Alyssa Pack reports for Bleeding Cool from Wizard World Portland:

At Wizard World Portland on Saturday, Chris Gage and Scott Allie took the stage of the Buffy Season 10 panel for an eager audience. At the beginning of the panel, Chris Gage talked about his upcoming writing for Season 10 and how he is now replacing former writer Andrew Chambliss, who due to his large workload on Once Upon A Time as writer and now producer, means that a monthly book such as Buffy was too much to take on. "Nothing more to the change in writers then that, Andrew is just too busy" noted Scott Allie.

Gage mentioned he will be joined by Rebekah Isaacs on the Buffy Season 10 team, along with colorist Dan Jackson. "We wanted to keep the whole group together," he said. Scott Allie related the story of how Isaacs , while hurrying to dance class, said about moving to Buffy, "as long as I stay with Chris I don't care", only to hurriedly call back and say a few minutes later "unless Joss wants to work with me…"

Chris Gage explained that at the beginning of Buffy Season 10, the core group has come back together. He stated "It is really the first time since the show ended that all of the surviving core group of Buffy characters are all together", a group including Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn, and the now younger Giles, originally killed at the end of Season 8, but brought back by Gage in Angel and Faith last year. Chris Gage said that when he was first asked to work on Buffy he was worried. He was once really apprehensive but now he feels a confidence about writing Season 10 that he gained from brainstorming with the whole group and with Joss Whedon himself. "I first met Joss while riding a train and I recognized him and I didn't really know anything about Buffy but he had written Astonishing X-Men which I loved and we talked about it. After that chat I binge-watched Buffy and Angel, all 12 seasons so they kind of blur for me a bit…"

Next up during the panel, Scott Allie announced that James Marsters was going to write an original graphic novel featuring Spike from Buffy. This novel would take place during Season 7 and came out of a SDCC panel that Allie had with Marsters and Nicholas Brendon where Marsters basically pitched the story. The original graphic novel will be called Into the Light which is an exploration of the character Spike after he gets his soul back. The story is mostly drawn but has not been announced for publication at this time. However, Buffy Season 10 already has 2 issues completed and will launch in March with Angel and Faith following in April.

Then Nicholas Brendon joined the panel around the halfway point. The first thing that he announced was that he would be writing for Buffy Season 10 with Chris Gage. Nicholas Brendon will join Chris Gage for a 3 issue arch from issues 3-5 focusing on Xander and the return of Dracula. The Buffy cast seeks Dracula's help to understand the changes in a world where the rules of vampires are no longer the same.

Scott Allie also talked further about Angel and Faith, touching on the new team on the title and, in particular, Will Conrad who drew Serenity originally for Dark Horse and had since moved over to doing work for Marvel and DC. "I spent a week with him at an convention and basically wore him down to leaving Marvel and DC and coming back to work in the Whedonverse", Allie said.

Chris Samnee will also be working on the title, contributing covers. A few questions followed with Nicholas Brendon, who was unfortunately very ill at the time, stating how much he loved working as a "writer" and Chris Gage relating how they have broken down the upcoming arc together.

There was also discussion of the Library editions of Buffy Season 9 were discussed with Allie confirming that they are likely, but only after all of normal trades have been released. "We love doing them and economically for the fans they make a lot of sense, but they are huge and heavy and it is quite a treat to see fans lugging them around at conventions to get signed. It's like the ultimate advertising for us," Allie said. The panel concluded with Allie promoting Serenity, which comes out this Wednesday, as "the Whedonverse book that outsells everything else we release Joss wise."