The Construction of The Buffyverse
The Buffyverse is a fictional construct created by hundreds of individual stories told through TV, novels, comics and other media. It began with the first episodes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series in 1997 and expanded with the spinoff TV series Angel in 1999. The popularity of these series led to licensed fiction carrying the Buffy and Angel labels, and resulted in fans beginning to distinguish what they consider 'real' within the Buffyverse (canon).
Outside of the TV series, the Buffyverse has been expanded and elaborated by various authors and artists in the so-called "Buffyverse Expanded Universe". The Buffyverse novels, Buffy video games and the vast majority of Buffyverse comics, are licensed by 20th Century Fox, but are generally considered 'less real' within the Buffyverse (apocryphal). The creators of these works are generally free to tell their own stories set in the Buffyverse, and may or may not keep to established continuity. Unlike some other multimedia Universes, such as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which uses complicated retcons to be as inclusive as possible in what it considers canon, the Buffyverse often fails to keep continuity over the different mediums. The numerous Buffy novels often come into conflict with the comics, and, in fact, are often themselves contradictory. Similarly, writers for the TV series are under no obligation to use continuity which has been established by the Expanded Universe, and may contradict it.
The works sometimes flesh out background information on characters. For example Go Ask Malice provides essential information about the origins of the character, Faith Lehane.
The Buffyverse comics were first published by Dark Horse who have retained the right to produce Buffy comics. IDW now hold the license to produce Angel comics. Joss Whedon wrote an eight-issue miniseries for Dark Horse Comics entitled Fray, about a futuristic vampire slayer. Its final issue came out in August 2003. Pocket Books hold the license to produce Buffy novels, but their license to produce Angel novels expired in 2004.
The Buffyverse has also inspired several unofficial Buffy the Vampire Slayer productions. For example, in recent years fan films have been created for distribution on the internet (considered fanon), and several adult parodies of Buffy have also been produced. None of these were licensed by 20th Century Fox as official Buffy merchandise.
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—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)