Have you seen the letters page of this issue? Because Scott addresses this very subject. Somebody asked about why we don't find out what happened between 'Chosen' and 'TLWH' - why Dawn's a giant, why the Slayers have a castle in Scotland, etc. And this was his reply:
A lot of what you were asking for in issue #1 was exposition. Answers will continue to spill out, but only as they serve the story. Story and exposition are two different things. We'll probably be halfway through Season Eight before you understand what happened to Dawn!
In other words (and confirming what I suggested in my recent meta on Dawn :-) ) dropping us into the middle of things without long explanations was a deliberate stylistic device to get the story arc moving quickly.
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A lot of what you were asking for in issue #1 was exposition. Answers will continue to spill out, but only as they serve the story. Story and exposition are two different things. We'll probably be halfway through Season Eight before you understand what happened to Dawn!
In other words (and confirming what I suggested in my recent meta on Dawn :-) ) dropping us into the middle of things without long explanations was a deliberate stylistic device to get the story arc moving quickly.