Bye bye to the Buffy I knew

Many of us who obsessively watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" mourned the loss of this show after season seven, realizing "Buffy" was truly gone from television forever - less, of course, cold comfort from reruns. We watched (in the last episode) as a school bus drove characters - some familiar and dear, others newer and less connected - away from the large hole where Sunnydale was, and they took with them a little piece of our hearts.

I cried. I mourned the loss of a show I'd watched since high school, feeling a connection with Buffy (the character), who was then my age. I wondered briefly if we'd see a return for season eight - maybe even on a new channel - but realized that I'd never again tune in to see a new episode. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was saddened by this fact.

When I recently learned that Joss Whedon would be bringing us season eight after all - in comic book form - I was excited. I was ready to find out what Buffy, Willow, and Xander were up to. And, of course, I wondered what life after Sunnydale was like for Dawn as she worked through her complicated adolescence. I wanted to know more about the reference near the end of the series "Angel" in which we hear that Buffy is dating The Immortal. I was even curious as to how all those new Slayers were balancing their previous lives with their new Slayer duties.

I made a special trip to Creative Comics in Griffith to pick up the first issue of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," season 8. When I got home, I devoured the issue with high hopes.

When I put the issue down, it was with disappointment. The "Buffy" world, once so small and intimate now feels too vast. The first issue alone dealt with space travel, cloning, and the army. This larger world feels filled more with "clever science" than emotion.

I'll keep reading and hoping the first issue was meant as a catch-up issue - that the intimacy will return and the feeling from the show will come through the pages of upcoming issues.

Originally published in The Chronicle in April 2007 as Jade Lee Culberson