Joss Whedon Speaks... and Other News

Again, apologies for not updating this every day. I was doing SO well! And then I really had to get back to work. Seriously, SOON I will be posting the table of contents to the Lost book. And whenever a cover gets done of the other book that I'm working on, I'll post that and talk about it, too.

But first, JOSS. :::love::: Joss spoke to Entertainment Weekly while he was at Comic-Con, and came clean about Wonder Woman, what it really meant to him losing that script, why he continues to come to Comic-Con, how things are going on the comics, and a bit about his new movie, Goners. Click here to read the entire article.

Speaking of which, Issue 5, "The Chain," was released yesterday, and my pal Crissy and I went over to our local comic book store to pick it up, and... wow. Like, wow. It's a standalone comic, and when it begins you're all, "Huh?" and by about halfway through the entire thing is coming together. By the end, you're speechless.

Highlight the paragraph below for spoilers, otherwise I'll put it in white so no one else sees it. More news below.

The comic doesn't actually feature Buffy in it, but instead focuses on one of the two decoy Buffys that have been set up to throw the demons off-course. The decoys are mentioned in the first comic (one of them is cavorting with The Immortal in Rome, and was the person we saw in the Angel episode, "The Girl in Question") and I thought it would be left at that. But this time we see something new, deep, and sad. We see what it's like for a Slayer to be called, to go from being a Potential to an actual Slayer. Sounds tough, you realize (like we watched Buffy do for seven years) the huge responsibility on your shoulders, and you want to excel. And then... you do, and you're chosen to be Buffy. In other words, a target is painted on your forehead. In the opening panels, this particular Slayer is killed, and the monster believes that he's killed Buffy. It cuts to a panel of someone looking like Buffy saying, "I never even met her" and I thought it was Buffy saying she'd never met the decoy, but it was actually going into the past with this Slayer saying she gave her life pretending to be the ultimate Slayer, and never actually met Buffy. It's seriously powerful stuff. I loved it.

I read this blog post yesterday and it's truly sweet. You hear all sorts of stories of celebs signing materials at conventions and the fans who talk to them. There are horror stories -- the fan who will NOT shut up and tries to bogart all the time of the celeb. Or the Creation conventions, with some volunteer who has WAY too big an ego shouting in your ear while you get the quickie autograph that you paid $75 for or something, so Creation can put it in their pockets and then pretend it's actually going to a good cause (them). Or the celebs who sign, have nothing to do with the fans and hurry the line along as if they're too good for the people who watch their show. But this one is truly sweet. Joss Whedon is a sweetheart, the fan is a true crazy fan, and you'll love it.

Remember Sark on Alias? That super-hot bad boy who was evil to the core, but you just wished he and Sydney would get together? He's coming to Heroes! Only... he's playing a Japanese kensei warrior. Huh? Well, I guess we'll be finding out more soon! Check out this hilarious interview with Masi Oka, who spills some of the beans of the upcoming season (no major spoilers in there that I can think of, just some teasery stuff) and who jokes that maybe if Hiro will always be unlucky in love, he can keep time traveling until he's got all of the women together in some sort of Big Love situation.

Hell's Kitchen was great this week. The later episodes of every season of Hell's Kitchen are what I look forward to, because he goes from being the world's biggest jerk to a serious chef who is trying to mentor a bunch of bright lights that he truly believes in. Last week's ousting of Julia was sad, and he hugged her and promised to send her to cooking school, telling her how impressed he was by everything she did. At this point he's no longer booting people because he thinks they're "donkeys," but because he thinks the ones who are left are just a little bit better. This week Jen went home. She was actually my favourite (can we just forget about the garbage thing? Thanks.) and so I was sad to see her go. I say that even though in the beginning I bet that Rock would be the one to win the whole thing, and he's still poised to do so. I just don't see Gordon giving the keys to ANYTHING (except maybe his hotel room) to Bonnie. When he asked her in the kitchen to yell at him and be aggressive, he looked a little too excited when she did... The thing about both Jen and Bonnie is they've made massive improvements in themselves over the weeks, whereas Rock seems to have plateaued. He was great when he came in, and hasn't changed much. But I think he'll still win the whole thing.