I've been asked to write one of those endorsements of a book that appears on the back jacket.  Which is kind of cool, but weird.  I seldom read the endorsements by people whose name I don't recognize, and my name isn't that widely recognized.  Still, I get a copy of the book when it comes out in print as my big reward! 

local_max has a great post up about it here.

It took me a while to figure out my exact problem but it's this: Joss has given in to nihilism.  It'd be interesting to go back and re-listen to his Harvard talk on Humanistic Atheism, where he tries to affirm that value can be found in a godless world.  But in Cabin, well -- it had to end the way it did; but that begs the question of just why we should get out of bed every morning.  It'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the plotting for season 9.

Anyway, in case you couldn't tell: Cabin in the Woods -- clever, for sure.  Well done and thought-provoking in all the ways Max says.  I despised it.

(And when exactly did it get so expensive to go to the movies?)

I just had a good long email from Scott Allie about what was going on with this change. He's given me permission to summarize what he said.

1. They originally wanted Spike in a stand alone series, but decided they liked Spike with Buffy and the other characters -- pretty much the sort of thing we saw in the first ten issues.

2. As they were breaking down the details for the next ten issues, they realized as they hit the big plot points, Spike wasn't showing up in them. It'd be Buffy does this, Xander does that, and Xander, Koh and Spike do that. Nothing specific for Spike. They didn't think it would be doing a service to his character just to have him around doing good dialogue. And there were Spike-specific issues that were interesting to them to explore but they couldn't do it in the main book. Ergo miniseries.

3. All the pieces of season 9 work together in complicated ways. It's not one big story, but all the pieces are important. That means A&F and season 9 are NOT running on separate tracks -- though the way they fit together is not what fans might think. This is true of the mini series as well. We won't see the big picture until it's all done.

4. They have never adjusted the story to manage sales. That's true of the pregnancy, the abortion, the non abortion, Spike's presence and Spike's absence. They feel like the best they can do is bring in good talent to tell a story true to Joss's vision. If they were pandering to fans to juice sales, it would be in the other direction -- Spike is very popular. I'll add that Scott's pretty excited about how the story works, and he writes about it in a way that is 100% consistent with the thought that they write the story as best they can and hope the sales will follow.

5. This was a big change, but they thought it was best for the character and best for the books, and probably best for Spuffies.

My take away... this is about the plotting of the midsection of the season. It's not a big shift in whatever they were planning for Spike and/or Spuffy. It was the dead zone for Spike that got them to change things, not them changing away from something that was well-thought out. They hadn't realized until they broke it down that there was nothing substantive enough for Spike. I like that their interest in the character caused them to think about how they could get more of Spike's story out there when it wasn't going to fit in the book.

ETA: Scott adds that he's sorry he hasn't had a chance to reply to everybody -- he's been really busy.

The reviews are all right on. This is a terrific issue. Some details and reactions  (apologies for no cut, but LJ keeps mucking with the formatting):
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For some reason LJ keeps trashing my formatting.  Here's a link to my post at BF recapping the pages we haven't seen in A&F #1

http://buffyforums.net/forums/showpost.php?p=580998&postcount=28

It's like I never left California!  

The downgrade of the US credit rating is not a good sign.  The political dysfunction in this country is on my top five list of reasons why we're at the close of an historical era.  But that's an idle list that I keep for my own perverse amusement.  What's scary is that in the wake of the downgrade every one of the usual suspects is singing the exact same song.  Everyone is so deep in talking points and spin, they've forgotten the art of actual conversation.  Even in response to the fact that we got downgraded for *exactly* this problem!

For the record, I'm a moderate conservative, but it's the Republicans that have me screaming at the television the most.  There are some liberals who are partisan to the core, but they aren't dominant in their own party the way the hard-core partisans are dominant in the Republican party.  Apologies to Republicans on my flist.  I'm annoyed because y'all are my own and I'm in exile for the foreseeable future.

I honestly read Buffy as tearing up (ever so slightly) in that last panel of the webcomic, and when I mentioned it the first few folks responding agreed with me, so I just took it for self-evident.  Anyway, turns out most people don't read it that way.  So I asked Georges and he said he thinks there's an emotional content to the question Buffy is asking, but that he didn't draw her moist-eyed.

So there you go!  I do still think the panel is emotionally loaded.

New Spike comic out today: It's totally worth the effort to track down the code you need to read it.  ceciliaj  has a review here.angearia  has her review here.

It's fabulous and fun.  norwie2010  points out that we revisit Spike's white socks, which is a guaranteed swoon for me.

I've got nothing to add.  So below, just me observing that DH might as well just put out an official announcement about the Spuffiness of season 9.

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Due to LJ being particularly cantankerous there's a delay in getting the notes up.  Frustrating!  It won't let me edit entries.  It won't accept an entry that is shorter than usual.  etc. etc.  Anyway, I continue to see if I can fool LJ into actually letting me post tonight.  Stay tuned...

ETA:  We're going to have to edit down and repost.  Strudel is on the case, and hopefully we'll have something for you in a couple of hours. 

But since I've got your attention, it's time to announce a change in the posting schedule.  Due to my my move (and need to fix up my house to put it on the market, etc. etc.), we're going to post every other week.  Accordingly the notes to Earshot will be up on June 20th.  We should go back to once-a-week posting around mid-July. 

But the notes to Enemies WILL be up sometime tonight!