TVSquad

In honor of our Buffy/Angel week of Retro Squad, it's only fitting that I finally give some updates on what's going on with each series with respect to their continuation in comic-book form. I'll throw in a little 'Serenity: Better Days' for good measure.

Let me warn you right now that I'll be revealing quite a bit about each series below. So, if you haven't read them yet or want to wait to read the books for any plot points, stop reading now. I'll be writing about the entire series of each, not just the most recent.

First up, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season Eight.

Add another television show to the list of those heading to the comic-book afterlife. The Jim Henson company has just made a deal with BOOM! Studios to create several four-issue series adapted from Farscape. The series of books will take advantage of webisodes that will be featured on SciFi.com, created by Rockne S. O'Brannon, the original series creator.

I know at least a few people who are huge fans of Farscape. It's one of those shows that, I have to admit, I never even attempted to watch. At first glance, I didn't like the idea of crazy-looking aliens and thought it would just be too, I dunno, silly to get into. I know -- this coming from a guy who thinks Buffy is one of the greatest shows ever. Now that the show is gone and sci-fi fans still speak longingly about the series, I keep thinking I need to get the DVDs (all four seasons are, incidentally, already available). Might make a cool Retro Squad series here someday, no?

It's been a while since my last review of a Buffy season eight comic, and since then there's been other developments in the TV-on-comics front (we should have a category for that). Rather than dedicate separate posts to this news, I'll round everything up here, at least this time around.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - season eight - Issues #10 & #11
These were stand-alone "episodes," unlike 'The Long Way Home' and 'No Future for You'. A few things are revealed here that help keep the Big Bad of this season in play. Willow has even more power than we could have realized in past seasons, and an unexpected person has a crush on Buffy. I really liked 'A Beautiful Sunset' (#11) more than any other issue, with a great moment where one of the main, masked antagonists is almost revealed. Classic Joss writing.

A new multi-part series kicks off March 5, written by veteran Drew Goddard.

What are you going to do? The Office, How I Met Your Mother, and even new shows like Pushing Daisies and Chuck are either out of fresh episodes or quickly running out. Well, you don't need to spend the "strike season" curled up in the corner of your bedroom crying through a pile of TV Guides, remembering the good old days when you didn't already know what was going to happen this week on House.

Television is alive and well, and even growing ... just somewhere else. Want to know what happened to Jack Bauer before Season One of 24? How about Buffy and the Scooby Gang after the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? More and more shows are expanding their horizons by telling prequels, sequels and even in-between-quels in comic books, or graphic novels.

(S04E09) "If you're good enough to fake a comic, you're good enough to be drawing your own." - Seth Marlowe

Numb3rs finally returned to form tonight with an episode that didn't quite make sense to me. When I think of the FBI tracking down a counterfeiting ring, currency comes to mind before comic books. Regardless, this was a great episode layered with an enjoyable and overly nerdy case, some mathematical explanation from Charlie (for once!), and some great sub-plots. It got even better though. Not only did Christopher "flux capacitor" Lloyd guest star, but the episode also saw a great turn from TV Squad's very own Wil Wheaton.

Geeks get treated pretty badly in the media. Thanks to the fact that most people who get above-the-line credit in Hollywood are anything but geeky, when a script calls for a socially maladjusted character, it's almost always a terrible caricature of true geek culture. For years little geeklings only had the likes of Steve Urkel to look up to and that's not right (believe me, Jaleel White, when the geek revolution comes, you'll be the first one guillotined).

The fact that I'm about to become the father of my own little geek-spawn has led me to start looking around the current TV landscape, looking for appropriate geek role models. I was surprised to find so many...

Warning! There be some mild spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk, because Hiro ain't here to turn back time. Plus you can click the images for larger versions.

TV Squad was invited to visit the set of Heroes last month, and it's just about time for the episode we saw them filming to hit the airwaves. Tonight's episode is the much talked-about Episode 20 'String Theory', where Hiro and Ando have journeyed five years into the future, and encounter "Super Hiro" -- who is basically normal Hiro with a ponytail, soul patch, Matrix-esque clothes, a flawless English accent, and much more control over his powers. However, something has gone wrong ... right? Because if he had total mastery of those time-bending and teleporting abilities, he could've stopped New York from going boom.

As we saw in the last episode, Hiro and Ando find some sort of mish-mash network of strings, photos, and more in Isaac's old loft, where Future Hiro has clearly set up shop and appears to be working out some problems with the timestream in a sort of A Beautiful Mind fashion. It looks like he's been charting connections between people and events, and I'm sure we'll see more of that. During our visit, we caught up with Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), Ando (James Kyson Lee), and Kaito Nakamura (Hiro's father, and Trek legend George Takei) while they were filming Episode 21 'The Hard Part', and we got to watch them at work and talk with them about their characters, the show, and what lies ahead.

Being a comic book fan sets you up for a lot of disappointment. For one thing, there seems to be a pretty direct ratio between the number of Atlantis Attacks crossover books you own and the age at which you lose your virginity (ahem19ahem). For another, our only portrayal in the media seems to be Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons and he is as insulting as he is completely and utterly dead-on.

