On this day in 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered on The WB.
I wasn’t an immediate fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One night during spring break of my freshman year of high school, I was spending the night with a friend when she suddenly perked up and said, “Oh! Buffy’s almost on- we have to watch it!”
I groaned. I had seen the movie and hated it, so I was expecting more campy silliness and bad visual effects. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see a new Buffy (“Oh, it’s that chick from Swan’s Crossing!”) and a supporting cast of characters I found funny and likable. The first episode I ever saw happened to be “Witch,” and while I liked it, I didn’t start watching regularly until the second season aired. But once I did, I was absolutely hooked. I loved all the characters and thought the chemistry between the actors was incredible; the witty writing felt so different from anything else on TV at the time. It was inspiring to watch these characters come together to defeat the “big bads,” and I quickly became completely invested in each character’s journey.
Growing up in the 1990s, I struggled a lot with poor self-esteem and dealt with many of the things normal teenage girls go through. I found myself identifying most with Willow, Buffy’s best friend- shy, a little nerdy, and crushing hard on a boy who didn’t see her the way she wished he would. I also loved the way the show used its monsters as representations of real struggles people face. As I kept watching, I began to identify with traits from many of the other characters, too; Buffy herself became the poster child for everything I wished I could be. She was a total badass who used her powers for good, yet she was also deeply loyal and caring toward her friends and loved ones. She had amazing style and was stunningly beautiful. I copied her hairstyles and took fashion notes from the outfits she wore.
Watching Buffy became my weekly ritual. I still have a couple of VHS tapes tucked away in storage with episodes I recorded from TV. (Honestly, can you imagine the blast from the past those commercials would be?) As my love for the show grew, so did my obsessive need to collect anything Buffy-related. In high school, my bedroom walls were completely covered with posters and magazine clippings of the cast. I scoured stores near my small town for any evidence of Buffy merchandise. I still remember how excited I was when I found a single Buffy T-shirt in my size at a Sam Goody in our mall; I wore that shirt until it was literally threadbare. If online shopping had existed back then, I would have owned absolutely everything I could get my hands on. Sadly, the small town I lived in didn’t have many stores that carried Buffy merchandise. I had to settle for collecting the Buffy Barq’s root beer cans and begging my parents to get me a Claddagh ring.
Over the years, Buffy (and its spinoff, Angel) helped me through a lot of hard times. Buffy was a teenager at the same time I was, and she grew into a young adult right alongside me. It became my ultimate comfort show- one I turned to again and again during painful breakups, friendship rifts, and later the deaths of a good friend and my parents. I went to college with Buffy and the gang, and I felt Buffy’s struggles when she dealt with financial trouble later in the series. As I got older, the darker and more adult storylines in Angel began to resonate with me too.
When I say these characters felt like real people to me, I don’t mean I believed they actually were. But I loved and supported the actors and actresses who brought them to life because they made the characters feel so real, if that makes sense.
In my late twenties, I joined a Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum. I had previously been a member of the original forum run by The WB while the show was airing, but by then the series had long been off the air. My love for the show, however, was still incredibly strong. On the forum, I found a community of people just like me who loved discussing the show and its characters. I immediately felt “at home” there. Not long after joining, I discovered the joy of creating digital fan art for the show. There were so many talented artists on the forum who created beautiful custom desktop wallpapers, banners, and graphics. I loved being able to express my connection to the show through art. Eventually, I started my own fan art website where I shared not only my artwork but also art resources for other fans. I kept the site going for several years before life became too busy to maintain regular updates, and I eventually made the difficult decision to close it down.
Now I’m a forty-something-year-old woman, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is still my number one favorite show of all time.
I’ve rewatched the series countless times, and as I get older, I still find myself connecting with the show and its characters in new ways. It remains my go-to comfort show, and I doubt I’ll ever get tired of watching it. As an adult, I’ve been able to collect some of the Buffy merchandise I couldn’t afford when I was younger, and having it displayed in my home makes me smile every time I see it. I’m a huge Funko Pop collector, and I also own a small collection of the early-2000s Sideshow Collectibles dolls of the characters. I even have the Buffy tarot deck and a miniature replica of the iconic Vampyr book from the first episode. If I were rich, I’d probably own enough collectibles to fill my own Buffy museum.
My life has changed drastically over the past 10–15 years, and recently I’ve found myself revisiting some of my past passions in an effort to reignite a spark I once felt had been lost. My kids are older now, and I have more time for myself than I did when I closed down my art site all those years ago. I’ve started creating art again, and I can’t even describe the joy it brings me. It’s a wonderful outlet for my creativity and a reminder of happier times in my life. With the Buffy reboot coming out later this year, I’m incredibly excited to watch it and create art for a whole new set of characters- something I’ve already begun experimenting with. Since there haven’t been any official promotional stills released yet, I’ve had to settle for manipulations for now, but it’s been so much fun getting back into the swing of things creatively.
This site will be a place to celebrate the Buffyverse and everything connected to it. I’ll share blogs, artwork, art resources, and add fun collectible items to my Shop page as I find them. I hope you enjoy the site—and maybe consider leaving a note in the guestbook to let me know you stopped by!
Enjoy this piece to celebrate the first episode of the show, “Welcome to the Hellmouth”! Click the image to see the full-size wallpaper:
