I’m an enormous fan of all things Whedon—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Serenity, of course, but also any other tossed-off bit of creative genius Joss Whedon cares to grace the universe with. And many years ago, I used to work in a comic store, spending much of my salary every week on comics that I would read and then seal lovingly in plastic bags. So you will understand my delight when I discovered that Joss also writes comics.
Recently, I gobbled up the comic prequel to the movie Serenity, then sank my teeth into Joss’s Astonishing X-Men. Way back when, I wasn’t a devoted X-Men fan; I appreciated them, but never got manic. (My mania was for the Avengers, their close mutant kin less beloved by most comics geeks.) But Joss’s version of the X-Men left me salivating for more.
In that messily drooling state, I trolled the web for tasty Joss crunchies and found a hilarious interview. If you’re a Joss Whedon fan, or you like to see comic and fantasy fans dressed up in costumes, you might get a kick out of the Geek Week video podcast called “Geek Week at Wizard World 2006.”
The podcasters had planned to film a joke about wanting to interview Joss Whedon but failing to find him. But Joss really showed up, pretended to be a fan dressed up as himself, and answered the interviewer’s questions. Much recursive nuttiness ensued. The rest of episode is chuckle-worthy, too: a guy dressed up as Wolverine is a hoot, and I laughed out loud as I watched a fan dressed as Mighty Thor carry a cafeteria tray and get ready to sit down to lunch while the theme music from the old Thor TV show blasts on the soundtrack. (No, I wasn’t laughing at the fan. How could I? I once attended a con dressed as Wanda the Witch: imagine my fat thighs in tights! Or better yet, don’t imagine.)
Here’s the link to the video podcast of the Joss Whedon portion of the episode. (If the URL changes, just go to search in “Geek Week Joss Whedon video.”)
If you’re a science fiction fan but haven’t yet watched Firefly, grab a copy on DVD and see what I’m raving about.