I’ve been puzzling over additions to the Buffyverse canon post-TV. There is a lot of Buffyverse stuff out there. I’m dismissing the novels as fan fic some people get paid for (i.e., non-canon). If they make a movie with any of the actors in it reprising their original roles, I assume that will be canon.
But what about the comics? Which are canon? Which are not? It would be cool to, at some point, expand ATPo to include canonical works, but I don’t want to bother if isn’t canon.
X-posted to ATPo.
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Published by Nancy E. Shaffer
NANCY E. SHAFFER has been an experimental psychologist (M.A., Cognitive Psychology, Rice University), a philosopher (Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Davis), and software developer. She taught history and philosophy of science at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Her philosophical work has appeared in the journal Philosophy of Science and her pop-culture philosophy website, All Things Philosophical on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series.
Dis/inhbition is her first novel.
She currently resides in Tempe, Arizona.
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Author Nancy E. Shaffer 
The novels have been known to contradict canon, at least novels published while the shows were still in production.
I figure if they’re written by a recognized Mutant Enemy writer, they’re canon, but even that’s not certain.
I’d take Joss-involvement as my personal marker – written by Joss, canon. Overseen by Joss – such as the Firefly comics – semi-canon, as in he reserves the right to disregard. I haven’t seen the recent AtS comics but from the sounds of things they are kind of sidebar-ish to the character/plot arcs. If anything gets filmed I’d say it has to be canon – there’s just too much effort involved for it not to be… but at this point I reserve the right to place an arbitrary cut-off point for canon if there’s something I absolutely hate, I think we’ve all earned that right 😉
I agree with Ponygirl. If it’s written by Joss, it’s canon. Other things, like the books, not really. The Tales of the Slayers I would consider canon, not sure about other comics, unless done by Joss.
Maybe I should just start listing stuff and ask people, “Canon or not canon”.
Tales of the Slayers? All of them?
Tales of the Vampires All of them?
Fray?
And I don’t know half the Buffyverse comics out there.
The comicbooks have been known to play fast and loose with canon to. Even Fray doesn’t strike me much as canon given some of Joss’ interviews about it even though HE wrote it (more like pulled some of it out his butt while drunk on lime rickies. I ask you who the hell even drinks lime rickies any more. I keep hoping he was kidding about how much of that he came up with while intoxicated)
To be completely honest… I’ve got no bloody clue. But the novels and most of the comics…. I’d say no.
Tales of the Slayer is probably canon, if only because I don’t think there is anything in it that contradicts the show.
Meh. I think outside of the shows, the only thing that’s entirely canon is whatever Joss definitely said is canon (which I think is only the upcoming Buffy continuation which he’s gonna write)
I thought Fray could pretty much be considered canon because it’s so far in the future? Anything on either show that seems to say Fray might not happen the way it did?
It’s like a gameshow! Canon / not canon.
I think of the comics as like the background Middle Earth mythology Tolkien wrote for LOTR – it enriched the main books but wasn’t absolutely necessary, and he was constantly rewriting them up until his death.
The Petrie story about Nikki in Tales of the Slayers is IMO practically impossible to reconcile with the portrayal of the character and her relationships in Season Seven, and Joss has gone on record as saying that Fray preserves a proposed climax to BtVS on TV that he later abandoned.
I’d limit the Tales of the Slayer stories that could be canon to the ones in the graphic novel that Joss was directly involved in, and even then I tend to just go with the two he wrote himself. One about Sineya, the first slayer, and the other a first look at Meleka Fray.
There are various novels that ‘fit’ in the known canon, some seamlessly, and others that either ‘got Jossed’ or just don’t work. Or in the case of the four book series, The Lost Slayer, didn’t ‘happen’ at all.
Fray? Joss-written. I consider that canon.
The bookends of Tales of the Slayers (with the First Slayer and Fray)? Joss-written. I consider that canon too.
The framing story of Tales of the Vampires? Same thing.
Everything else in the comics can be debated.
The upcoming four-part, post-“Chosen” Buffy in Italy comic book series is definitely canon, because (as its_art pointed out) Joss said so in no uncertain terms (as it might to into other pending Buffyverse projects).
What do you think of KdS’ claim to Fray’s contradiction with the actual ending of BtVS?
I don’t consider Fray a contradiction. The ultimate, cataclysmic battle that silenced the Calling for centuries might not have happened during “Chosen,” but that doesn’t mean it will NEVER happen.
That was my conclusion as well. It could happen several decades in the future, with all those Slayers about, they could reasonably rid our dimension of all demons, and then the Magick might stop giving birth to new Slayers.
Agreeing with cjl, to the extent that I haven’t read a lot of the “Tales of the…” books.
I sorta just consider anything that contradicts or badly interacts with the TV series or Fray to fall into the “alternate universe” category. If you do that, then the odd stories are just taking place in some other plane of reality, which canon has already established as existing in the Jossverse.
Everything’s connected– one just may or may not like the particular story.
There are comics? 0o
Are they any good?