CBR: Ryall Takes Stock Of IDW's "Angel" Run

[CBR News]

In a special wrap up interview exploring six years of Joss Whedon's vampire hero in comics, IDW EiC Chris Ryall discusses the publisher bringing "Angel" back, the story behind "After The Fall" and the role of canonicity.


Full article here.

[Jon Clark]

On the canonicity issue what Mr Ryall is missing is the idea of wanting stuff to fit together smoothly.

For example the Dr Who stuff (audio stories, comics, novels, etc;) put out between the 2 TV series might be fun, but if the current TV show doesn't treat them as "part of the story" then why set myself up for the cofusion of keeping straight what facts they share and what ones they don't.

Same with Star Trek- the IDW prequel to the movie works great because it goes hand-in-hand with the movie. Even if you thought it was the greatest Trek story ever told (the prequel not the movie)- would it have worked as well if the movie had decided that Nero had never met Spock?

On the Buffy/Angel front while I don't want every story to be tied into a "how does this effect that" equation- I also don't want to read stories about critical events for either cast that only have an impact if I read one company's take on the characters. If Dark Horse has a story where Xander recovers his eye, I don't want to be pulled out of the story everytime he guests in IDW stories by the eyepatch still being there. I didn't want on the other hand to have Twilight revealed as Angel over at Dark Horse but then offer up where he'd been as something contradicting "After the Fall".

[jediracer]

I didn't want on the other hand to have Twilight revealed as Angel over at Dark Horse but then offer up where he'd been as something contradicting "After the Fall".

Ah, but remember: At the end of After the Fall, the Senior Partners reversed time to the moment before Los Angeles is sent into Hell. So you see, there was plenty of time for him to be doing all that Twilight stuff after he got back form Hell. The two comics (DH's Buffy and IDW's Angel) were not running parallel in time.

[Jon Clark]

Ah, but remember: At the end of After the Fall, the Senior Partners reversed time to the moment before Los Angeles is sent into Hell. So you see, there was plenty of time for him to be doing all that Twilight stuff after he got back form Hell. The two comics (DH's Buffy and IDW's Angel) were not running parallel in time.

I wasn't referring to what ACTUALLY happened in the two comics, I was trying to illustrate how having the two books both telling "cool stories" without worrying about canonicity could get confusing. DH could have had Angel state his Twilight role was a direct result of how he survived the TV cliffhanger or IDW could have followed up "After the Fall" with events that took Angel 180 degrees from being able to become Twilight.