Yes. Season 8 is cannon. Anything Joss written is.

I write stories about a TV show. I'm not planning on writing stories about a comic book. I've read some of the plans for the story lines, and they're just a bit too fantastic. Granted, Joss likes the comic book's ability to go for the fantastic things he couldn't do on TV, but that's precisely what I liked, stories with human limitations.

For me, at least, it's not going to be canon.

I'm just going to see what my muse says. At this point I'm going to take or leave it.

Canon for me resides within my collection of DVD box sets. Which is not to say that I won't incorporate any of the comic book canon if it appeals to me but the chances of them actually producing anything even vaguely Spandery is infinitesimal, so the comic probably won't impact on my fic in any major way at all.

But comic!Xander is deliciously pretty. :D

What she said.

I was thinking similarly. :)

Interesting- wasn't sure how authors were going to regard it- it seems fandom is mostly leaning towards 'ignore it'.

.....

*grins* wonder if everyone will still sing the same tune once it's released?

Either way, I'm glad Joss created the comics- fandom is always more inspired when the show (comic?) is actively being produced.

*tilts head* ..............

is Xander wearing Buffy's high school jacket in that pic of him I posted? *groans* tell me it's really a motorcycle jacket.....and not a Buffy fanclub emblem sewn on his high school jacket. *ack* it's killing me already.

I'll read the comic and see if it inspires anything, but i don't think i'll use it as canon, that's the tv show for me. If it isn't in my DVD collection, it isn't going to end up in my fic. Besides if you had to use it as canon, then anyone who'd ever written a post chosen fic would have to go back and mark all their stuff as AU, too much trouble.

*blinks* I never thought about authors having to go back through and label stories as AU after another season/book came out. Sounds like a pain, but...if they are willing to do it as each new season came out, they might be willing to do it for the comics.

It's kind of one of the reasons why I asked this question- and I've gotten mixed responses. So I guess some authors will label their stories AU and some won't? A little confusing....there was more consistency when everyone agreed what canon was. No one would ever say- "oh, Season 2 was canon, but Season one wasn't!"

I suppose it was because everyone watched the show, followed it through all the seasons, so it was all canon. The trouble with the comic is that not everyone will read it; it might not even be available everywhere, so not every writer will have those stories to draw on. Canon is what everybody knows, and some won't know the comics at all.

It's canon. I suppose it's just going to be in comic form because it gives Joss more freedom than tv, and also he doesn't have to pay comic characters money.

Also, I read in an interview with Entertainment Weekly? Somewhere with Joss, and he said that the comics don't tell place DIRECTLY

Haha I hit enter too soon.

They don't take place DIRECTLY after season 7, which means the Xander we'll see has already mourned Anya. They were all lookin a little beat up by the end of 7, but seeing as time has past, and probably no apocalypse has occurred in the time we haven't seen, there is no reason to believe that Xander has mourned (and drank and been as angsty as all our fics describe) and is finally starting to be healthy again.

Healthy, and sexy.

I don't know how anyone could say it was canon or no - it's a totally different medium - which in effect makes it a totally different 'verse, just in this case it's being perpetrated by the creator of the original 'verse.

Think of how the comics of Batman went through several incarnations, then also there was the different cartoons, movies, and even the live TV shows... not all are considered canon to each other, but some build on past versions and some just morphed. And then some did a funky combination of the two... ;)

I think if anything, the comics would be introducing a new version of 'canon' because of the broader spectrum of things that are now possible - things that he woulda if he coulda had on the show but reality bit and special effects only could take you so far... now he's made a lateral slip step to the side and wow, the special effects are all in his imagination and the pens of his inkers... Bonus! But with the lateral slip step, not the same 'verse as the show... right?

Just some thoughts, (and boy, can you tell I need a life :P)
Marns
~pobody's Nerfect

You might be interested in the results of this poll.

thanks! I liked the poll!