Joss Whedon To Write "Firefly" Comic Book

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Broken in a recent Newsweek article about Hollywood people writing comic books: Joss Whedon will write a comic-book prequel to Serenity (http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27841), the Firefly feature film. Issue #1 of 3 will debut in July from Dark Horse, and the movie is scheduled to hit theatres in September.

The Newsweek article (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6959878/site/newsweek/) also cites Allen Heinberg of The O.C. writing Young Avengers for Marvel Comics, Christos Gage of Law & Order: SVU writing a Deadshot mini-series for DC (which is much grittier and more serious than they make it sound), and Bruce Campbell (http://www.bruce-campbell.com/) of the Evil Dead movies writing The Man with the Screaming Brain for Dark Horse Comics.

I'm taking the liberty of mirroring this thread in the Entertainment Board, since Whedon TV fans may not visit our corner of TZ too often. They may also wish to check out Fray (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1569717516/qid=1108762319/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2003060-1000127?v=glance&s=books), Whedon's debut effort for Dark Horse which is kinda sorta rooted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

-- Ed/Ace

[Michael24]

First THE RETURN OF SHADOWHAWK lures me back into the comic book world after a decade, now FIREFLY does it again. :D I'll definitely pick this up. So it's only a three-part thing and that's it? No monthly series? (Which would be cool.)

[Swordfish_II]

Something to keep me satisfied while waiting for the movie to come out. :anime:

[Fone Bone]

I don't know if I'll read the comic but I will definately see the movie. Will the comic be called Firefly or Serenity?

[Bleu Unicorn]

Oh...my...gawd...!
*just stares open-mouthed*

[True Noir]

Oh, now that's some really nice news there. :)

[randomguy]

Oh, now that's some really nice news there. :)
Amen to that.

This is really cool news. Having really enjoyed Whedon's recent work on Astonishing X-Men (in addition to enjoying Firefly for the all-too-brief period that it was on the air), I'll definitely pick it up.

I've often wondered why they don't take the comic book route with more cancelled properties. In fact, when Firefly was first cancelled (and none of us had any reason to expect a movie would happen), I was wondering why Whedon (who had some comics experience from various Buffy tie-ins) didn't just start up an ongoing series at Dark Horse or something as a way to continue the story. I figure the overhead is much lower on a comic, and you could probably find an audience for such a series. I often think the same thing in regards to cancelled-but-beloved franchises like Gargoyles, Farscape, etc.

[Mynd Hed]

I just got finished watching Firefly for the first time-- a friend of mine showed me the pilot, and I knew that the DVD set had to be mine. It's funny, but I almost feel fortunate that I missed it on TV; I can't imagine watching the rest of the episodes out of order and without the pilot to give them context.

So right now I'm feeling what a lot of Firefly fans have been feeling for a while: NEED. MORE. FIREFLY.

I wonder what the prospects are for a longer comics series if this short run is successful. Whedon sets so much up in the series that even if the movie is as amazing as we all hope, there's little chance of resolving every plot thread left dangling. Either an ongoing title or a large graphic-novel-sized project with a planned end (a la League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) could deal with some of the loose ends that probably couldn't satisfactorily be dealt with in the film.