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Post by andydecker on Apr 22, 2022 11:29:39 GMT
Spike and Dru: Paint the Town Red – written by James Marsters with Christopher Golden, art by Ryan Sook (Dark Horse Comics, April 1999, one issue, 22 pages)
This was the first of a few comics concentrating on Spike and Drusilla, the beloved vampire villains/anti-heroes of tv's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was co-written by James Marsters who played Spike. Main writer is Christopher Golden, who wrote a lot of Buffy novels at the time. Art duties were given to Ryan Sook, a relative newcomer, who was to work on many well received projects later for all major publishers. It is one of those filling the gaps of the tv series stories, between season 2 and 3. At the end of season 2 Spike had kidnapped Drusilla and was leaving Sunnydale, in season 3 it is revealed that they broke up. In this story they are in Italy and Turkey fighting each other because of the happenings in Sunnydale. It is a bit more violent and graphic than the tv-series but captures the characters well. They did 3 of these Spike & Dru comics which later were collected in a trade. It is long out of print.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 22, 2022 15:36:41 GMT
Love Spike, hated Dru. That ridiculous accent. Okay, Spike had a ridiculous accent too, but compared with Dru's it was perfect.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 22, 2022 16:55:21 GMT
Love Spike, hated Dru. That ridiculous accent. Okay, Spike had a ridiculous accent too, but compared with Dru's it was perfect. Right, they were supposed to be Brits. Here in the foreign markets they were of course dubbed.
Spike had a great voice in dubbing, a top voice actor, David Nathan, - he did also voice Johnny Depp - who also does terrific audio books, much horror. A lot of Stephen King, Lovecraft readings and so on. I always choose the original audio on my Buffy and Angel DVDs. While German dubbing is on the whole very good, I couldn't stand the work on Buffy. Inspired by the scans I put some early Angel in the player and watched the first episode of Spike guest-starring. Still hilarious the scene, where he mimics Angel from above.
I always thought it a bit sad that Marsters didn't had a big career after his work for Wheedon.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 22, 2022 19:45:55 GMT
Love Spike, hated Dru. That ridiculous accent. Okay, Spike had a ridiculous accent too, but compared with Dru's it was perfect. Right, they were supposed to be Brits. Here in the foreign markets they were of course dubbed.
Spike had a great voice in dubbing, a top voice actor, David Nathan, - he did also voice Johnny Depp - who also does terrific audio books, much horror. A lot of Stephen King, Lovecraft readings and so on. I always choose the original audio on my Buffy and Angel DVDs. While German dubbing is on the whole very good, I couldn't stand the work on Buffy. Inspired by the scans I put some early Angel in the player and watched the first episode of Spike guest-starring. Still hilarious the scene, where he mimics Angel from above.
I always thought it a bit sad that Marsters didn't had a big career after his work for Wheedon.
Yes, Marsters did some good guest starring in shows like Warehouse 13 and Smallville, but maybe he's a bit too quirky for most. One of my favourite scenes involving him - I can't remember the episode - was where he was called upon to do a bad fake American accent. So - an American, playing an Englishman, faking an American accent. He did it brilliantly - it was hilarious.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 22, 2022 20:44:03 GMT
I'm not a Buffy fan but I was watching during season 2 and I loved the performances by James Marsters and the brilliant Juliet Landau as Spike and Drusilla. They brought that show an air of sophistication that it quickly lost in season 3 and then I just abandoned it. I periodically think about trying to watch some of those season 2 stories again but the writing just wasn't that great, to me. I also heard that the visual quality or presentation of the series was destroyed when the masters were converted for some kind of Blu Ray release a few years back--can't recall if it was switch aspect ratio to 16 x 9 or some other thing they did to it.
I was extremely impressed by James Marsters--unlike most American actors of his generation, he'd done very thorough theatre training which meant he knew how to ACT. Unfortunately everything I've heard about that he's done has been some tired, boring TV show with yet another cookie-cutter format. But no doubt it pays the bills. A friend of mine in the industry told me that James and his spouse are really lovely, nice people too.
H.
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enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 117
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Post by enoch on Apr 23, 2022 15:53:31 GMT
James Marsters has a good singing voice as well, and I have heard nothing but nice things about his personality. I too am sorry that he hasn't gone on to greater fame.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 24, 2022 8:04:49 GMT
James Marsters has a good singing voice as well, and I have heard nothing but nice things about his personality. I too am sorry that he hasn't gone on to greater fame. Yes, his song was one of the highlights of the musical episode, topped only by Amber Benson's lovely voice (and Anya's bunny song!).
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Post by andydecker on Apr 24, 2022 14:10:30 GMT
James Marsters has a good singing voice as well, and I have heard nothing but nice things about his personality. I too am sorry that he hasn't gone on to greater fame. Yes, his song was one of the highlights of the musical episode, topped only by Amber Benson's lovely voice (and Anya's bunny song!). I don't know how often I involuntarily sum "Going through the Motions" in my mind. But Willow's and Tara's "Under Your Spell" also comes often to mind. It is just lovely.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 24, 2022 15:29:08 GMT
Yes, his song was one of the highlights of the musical episode, topped only by Amber Benson's lovely voice (and Anya's bunny song!). I don't know how often I involuntarily sum "Going through the Motions" in my mind. But Willow's and Tara's "Under Your Spell" also comes often to mind. It is just lovely. It is, isn't it? I miss Tara more than almost any other Buffy character except for Spike.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Apr 24, 2022 19:27:57 GMT
I don't know how often I involuntarily sum "Going through the Motions" in my mind. But Willow's and Tara's "Under Your Spell" also comes often to mind. It is just lovely. It is, isn't it? I miss Tara more than almost any other Buffy character except for Spike. One of my favorite episodes of television. Anthony Head's not a bad singer, either--not only in the musical episode but also in his earlier "Exposition Song" from the episode "Restless." Then there's his oh-so-1990 version of this classic:
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Post by helrunar on Apr 24, 2022 20:37:00 GMT
That's a wonderful version of "Sweet Transvestite." Ah, and Beltane is almost here. Perfect!
cheers, Hel
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