Angel: After the Fall: Premiere Edition [Hardcover]

Here it is at last - the official Season 6 of Angel! It's not the TV series - that got cancelled before its time at the end of Season 5 - but yes it is the official continuation of Angel as scripted by Joss Whedon. It's not a film or a novel either - it's actually a full colour graphic novel released across several high quality hardbound volumes.

There have been Angel (and Spike) comics before - so what makes this "official"? It's something called "canon", which means that the events described are from the vision of the original creator, whereas so many TV series get franchised to authors who write their own stories and put their own spin on it, regardless of continuity. The events in After The Fall are exactly how Joss Whedon would have continued with the TV series had it not been cancelled. The downside is of course that the actors aren't part of it, but the upside is that the graphics budget is unlimited! And the artists are amazingly talented - you have to see it to believe it.

There is more info on Wikipedia, but what you don't get told on Wikipedia or Amazon is how many of the first run comics are in each volume of the hardback, so here goes:

Volume 1: Issues 1 to 5 of the main storyline first run comics. The story begins a couple of months after the fight in the alleyway. It works far better this way.

Volume 2: Issues 6 to 8 of the first run comics, making up a sub-arc called First Night. These tell the story of each character individually on their first night after Los Angeles is sent into Hell. Don't read this volume first, as it will spoil your enjoyment of the revelations in Volume 1.

Volume 3: Issues 9 to 13 of the main storyline first run comics.

Volume 4: (coming in July 2009): Issues 14 to 17 of the main storyline first run comics.

Volume 5: (Coming is September 2009): Issues 17 to (to be announced) With the main storyline finished, these move on to the aftermath of whatever it is that happens in Volume 4.

Oh, and there is also a Spike: After The Fall standalone volume that is William The Bloody brilliant!

All the books have bonus artwork and commentary pages and are of very high quality. I wonder how many people would love to find out that this series exists, but know nothing about it?

Spread the word: Angel unlives again!

UPDATE APRIL 2013 - Please note this review is of the separate hardcover volume 1 of the series, as written back in 2009. The review is also for some reason appearing on the collected slipcase edition of volumes 1 to 4, so please be aware this is only a review of the first of those 4 volumes and as such might sound a bit strange and/or misleading if you're looking at it on the slipcover edition page.

after buying this i read through it twice and have thoroughly enjoyed it both times as well as interesting plot twists for the storyline to have the universe made even more less clear than it ever was... (There are minor suprises at the end of Chapter 1, 3 but the huge plot twist comes at the end of the 5th part of 'After the Fall'.)
if this was the idea for Angels final season then fox are idiots for cancelling the series when they did as this would've made a great TV Season...

Can't wait for Angel: After the Fall - Volume 2: First Night

The story continues right on from season 5, well 6 months onwards anyway, and feels just like it should; an official continuation of Angel. The characters voices all sound perfect, there's a strong likeness visually, their personalities are captured well, and the story as far as I've gotten so far, is, well, epic.

So why the three stars? Simply because, it's REALLY hard to tell what's happening most of the time. The scene changes are a big mess, and you really can't tell where people are, who's saying what and who they're saying it to more than half the time. I have literally had to reread and analyse every other page or so for ages at a time to understand exactly where I was. I read comics now and then, which doesn't make me an expert, but you really don't need to be one to tell that these're badly presented. It's as if the writers spent AGES creating an entire living, breathing world and planned it out and everything, but totally forgot about us, the readers, because they never take the time to familiarise us with the world. At all.

If it wasn't for the fact it carries on the story of my all time favourite television series, I would have probably given this two stars. Maybe I am being a little harsh, and it could well be that later volumes are easier to follow... Well, one can only hope...