Dark Horse Comics
Writer:  Joss Whedon
Penciller : Cliff Richards
Inking: Andy Owens

Picking up where the last television series left off, Anywhere But Here is epilogue story that cleans a few plot points from previous Buffy The Vampire Slayer stories.  Buffy and Willow fly to a reality that wants to step over our world and it’s up to them to convince it to stay put. But the journey to another reality might reveal more about Buffy and Willow than both previously hoped. Will they remain unaffected by this new reality?

If you are not familiar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or even watched the last season, this story will be confusing at first. It takes a few moments to catch all the different realities and the subplots introduced in the first few pages.  If you have been following Buffy for a while, the intricate references to past stories and characters and the continuous jumping from scene to scene will be fulfilling. This story enriches the Buffy experience and finally spells out some elements that Buffy proponents had alluded to in the past.

Whedon has a good voice for writing female characters and pacing his stories to a female audience. The story is more about the trip than the ultimate goal. It was surprising at first as I expected a standard story where the conflict would be identifiable quickly and where the climax and the last fight would take more than the two pages it occupies in this one shot. However, this story is almost superfluous and instead of advancing the Buffy universe with new material, swims in old plot threads.

Richards’ work looks like the Buffy characters, but with a heavy dose of impressionism that separates the story from the television series strongly. Scenes, such as the fight with the reality or even the flight of Willow and Buffy, seem completely detached from the regular Buffy universe. The storytelling is good but the artwork is forgettable.