My own self

I think I was ten. Possibly eleven. The globalisation and centralisation and all that jazz that we people on the fringes of civilisation (i.e. "people who doesn't live in, or within an hour's drive from, cities") blame all our problems on hadn't gotten particularly far yet, and thus we still had a video rental shop in my hometown. (Technically we still do - there's one shelf of DVDs at the Narvesen and three at the local gas station - but I'm talking a proper one, with an entire shop filled with nothing but videos for rent) On a whim, I think, and probably because I loved the book, I had my dad check out the first VHS with episodes of an animated series simply marked as "The Jungle Book". It was Norwegian-dubbed - except for the opening credits, which were in English, and the title-text on screen, which was French. As I grew older and wiser and realised the animation-style was Japanese (but not so old we had The Mighty Internet to answer All Questions You Might Have About Anything) I remember this utter salad of languages and cultures peeking through confusing me a little.

Anyway, I obviously liked it. Why else would I be writing this post? And so, some nagging was applied, and my dad rented me the next installment next week. And so it went. It quickly turned into a contract of sorts - if I was good one week, I'd get to rent the next installment next week. I was usually good, seeing as I didn't have a backbone back then either, so I liked this arrangement.

All good things must come to an end. I don't recall if it was the shop running out of VHS'es or if they simply didn't translate more of them to Norwegian - or even if the shop went bankrupt already back then - but somewhere about halfway through the show, I ran out of videos to rent one way or another. Since then, I've been looking for them.

A couple of years later, I found one for sale somewhere. The second VHS-tape, annoyingly with three of the episodes I'd liked the least on it. I bought it, of course, it was better than nothing, and for that decision I will forever be grateful, because in hindsight, the main plot on that tape is probably among the best the show ever had. It didn't have Shere Khan, though, so twelve-year-old-me didn't particularly care for it...

It would take many years before I found the next one - yes, literally the next one, it was tape number three. I believe I might have been fifteen at the time. The shop, of course, also had tape number two, but no other ones. Gritting my teeth at the combined luck and misfortune, I bought it, only barely wrestling myself to not buy their copy of the second tape just to have a backup for my own - and joy! It was an awesome collection of three episodes among which two were among the favourites I could remember from when I was younger.

This was all I would have for almost a decade, despite looking for these tapes wherever I went. True, I did whilst still in my early teens stumble over some German-dubbed episodes I hadn't even seen before on some channel - possibly Nicelodeon - that my grandparents got on their satelite dish. But seeing as I didn't speak German, it only served to tease me further. Two years after high school, however, I was nearing twenty years of age and had just moved to Bergen some months before. A video rental right next to where I lived was finally paid a long-postponed visit - and lo! It had Jungle Book-VHS'es. Three of them.

Tapes 2, 3 and 4.

I mean, seriously, at this point I figured someone was having a costly laugh at my expense. At this rate, I'd find them all by my 254th birthday, at that point having re-found that blasted tape number two seventy-three-thousand times. Asking the guy behind the counter if they had any more and getting an expected no, I rented tape number four, and went home to watch it. It was nice and all, but hardly Awesome. Not comparable in quality to the two I already had, and that wasn't just my by then incredibly nostalgic committment to those two tapes talking - these were simply weaker episodes. Still, I was just so happy to have found ANYTHING. I considered re-renting it to bring it home to my parents where there'd be two VHS-players so I could copy it - anything to not lose the thing again. But then the video rental apparently finally realised that nobody had sold VHSes for four or five years, and put their stock of such out for sale.

Miracles do still occur, you see. They're slimy and hard to spot, but they do occur.


Joy upon joy, I now had three tapes. Of the, what, fifteen or so I remembered. I never stopped looking for them online, though, but couldn't find anything in either Norwegian or English. Finally, I found someone who'd put the very first two episodes with English dubs out on YouTube. But that was sadly it.

But then! Out of nowhere! Some silly shop in Italy, of all places, decided to start selling them with Italian AND English dubs on. I had to pay through the nose, but this last December, for my own 24th birthday, I got the entire show.

