He says it's all canon? That's bull. How did he put it? I mean, he can't be unaware that Season 8 is said to be canon too, yet there they both are, two series in the same verse, who can easily contradict each other. He can't think it's season 8/the shows-canon, can he?
Chris Ryall says:
"From the start, we've submitted everything to Fox and Mutant Enemy for approval. And when we get that approval, in my mind, that has always meant
what we did was canon. I mean, it'd be folly for me to expect Joss to approve everything himself. But I also know that him getting involved more directly on After the Fall really got people to stand up and pay attention to a greater degree.
So when Willingham says Joss isn't involved in his book, he means he's writing them and submitting them for approval, but the story idea and script and dialogue come from him. When they come back approved, same as anything, that's canon to me. We're doing stories that pick up on elements following After the Fall, so
short of Joss Exec-Producing our comic too, I don't really see how these are anything but canon.
Angel might be appearing in Buffy now, but I'll be damned if they can use without a full crossover taking place!
Joss once said "anything IDW does is canon." [jokingly]
But really, to give an actual answer, the creator of the shows/characters never taps anything with his scepter and deems it canon or not"”that's for others to determine. Joss is a storyteller, so if a story suits him, he tells it. He never came to us with After the Fall and said "I'm here to make your stories count." He said (and this is more of a real quote than the above) "I see in Brian Lynch someone who could actually work with me to tell the story of what happens after Season Five ended." But he also told Brian to "use the fish," a character Brian created in Spike: Asylum. So by the strange transitive property of canonization, that means Asylum and other stories with are also thusly canon, and since continues to be in Angel for Willingham's run, that to me makes it all part of the same whole, whether Joss plotted the story over pancakes with Brian or whether Willingham came up with it in the Minnesota hinterlands.
in my mind, him not voicing anything to the contrary is also important. When we get approval, when we're not told "don't do that, Joss doesn't approve of that," it works for me the same way as word saying "go do it."
So all I do, knowing that this is very important to fans of Angel, is do my damndest to be true to established canon and tell stories that extend what has come before. From there, whether you go by "Mutant Enemy approved it" or "Brian Lynch and Joss Whedon broke bread together" or whatever other possibility, that's up to the fans to decide.
In other words,
yes, everything we're doing is canon."
