Saga (comics)

Saga is an epic space opera/fantasy comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples, published monthly by the American company Image Comics. The series is heavily influenced by "Star Wars" and is based on ideas Vaughan conceived both as a child and as a parent. It depicts a husband and wife, Alana and Marko, from long-warring extraterrestrial races, fleeing authorities from both sides of a galactic war as they struggle to care for their daughter, Hazel, who is born in the beginning of the series and who occasionally narrates the series as an unseen adult.
The comic was described in solicitations as ""Star Wars" meets "Game of Thrones"", and by critics as evocative of both science fiction and fantasy epics such as "The Lord of the Rings" and classic works like "Romeo and Juliet". It is Vaughan's first creator-owned work to be published through Image Comics, and is the first time he employs narration in his comics writing. Vaughan indicated that the entire series will span 108 issues.
The first issue of "Saga" was published on March 14, 2012, to positive reviews and a sold-out first printing. It was published in trade paperback form in October 2012. It has also been a consistent sales success, with its collected editions outselling those of "The Walking Dead", another successful Image comic. The series went on hiatus after reaching its midpoint at issue 54 in July 2018.
The series has been met with wide critical acclaim, and is one of the most celebrated comics being published in the United States. It has also garnered numerous awards, including twelve Eisner and seventeen Harvey Awards between 2013 and 2017. The first trade paperback collection won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. It has also been noted for its diverse portrayal of ethnicity, sexuality and gender social roles, and for its treatment of war.
Publication history.
Writer Brian K. Vaughan conceived "Saga" in his childhood, calling it "a fictional universe that I created when I was bored in math class. I just kept building it." He was inspired by such influences as "Star Wars", "Flash Gordon" and children's books, and has also invoked the awe and wonder of first seeing the Silver Surfer, which seemed an "incredible and different" concept to him. It was not until his wife became pregnant with his second daughter, however, that he conceived of the protagonists, the winged Alana and the horned Marko, two lovers from warring extraterrestrial races who struggle to survive with their newborn daughter, Hazel, who occasionally narrates the series. It was also at this point that the central theme that Vaughan wanted for the book emerged. Vaughan explains, "I wanted to write about parenthood, but I wanted to Trojan-horse it inside some sort of interesting genre story, to explore the overlap between artistic creation and the creation of a child." Vaughan, who intended to return to writing a comics series following the 2010 conclusion of his previous series, "Ex Machina", and who notes that the publication of "Saga" #1 coincided with the birth of his daughter, saw parallels between the caution advised by colleagues against launching a new book in the poor economy and those who cautioned against bringing a new child into the world, observing:
Vaughan explained that the main characters' romance would be a major theme of the book. Touching upon the juxtaposition of the book's mature subject matter with its "Star Wars" inspirations, Vaughan jokingly described the book as ""Star Wars" for perverts."
The book was announced at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International, and was billed as ""Star Wars" meets "A Game of Thrones"" in solicitations. "Saga" represents the first time Vaughan has employed narration in his comics writing, a decision influenced by the whimsical interaction between the text and images in the children's books he reads with his children, and by his desire to try something new that he felt would work well with "Saga"s narrator, Hazel. It is also his first series to be published through Image Comics, whom he selected as the series' publisher on the recommendation of the writer Jay Faerber, who cited the creative freedom afforded by that publisher. Vaughan elaborated on his selection of Image thus:
Although Vaughan has written for television and has endeavored to have his previous works adapted into film, he stresses that he developed "Saga" strictly to be a comic book and not to be adapted to other media, explaining "I wanted to do something that was way too expensive to be TV and too dirty and grown-up to be a four-quadrant blockbuster." Vaughan has also indicated that he has an ending in mind for the series and that he plans five issues ahead, having written the first six issues as the first story arc, which would have ended with the two main characters dying on the rocketship launch pad in issue 5 if the series had not been successful. By June 2016, Vaughan indicated that he knew what the last page of the series' final issue would be.
