Featuring...

Christopher Golden Author of Angel comics

Continued from previous page... Oz is not the first character to have ideas pitched about him that Chris has wanted to write about. Giles, in a forthcoming one-shot comic turns out to be one of Chris favorites. “We’re finally getting around to writing that script which I’m really happy about actually. Giles is always getting the short end of the stick. "... if you don't believe in Demons, then you won't be able to defend yourself when it comes to bite your head off." I think he’s a great character that they could really do all kinds of things with but they just don’t have room. I guess they have too many good characters, you know, an embarrassment of riches.” “Also,” he adds, “Tony (Anthony Stewart Head who plays Giles) is a really nice guy and it makes you want to do stories about Giles more knowing what a great guy he is. I mean he probably won’t even see the comic, so it doesn’t really matter, but I hope that he does. I hope just to say ‘Look, we appreciate what you do’. And that’s kind of the reason that we suggested the thing in the first place actually because let’s give him, not Tony necessarily, but lets’ give the character a little play. Let’s acknowledge that this is a great character performed by an extremely talented actor. Because of course, all our inspiration and the reason we like Giles so much is all Tony. So we’re really looking forward to it.” Chris gives us a little preview, “Giles goes back to London and is very unwelcome at the funeral of a former friend involved with the Council. And of course, something sinister ensues and only the renegade Rupert Giles can save the day.” Might we be seeing some insight to the 'Ripper' side of Giles? “There’s definitely an element of the story that involves not Ripper necessarily, but simply that because Giles is not as 'staid' and ‘by the book’ as the rest of these guys, and because he has experiences that they don’t, he is better suited to handle certain situations. It’s that if you don’t believe in demons then you won’t be able to defend yourself when it comes to bite your head off. That’s obviously just a metaphor, it has nothing to do with the plot, but that’s the basic gist,” he adds with a slight laugh. Not only do you have to be afraid of demons in his world but Slayers can be just as dangerous! Rumors abound in the universe of Buffy and Angel and one recent rumor, based on the popularity of the character Faith, is that actress Eliza Dushku might sign on with the Angel series next year. Chris gave us he thoughts on Faith’s character and where he would like to take her. “I would love to do story lines involving Faith. I really want to do the story of Faith before Sunnydale. The story of her becoming a Slayer and dealing with Kakistos down in Louisiana and all of that stuff. I would love to do that as a comic or even better as a novel. But, you know, I’m just not sure what is going to happen with that because I think that Joss wants to tell that story himself.” He adds, “I can pretty much guarantee you that she will be appearing in at least one novel that I know of and it’s not by me, although the deal hasn’t necessarily been made yet so I don’t want to speak out of school. But it’s not a novel about Faith per se, which I think would be very cool. The only thing is that Joss has expressed an interest himself at some point doing Faith related comics. And so everybody’s been kind of hands off until he decides what he wants to do.” Chris is not the only pen burning the midnight oil; Joss has his own Buffy comic coming out soon called Fray. But the comic industry is quite a conglomerate and there are many facets to it that have changed over the years. Chris has stated before that he feels comics have ‘fallen by the wayside’ and he elaborated on that for us. “I do think that comics are a dying American art form. It’s not impossible to resuscitate the industry, but it desperately needs resuscitation, or it will eventually die. I think that the entirety of the blame for that can be laid squarely on the doorstep of the major publishers. X-Men might get a surge of new power with the release of the X-Men Movie. The problem with comics is that a vast majority of the people working in the comic field have never held any real professional job in their lives. And people who have come up through the comics industry I really don’t think as a general rule understand the way other businesses work. Every industry has to have competitiveness to remain afloat but I think that the competitiveness in the comics industry is almost at the schoolyard level.” Chris doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to something he’s passionate about either as he continues, “And also I would say that one of the former owners of Marvel, Ron Perelman milked that puppy for all it was worth and then left it by the way side. And it is absolutely crippled now. As Marvel goes, so goes the industry. So I think you can literally go through and you can see all the mistakes they’ve made and the bad books that they have published. They relaunched New Warriors in a completely half-assed fashion. Just a lot of ill-advised things.” He is also very eager to praise those writers and artists whom he feels deserves it. “But at the same time, again Black Panther is great, Thor is really good, the new Captain Marvel is really good. I think that [Chris] Claremont’s return to the X-MEN is just absolutely phenomenal for that family of comics but most of the other comics in the group still stink. (laugh) Steve Skroce just came on Wolverine and his first issue was really good, but he’s going to be gone in like three or four issues. Joe Quesada, I think, is doing an excellent job writing Iron Man. So I hope that all of those recent things that I just said that are good are a sign that things are changing there. Comics have to be good.” Go to Next Page >> This explains a lot :)