PeterDavid.net

My thoughts on the Illyria one-shot.

This was a great comic, and I hope that IDW keeps up the great work with the Buffy/Angel Verse.

Illyria quest to see if she could feel remorse ends with her visiting Fred's parents and going thru old home movies, and photo albums.

Her final exchange with Wesley when he asks her if she feel remorse is priceless.

I highly recommend it to any and all fans of the series.

Regards:
Warren S. Jones III

Just finished reading it and loved it; I've been fighting the temptation recently to pop in my Angel Season 5 DVDs, since I really need to spend my time packing up for a move in two weeks, but danged if reading this didn't just bump the temptation up a notch or two. Darn you and your talented writing, PAD!

This was a wonderful read - Very poignant.

I thought it was a far better Illyria story than the show ever got around to producing. The framework was there, but they just couldn't follow through before the cancellation.

So thank you, PAD, for producing this comic.

So?? What was your idea???

And how often do your ideas (not part of, but all) get into the stories? (And how many ideas inspired by you get into the stories that you WISH hadn't?)

(My idea has to do with locking up a criminal with pictures of his victims and the only thing on his/her TV are videos of the lives of the people they killed/destroyed so they have to face what they did every day of their lives for the rest of their lives. I think this is most of a just punishment than killing the individual.

Peter and I bounce ideas off each other all the time. When he first thought about what to write for the Maddrox mini-series, we spent an evening discussing what makes Maddrox different than the other mutants and came up with something that could go wrong with him that he might not notice at first. I said something about multiple personality disorder I had read about and Peter expanded on the idea for Maddrox's problem.

So far none of my stupid ideas have made it into print. But Peter is really good at sorting out the wheat from the chaff. I tend to look at things from an editors POV which can be helpful for Peter.)

Have you and Peter ever discussed the possibility of collaborating on a story, either in prose or comic book form?

If you can't see your way to writing dialog, how about you coming up with a basic plot and Peter can expand on it.

I've read a few entries in your blog and I believe that you're a more talented writer than you probably realize.

(Short answer is yes we have. There are a couple of things that we have kept on the back burner that eventually we want to finish. Most of that comes from the fact I am to go first and then Peter will have a go at it.

We did collaberate on Negima 1-4 which was fun)

1it was my favoite idw angel book so far i only wish they spent more time useing illyra

As a dedicated Buffy/Angel squealing fangirl, an Illyria booster from her first appearance and a fan of Peter's for about a bajillion reasons, I have to say, this one-shot was AMAZING.

I know what a squealing Buffy/Angel fanboy Peter is, too, so writing all these stories must be heaven for him (in a hellish kind of way, of course; I've done fanfic and I know how obsessive we can get over details). Fortunately, his love for and grasp of the characters comes across on every page. What is Illyria, really? It's something she/it has tried to grasp since she lost her entire reason for coming into existence. It always fascinated me that a primordial demon king would even care. By the end of the series, we were left wondering exactly how much of Fred was left in Illyria. Is it possible that some part of her survived Illyria's coming, despite the claim that Fred's soul was destroyed? Is there any residual humanity in Illyria?

These are excellent questions that Joss also wanted to explore, had there been a Season Six of Angel. Peter took up the reins of that line of thinking brilliantly and never really does answer the question.

What defines humanity? What makes a monster? I personally have always thought that evil is remorseless; the ability to cause pain without regret. That is Illyria, or so she/it thinks. It's Wesley who causes her to question her own lack of humanity; he knows this is the thing walking around in the body of his true love and he cannot forgive it. He will never see Illyria as anything but a monster, but he also acknowledges that he lost a little of his humanity as well, for Fred's sake. Wesley's emptiness is evident in every word out of his mouth, and it's clear even if you haven't seen the series finale what his fate will be.

