"Maria is on the line from Cleveland"

So back on May 19, the world was abuzz with news of the release of the final (I use this term loosely) installment of the Star Wars property.

In response to this, NPR decided to talk about the film's release, among other things, on a segment of Talk of the Nation, called The End of 'Star Wars,' But Not Its Fans. In all honesty, the last Star Wars film I enjoyed was the first one (yea, it's been awhile for me), so this topic would not have interested me had it not featured a friend, Professor Amy H. Sturgis, as one of the show's subject matter experts.

The show was all over the map, not merely focused on Star Wars. I mean I was bewildered when the show's substitute host, Frank Stasio, started talking about the Grateful Dead. Fortunately, Sturgis was able to roll with the odd twists and turns of the show. At one point (13 minutes into the segment), Stasio took a phone call from "Maria of Cleveland" (Stasio asked: "Do you have a question...an observation...are you a fan of some kind?" acting as if fans were some kind of alien beast it seemed). Maria spoke of her obsession with Joss Whedon's Buffy and Angel series, and how she felt a "great loss" with the departure of both series. She added that "in this type of genre there is not that much out there...so I've turned to books by Nancy A. Collins and Laurell K. Hamilton...but I'm anxious for Joss to have his Serenity movie come out...other than that I'm kind of in a void."

There in a nutshell told me how little Marvel has capitalized on having a mainstream creator like Whedon writing one of its titles. This woman, looking to fill her Whedon void, didn't know squat about his comic book writing.

In frustration, I dropped Sturgis a line after her NPR appearance. I lamented the fact that Whedon clearly could draw unique (sometimes previously unattainable) readership to comic books if only more Whedon fans knew about this gig. Her response: "...you're quite right about Whedon. The fen [according to Professor Sturgis "fen" is "the current popular plural of fans") would squee from here to eternity if they only knew about the Marvel gig." But just as quickly as she confirmed my sensing of a wasted opportunity, she added: "Though I must make a true confession: as cool as the Marvel thing is, nothing, nothing is quite so cool as the spoilers I've been hearing about the Serenity film. Ooooooh yeah."

Well maybe Marvel should toss out free Whedon comics to folks as they enter Serenity, the more I think about it.