It's in English, and as all Norwegians my age with a pseudo-geeky bone in their bodies know, English dubbing is on the whole horribly, horribly inferior to Norwegian. They never dare to actually act their lines, these English voice actors, and the few times they do it's so overdone it just sounds out of place. So, sadly, it was not as enjoyable as the voices I grew up with would have been by far, rewatching this.

But that's one laugh I'll let the trickster gods of fate have, and happily. I got to rewatch the entire show this December. All the way to the end that I never saw before. Corny voice work can't take that away from me. (Even Fox can't take that away from me, and gods know they've probably tried.)

I seriously never thought I'd get to finish this show. While the Dream of finding them with Norwegian voice work will probably still go unrealised, this is as good a silver medal as it gets.

So, what did I think? It was alright. Some plotlines and characters are really deep, and the show does a surprisingly good job (just like I remembered!) at staying true to Kipling's original work whilst adding a score of characters and nuances, and removing some of the really dark stuff. The save-the-environment-vibe of the late eighties is impossible to escape in this show, though, and this is very annoying. Luckily, you don't notice it much in the episodes without humans in them, and those are by far the best ones anyway. The score, the drawings and the characters are the ones I grew up with, and that probably coloured my imagination more than any other single thing I've ever experienced. (That includes Disney and Tolkien. I know. Freaky.) The ending is thoroughly unsatisfactory, by the way, but that's just like Kipling's own ending. I get the whole journey-to-manhood-thing. But who can hear the story of Mowgli and not wish he'd stay in the jungle at the end? Bah.

I have it now. The only feeling of joyous nostalgic closure that's ever come remotely close to this was when Wesley chose the lie and Angel decided he kinda wanted to slay the dragon. And I only had to wait for that one for five years. This took almost fifteen.

Thank you, Italy.

I have it now.

Best that's been of the entire series since the first one. Excellent story-points, no gratitous reappearances by unnecessary characters that have no actual function in the plot, the artwork was for once flawless, and there were several bits of both fun and deep emotion. If they'd all been like this, this series would've been as good as or better than the Buffy-series over at Dark Horse.

is a god of pretty, and should draw everything Whedon ever.

So, belatedly, here I am, giving my thoughts.


Hm. Increasingly, as Buffy Season 8 grows better and better and After the Fall by contrast keeps barely holding its ground, I'm looking more and more forward to the former and getting less and less excited by the latter. They're almost converging on the same level of interest right now.


I know, it's probably not fair to compare them like this. But it's inevitable when both shows get a comic continuation simultaneously like this. And it's not the point, either - the point isn't about Season 8 at all, it's doing what any good comic book should; getting better as it goes on. The point is just that After the Fall, yet, isn't.

After the Fall started out - in my opinion - brilliantly. But since then, it's... hm. It's neither met the expectations nor betrayed them. It's just kept them going. We're almost half-way through, now, and I'm sitting here feeling... where's the payoff?

There's new (and lots of old) characters, there's new plot-twists, there's new action-scenes, all the time there is. When is this comic going to take advantage of all of it? When will it stop setting up some great big event far far off and start actually having big events?

Issue one was fabulous. Powerful, interesting, with lots of excellent material to build on. Since then, Lynch hasn't really built on it. He's kept the suspense going, and he's added in new stuff that also draws the interest and sets up more interesting plotlines and potential character-arcs.

But then nothing happens. Yet, anyway. I'm a very far cry away from losing hope - this is still very good - but it's just getting a little tiresome feeling that every issue just serves to keep the plot rolling while introducing yet another twist, without anything ever being truly paid off. I don't know, it's just a general impression. Nina and Gwen have had something along the lines of no function so far in the book. Lorne slightly more so, but not a lot. The same goes for Groo. Gunn, Angel, Wesley and to a certain extent Connor, Spike and Illyria are the only ones something's really happening with, and the only ones who have really served the plot. With this short issues, but in a story which is consciously chosen to be one long one instead of several short ones - I'm starting to feel like some stuff is just fanservicing. Lorne's somehow gotten past his huge internal conflict and is conveniently starting Heaven in Hell, with the aid of a representative of Sorceress Ex Machina Anonymous. Nina's somehow not left LA, has thrown her lot in with Connor, and Gwen is somehow BACK in LA, and has somehow done the same. Groo is just back. And I'm sitting here wondering - yay, nice to see them again. When will something happen to them?