The series is illustrated by Fiona Staples, who was introduced to Vaughan by their mutual friend, writer Steve Niles, with whom Staples worked on "Mystery Society". Vaughan, who did not meet Staples in person until just before their panel at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, explained his selection of Staples by describing his reaction upon first seeing her work, saying "Her artwork is incredible. [It] doesn't look like anyone else. She is very unique. When I opened up this file I was like, 'This is going to work! Staples is co-owner of "Saga" and has received first billing since issue 25. In addition to designing all the characters, vehicles and alien races in the story, she provides painted covers and hand-letters Hazel's narration using her own handwriting, which is the last thing she does after finishing the artwork on a page. Staples renders the characters in a pen-and-ink style line while using all-color settings inspired by video games and Japanese animation. At the 2012 Image Expo, Staples described the process by which she produces her art as harkening back to animation cels, in which emphasis is placed on figures and backgrounds. Vaughan has stated that Staples's style has influenced the direction of the story. The character Ghüs, for example is entirely Staples's creation. Another example is the organic forms of most of the series' technology, such as the main characters' wooden rocket ship, which is derived from Staples's dislike of drawing mechanical objects. To design the series' various planetary settings, Staples looks to the real world for inspiration and then exaggerates some elements of them. Some rooms on the planet Cleave, for example, were inspired by Cambodian architecture.
The book is priced at $2.99 and will remain at that price for the duration of its run, which Vaughan arranged as part of his contract with Image along with the stipulation that it never be less than 22 pages long. The first issue features 44 pages of story and no advertisements in both its print and digital versions. At the end of each issue is an old-fashioned letters column called "To Be Continued" which prints readers' letters submitted entirely through postal mail as it does not provide an email address for this purpose. Vaughan usually handles the column himself, including responding to letters.
The book's release was celebrated with a launch party at Los Angeles' Meltdown Comics which featured a public conversation with Vaughan's former colleague, "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof, who had hired Vaughan as a writer/producer on that series in 2007. Vaughan also promoted the book by appearing at signings at Midtown Comics in Manhattan and Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn during the week of the first issue's release.
After the publication of issue 6 in August 2012, Vaughan announced that the series would take a two-month hiatus, after which the first six-issue story arc was published in trade paperback form in October for $9.99 before the series' return in November, a practice that Vaughan and Staples would continue after each successive story arc and trade paperback publication. That same month, Vaughan and Staples promoted the series by appearing together at the 2012 New York Comic Con, their first appearance together since the series' debut. Some retailers refused to display the trade paperback because its cover (a reuse of the first issue's cover) depicts Alana breastfeeding Hazel.
In December 2014, Image published "Saga Deluxe Edition" Volume 1, a hardcover volume collecting the first 18 issues of the series, which comprise its first three story arcs. Because Vaughan sees "Saga" as a story about Hazel, he and Staples decided to have each new hardcover volume feature an original image of that character at a different stage of her life. Because the first volume covers her birth and infancy, its cover features a closeup of Hazel nursing from her mother's breast, set against the backdrop of Landfall and Wreath, which recalls the first issue's cover. Eric Stephenson warned Vaughan and Staples that some retailers and distributors would object to this cover image, thus limiting the series' audience, but after seeing Staples' rendition of the image, Stephenson decided that sales would not be a problem.
On July 25, 2018, issue #54 was published, ending the first half of the series' run on a major cliffhanger. The series then went on an extended hiatus, during which the first 54 issues would be published in a single volume called "Saga: Compendium One". In April 2019 Vaughan told "Entertainment Weekly" that the second half of the series would also last 54 issues, comprising what he called "a planned 108-issue epic."
Plot.
Each issue of "Saga" is titled with a numerical Chapter, such as "Chapter 1" for the debut issue. Every six chapters comprise a story arc designated as a "Volume" and are reprinted as trade paperbacks. Every three Volumes comprise a "Book" and are collected as hardcover editions.
