Nut Ink. Mini reviews of texts old and new. No fuss. No plot spoilers. No adverts. Occasional competency.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Serenity: Those Left Behind [2005]

Author: Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews |  Illustrator: Will Conrad & Laura Martin
Page Count:  104 Pages

“What’s up, Wash?”
”The usual -- crime
…and us trying to avoid punishment.”

You know the story by now:  Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon created a space western TV series called Firefly for the FOX network.  FOX hated it, tossed it around, seeming like they purposedly wanted it canceled and got their wish after 11 episodes.  Fans created an uproar, DVD sales skyrocketed through the roof, resulting in Firefly being taken to the bigscreen to tie up loose ends in the feature film Serenity.

Whedon didn’t have enough screentime to tie-up everything in 2 hours, so went to Dark Horse comics for a 3-issue mini-series that bridged the gap between the series finale and the feature film.  Serenity: Those Left Behind is not essential reading and answers some things I preferred left a mystery but is still a good time that captures the feeling of the series perfectly.

Written by Joss Whedon & Firefly/Supernatural writer Brett Matthews is probably why it seems exactly like a lost episode.  In fact, a little too much at times, as the format doesn’t translate into graphic novel form all that well.   What’s great though, is Whedon & Matthews don’t go “Oh look, it’s in comic form!  We don’t have a budget limit here, we can do whatever the hell we want!”  They stay true to the series and let the story pacing unravel at a slow, yet pleasant pace without ever relying on anything too huge.

As a huge fan of series I can recommend it to anyone else who’s a fan…however if you’re not, it really makes no sense at all, as it spends no time explaining the backstory and that’s where it falls short.

It's available as 3 out of print separate issues or collected into a TPB or HC edition which is worth purchasing for Nathan Fillion's entertaining foreward.

3 BIG DAMN blue hands out of 5


Nutted by cuckoo

1 comment:

Impudent Urinal said...

Ghost account strikes again. Always meant to read these, but never got around to them except one. Plus it was expensive at Barnes and Noble.