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Holiday Gift Guide: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Tree. Nog. Roast beast.

It's pretty easy to come up with gift ideas for the Buffy fan. Candles for Wiccan rituals. Self-defense lessons. A mummy hand would be perfect. (Fingers sold separately.) Stylish, yet affordable boots. (Maybe you could wear them with a suede Billie Doux bag. There actually is such a thing.)

But there are also a ton of great books about the wonderfulness that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are original Buffy novels galore. Tales of the Slayers by Joss Whedon himself. Buffy comics to the left of us, Buffy comics to the right of us. Into the valley... wow, where did that come from?

Maybe it's because I don't think I can recommend a gift of Buffy comics, although it's encouraging that the season eight series will finally end with issue 40 on January 19. (Why is that date important, Buffy fans? Post a comment if you know.) I'm still bogged down with the reviews and stopped with 31. I've been considering finishing the series during the holiday break and television hiatus, just to get it out of my hair. I'll admit I'm hung up on that completion thing and it would make me feel better if I got 'er done. It's like this huge scythe hanging over my head...

And I apologize for turning this into an unexpected rant about the Buffy comics. Back to our regularly scheduled Holiday Gift Guide.

What I find more intriguing than the original novels and the comics are the scholarly and popular works about Buffy. Check out just a smattering of the semi-substantial titles out there:

  • Why Buffy matters: the art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer and philosophy: fear and trembling in Sunnydale.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer supernatural defense kit.
  • Fighting the forces: what's at stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Sex and the Slayer: a gender studies primer for the Buffy fan.
  • What would Buffy do? The Vampire Slayer as spiritual guide.
  • Slayer slang: a Buffy the Vampire Slayer lexicon.
  • Buffy in the classroom: essays on teaching with the Vampire Slayer.
  • Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Such intriguing titles! And yet, I continue to resist actually buying them. Maybe it upsets me that I've written hundreds of unpublished pages about Buffy. What do they have that I don't? If any of you guys out there have read any of these titles and can recommend or nix them, I'd love to hear about it.

And there's a 2011 Buffy calendar available. Pretty good for a show that ended in 2003.

This is my final Gift Guide. (Three is my limit.) Whatever you celebrate, I wish you and yours a wonderful solstice and a happy and healthy new year. And thank you for stopping by to read our stuff. You guys are the best.



8 comments:

  1. Is January 19 Buffy's birthday?

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  2. Ding ding ding! Gus got it! I rather like that they are ending Buffy Season Eight on her birthday. It's a nice touch.

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  3. Well, if the other birthdays are any indication, the end will be a horrible, horrible experience for Buffy

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  4. I had no idea the final issue was coming out on Buffy's birthday. It almost makes me willing to give the comics another try.

    Ironically, I'm rewatching the fifth season and watched "Blood Ties" a couple of hours ago. Which reminds me of this book about family on Buffy and Angel. Don't recall the name.

    You know, the best holiday gift to a brazilian BtVS fan would be to have the complete DVD collection released here. It's the mistery of times: why the hell won't 20th Century Fox release seasons 6 and 7? Oh, well.

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  5. Yeah, Tom. A bunch of friends of mine had to import them to have the complete collection.

    And don't even get me started on the Angel Season DVDs!

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  6. I have the comic and it says the fifth @.@

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  7. I mean I have #39 and it says the next one comes out on the 5th

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  8. I think the date changed, Anonymous. I read an article saying the publication date was the 19th.

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