Product Description

From the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes an exciting new story set in the future! Here, the monsters are gone, destroyed by a Slayer sometime in the early 21st century or so it is believed...Get ready to meet Melaka Fray - street thief and hustler. She operates in the lowers; the parts of her city where the rich don't go. She was born hundreds of years after Buffy Summers. She is the Slayer. Now Fray and her ally, Urkonn, must fight to survive in a task she isn't ready for in a world she doesn't understand and they must prevail...Because the monsters have come back!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #476371 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Wizard Magazine
Joss Whedon does the impossible: he actually crafts a slayer with even more attitude than a certain blonde from Sunnydale.

Cinescape Magazine
Manages to create an identity of its own - one that takes the mythology in exciting new directions.

About the Author
Joss Whedon is the creator of and guiding light behind Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. Karl Moline has worked on Avengelyne, Savage Dragon, and Vampirella. Andy Owens is a long-time inker of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and has also contributed inks to Lady Pendragon and Witchblade/Tomb Raider.

Customer Reviews

Breathe Easily
Fray made my day and transported me back to the world of the Slayer but in a new and vivid way. When Buffy finished, I went into spin-off world and for the first time ever began reading graphic novels. I had heard about Fray for a long time and finally managed to get my hot little hands on it. Well, am I glad I did! The characters are passionate and beautifully drawn and there's that quality to each image that screams of big-screen potential ... or at least maybe after Joss finishes Serenity. Anyway, there's heart-breaking moments, tingly moments when you realise just how much you are part of this world by now. If you're anything like me, post-Buffy and post-Angel, you will have travelled with Joss along many roads and let me assure you, this is an amazing vibrant stop off on the journey.

An excellent piece of work
I've just bought this for my school library but the kids haven't got near it yet. As their librarian, it is my duty to review as many of the new titles as possible, so I brought this one home for a quick read. My verdict is that it is simply superb, a wonderfully crafted story not betraying the 'other' slayer in any way and almost surpassing her in some respects.
My wife now has this book and I fear that my students may not see it for a while longer.
Just one other thing....this was written two years ago. Where's the follow up? Hey Joss, get on to it!

Joss Whedon's comic book adventure of a future Slayer
If the pivotal moment in the original story of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was when the blonde walked down the alley and kicked the butt of the monster that attacked her, thereby reversing generations of horror movie stereotypes, then the key moment in the story of "Fray" is when her Watcher shows up to train her in the fight against the vampires and our heroine pauses a beat (i.e., a frame with no dialogue) before asking "What is a vampire?" This is because Joss Whedon's story is set in the 23rd century, some two hundred years after "a Slayer, possibly with some mystical allies, faced an apocalyptic army of demons. And when it was done...they were all gone. All demons, all magics, banished from this earthly dimension." What happened to that particular Slayer? The chronicles do not say, apparently, but we learn that she was the last to be called. That is, until Melaka Fray.

Fray is a grabber, who works for Gunther, a guy who has been mutated into a fish (this is a future where apparently a hole in the ozone and other ecological problems create mutations on a Stan Lee-like level), grabbing artifacts and sundry items of value, all the way trying to avoid her sister, Erin, a copy. In an interesting parallel to "BtVS," Melaka develops a relationship with and is trained by her second Watcher, the demon Urkonn of the D'avvrus, who looks like a demon with the lower half of his face ripped off, and who is frequently enraged by the young woman he is trying to teach to be a Slayer. This is because Fray has no frame of reference regarding why anybody should want to fight the lurks. If Urkonn cannot get Fray to accept her calling, then (altogether now) it could be the end of this futuristic world as we are learning to know it. The result is interesting and can certainly help to fill the void left by the end of Whedon’s cult classic television show.

Ultimately, the eight issue of Dark Horse Comics' "Fray" are about the calling of a Slayer. After all, there has to be something pretty interesting going on if a Slayer has finally been called after two centuries, and there are several familial entanglements with which Fray has to contend. Besides, you should not be surprised when you get to Fray's final battle to learn that once again Whedon is playing with our expectations, albeit this time within the context of his own Slayer mythos. He is also obviously setting us up for a sequel that should have more of a payoff than this first effort. Working with Whedon on this project are penciller Karl Moline, who created Fray's look, inker Andy Owens, and colorists Dave Stewart and Michelle Madsen. The artwork is growing on me, because while the backgrounds are a lot sparser than I would like to see in a futuristic setting, Fray's face has some nice qualities and you can actually see how she matures over the course of the mini-series. The back of the book has an extended sketchbook by Moline showing the development of the characters and alternative cover ideas.