristos Gage stuff - A&F1, Buffy 10 and 11.

S8 - I hated aspects of it - Dawn being a literally giant pain in the ass really put me off although it pays off eventually, resurrected Warren - spare me!, There's some good stuff - the Faith arc, the one offs, Enemies at the Gate, but yeah the penultimate arc in Tibet and bits of the climax reading like bad fan fic I caught a glimpse of that went wtf and stayed away from the comics for years because of it, I liked the last two issues I liked the tragedy and the ambiguity of 'did Buffy do the right thing?' and the trying to return to normal.

Atf - it's got some great ideas including the Spike spin off set in this time - but it's plot is hard to follow at times and the artwork is bad - they make a lot of characters look ugly and that shouldn't be possible.

Other IDW - it some interesting ideas but some real wtf ones, I quite liked the spin offs even if they weren't brilliant, artwork still bad though

DH
Buffy 9 - I've mixed feelings about this unlike Tother I liked Severen I liked having a big bad who was misguided rather than evil and Simone was a nice foil to Buffy, I also liked Koh, Dowling's a bore but he's ok but hated the Duffy ship tease just...no, I liked Billy and Devon and Anaheed, I didn't like the Kennedy stuff or I read this before a lot of season eight so I started to hate her here, I really like the final arc and the Watcher comic from Xander's POV that lead into it. I think this was an experimental season that was a bit hit and miss it paled in comparison to...

A&F 1 (9) - I'd recommend this to anyone it's just terrific
Willow Wonderland - I liked this actually
Didn't bother with the Spike spin off
Buffy 10 - I see this as Once More with Maturity - it revisits a lot of notes from season six but shows how the chracters have learnt from those mistakes and it's about creating a space for yourself in the world as a grown up and it uses the main villian well too. It felt a bit more like a real Buffy season rather than some experiment with Buffy chracters - I loved the development of Xander and Dawn here, you get Xander owning his shit here
A&F 2 (10) - isn't as strong as one but it has it moments I loved Miss Lehane the undercover gym teacher and the Lost and Found arc and Nadira, I also loved Koh's attitude and struggle for forgiveness as contrast to others on the show.
Buffy season 11 - this is Buffy doing something new and it's great I love this and although some were disappointed in the reveal of the bad I wasn't, it's a shame the message got ignored

Angel (11) - it's a hot mess mostly but the issue with his family gives us some nice backstory and an intriguing question of just how things did go so badly wrong between Angel and his father plus his little sister us cute

Season 12 - didn't like the arbitrary dismissals of a couple of things built up over 10 and 11, sorry don't care about Freyverse, really don't like more pointless resurrection of a dead villian it's a major beef I have with the comics - stop it! I liked the last issue and especially what they did with Faith that was lovely. I like they left shipping ambiguous enough you can sail your own and I like that it seems to hint at a loving platonic Bangel - I think they need each other but can't lovers and that's a nice solution to it.

 

[Hunga Munga]

I genuinely liked The Scoobies living on in the comics and kicking arse ...even if the actual content was often not to my tastes .

I enjoyed After the Fall quite a bit . I learned to love Buffy season 8 . I found all the other stuff enjoyable, as a fanservice , but ultimately not up to the standards of the Buffyverse. Some of the big stories (eg Twilight , seed of magic , the Vampyr book etc ) didn't work that well for me .

I read them all , apart from Angel Season 11, just didn't fancy the basic premise .

Throughout the run I often felt a disconnect with new characters , that was a recurrent issue .

Having said all that , I was still sad to see that timeline wrap up .

 

[The Ferg]

At it's best, comics allow creators to tell stories that you cannot tell in any other medium. At their worst, bad fanfic event comics. On average, "Buffy is going to the school dance with Angel, but already asked Spike! Will Buffy be able to juggle two dates at the same dance? Maybe with the help of Willow and her robot friend. Also Xander's Jokes." Darn, now I want Archie Buffy.

If you're talking about the classic series or stories set pre-S8, I'm in full agreement, but if not, I find this to be a bit silly.

 

[The Ferg]

Somewhat enjoy them with a pattern of diminishing returns. The more it went on the poorer it got.
Here's how I break it down:

Angel: AtF: Pretty good. Feels like a decent stab at writing a continuation of the TV show.
Angel: IDW. I remember them mostly being weak to poor but my memory of them is very spotty. Certainly nothing memorable.
Buffy S8: Great first half (20 or so issues) pretty terrible second half. Or basically; when they go to Tibet it gets pretty trippy, messy and skull thuddingly stupid towards the end. The last issue did have some promise.
Buffy s9: Mostly a snorefest and a bit of a struggle but with a strong opening arc and a decent enough ending. We shall not mention Dowling, Billy or Severin because they were all bland/meh.
Willow mini: Okay...ish?
Spike mini: yawn.
A&F S9: The best comic the Buffyverse had to offer. By a fair margin. Faith and Giles especially are given real depth. Not one story is a dud and it has a blend of new ideas and creative call-backs to the show (Morah demon, Drusilla made interesting again, Eyghon, Whistler)
Buffy S10: A promising start but then quickly becomes badly written tosh. Awful villains. Some of the plots are okay but Andrew, Willow and Giles are totally wasted. Spuffy is boring. Xander/Dawn is the only redeeming thing.
A&F S10: Kinda meh. Some promise but it never really amounts to much.
Buffy S11: BETTER. A sharper plot and some interesting ideas. The only disappointing thing is that the Faith/Buffy stuff is flat and underutilized.
Angel S11: A terrible waste of time and effort. Angel has never been dumber. This makes his Twilight-self look like a super-smart decision-maker.
Giles mini: Oh. My. God. It's worse. Truly dire.
Buffy S12: A decent enough, if underwhelming end to the series, but a simple plot and some decent character moments.

I find BS10 to be quite a bit more enjoyable than you, due to the snappy dialogue, characterization and slow-building pacing (as well as being a Spuffy fan), but other than that, I completely agree. Well said.

 

[Kratos]

Couldn’t get into them. Didn’t help that I’m not really a comic book fan. They started off good imo, but I got tired of them after a while and stopped reading them. Too much supernatural stuff along with being too weird and confusing. Hard to tell the characters apart as well.