And then it never does, because the next issue needs to spend its pages A. further the plot with the characters that actually matter to it, B. introduce another unnecessary character and C. have the huge plot-twist that'll make everybody psyched for the next issue. Where you won't really learn anything more about it anyway, but hey.

It looks as though I'm disliking this series now. I'm really not - in fact, I'm kind of loving it. But I feel like it's stalling somehow. Like it's trying to do too much. If every issue had 60 pages, then yes, this cast would be an appropriate size. It's not. And it's not only getting a little ridiculous, it's starting to cheapen the characters who actually do come back like this. For every Gwen, Nina and Groo you get back, every Gwen, Nina and Groo you get back are less surprising. Groo's return didn't really surprise me at all. Not because there were any hints to it in the book. But because it seemed the most natural character to re-introduce at this point if you want the characters to do something other than sit down and deal with what's going on on their own. Of which there's been disappointingly little.

Chapter 5 was good, though. They've all been good, but chapter 5 might be the best since 1. Chapter 6 was what I thought it'd be - a big step down, yes, but decent enough for it not to be too disappointing. Especially the Connor-bit was excellent, and I liked the George-bits. The Spike-bit, however, changed oddly between very good bits and very strange bits. And the Lorne-bit I'm conflicted about. It's a very sweet little thing, but it's also a huge cop-out and, I feel, a big cheapening of the character. "Oh, I'm not helping PHYSICALLY anymore, so then it's okay." is his big personal readjustment? Please.


I'm liking, nay, loving this book. I really am. I just wish so much that stuff would stop Being Revealed and actually start interacting soon.

You've all heard the big news by now, I assume, but hey, maybe one of you haven't: Angel - After the Fall is getting a canon four-issue spin-off entitled, you guessed it, "Spike - After the Fall". In the upcoming "First Night"-arc of the main title, every character will be given his or her own little story about what happened after "Not Fade Away", and Spike's such story will spin off into this title covering the events between NFA and Angel - After the Fall. (That, ladies and gentlemen, means Illyria will co-star!) It will, as far as I can gather, be drawn, written and plotted by the same team, i.e. Urru, Lynch and Joss The Lord and Master of All and Chief God Supreme Whedon, so it should be held to the same level of quality as the main story. Hopefully, that means no-to-little risk of a diluted spin-off for IDW to harvest quick extra cash on this.


Yayness and hoorayness abounds!

More specifically, the cover. And also? The artist of the actual content of the issue is just who that front page would indicate it to be.



Holy crapfuck on a popcicle. JULY!

Debatin', rankin' and makin' of lists, always fun. Feel free to join in.

Or is it just the second part of Chapter Two? There was no "Chapter Three" heading in the style of the "One" and "Two"-headings some pages into the previous two issues - it might be significant, and it might not. It sorta makes sense if it is, with the #2 cliffhanger being way more lame and commercial-like than the endings of #1 and #3... but more likely, they've just (stupidly, if you ask me) decided to stop it. EDIT: Mr. Lynch's answer to me on his podcast seemed to imply that my hopes might be right - it might be that issue 4 will start chapter 3. He didn't say so straight out, but his answer could definitely imply that. Also, apparently, I need to get myself an icon, 'cause the lack of it is suspicious.


That tiny little thing aside, I loved this issue. Loved. This. Issue.


I didn't think this comic could deliver on the level of the opening issue ever again - it'd simply be too much to hope for. And while this issue isn't quite there, it has certainly made me readjust my hopes. It now seems very much within reach. 'Cause this issue was rock-solid, and more than made up for the second issue which was pretty okay-but-rather-bland in my tastes - it now rather well serves as a mellow lead-in to this anyway, which retroactively improves it.

So what did I like? Well, I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I loved the ending. (Doubt that more than 5% of the fans reading these comics didn't.) I loved seeing the Loan Shark again, though I didn't really register that that was who it was 'til the second read, I was all caught up in the plot the first time around. By way of the Internet I've also realized (didn't notice it on my own, shamefully) one of the quiet lords in the back is the demon sorcerer who owed Giles a favour back in Buffy's season 3 - or one of his kind, anyway (maybe his wife... ;D) - which is not only a cool throwback, but an interesting portent. Because it would seem like there'd be a reason to choose the one demon capable of removing someone's soul to do a cameo like that...

Oh and what more, what more... right. Illyria and the Big Scaly Person. A dragged-out-fight which could've risked being boring on the drawn page like that if the main focus of the panels turned into incredibly captivating background-action behind Angel grumpily untangling some plotthreads for himself and us in the front. All in all, I'd say this was a fabulous issue, and if someone reading this aren't reading this comic already, they should damn sure start. I loved this show, a tiny bit more than what's healthy I suspect, and it would take a lot for me to be happy with a continuation in any other format than the original - heck, it'd take a damn lot for me to be happy with a continuation in the SAME format, too - but this comic has officially pleasantly impressed and suprised me twice in three issues. (And the second one hit the mark just barely beneath what I'd dare hope for, too.)

Go. Read. Love.

Joss is back in the writer's seat with this stand-alone-issue that picks up on the main season plot after the recent Faith-arc's semi-digression and moves a few threads of it further a long. It does this splendidly. What lacks in this issue, thus, is a plot of its own - on that account it's somewhat weak. But that is the only part of this which was weak.

Buffy and Willow were shown in the Faith-arc to, curiously, have crosses ech other's moral lines, Buffy now moving in the realm of greyness and Willow with a more clear definition of white and black, the total opposite of their roles earlier in the show. This is built on here, and we get to know a little more about the means Buffy has been using to fund her Slayer-army - and why she's been so secretive about it. We also get a little peak into what's probably Willow's six-month-walkabout that kept her from being available during Fred's death on Angel. Oh, and according to my resident native speaker (and the Great and Powerful Internet confirms) Willow's French sucks. More importantly, we get to know way more about what's going on with Kennedy and Willow's relationship, and the Dawn Is Huge-plot is moved along with the help of some general Xander-fun. We still don't know what a thricewise is, though every character in the story itself seems to be very familiar with the term, but I hope we'll learn soon enough.

What's more is that finally, the link between Season 8 and Fray seems to finally be more or less confirmed as the Death of Magic is revealed to be the crux of the season's struggles. A crux that Willow the witch and Buffy the demon-slayer might find themselves firmly planted on different sides of... something that's heavily played on in the issue.

A final point on this issue - the winner of the now-ancient contest to write a letter of how Buffy had touched your life where one would be chosen by Joss to get a cameo in a season 8-issue, and it's this one. The winner was a schizophrenic woman who apparently has used watching Buffy as one of her main links to reality, written in on the behalf of by her husband. The very touching letter can be found in the letter column last in the issue, as well as online for those interested enough to google. She's beautifully written into the story, and I hope that it might do her and her husband some good to see it. From what little I can tell from the husband's comments on Whedonesque, it actually might.


All in all, I'd say this is a very strong issue, though mostly in the sense that it reveals, furthers and gives portents to a lot of interesting stuff while also being very funny in a very recognizable Buffy the Vampire Slayer sort of way. It doesn't actually do that much in and of itself, though, so I'm excited to see what Joss'll do with issue 11 - because he's actually writing TWO stand-alone issues between Vaughan's Faith-arc and the upcoming Tokyo-arc by Drew Goddard.

Oooh. Still impressive.


I liked this issue a lot, but I have to say, compared to the first one, it looks a little on the weak side. Interestingly, it seems that a lot of the people who didn't care for the first one that much likes this one better, though, so yay, maybe it draws in more fans who were on the bench.


