DARK HORSE COMICS
WRITER: Christos Gage
ART: Rebekah Isaacs
COLORS: Dan Jackson
LETTERS: Jimmy Betancourt
COVER: Steve Morris (alternative cover by Jo Chen and 25th anniversary cover by Georges Jeanty, Dexter Vines, and JD Mettler)
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.
Angel & Faith is a new comic book series that ties into Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine, and both reportedly will run for 25 issues. Angel and Faith are characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the television series created by Joss Whedon. Angel (portrayed by actor David Boreanaz) is a vampire whose soul was restored as punishment for his crimes. Faith Lehane (played by Eliza Dishku) is a Slayer, a girl endowed with supernatural abilities who battles evil creatures like vampires and demons.
Angel & Faith #1 (“Live Through This” Part One) opens after the events of Twilight, which saw Angel kill the Watcher, Rupert Giles. Now, with access to the Watcher files, Angel is picking up Giles’ old cases with rebel Slayer, Faith, along for the fun. Meanwhile, two figures from Angel’s Twilight past, Nash and Pearl, are looking for some serious payback.
You don’t have to be familiar with the recent Buffy or Angel spin-off comic book series to enjoy or understand Angel & Faith, although knowing even a little about the two characters helps. First, I should say that I enjoyed reading this… for the most part. The art by Rebekah Isaacs is well-drawn and the storytelling is good. The writing by Christos Gage is technically good. Why technically?
Like most comic books published over the last decade (and longer for some publishers), Angel & Faith #1 is the first chapter in a serialized “graphic novel” or story arc that will eventually be published in a trade paperback edition. This first issue hops around from one subplot to the next, and there are multiple points of view or narrators. There is so much exposition and dialogue that one could see this as an illustrated short story or chapter of an illustrated novel more so than it is a comic book. Still, I must emphasis that this is a good comic book, but it’s like reading a part of a story instead of being a story.
B
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