Auld Lang Syne is a comic based on the Angel television series.

Story description

'Issue #1: Angel's back on the job in Los Angeles, tracking a mysterious cult and working to solve a kidnapping. The only trouble is, a few old familiar faces keep showing up—faces he shouldn't really be seeing! And what does Spike have to do with it?'

Issue #2: A quiet night out for Spike turns into a nightmarish trip through his past, as he's repeatedly confronted by familiar, long-departed faces. How will Spike react to meeting the sins of his past up close and personal? And where's Angel in all of this?

Issue #3: Years of animosity boil over as Angel and Spike go head to head in the brawl to end all brawls through the streets of L.A. What set off this knockdown, drag-out battle, and who's really profiting from it?

Issue #4: Angel and Spike put their heads together to discover who's been manipulating them from afar! And what better way to get to the bottom of things than some good old-fashioned breaking and entering! It's an all-vampire museum heist!

Issue #5: Angel and Spike have tracked down the culprit who's been tampering with their minds! Will they be able to free themselves from her influence? Or will Spike be too busy putting the moves on her? It all ends here!

Cultural references

• Auld Lang Syne
  Auld Lang Syne
  "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song . It is well known in many countries, especially in the English-speaking world; its traditional use being to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight...
  
   – (Scots
  Scots language
  Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
  
  ; “Days Gone By” lit., “Old Long Since”) is a poem by Robert Burns. "Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung each year on New Year's Eve in many English-speaking countries.

Continuity

• The continuity of this comic is unconfirmed. In an interview Tipon was ambiguous about the timing, but said that it followed Angel comics: The Curse
  The Curse (Angel comic)
  The Curse is a trade paperback collecting comic stories based on the Angel television series.-General synopsis:Having survived the battle of "Not Fade Away", we find Angel in Romania. He has traveled there in the hope he can find the Kalderesh clan, the Gypsies who cursed him with a soul...
  
  , and Old Friends
  Old Friends (Angel comic)
  Old Friends is a trade paperback collecting comic stories based on the Angel television series.-Angel: Old Friends #1:A vampiric figure seems to be causing a string of deaths in LA, so Angel must return to the city to investigate with Gunn...
  
  .
• In a post at the idwpublishing site IDW Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall agreed with a poster who posted

  "So the way I understand the order is: The Curse,Old Friends,Asylum and Auld Lang Syne.I could be wrong (and I think that there is no official line on it), but the way that I am taking it is that unless a comic is very obviously set during the series then it will be set after the previous 'post-Angel' comics."

• Based on dialogue from Issue 2, it is implied that the series is set after Spike: Asylum

Canonical issues

Angel

Angel comics

Angel comic book refers to one of two series published by Dark Horse Comics during 2000–2002. Both of these series are based on the television series Angel, and were published while the television series was on air. The first volume was an ongoing series halted after seventeen issues. The second...

 comics such as this one are not usually considered by fans as canonical. Some fans consider them stories from the imaginations of authors and artists, while other fans consider them as taking place in an alternative fictional reality. However unlike fan fiction

Fan fiction

Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...

, overviews summarising their story, written early in the writing process, were 'approved' by both Fox and Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon

Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...

(or his office), and the books were therefore later published as officially Buffy merchandise.

External links

• Singh, Arune, "SCOTT TIPTON SINKS HIS TEETH INTO "ANGEL: AULD LANG SYNE", Comicbookresources.com (September 29, 2006)
• Dodsworth,James, "SCOTT TIPTON Fractal Matter Interview", fractalmatter.com (December 1, 2006)
• Review of Auld Lang Syne at fractalmatter.com, "Auld Lang Syne Fractal Matter review", fractalmatter.com (November, 2006)
• Auld Lang Syne thread at IDW Publishing forums, "Auld Lang Syne thread at IDW Publishing forums", idwpublishing.com