What Would Buffy Do? explores the fascinating spiritual, religious, and mythological ideas of television's hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer--from apocalypse and sacrifice to self-reliance, redemption, and the need for humor when fighting our spiritual battles.

This bibliographic guide covers the “Buffyverse”—the fictional worlds of the acclaimed television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and its spinoff Angel (1999–2004), as well as the original Buffy feature film of 1992. It is the largest and most inclusive work of its kind. The author organizes and describes both the original texts of the Buffyverse (episodes, DVDs, novels, comic books, games, and more) and the secondary materials created about the shows, including books, essays, articles, documentaries, dissertations, fan production and websites. This vast and diverse collection of information about these two seminal shows and their feature-film forebear provides an accessible, authoritative and comprehensive survey of the subject.

Director, producer and screenwriter Joss Whedon is a creative force in film, television, comic books and a host of other media. This book provides an authoritative survey of all of Whedon's work, ranging from his earliest scriptwriting on Roseanne, through his many movie and TV undertakings--Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Dr. Horrible, The Cabin in the Woods, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.--to his forays into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The book covers both the original texts of the Whedonverse and the many secondary works focusing on Whedon's projects, including about 2000 books, essays, articles, documentaries and dissertations.

Hugely enjoyable, long awaited book by top world authority on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Buffy is still on screens and on DVD in home television libraries of a wide array of TV watchers and fans. This is also the student text for TV and cultural studies at colleges and universities where Buffy is widely taught. Rhonda Wilcox is a world authority on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", who has been writing and lecturing about the show since its arrival on our screens. This book is the distillation of this remarkable body of work and thought, a celebration of the series that she proposes is an aesthetic test case for television. Buffy is enduring as art, she argues, by exploring its own possibilities for long-term construction as well as producing individual episodes that are powerful in their own right. She examines therefore the larger patterns that extend through many episodes: the hero myth, the imagery of light, naming symbolism, Spike, sex and redemption, Buffy Summers compared and contrasted with Harry Potter. She then moves in to focus on individual episodes, such as the "Buffy musical Once More, with Feeling", the largely silent Hush and the dream episode "Restless" (T.S. Eliot comes to television). She also examines Buffy's ways of making meaning - from literary narrative and symbolism to visual imagery and sound. Combining great intelligence and wit, written for the wide Buffy readership, this is the worthy companion to the show that has claimed and kept the minds and hearts of watchers worldwide.

On the TV screen as elsewhere, there is often more than meets the eye. For decades, television has offered not just entertainment, but observations--subtle and otherwise--on society. This book examines the cultural commentary contained in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, a show that ran for seven seasons (1997-2003) and 144 episodes. On the surface, Buffy is the marriage of a high school drama to gothic horror. This somewhat unusual vehicle is used to present, via the character of Buffy, fairly typical views of late 20th century culture-teenage problems; issues regarding a broken home; and the search for meaning and validation. In addition, subtler themes, such as cultural views of knowledge, ethnicity and history, are woven into the show's critique of popular culture. Organized into two sections, this volume offers an in-depth examination of the show: first, through the lens of Buffy's confrontation with culture, and second, from the complex perspectives of the individual characters. Issues such as values, ethical choices and the implications of one's actions are discussed--without ever losing sight of the limitations of a medium that will always be dominated by financial concerns. The final chapter summarizes what Buffy has to say about today's society. An appendix lists Buffy episodes in chronological order.

The world of the television series "Angel" is celebrated and discussed in this companion guide to the intelligent, thought-provoking spin-off of cult favorite "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." 16 color illustrations; b&w photos throughout.

With contributions from Will Brooker, Jeffrey A. Brown, Scott Bukatman, John G. Cawelti, Peter Coogan, Jules Feiffer, Charles Hatfield, Henry Jenkins, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, Gerard Jones, Geoff Klock, Karin Kukkonen, Andy Medhurst, Adilifu Nama, Walter Ong, Lorrie Palmer, Richard Reynolds, Trina Robbins, Lillian Robinson, Roger B. Rollin, Gloria Steinem, Jennifer Stuller, Fredric Wertham, and Philip Wylie Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This groundbreaking collection brings together essays and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture. While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century, they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction. The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.

This study examines the major works of contemporary American television and film screenwriter Joss Whedon. The authors argue that these works are part of an existentialist tradition that stretches back from the French atheistic existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, through the Danish Christian existentialist Soren Kierkegaard, to the Russian novelist and existentialist Fyodor Dostoevsky. Whedon and Dostoevsky, for example, seem preoccupied with the problem of evil and human freedom. Both argue that in each and every one of us "a demon lies hidden." Whedon personifies these demons and has them wandering about and causing havoc. Dostoevsky treats the subject only slightly more seriously. Chapters cover such topics as Russian existentialism and vampire slayage; moral choices; ethics; Faith and bad faith; constructing reality through existential choice; some limitations of science and technology; love and self-sacrifice; love, witchcraft, and vengeance; soul mates and moral responsibility; love and moral choice; forms of freedom; and Whedon as moral philosopher.

One dimensional television characters are a thing of the past--today's popular shows feature intricate storylines and well developed characters. From the brooding Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries to the tough-minded Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, protagonists are not categorically good, antagonists often have relatable good sides, and heroes may act as antiheroes from one episode to the next. This collection of new essays examines the complex characters in Orange Is the New Black, Homeland, Key & Peele, Oz, Empire, Breaking Bad, House, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.