Animating Buffy: Words with Jeph Loeb Circa 2002, Part 1

Animating Buffy: Words with Jeph Loeb Circa 2002, Part 1

Aug 04

As I’ve mentioned enough to seem like a clinging namedropper, I used to write for the Official Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine. I think I mention it a lot because it was really cool and really fun and maybe the best job ever right out of college, but maybe I mention it so much because I’m desperate to hang onto a slight wisp of geek cred that’s well past its sell date.

This is a piece I wrote in 2002 for the mag after it was sold off to Titan over in the UK; I freelanced for them for a good while, before moving on to other things. As long as I don’t get a C&D, I’ll post occasional bits like this until I run out of them. Inspired by the YouTubeing of the Buffy Animated demo reel (or part of it?), here’s a piece I wrote about Buffy Animated when it was young and possible, featuring quotes aplenty from exec producer Jeph Loeb.

Tomorrow: The interview leftovers that never saw print.

Just as the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, so also is the road to television success paved with the ink and paint-drenched corpses of pathetic cartoon spinoffs. Usually, that’s because those who did the spinning couldn’t leave well enough alone. When Fonzie and the Happy Days gang became a cartoon, did they need to hang out with a time-traveling babe in her spaceship? Or when Laverne and Shirley got animated, did they need to join the army–with a talking pig as their superior officer?

Fortunately, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer joins the ranks of live-action shows adapted to animation, there will be no time-traveling babes or talking pigs–well, unless you count Anya or the late, lamented Principal Flutie. Buffy Animated will rely solely on what has made Buffy so successful in live-action for the past six seasons–humor, horror, and heaping gobs of character.

“As with everything with Joss [Whedon], it begins with character,” says Jeph Loeb, who shares executive producing duties on Buffy Animated with Whedon. “He’s interested in telling a story–and it’s generally about Buffy–about how Buffy feels about a particular subject. From that comes the metaphor–which monster, demon, vamp or situation best allows us to exploit that character moment?”

The animated series will also return Buffy and the Scooby Gang back to the glory days of the Slayer’s first year in Sunnydale–what the production team calls “Buffy: Year One,” referring to Frank Miller’s Batman comic book series about the first year in the Caped Crusader’s life. They’ll be telling half-hour stories in which Buffy is a reluctant Slayer trying to balance her duties and her dating life, Willow is a quiet geek with a penchant for the library, and Xander rattles off one-liners while pining over Buffy. The return to Buffy’s earliest era has provided some unbelievably fertile ground in which to plant the seeds of stories.

“I think there’s probably a hundred, hundred and fifty stories that we have,” Loeb jokes. “After that, I think we might have to worry about year two. But I’m not real concerned about whether or not there will be stories to tell. Whenever Joss’ eyes light up and he gets that mischevious smile that he has, and he suddenly says, ‘We were gonna tell this story,’ it’s almost like a campfire tale. In other words, it’s that opportunity to tell an episode of Buffy he didn’t get a chance to tell because Buffy graduated. So now we get to go and do that.”

When it comes to design, the production team has aimed at a lofty standard–Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered in 1992. The show exhibited a few characteristics uncommon in children’s animated series: It told compelling stories that could easily draw in adults, and it told those stories using stylized, gorgeous animation. Though Buffy Animated will have its own look, Loeb and Whedon aim to set a new standard for television animation through similar means–strong storytelling and bold visuals.

“When Joss and I first sat down to talk about the show, one of the first of many things that we agreed on was that animation on television–and I mean this with no disrespect to the people who’ve done fine work through the years–it tends to fall into two camps,” Loeb explains. “There was a benchmark that was set, if you can believe this, ten years ago by Batman Animated. That, in turn, spawned Superman Animated and Batman Beyond, and now Justice League. All that stuff is great, and then everything else is The Smurfs. We all have a great affection for Papa Smurf, and some of us have a great affection for Smurfette, but we try not to talk about that. What Joss set his sights on was to set that benchmark again, to let people say, ‘We should have a show that looks as good as Buffy Animated.’”

To reach that benchmark, Loeb and Whedon have turned to the very people who have brought the live-action Buffy to the screen for the past six seasons. Most of the show’s cast will be performing their character’s voices on the show, with the possible exception of Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, both of whom may be too busy with their commitments as stars of Buffy and Angel. Also on board are the show’s writers, who have relished the opportunity to sink their teeth once again into Buffy’s high school career.

“Because our writing staff is the Buffy writing staff, a lot of folks–Jane Espenson, Steve DeKnight–who came on the show in later seasons never got a chance to work with some of these dynamics,” Loeb says. “They never got to do stories where Willow likes Xander, Xander likes Buffy, Buffy has a crush on Angel and Angel hadn’t reciprocated yet. That’s the fun–to be able to go back and do that sort of thing. The golden rule around here is that Buffy writers do Buffy Live first, which works out fine. There’s enough writers around here, and everyone’s cool, and because the animated series is only a half-hour, a script can be written in less time. For me, it’s been the wheel of fortune; I can’t lose.”

Though the show will draw on Buffy talent and will plant its feet firmly in the Buffyverse, it’s also designed to stand alone as a show that can be enjoyed whether you’re new to the characters or whether you can recite entire scenes of dialogue from Buffy in your sleep. All the familiar characters will be present and the Hellmouth is still in Sunnydale, but it’s not going to wear its continuity with the live-action Buffy too blatantly on its sleeve.

“There will be some things that you’ll be able to draw a line from A to B and say, ‘They used that character because that fits right in with this particular episode,’” Loeb says. “But we don’t want to do that so much that people who’ve never seen the show are going, ‘I don’t understand. Why did they just say that?’ I’m a big believer in making something for a brand-new audience that’s accessible. But if you’re going to make something that has as loyal and terrific a following as the Buffy following is, you’ve got to make sure you deliver a show for them that makes them feel like it’s a companion, part of the legend.”

For Loeb, a successful and critically-acclaimed comics writer who has delivered groundbreaking runs on characters from Batman to the X-Men, the appeal of working on Buffy Animated wasn’t just the chance to work with Joss Whedon–though that was a draw–or the opportunity to play in the Buffyverse. Loeb was also drawn to Buffy because of what she represents to pop culture, and what he believes her adventures can do to the realm of television animation.

“I can go back to when I first started on the show and I was walking around Westwood with my wife,” Loeb says. “I remember saying that aside from everything else that’s involved, it was also an opportunity to add to the mythos of a character who has become a modern pop icon. I’ve had that opportunity to do that with Superman and Batman, and Daredevil and the X-Men. But you get around to working in television in the last five years, and you don’t find a lot of characters that really defined the way that TV is made the way that Buffy has. It defined the way that people were going to look at one-hour teen dramas from that point on. What we’re hoping is that the animated series does the same thing for animated shows. Right now, everything is compared to Batman Animated, particularly if you’re in the superhero genre. You’re always going to have to use that as your benchmark. Well, it’s time to have something else.”