The opening Volume introduces the series' leads, Alana and Marko, two lovers from different worlds whose people are at war with one another. Alana comes from the technologically advanced Landfall Coalition, so named after Landfall, the largest planet in the galaxy, and Marko is from Wreath, Landfall's only satellite, whose people wield magic. Because the destruction of one of the worlds would send the other spinning out of orbit, the war was "outsourced" to other worlds. Although peace was restored on the two home worlds, the conflict spread across all the other known planets, whose native species were forced to choose a side. As Landfall and Wreath were on opposite sides, Alana and Marko met when she was assigned to guard him in a prison on the planet Cleave after he became a prisoner of war. They escaped together twelve hours after meeting. In the beginning of the series' first issue, Alana gives birth to their daughter, Hazel, who occasionally narrates the series. Their respective people are incredulous when it is suggested that they have voluntarily mated and they are pursued by both the Wreathers and the Landfallians, both because of the perceived betrayal of the two fugitives and to prevent knowledge of their pairing from spreading and damaging morale among their troops. On Landfall, Prince Robot IV is assigned by his father to capture him and comes into conflict with his counterpart from Wreath, a mercenary named The Will. The ghost of a dead girl named Izabel is bonded to Hazel and the four of them escape Cleave before being joined by Marko's parents.
In the second Volume, more is revealed about Marko's parents and his upbringing and his initial time with Alana. Marko's ex-fiancée, Gwendolyn, joins The Will's hunt as does a six-year-old sex slave, rescued by The Will and Gwendolyn, who takes the name Sophie. The family later takes refuge at the home of writer D. Oswald Heist (the author of Alana's favorite novel), where they first come into contact with Prince Robot IV.
The third Volume, beginning in August 2013, which Vaughan intended as a "big tonal shift", introduces the tabloid journalists Upsher and Doff, as they pursue their own investigation of Alana and Marko, who take refuge at the lighthouse home of author D. Oswald Heist. There, the family first comes into direct contact with, and manages to escape from, Prince Robot IV and Gwendolyn. By the end of the story, Hazel has begun to walk, and Upsher and Doff have been silenced by contract killer The Brand, The Will's sister, using a substance that will kill them if they report their findings of the family to anyone else.
The fourth Volume, which begins Book Two, establishes the family living on the planet Gardenia, with Alana acting in an underground entertainment program called the Open Circuit in which all the actors wear masks. Hazel is now speaking in simple phrases, while Prince Robot IV's son is born. A disgruntled robot janitor, Dengo, kills Prince Robot IV's wife, kidnaps his infant son and journeys to Gardenia, where he kidnaps the family. Marko and Prince Robot IV team up with Yuma to pursue them. Meanwhile, The Brand teams with Gwendolyn and Sophie to acquire an elixir to heal The Will's injuries.
The fifth Volume begins three months later. The family's rocketship has set down in a frozen region of a planet, where Dengo meets with members of The Last Revolution, a radical anti-war group, who wish to use Hazel as a pawn in their campaign against Landfall and Wreath. Meanwhile, as Marko and Prince Robot IV struggle to maintain their alliance while in pursuit of their kidnapped loved ones, Alana and Yuma both deal with the consequences of their use of the drug Fadeaway. By the end of the arc, Dengo has turned on the revolutionaries, but is himself killed by Prince Robot IV, who is united with his son. Marko and Alana are reunited, but Hazel and Klara are relegated to a Landfallian prison. The Brand, Gwendolyn and Sophie have acquired the elixir, but the Brand is killed in the process.
In the sixth Volume, Alana and Marko search for Hazel and Klara, who remain incarcerated in a detention center on Landfall. Upsher and Doff resume their investigation of the couple after hearing of The Brand's death. The journalists are confronted by The Will, who has resumed his vendetta against Prince Robot IV. Meanwhile, Prince Robot is using the name Sir Robot and is raising his rapidly growing son, Squire. New characters introduced include Hazel's sympathetic schoolteacher Noreen and a transgender female prisoner, Petrichor. The arc closes with Hazel successfully reunited with her parents and the revelation that Alana is once again pregnant.
The seventh Volume, "The War for Phang", began with issue 37 and was released on August 31, 2016. It is the beginning of Book Three of the series, and as indicated by its title, Sophie's home, the comet Phang, is the central setting. The family deals with the addition of Petrichor to the reunited family, and Alana's second pregnancy.
The eighth Volume, "The Coffin", finds the family dealing with the effects of Alana's miscarriage after the events on Phang. Vaughan stated in an interview that Petrichor would continue to play an important role in Hazel's development, and that what has happened to The Will is another subplot explored in the arc.
Reception.
Sales and reprints.
