WHEDON, JOSS 697
Whedon began his career in Hollywood writing for the sitcom Roseanne —a job that
made him a third generation television writer (his father wrote for Th e Electric Com-
pany and Th e Golden Girls and his grandfather, John Whedon, wrote for Th e Donna
Reed Show ). Whedon also co-wrote several movies including, Toy Story and Alien Resur-
rection , and worked as a script doctor on Speed and X - M e n —the latter of which kept
only two of his original lines.
Whedon has noted he was a fan of comic books growing up, and more specifi cally, of
girls in comic books. Th erefore he was disappointed with the lack of female characters
in the medium, especially when it came to superheroes. He was particularly drawn to
Kitty Pryde of the X-Men—a character he calls a fi gure of both aff ection and identifi -
cation. Whedon’s early frustration with this scarcity of interesting women characters in
comics later carried over to fi lm and television. It was one of several factors that inspired
him to create a female superhero in Buff y Summers, who fi rst appeared in the 1992 fi lm
Buff y the Vampire Slayer and then in the critically acclaimed television series of the same
name from 1997 to 2003.
While he acknowledges that fi lm and comics are diff erent media, Whedon fre-
quently utilizes storytelling techniques he learned from reading comic books in
his fi lm and television work. Th ese include plotting devices and rhythm as well as
superhero tropes. Additionally, the impact of Chris Claremont’s early run on the
X-Men can be seen in Whedon’s narrative focus on friendship and the created family
in his television series Buff y the Vampire Slayer , Angel , and Firefl y. Whedon’s series
challenge the conventions of commercial television work, partly because he draws
so heavily upon alternative traditions, especially the comics, though the comics have
come to infl uence numerous other television series as well, including Alias , Battle-
star Galactica , and Lost —not to mention more obvious cases, such as Heroes and
Smallville.
Whedon’s interest in comics came full-circle when he began to write comics him-
self. First he contributed to comic books based on Buff y the Vampire Slayer that were
published by Dark Horse Comics from 1998 to 2004. He also wrote a limited series
about a future Slayer for Dark Horse called Fray. It was drawn by Karl Moline and ap-
peared between the years 2001 and 2003. Whedon scripted issues #1 through #24 for
Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men title with art by John Cassaday. He was involved in writing
a Wonder Woman fi lm script for Warner Bros. but the project dissolved over creative
diff erences.
In 2007, fi ve years after the series fi nale of Buff y the Vampire Slayer , Whedon began
producing an Eighth Season of the series—but in an innovative twist he did so in comic
books rather than on television. Published by Dark Horse, Buff y the Vampire Slayer
Season Eight has expanded the Slayer mythology in a canonical fashion and has fea-
tured scripts by Whedon, as well as by guest writers such as Jeph Loeb and Brian K.
Vaughan. Th e success of this transition from medium to medium led to a continua-
tion of Angel in comic book form as well, published by IDW Publishing. Whedon also
wrote an arc for Marvel’s Runaways after Vaughan left the title.
