During Baltimore Comic-Con, Scoop stopped by artist Karl Moline’s booth to talk about Fray, his co-creation with Joss Whedon that takes place in the Buffyverse. He also shared what he’s working on now, his hopes for the future, and what he enjoys about doing conventions.

Scoop: Good morning, Karl, how are you?
Karl Moline (KM): I’m great how are you?

Scoop: I’m doing pretty well. How’s the show been so far?
KM: The show has been wonderful. This is my first time here at Baltimore and I have to say, the fans are great, the show is really great in the way it treats the creators. It’s a good vibe in here.

Scoop: What are the titles people have wanted to talk about?
KM: It’s pretty consistently Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fray, a book I did with Joss Whedon. Although, I had a few Darkhawk fans and some of the Marvel stuff. But, yeah, mostly it’s Fray and Buffy.

Scoop: Fray is a future slayer in the Buffy world, which is a great concept, and then you worked in Buffy too. What was it like switching from the Fray-focused book to a Buffy and Fray story?
KM: Well, Buffy was a lot harder, actually, because we had to work with likenesses and real actors. We had to get approvals before I was even allowed to work on the book, I had to submit drawings of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Spike and Angel and all these other characters. They have to approve you before you were allowed to work on the title. Then there were Fox licensors to deal with. With Fray I was allowed to just sort of make things up randomly, whatever happened in my imagination, so that was a lot easier to sort of flow with the characters. It’s such a great show and it’s such a cool concept and it was always so well written, that it was still easy to get into the vibe of that. Working with a character that I made up was definitely a lot easier.

Scoop: What were some of your ideas in framing Fray?
KM: They were basically provided. Joss had a pretty steady vision of what he wanted. He would suggest influences. I remember Blade Runner was a big archetype to try to nail down some of the environments. With her ray gun, we wanted a 1950s kind of a postmodern futurist design. On the whole, I was given a lot of free range. I was allowed to make it up as I went, which was a lot of fun.

Scoop: Now that Buffy and Angel have moved over to BOOM! Studios, is there a chance we’d get another Fray?
KM: I would love that! I’ve been dying for a Fray sequel ever since we did the first one. To be honest, I don’t know how that actually works because Buffy was a Fox property and Fray was owned by Joss Whedon. So, I don’t know if when Fox sold the rights to Disney if Fray went over with that because Fray crossed over into the Buffy comic books, but she was never in the television show. I’m not actually sure who ended up with the rights to that particular character. If it’s ever thrown out on the table, I would happily volunteer to draw it again. I’d love to take another crack at that.

Scoop: What are you working on now?
KM: Right now, I’m doing more commercial stuff. I’m doing a graphic novel adaptation of a movie that’s in production, so I’m getting to do some character in-production design in addition to drawing the book. I have, like, a half issue coming up for the Electric Black, which is like a horror book that’s indie and just moved over to Scout Comics. Then I have another overseas commercial job I’m working on. As a freelancer, you sort of jump around to multiple things. I will say, it’s been a few years since I worked for any of the big companies, and I’m starting to feel like the industry’s forgetting me a little bit, so I might chase that down soon. Recently, I wanted to develop more of a cover portfolio and I’ve been learning to ink and color, in addition to pencils. There’s been a growth period in the last few years. I’m definitely ready to tuck into some Batman or something.

Scoop: That was my next question, who would you want to draw?
KM: I’ve been lucky enough to get to touch most of the major characters on both sides of Marvel and DC, but I never got to draw Batman, and that was sort of the kid-fantasy in me. I even got to do some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff recently. That was another big early influence. I think Batman would be the one.

Scoop: It’s hard to top Batman.
KM: Yeah, he’s kind of the classic icon. Plus, I like drawing with a lot of shadows, so that kind of fits. Although, I recently started working more with line work. I did a series of coloring books with the Buffy guys. In learning to color, I also found that using tons of solid black all the time is not great for a colorist to work with, so I started trying to open that up. But yeah, I’d love to do deep shadows and dark Gotham City, and smoky atmospheres. That’d be a lot of fun, I think.

Scoop: What do you like about coming to conventions?
KM: I get to get out of my cave for a little while. [laughs] It’s a very lonely existence sitting at your table or in front of the computer all day every day. This is nice to get out and actually talk to other people. It’s so great at comic conventions because everybody is likeminded and everybody has this sort of alternative imagination-fueled lifestyle and they get all the good references and like all the cool music. I just love touching base with people like that.