On Friday evening it seemed like Buffy had risen from the dead once again. There were a lot of fans in attendance for the Tribute Panel: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Will ALways Kick Ass at the New York Comic Con. On the panel was Amber Benson (played Tara on ‘Buffy’ and author of ‘The Witches of Echo Park’ out in January), Tom Sniegoski (Author of ‘The Fallen’), Carol Goodman (author of ‘The Lake of Dead Languages’), Michelle Knudsen (children’s author of ‘Evil Librarian’), Hillary Monahan (YA author of ‘Mary: The Summoning’) and Keith DeCandido (Science Fiction and Fantasy author of ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’ novels).
When Amber was introduced the crowd roared and didn’t let the panelist monitor get through the introduction.
Amber started by saying: you ‘can not experience Buffy without it changing you a little bit.”
The crowd, the panel and panelist are proving that ‘Buffy’ lives on long after the show has ended.
The panelist reminisced about the show and talked about how Buffy has influenced their own writing.
Dawn was a much debatable character.
I was “not a big fan until I saw her Spike with her,” Hillary said.
She said that Dawn humanized Spike and once that happened she “was all over Dawn”.
Keith said that he liked the concept that Dawn was someone Buffy would “protect until death. He thought it was a “cool concept in a plot perspective.”
Amber gushed over Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn) saying that she was a huge fan of the show when she joined and “she would put you all to shame”.
Amber said Michelle was a very talented and sweet kid “who then got taller than me and started dating boys and that was very upsetting for me.”
After the mixed feelings about Dawn, things were about to get very interesting. There was a shout from the crowd to talk about Xander and Hillary confessed that she hated Xander and the crowd applauded her in agreement. There even were some people in the crowd that cheered at the mention of Xander and Buffy shippers and others the booed.
Keith had a more complex view of Xander. He said that he had levels of complexity that sidekicks don’t usually have and he said the same thing about Oz. Hillary just loved Oz and thought he was adorable and wanted a miniature figurine of him.
Spike was the last character to be discussed and Tom said: he was “always best when he was evil and never better than when he was with Drusilla.”
Drusilla would also make an appearance during the Buffy trivia. The first fan to get a question right was a girl dressed as Drusilla and she earned a huge applause from the crowd. This fan has watched Buffy numerous times, enough to see that Tara walked into a pole during the musical episode. Amber thought no one had noticed this. Drusilla won a signed book from Amber.
Hillary upped the stakes when she asked a fan to recite the Gentleman rhyme and sure enough a fan was able to sing it.
The panel monitor asked if ‘Buffy’ would to air today would it still push the envelope and would it still hold up? The crowd applauded, showing that fans believe that even though ‘Buffy’ is long gone, it lives on.
“The late 90s were good for strong female characters, the 2010s aren’t. We’re not seeing the same level that we got and we could use a little more of that,” Keith said.
It’s been more than 10 years since Buffy was on the air, but she’s still alive and well saving the world over and over again.
Primetime Addiction 