I'm ambivalent about Season 9. Season 8 was a giant mess, and let's just say Brad Meltzer is on a list of mine that isn't about sunshine and puppies. I single him out because it was his arc that totally took me out of the comics and into the world of what the giant space-frakking fuck. If he writes for season 9, Scott Allie will actually get the half-written letter I've never sent to him. However, issue #40 alone got me interested again.

While I'm a hardcore Buffy shipper (I have a domain for fuckyeah-buffysummers on tumblr, but I haven't acted upon using it because I'm still debating whether it will be just Buffy, alone, or if I'll post shippy things, because the responsible person would also post Bangel stuff and . . . I'm not that responsible. I get miffed when I think a gen Buffy blog has a bias, and I don't want to become that gen Buffy blog with a bias. Yeah, sidetracked much?), I still am interested in the 'verse Joss has created, and I'm easily swayed by angearia's enthusiasm, so I'll be following Season 9 (note: "following" does not imply purchase of a product that may or may not enrage me. I haven't purchased an issue of Season 8, and I'm damn pleased with myself that I didn't), though I have compartmentalized the comics and the television show in my head so that one isn't dependent upon the other and vice versa.

I see both sides of it - how unsatisfying the Spuffy of season 8 was, and how promising season 9 is at this point. So I remain on the fence, but it's a comfortable fence because I have the comics and the show separate in my mind. Will fandom be torn to shreds by the comics? Yeah, no matter what happens (the Bangels are back to crowing about how "beautiful" season 8 was, you can always find them on the boards or at the blood roses forum if you want to gage what they're thinking) fandom will be up in arms over the comics - even the anti-comics people will have an opinion. So that's where I am.