The first issue sold out of its first printing ahead of its March 14 release date. A second printing ordered for April 11, the same release date as issue #2, also sold out, with a third printing arriving in stores on April 25. The issue ultimately went through five printings. By August it had sold over 70,000 copies in various printings. As of 2016, the collected editions of the series outsell those of "The Walking Dead", another successful Image comic that has greater public visibility through the television series adapted from it.
The first trade paperback collection, "Saga, Vol. 1", which collects the first six issues, was published October 10, 2012, and appeared at Number 6 on the "New York Times" Graphic Books Best Seller list the week of October 29. As of August 2013, it had sold 120,000 copies.
Although issue #7 sold out, Image Comics PR & Marketing Director Jennifer deGuzman announced in a December 12, 2012 letter to retailers that it would not reprint select comics, such as that issue. DeGuzman explained the move as a result of decreasing orders on well-performing titles like "Saga", despite critical acclaim and consistently selling out at a distributor level, and pointed to orders on "Saga" #8, which decreased 4% from orders on issue #7. Rather than invest in second printings, deGuzman explained, Image would instead focus its attention on ensuring that the first printing garners the sales desired. This move displeased some retailers, which prompted Image Publisher Eric Stephenson to announce the following day that Image would indeed publish a second printing of issue #7 at a considerable discount, but cautioned that the publisher would not be able to reprint every issue of the series indefinitely, and implored retailers not to under-order the series.
The second trade paperback collection immediately appeared at the top of the "New York Times" graphic books best-seller list.
Critical reception.
The series was met with wide critical acclaim and is one of the most celebrated American comics being published (as of October, 2018). It holds an average score of 9.0 out of 10 at the review aggregator website Comic Book Roundup. This score is held by both the regular series and the collected volumes.
The first issue was widely acclaimed in publications such as "Publishers Weekly", MTV, Ain't it Cool News, "Complex" magazine, Comic Book Resources, iFanboy and ComicsAlliance; they all praised Vaughan's ability to incorporate elements of different genres, establishing the vast setting and mythology, and introducing characters that engaged the reader. Multiple reviewers likened the book to a combination of sci-fi/fantasy works such as "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings" and classic works of literature such as "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet" and the New Testament. AICN singled-out the use of the newborn Hazel as a lone individual to chronicle large-scale events from a past perspective, and Alex Zalben of MTV Geek remarking that he could hear a John Williams score as he read the book. Multiple reviewers also lauded Vaughan for beginning the story with Hazel's birth rather than hurting the story's pace with copious exposition of Alana and Marko's initial meeting and courtship. Todd Allen of The Beat approved of the book's unique "flavor", singling out the characters' motivations, the immersiveness of its surrealist setting, the strangeness of the story's various oddities and the timely nature of the story's political undertones. Both Alex Evans of Weekly Comic Book Review and P. S. Hayes of Geeks of Doom called the series a "classic"; Hayes also praised Image Comics for publishing such an "original" series. Also widely praised was Fiona Staples' artwork, which was characterized as "glorious", with Zalben predicting that readers would "fall head over heels in love" with it, and Greg McElhatton of Comic Book Resources positively comparing it to that of Leinil Francis Yu, specifically her use of delicate lines to frame characters with large, bold figures and Staples' mixture of the familiar and the foreign together in her character designs to create a visually cohesive universe. AICN singled out Staples' handling of grand, sweeping space shots and other genre trappings, as well as her mastery of facial expressions – which AICN felt was perfectly suited to Vaughan's subtle dialogue. Todd Allen of The Beat wrote that Staples' landscapes at times play as much a part in the story as the foreground.
The subsequent issues that made up the series' initial six-issue story arc also garnered similarly positive reviews, with three printings ordered for issue #2, and second printings ordered for issues 3 – 6. The series was included in IGN's 2012 list of "The Comics We're Thankful For This Year" and took the #1 spot in CBR's "Top 10 Comics of 2012". In August 2013, Douglas Wolk of "Time" magazine referred to the series as a "breakout hit", calling it "mischievous, vulgar and gloriously inventive."
