Hey. Right so I hope you don't mind me asking about Buffy comics. I recently finished watching the show and I really want to read the comics now. Do you have any tips on where to start with them?
I’m going to answer two asks in one.
There have been Buffy comics for a while, but only the ones since 2007 have been designated as a canon continuation of the show, and have been organized as seasons. You can get the trade paperbacks at any Indigo or huge book store like that, and they should be clearly labelled as “season 8” or “season 9” and have “Executive Producer Joss Whedon” on the front, to differentiate them from the earlier, non-canon comics.
I’ve read a couple of the non-canon comics and they just piss me off because they don’t quite fit properly. And there’s been characterization issues. That you might not notice unless you’re really obsessive about characterization like I am. But yeah, I mostly ignore the non-canon comics.
Anyways, there’s season 8. And then there’s season 9, which branches into both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and Faith, and the two five-issue mini-series Willow, and Spike. The trade paperbacks for season 9 are almost all out now too. Honestly, Angel and Faith has been the only series that I’ve really loved. The BtVS comics get a bit far-out in terms of mythology, but now the team that worked on A&F has moved to BtVS and I’m hoping it’s going to be good. So I’d say read all of Seasons 8 and 9, just so you know what’s going on. But I’m a completist. If you skip anything, I think the Spike miniseries is the least plot-relevant.
And then the first issues of season 10 of both BtVS and A&F have just been released. And you may be able to find those at a huge bookstore, but if you have a comic book store nearby, I’d try that instead.
And the thing is, if you have one of those ginormous book stores nearby, you don’t even have to buy the trade paperbacks to read them. Just pull them off the shelf, and read them in the book store coffee shop, and then decide if you like them enough to buy them.
ALSO: OTHER CANON THINGS:
There’s a canon post-Angel series called “After The Fall”, that was published by IDW while it still owned the licencing rights to Angel, before it moved over to Dark Horse. That is less easy to find than the post-series BtVS comics, so I’d look in an actual comic book store, or online. And IDW also had a canon Spike series, which I didn’t read. They don’t really tie into the BtVS comics plot-wise, so unless you watched Angel as well and want to find out what happens next, you don’t need to read them. The only thing is SPOILER: Spike shows up with a space ship run by giant alien bugs, and since I didn’t read his IDW series I don’t know where they came from or what that was all about, but it didn’t impede my enjoyment of the comics.
Fray is a graphic novel set hundreds of years in the future, about the first Slayer who’s called after many years of the world being Slayer-less. It’s canon, and it was written by Whedon before season 8. The character of Meleka Fray does appear in season 8 as well. And the reason why the plot of the BtVS comics gets so far-out is because Whedon was trying to connect it up to the future-world he created in Fray. I enjoyed it, so I would recommend it.
Tales of the Slayers and Tales of the Vampires are graphic novels, short stories about Slayers and vampires over the centuries. They’re written by writers from the show, as well as comic writers. The quality of the stories varies from writer to writer, but if you’re a fan of the Buffyverse in general, I’d recommend them.
demonstrosity asked you:
suddenly it’s like 40 years after you replied oh god I’m gonna go find it ALSO I recall you asking if I read the comics - I haven’t! how do you access them???
Depends on whether you want to spend money on them. The ones I would say are worth spending money on are Fray, Tales of the Slayers, and Angel and Faith.
The trade paperbacks for seasons 8 and 9 of BtVS (which includes Angel and Faith and Spike and Willow) can easily be found at huge book stores like Indigo or Chapters, or any book store that sells graphic novels. The good thing about the huge book stores, is that you can read the comics in-store, and not buy them.
If you want to get a hold of the IDW Angel: After the Fall and Spike series, or the Dark Horse books Fray, or Tales of the Slayers and Tales of the Vampires, you’ll probably have to ask in your local comic book store, or order them online. You can also buy electronic copies of the BtVS comics from the Dark Horse website.
Or you could download them illegally. You’ll need CBR (Comic Book Reader), which is a free-to-download program, to actually view the downloads. At one point, most of the Buffy comics were available on Pirate Bay (for which you would need BitTorrent). I’m not sure if they are any more. You can also Google search “download Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 free”, and you’ll find other torrents.