The worst disappointment, though, is whenever some studio exec decides to "adapt" one of our mylar-enshrined treasures into some big or small screen entertainment. It seems that for every good decision made, there are ten disasters of the "nipples on the bat-suit" variety.

In recent years, movies have faired better than TV when it comes to adaptations, but there are a few gems to be had. The Five best comic book-to TV adaptations after the jump...

My femurs feel like they have been broken in several places and each step I take sends the sensation of broken glass into the soles of my feet. The odor of hordes of people still lingers around me, but I don't know where it's coming from because my clothes smell fine. Next to me, I have a large bag of various free things, half of which I don't need nor like (so much manga). You see, I have just spent the entire day at the New York Comic-Con. I shall share the story of my short Saturday with you, not just as a reporter, but also as a fan and a first-time convention-goer.

Upon closer inspection, I think the "hordes of people" smell is coming from my shoes. Ew. Convention feet.

(S06E10) Winter break is over folks, and Smallville is back with ... Tori Spelling? Yes, you read (and probably saw) that right. Miss 90210 herself has broken out of Beverly Hills and made her way to Smallville. She brings Clark yet another double L connection, playing snarky gossip columnist Linda Lake who tries to blow the lid on Lex Luthor and Lana Lang (butting heads with Chloe SuLLivan in the process), and Lois Lane thinks that OLLie Queen might be the Green Arrow. Leapin' lizards, there's probably a whole crate of extra Ls being ordered by the production team in order to keep up with everything.

So, with Lana still reeling from Lex's marriage proposal, she's hoping to "revisit her past" to seek answers. Which is female code-word talking for "I'm going to see if there's someone better that I might regret not going out with again, so just hang on for an answer." Of course, poor Clark has to read it on the Daily Planet gossip page, which makes me wonder whatever happened to Perry White and The Inquisitor. This sort of drudge is much more suited for their pages, not for the newspaper of Metropolis.

I've never had an easy time resolving the two sides of Flavor Flav. On the one hand, you've got Flavor Flav - VH1's resident reality buffoon who single-handedly set off a public debate on 21st Century minstrelsy. On the other, you've got one quarter of seminal hip-hop act Public Enemy - the revolutionaries who dropped "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" on listeners. Public Enemy's debut comic book from American Mule Entertainment doesn't make Flav any less complicated, but it does give us the opportunity to see him deliver a flying sidekick into the face of an enemy combatant.

Alan Moore, known to comic book fans as the writer for The Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and the recent Lost Girls, a tale about Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Wendy from Peter Pan and Alice from Alice in Wonderland stepping out of their fantastical worlds and engaging in real-life sex, will appear in a future episode of The Simpsons titled "Husbands and Knives." Moore figures into a subplot involving a new comic book store that opens in town and threatens to put Comic Book Guy out of business. The new store gets even more notice when Moore decides to pay it a visit.

Moore is a fan of The Simpsons, and the feeling is mutual: many of The Simpsons' staff are also fans of Moore's work. His graphic novel The Watchmen is considered by many to be the first foray into comic books aimed at an adult audience. Apparently this philosophical series of "Garfield" strips from 1989 came too late.

[via Toon Zone]

One of Canada's greatest TV exports, next to The Kids in the Hall, was Degrassi Junior High. If I've got my lineage straight, The Kids of Degrassi Street begat Degrassi Junior High begat Degrassi High begat Degrassi: The Next Generation.

The long-rumored Degrassi: The Next Generation graphic novel series, entitled Extra Credit, has hit bookstores in Canada, and while we can't be sure if national pride has taken over or not, Volume One of the series is earning raves from its young readers.

It's funny how popular manga has become in the last several years. And to think all I did was read Garfield and Heathcliff books. These days many people in the biz point to the Cartoon Network Effect on manga sales due to the increasing popularity of anime on the network. Thomas J. McLean, writing for Publishers Weekly, uses Bleach as an example. That particular manga was never a huge seller, but when the anime debuted on Adult Swim, sales of the manga began to soar. This is not true, though, for all comic books and graphic novels. In the case of manga and anime, the two often have a direct connection that makes it easier to move from one to another. American animated series based on comic books don't always have that connection, and the result is that a series like Fantastic Four, while popular, doesn't help the sale of Fantastic Four comic books that have no direct correlation with the television series. This difference, however, can work, as in the case of Teen Titans, a cartoon that looks nothing like the original comic books. The anime-style of that show probably doesn't hurt much, either.

[via Toon Zone]

Occasionally on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert reads an excerpt from his fictional fiction book, Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure, which features Stephen as the main character, Tek. The whole thing is a joke on Bill O'Reilly's 1998 novel, Those Who Trespass (O'Reilly clearly based the bad-ass TV journalist on himself). Well, Stephen's going to one-up Papa Bear because Tek Jansen's about to be thrown in the comic book world!

During Comic-Con, the Oni Press panel made their expected announcement about an upcoming My Name Is Earl comic and then followed up with the surprising revelation that they also want to work on Tek Jansen adventures. Talks are currently in process with Stephen and his writing staff, because they'll be involved in the project, right alongside the usual Oni team.

Exciting news for those who love Stephen and "crappy, Mary Sue sci-fi" parodies.