Paperback, 216 pages
English language
Published Nov. 25, 2003 by Dark Horse.
Hundreds of years in the future, Manhattan has become a deadly slum, run by mutant crime-lords and disinterested cops. Stuck in the middle is a young girl who thought she had no future, but learns she has a great destiny. In a world so poisoned that it doesn't notice the monsters on its streets, how can a street kid like Fray unite a fallen city against a demonic plot to consume mankind? Joss Whedon, the celebrated creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, brings his vision to the future in this unique tale. As inventive in the comics medium as in that of television of film, Whedon spins a complex tale of a skilled thief coming of age without the help of friends or family, guided only by a demonic Watcher.
Enjoyable. But I'm not sad I only get to tread this one volume.
The slayer universe has so much that doesn't make sense. It's not the only universe with that flaw, and it's a forgivable flaw when something is fun, but this book reveals too much and ruins the illusion for me.
This was a gift from a friend off my wishlist.
It was a pretty quick read. I'm a fan of Joss Whedon's work, although not as much a fan as others. This collection has the preview discussing how the book came to be and how Joss wanted his story to come across.
Melaka Fray is a slayer after hundreds of years of needing no slayers. But she is an incomplete slayer. We learn why about mid-book.
I enjoy graphic novels. Although, I'm finding as an adult I do not enjoy them as much as I did as a teen. I think I would have really liked this book 20 years ago. Now, it ranks as okay.
The drawings are okay. The fight scenes seemed to be repeats. They had certain lines they liked and used them over and over in every chapter. I'm no comic artist, so I can't speak …
This was a gift from a friend off my wishlist.
It was a pretty quick read. I'm a fan of Joss Whedon's work, although not as much a fan as others. This collection has the preview discussing how the book came to be and how Joss wanted his story to come across.
Melaka Fray is a slayer after hundreds of years of needing no slayers. But she is an incomplete slayer. We learn why about mid-book.
I enjoy graphic novels. Although, I'm finding as an adult I do not enjoy them as much as I did as a teen. I think I would have really liked this book 20 years ago. Now, it ranks as okay.
The drawings are okay. The fight scenes seemed to be repeats. They had certain lines they liked and used them over and over in every chapter. I'm no comic artist, so I can't speak to being able to have lots of fight scenes that seem novel in a century old medium. It didn't quite happen in this graphic novel.
I also realize Joss was trying to create a new lingo for a world set hundreds of years in the future. Because of the short duration of the book, it didn't work. I never got into the new slang. Some of it was okay and worked, but then it would be much overused - or used inconsistently. Quite frankly every time I came across "Jesu" it took me completely out of the story and book. Sadly, it appears in most dialogues, so I was often jolted out of the story just as I was getting back in. That makes reading hard.
Overall, if you really want to read the book, it's worth reading. It probably would appeal to graphic novel readers in their teen years more than adults and I might recommend it to that age group, especially girls since this medium is not well known for good depictions of females.
