Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series serves as a canonical continuation of the television series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and follows the events of that show's final televised season. It is produced by Joss Whedon, who wrote the first arc, "
The Long Way Home". The first issue was released on March 14, 2007.
The series was originally supposed to consist of about 25 issues, but series editor Scott Allie stated that they were already "up to about 50, could go a little higher", before it was finally decided that the series would have a 40-issue run. The series is ongoing. At present, some plans for a spin-off limited series are in discussion where side-stories too far outside of Season Eight's narrative would be played out. The success of the series prompted IDW Publishing and Joss Whedon to publish a concurrent continuation of the Angel television series, titled
Angel: After the Fall.
This book continues to have the feel of the TV series, without all the commercials and only being limited to a 60-minute segement.
I became a fan of the TV show late in the series, but I was hooked quickly by the writing. I feel that anyone who was a fan of the TV series will enjoy the continuation in this format. The wonders of comics books allow the writers/artists to go where the TV series never could.