Illyria's journey into Fred's past has an ambiguous result, but that's what makes it so good. Did she truly feel any remorse for Fred's death? Was the scene in Fred's bedroom just something she thought she ought to do, as evidenced by her answer to Wesley at the end, or was a spark of humanity really there? If it was, was it Fred's humanity asserting itself, or is there something in Illyria herself that is beginning to quicken?

More questions than answers, and that's the way it ought to be for Illyria. This was a superb grasp of the character, Peter, and I'm extremely impressed, thrice-biased though I may be. You're definitely at your best when you're doing more serious work. I've noticed you have this ongoing theme of questioning good and evil and the lines in-between in your work lately - what can drive a person to evil (Woad To Wuin), what can make an evil person human and vice-versa (Illyria) and the ongoing struggle between our good and evil natures (FALLEN ANGEL, early SUPERGIRL). It's a sound reaction to the modern world, especially in this decade, to be questioning the very essences of humanity, of divinity and of evil. No one expects anyone to have any answers, but you're at least trying to puzzle them out, which is more than I can say for the unquestioning masses. Bravo, my good sir, and keep it up.

I really enjoyed the Illyria one-shot; it was much stronger than either of the recent Angel series were, and I think that PAD is directly responsible for that.

He really got to the heart of the character in a way that added to the final season of Angel, and to some extent made her final scenes with Wesley more poignant. I wouldn't mind seeing some post-Season 5 work with Illyria by PAD aswell if the opportunity arises.

Great work!

I like how it added to the feeling that Illyria is more than a badass super demon. That there's more to her than she herself realizes and she wants to understand. It's too bad we couldn't have seen more of this type of development of her in the 6th season.

Dear Kathleen:

This may be a dumb question, but what does AFTKB mean?

Most likely "Away From The KeyBoard"

Usually just see it as "AFK". :)

It is "away from the keyboard". Nothing mysterious there. I think the word "the" get short shrift on the internet

Off subject (sorry): I noticed that Roy Allan Martinez is listed as the penciller for X-Factor 10. Is he the new penciller? While I think he's a great artist, I would REALLY miss Dennis Calero and thought he was supposed to be on through 12, at least.

Hi, Kathleen, replying to an earlier comment Peter made ... Is there ANY hope of ENLIGHTENING him about the true excellence that is MEDIUM on NBC?

Or does the show about a smart dad of only daughters married to a woman with superpowers, and is supernatural right so often, strike a little TOO close to home?

-- Ken from Chicago

P.S. Jake Weber plays the best dad on broadcast primetime network tv ... ever. A 3-dimension, dad and husband, who's not afraid of housework or childcare and is competent at both WITHOUT being some doormat or uber-dad, but with thoughts, feelings and disagreements (unlike the hubbies on GHOST WHISPERER and CLOSE TO HOME, and it's odd on CTH because I keep waiting for Christian Kane to be asked to get some light bulbs ... from the ... GASP ... basment!!!).

(The only reason we have not been watching MEDIUM is that we both had bowling leagues that met on Monday and made it hard to watch it. Taping something around here is a crap shoot in terms of finding the time to watch it. I hope we'll have the chance to catch-up a bit this summer)

Congratulations to both Peter and Kathleen David for the excellent Illyria one-shot! To Kathleen, because her idea of forcing a murderer to view photos, videos, and rememberances of his/her victims led to the most moving pages of this book. The full page picture of Illyria's grief is heartbreaking.

I didn't expect the issue to be set during season five - probably because the concurrently-published Angel: Old Friends l.s. is set post-TV - but this setting allows us access to Wesley, an important figure in any examination of Illyria. And this story adds to the emotion which Illyria shows in "Not Fade Away," helps us to see where that was coming from. Is Illyria growing a conscience, becoming more human? Is there more of Fred left in her than just residual memories? Or is it those memories of Fred alone, the lessons taught by the woman that she was, which are changing Illyria, to the point where she could grieve for the one who was destroyed by her resurrection? The exact answer is unclear; and the character remains intruiging, even as she grows more sympathetic.