Fray (comics)

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Fray
Publication information
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics
Format	Limited series
Publication date	2001–2003
No. of issues	8
Main character(s)	See "Characters"
Creative team
Created by	Joss Whedon Karl Moline
Written by	Joss Whedon
Penciller(s)	Karl Moline
Inker(s)	Andy Owens

Fray is an eight-issue comic book limited series, a futuristic spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, the series follows a Slayer named Melaka Fray, a chosen one in a time when vampires (called "lurks") are returning to the slums of New York City, and the rich-poor divide is even greater.^[1] Volume one is drawn by Karl Moline (pencils) and Andy Owens (inks).

The series was published by Dark Horse Comics beginning in 2001, with delays between the first six and the final two issues caused by Whedon's TV commitments, and Moline's divided commitments illustrating Route 666 for CrossGen Comics. After the series' conclusion in August 2003, a trade paperback collecting the whole series was also published by Dark Horse. In a short video promoting the charity Equality Now Joss Whedon confirmed that "Fray is not done, Fray is coming back. More than that, I will not say."^[2] This was reiterated in 2007's Comic Con when Whedon stated that he "absolutely would be returning to that world."^[3] Fray next appears as a main character in the 2008 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight crossover story arc, "Time of Your Life", by Whedon and Moline.

The series was closely linked to the concurrently airing seventh season of Buffy, with coinciding depictions of the Slayer's mystical scythe and her origins, a major contributor to the expansion of the canonical "Buffyverse" in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other related stories are set. Melaka Fray also appears in the story "Tales", by the same creative team as the series, in the anthology comic book Tales of the Slayers.^{[citation needed]}