Review: Buffy, The Teenage Years - Glutton for Punishment.
Script by Kel McDonald Art by Yishan Li
By Cj O'Connor
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One of the only true loves of my life is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like almost every young woman growing up in the nineties, Buffy was honestly one of the greatest things about television. She’s just so badass! I remember saving up for months so that I could go to the store and buy all seven glorious seasons on DVD, in a matching set. I still have that set, though they’re a bit beat up after being dragged everywhere I go for over a decade!
Needless to say, I’m down for pretty much any version of Buffy that is available in popular media. A friend of mine, well aware of this eternal love affair, gifted me a Buffy comic for my birthday, and friends, it didn’t even make it home before I read it. One of the greatest train-ride reads ever. First off, despite my ongoing adoration of all things Buffster, I didn’t actually know that there was a comic series available that riffed on Buffy’s high school years. Ah, Sunnydale High. How I’ve missed your accursed and fatal halls.
Now, the brilliant thing about this book (and yes, I do consider them books and you can FIGHT ME if you disagree) and the series of which it is a part, is that they’re adventures that aren’t in the television series, so it’s new Buffy high school material! Hello, pre-batcrap crazy Willow! Hello, Xander-with-both-eyes-intact! I’ve missed you!
I really enjoyed this quick snapshot of Sunnydale High and the seemingly endless array of weirdo monsters that are drawn to the Hellmouth atop which the school is built. And, really, Mayor? Really? A school?! I’ll freely admit that when I saw the title
Glutton for Punishment and then realized early on in the story that people were going missing, the story emphatically did NOT go in the direction that I thought it would! Also, and this is really quite discomforting….despite going about it the wrong way, I totally get where this monster was coming from. #studentlife is a real struggle, y’all. A real struggle.
The artwork was also fantastic, and I don’t say that often. I liked the style of this art, it really suited both the tone of the story and the feel of Buffy stories generally, and I absolutely cannot wait to acquire more of this storyline. If anyone wants to subsidize that, message me :D
This is well worth the purchase for anyone who is even remotely a fan of the Buffy universe.
3/5 Stars.
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Goodreads Synopsis
When Buffy and Xander sign up for home ec, assuming it will be an extra-credit cakewalk, they aren’t aware that the teacher is a ravenous tiger demon in disguise. The demon’s unquenchable appetite has him kidnapping his top students and forcing them to cook for him, and when Xander claims some store-bought treats are his own creations, he becomes the demon’s next victim! It’s not enough that Buffy has to keep her grades up, but she also has to rescue her friends and fellow students-and give the tiger demon his just desserts!
Author Kel McDonald (Misfits of Avalon) and artist Yishan Li bring monsters and more high-school high jinks into the life of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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