Joseph McCabe of The Nerdist included the hardcover "Saga Deluxe Edition" Volume 1 in that site's Top 5 Comic Reprint Collections of 2014. That same year, Laura Sneddon of the British Science Fiction Association's journal "Vector" listed "Saga" among her list of six groundbreaking science fiction comics.
Awards.
In 2013 "Saga" won the three Eisner Awards it was nominated for: Best Continuing Series, Best New Series and Best Writer. That same year, the Vol. 1 trade paperback won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. The series was also nominated for seven 2013 Harvey Awards and won six of those: Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Color, Best New Series, Best Continuing or Limited Series, and Best Single Issue or Story.
In 2014 the series won all three Eisners that it was nominated for: Best Painter/Multimedia Artist, Best Writer, and Best Continuing Series.
In 2015 the series was again nominated for the same three Eisner Awards it won the previous year and won two of them: Best Continuing Series and Best Penciller/Inker. That same year the fourth volume was awarded the Goodreads Choice Award for Graphic Novels & Comics in 2015.
Censorship.
On April 9, 2013, media reported that Apple Inc. had prohibited the sale of issue 12 of "Saga" through iOS, because two panels that depicted oral sex between men in a small, in-set image violated Apple's restrictions on sexual content. This resulted in criticism by artists and writers, who pointed to similarly explicit content in previous issues and in other works sold through iTunes. William Gibson and others suggested that the restriction could have occurred specifically because the drawings in question depicted gay sex. A day later, digital distributor Comixology announced that it had been that company, not Apple, who had chosen not to make the issue available based on their interpretation of Apple's rules, and that after receiving clarification from Apple, the issue would now be sold via iOS.
In 2014, the series was included on the American Library Association's list of the ten most frequently challenged books that year. It had been challenged for containing nudity and offensive language and for being "anti-family, ... sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group."
Merchandising.
In 2015, Skybound Entertainment began taking pre-orders for an 8” tall, hand-painted Lying Cat resin statue, which retails for $75.
In February 2016, Essential Sequential began taking orders for a posable, 19-inch tall plushy Lying Cat doll that says, "Lying" when its collar is pressed, scheduled to ship that May. Later that June, Skybound announced that at the following month's San Diego Comic-Con, it would debut action figures based on the two lead characters, Alana and Marko, by McFarlane Toys. The five-inch figures are issued together in a two-pack, and are paired with a mace and a sword. The company also teamed with Yesterdays, a Southern California collectible enamel pin company, to produce Skybound's first ever pin set, which includes two pins of Lying Cat and a pin of Ghüs, also to debut at that Comic-Con. The Ghüs pin is priced at $10.00, and the Lying Cat set at $15.00, and both were limited to 1000 units each.
In October 2017, Image Comics announced the introduction of Pop! Vinyl figures of Lying Cat, Alana, Marko, Izabel, Prince Robot IV and The Will from Funko and Skybound Entertainment, available in February 2018.
In other media.
Although interest has been expressed in adapting "Saga" for film or TV, Vaughan and Staples reaffirmed their desire not to do so in an August 2013 interview, with Vaughan stating that the point of "Saga" as he conceived it was "to do absolutely everything I couldn't do in a movie or a TV show. I'm really happy with it just being a comic." Vaughan has stated that they are open to the possibility, though it is not a priority for them. However, merchandise based on the series has been produced, including a line of T-shirts featuring Lying Cat, which have become visible in popular media. In "Pac-Man Fever", the April 24, 2013 episode of the American TV series "Supernatural", the character Charlie Bradbury (played by Felicia Day) is seen wearing a Lying Cat T-shirt. Day, who has referred to "Saga" as the "best comic EVER", indicated that show writer Robbie Thompson picked out the shirt.
The controversial cover of the comic's first issue was referenced in "The Meemaw Materialization", the February 4, 2016 episode of the American TV sitcom "The Big Bang Theory". In the episode, Claire (Alessandra Torresani) is reading the first trade paperback of the series (which features the same cover as its first issue), and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) observes that "not a lot of comics have a woman with wings breastfeeding a baby right on the cover." Though "The Big Bang Theory" is often criticized for its portrayal of comic book fans, according to Comic Book Resources, a Twitter search indicated reaction to the scene by fans of "Saga" readers who saw it was mostly positive.