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Kociemba, David and Mary Ellen Iatropoulos. "Separate Canons or One Canon? Canonicity, Medium, and Authorship in the Whedonverse Comics." The Comics of Joss Whedon. Critical Essays. Ed. Valerie Estelle Frankel. Jefferson: McFarland, 2015. 31–47. 
Added by: joachim (25/11/2020, 12:43)   
Resource type: Book Chapter
Language: en: English
BibTeX citation key: Kociemba2015
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Categories: General
Keywords: "Buffy", Authorship, Canon, Fandom, Intermediality, USA, Whedon. Joss
Creators: Frankel, Iatropoulos, Kociemba
Publisher: McFarland (Jefferson)
Collection: The Comics of Joss Whedon. Critical Essays
Views: 18/656
Attachments   URLs   https://www.academ ... Whedonverse_Comics
Abstract
How can the comics of the Whedonverses help fans and scholars understand and explore the relationship between medium, auteur, canon, and fandom? Although clearly successful in connecting with audiences hungry for more stories set in these universes, Whedonverse comics like Buffy: Seasons 8 and 9 and Serenity: the Shepherd’s Tale illustrate how the marketing of auteurism obscures as much as clarifies complexities in authorship in different industries, the resulting differences in collaborative production, the different reading style demanded of audiences across different media, and the relative importance of dynamics between intention vs. reception and narrative continuity vs. formal dissimilarity. These issues have broader cultural and economic importance, with contemporary examples including Disney’s proposed erasure of a great deal of the Star Wars Expanded Universe and J.J. Abrams’ radical alterations of one of the most intricate and best-policed canons in media fandom, Star Trek. Meanwhile, the comics fandom’s approval of the relative authenticity of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe serves as an important form of grassroots marketing. Canonical authenticity is central to global media conglomerates, certainly, but in the context of the Whedonverses, in which fan input is highly valued, the creative process is highly collaborative, and stories are told, expanded, and enriched across media platforms, the question becomes more complicated. When both fans and creators are “creating” meaning out of these transmedia texts, what counts as canon – as the “real” character or story? By what criteria and to what critical end is such a judgment made, and to whom do we grant the right to make such judgments? If Joss Whedon declares the Whedonverse comics to be a part of the broader Buffyverse canon (and he has, in interviews and through their titles), are readers and scholars obliged to read these texts his way?
  
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