Geek Update

With this receipt from my favorite comic book store in Seattle, Zanadu, I am officially caught up on the 8th season of Buffy. What I love about season 8 is how cinematic it is. The authors and artists are doing such an incredible job of expanding the Buffyverse and giving its characters the ability to go anywhere and do anything-things that would not have been possible during the television series. At first, I was a little uneasy with how different the world is from what we are so familiar with on the show itself-it was a bit jarring for me to see the advancements in technology and the change of locale. It has been growing on me with every new "episode," and I realize that the world we see in season 8 is a world we only got a tease of in the last episode of the series. It is certainly a bigger world, a more colorful world and we are witnesses to the effects of the broadening power of the Slayer. Season 8, for me, is a clear justification of Xander and Willow's exchange at the end of "Chosen."

XANDER
We saved the world.
WILLOW
We changed the world. I can feel them, Buffy. All over.

Issue number 16 of the series comes out this week!#16 marks the beginning of a four-issue story-arc prominently featuring a Buffy/Fray crossover. I still have not read "Fray", Whedon's comic book about a future Slayer named Melaka Fray. I'll have to pick up a copy before I read this next installment of season 8.

The official description reads:

"On a hot tip, Buffy and Willow head to Manhattan hoping to unlock the secrets of Buffy's mysterious scythe, but something goes terribly awry when Buffy suddenly finds herself transported to an unknown world, and into the path of future Slayer Fray. Buffy creator Joss Whedon teams with his Fray co-creator Karl Moline in "Time of Your Life." Jo Chen and Georges Jeanty join the team for covers. Available July 02, 2008"

In other Joss Whedon news, the official trailer for his upcoming, three-episode web musical series, "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" went live over on the show's website over the weekend. The show stars Neil Patrick Harris as the titular super-villain and Nathan Fillion as his arch-nemesis. Also, speaking of slayers, the female lead, Felicia Day, had a recurring role as a potential named Vi in season 7 of "Buffy" Joss Whedon has written a great open letter to his fans-his Master Plan-about how the release of the show will work. The first episode will be available on the aforementioned website starting on July 15th, the second on July 17th, and the third on July 19th. All three episodes will be available online until the 20th. At that point, they will be available for a fee before being released on DVD. From what Whedon has said about the show and the DVD, I cannot wait to see what all he has up his sleeve!

Also, a close friend of mine bought me this t-shirt from the NBC/Universal store while he was in New York a couple weeks ago.

I love it! I wore it last week when I introduced my dad to "Battlestar"-we've gotten through just the miniseries so far. The back of the shirt has both the Sci-Fi Channel and "Battlestar Galactica" logos. It fits well too, which is always important.