The colours are brighter. Yeah, this is handy 'cause we can now actually see what's going on in the darker panels, but... I have to admit, I kinda liked the mega-dark tones of the first one. But no biggie.

As for the plot, it's good. We don't get the 5 bonus pages of extra length of the first issue (which I noticed very well, the last page came out of nowhere on me) but that was a luxury of extremes anyway. Things are more linear and straightforward in this one, and we get a lot of questions from the first one semi-answered - as well as, of course, a whole bunch of new ones.

This still feels like Angel should feel. This still feels like The Right And Proper Continuation Of The Story. While it's not quite on par (in my opinion) with the stunning first chapter, it's still pretty damn awesome. J'approuve.

Can I have my necklace back?

- Charles Gunn

The cells I am at the moment will soon die - but I will be here. Oh, I'll still be here.

- Cells, The Servant


(and the post-title is Illyria in Angel 5x19: Time Bomb)

As spoiler-free as anything mentioning the quality of the comic book can be, don't ya worry.


In comic book form, I do not think this could have been more awesome without killing off the time-space-continuum as we know it.


Above and beyond my (rather high...) expectations, Mr. Brian Lynch captures Angel's voice perfectly, and the immense plot-twists (I counted four!) he and Master Whedon's thought out together are beautifully pulled off. Just as impressively, the artist, Franco Urru, manages to really convey the feel of Angel - the show, I mean. I don't know how he does it. I suspect it might be related to colour-schemes. But he does. The characters are drawn similar enough to recognize, but no attempt is made to make them look photographed, which is just as good, because when comics try to do that the few panels where they don't succeed always stick out like a sore thumb.

I loved every single bit of this. I remain slightly sceptical to what was done with three relatively minor characters, but I hope the explanation and backstory for it I assume is coming up will make that seem as natural as all the rest of this.


Did I mention that I loved this? Like, I'd say this is better than most of Buffy Season 8 so far. Maybe even far better. And I'm quite crazy about Buffy Season 8, too...

Now, if only the second issue can live up to the now inhumanly high expectations I'm having.

- but I still have to say, this run by Brian K. Vaughan is lovely, and is (ironically) selling me far more on the Buffy-in-comic-book-form than Joss' splashy and overly over-the-top-special-effects-crazed first arc did. (Not that I didn't like it, obviously I did.) While any one single page of Joss' "The Long Way Home"-arc felt like Buffy, what makes "No Future For You" stand out, to me, is how the story as a whole feels like Buffy. Now, let's just hope he keeps it up.


'Cause this issue #8 that I just read? Awesomity, pure and simple.

And look at his facial expression! XD

Just figured I'd give a heads up to those of you not reading regularly on Whedonesque. ^^


Also; yays.

(BtVS Season 8 issue 5)

Lovely. Simply lovely.


As far as I can remember, at some point, some girl won something where the reward was getting drawn in as a minor character in a Buffy-comic. For some reason, Joss loved whatever this was about (my memory sucks) and decided to do an entire issue with her. This is that issue.

And it fracking rocks.


Remember how Buffy said there's decoys about? Well, this is the story of one of them. Which, incidentally, contains a Slayer-flashback canonizing characters from "Tales of the Slayers" (and, by extension, as far as I'm concerned, "Tales of the Vampires", 'cause if the one of them are canon, then they both are, seeing as both were "run" by Joss, much like Season 8 is), just like a little bonus.

There's very little I can say about this issue without spoiling it too much, but it's really good - and it's a standalone, so there's no danger for you in going out to read it, all you need to enjoy this properly is a basic understanding of the whole Slayer-thing. You hardly need to even have watched the show, though obviously, it helps. (Heck, having watched "Buffy" ALWAYS help, even if you're doing macrame or blowing up museums, it certainly doesn't hurt.)

Hee! And next up? BRIAN K. VAUGHAN. With Faith. (I'd say "Have Faith" or something, but the poor pun's been done to death)