Featuring...

Christopher Golden Author of Angel comics

Continued from previous page... "... the Bronze by and large are very intelligent, normal people, who happen to have a really unhealthy obsession." laugh As mentioned earlier, the Bronze Posting Board is the place where you’ll find most young people 'coming of age' in the Buffy world. A web site where fans from all over the world can gather to talk among themselves as well as to cast and crew members of the shows. (known as VIP’s) who tend to pop in quite regularly. I was interested to see what Chris thought of this close rapport with fans and the ability to just pop in to get an immediate righ"nse to the things that he’s done. “You know it’s really nice. I’ve actually become pretty good friends with,” interrupting the conversation a second he notes, “look, I just got e-mail from one of them, from the infamous Polgara. She’s a friend. It’s an invitation to yet another one of their outings. But in any case,” he continues fondly, “I’ve become friends with a number of the Boston Area Bronzers as well as a couple Bronzers in other parts of the country. And I don’t think that that would happen necessarily if I were working on any other kinds of media tie-ins. Buffy fans, in my experience, the people who’ve I have met from the Bronze by and large are very intelligent, normal people,... who happen to have a really unhealthy obsession. (laughter) That’s me being sarcastic by the way.” Spike & Drusilla: The Queen of Hearts Sarcasm noted! “Yes! Um but, I think that’s its really nice. And it’s nice to be able to go into the Bronze and talk to, particularly the people that I don’t know and to get that feedback.” But he humorously adds, “Well I also feel fortunate in that they like the books because I feel badly for those who they haven’t liked because the Bronzers can be absolutely ruthless. So I’m happy about that.” And how does he get his comments from the critics that care the most about his work? “I’ll tell ya a funny story. I went to an event at the home of one of the Boston Bronzers. We were just hanging out and I brought with me the prologue to the Spike & Dru novel to give it to three or four of them who I’ve become particularly good friends with to let them read it. And it was really funny because while they liked it they feel very free to tell me what they think is wrong with it, too. (laughter) Which is really funny!” An example of this was when he dropped by the Bronze recently while working on his novel to ask for a British interpretation for a particular body part. (more laughter) “That reminds me I have to change it when I go back through doing the revisions because we determined that jublies’ was a more modern term and that I should stick with Bristols’ which is an older slang term.” He continues on how this can actually be one of the best and quickest reference source. “There have been times when I’ve just not had the time to do that research I need that very instant I need an answer to something or I need to just confirm something. There have been times when I’ll just send this quick e-mail to Polgara or to Megdalen or Oz Lady and just say okay ‘in this episode where did this happen?’ and they can confirm it for me. While I’ve seen all the episodes, several times, and read through the scripts more times than I can count for work purposes, I have a million other things I’m doing and I can’t remember always.” Spike & Drusilla: The Queen of Hearts One of those million things he’s working on is the eagerly awaited Spike & Dru #3 and this one has quite a twist on it as Chris informed us. “It’s going to be a little bit different, and the thing that I love about this is and I’m surprised that they’ve allowed me to do this. But you know that Spike has killed two Slayers. Well in the novel, Pretty Maids All in a Row we account for the second one. In the Spike & Dru #3 comic book we don’t deal with the murder of the first one which was in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion but we do deal with long term fallout from that murder. So we deal with, Spike and Dru basically are at the World's Fair in Chicago in the thirties and not only is there something very... there’s an ancient evil about to be unleashed,... but isn’t there always?” Again? “Yes, exactly. But they’re also being hunted by people who have a major grudge against them for that event back in 1900. So it’s really nice that we’re doing that. Also I’m going to be doing a 12 page story for, I think, Dark Horse Presents Annual later in the year or early next year which will actually detail the last meeting of Spike and Drusilla before he reappears in Season 4. When he went and got her (Drusilla) back after Lover’s Walk in Season 3 (BtVS) and then he shows up without her once again. And I’m doing a 12 page story which gives you the rest of the tale, it tells you what happened. So I’ve really been given a lot of leeway to work with Spike and Dru and it’s really nice that they’ve allowed that to happen. Of course anything I do they can completely choose to ignore but so far they actually haven’t done that.” (laugh) Before we depart from this interesting world of a very unique writer, Chris wanted to tell us about one more comic coming up in the future, as the deal has just been set, the contracts have been signed, so he was eager to mention it. “I’m doing a four part serialized novel called Buffy: The Lost Slayer that will come out sometime in 2001. It will be sort of like the Green Mile only that was six parts. This will be only four. It involves one possible future of the Buffy reality which is brought about because Buffy makes a really, really bad mistake. (laugh) She makes a mistake in present day, and we see the repercussions of it in this story line.” Now doesn’t that just make you wanna go owwww!? "I know that they're going to say 'you're out of your mind Golden, go back to your corner.'" As I told Chris that I thought he has some great ideas coming up but that he sometimes frightens me, he laughed saying, “Oh you should see the stuff they say ‘no’ to! There have been a lot of things I have suggested that have been shot down. But also I self edit, there are a lot of things I’d like to do that I won’t even bother suggesting because I know that they’re going to say ‘you’re out of your mind Golden, go back to your corner.’” To which I add, ‘Go back to your cave!’ “That’s right, exactly.” (laughing) Well let’s hope he doesn’t go back too far into his corner! Let’s hope he continues to bring the best of his writing talents to all aspects of the Buffy and Angel universe as well as those other special places he allows us to be taken! This is one gifted individual with a passion for his art and I strongly urge you to check out his inspiring works! Did you know?!?!?! Written by CoA Head Writer, Kristy Bratton The CityofAngel Council would like to thank Christopher Golden for his precious time in this interview. For more information about Chris, please visit his web site at: www.christophergolden.com If you have any comments for CityofAngel.com regarding this article, we would love to hear from you. Just email us at: comments@CityofAngel.com Special thanks to Susan Haigney at S&M Graphics and Gerry Scott at Preis Publishing for all their help.