Saga, Volume 1

by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Artist)

Overview

Romeo & Juliet meets Star Wars in this sexy, subversive fantasy and sci-fi space opera about star-crossed lovers from enemy worlds.

An epic for mature readers, SAGA is the story of Hazel, a child born to star-crossed parents from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war. Now, Hazel's fugitive family must risk everything to find a peaceful future in a harsh universe that values destruction over creation.

The multiple award-winning, critically acclaimed masterpiece and one of the most iconic, bestselling comic book series of its time begins here in the first volume collecting issues #1-6.

“The kind of comic that you get when truly talented superstar creators are given the freedom to produce their dream comic.” —Entertainment Weekly

“An unwieldy, profane, and glorious ode to compassion and equality.” —The Atlantic

"A little bit Romeo & Juliet and a lot Star Wars." —USA Today

"Mischievous, vulgar and gloriously inventive." —TIME Magazine

"May it run for 1,000 issues." —Rolling Stone Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607066019
Publisher:	Image Comics
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Series:	Brian K. Vaughan's Saga Series
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	38,118
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Brian K. Vaughan is the award-winning writer of comics like Saga, Y: The Last Man and The Private Eye, a digital, pay-what-you-want series available at his site PanelSyndicate.com. His upcoming works for Image Comics include the futuristic military thriller We Stand on Guard with artist Steve Skroce and the young adult mystery Paper Girls with Cliff Chiang. He sometimes dabbles in television, including stints on the hit series Lost and Stephen King’s Under the Dome.

Fiona Staples is a Canadian comic book artist known for her work on books such as North 40, DV8: Gods and Monsters, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Saga

Editorial Reviews

Eisner-winner Vaughan (Y the Last Man) teams up with veteran illustrator Staples (North 40) in the epic, galaxy-spanning war story of a star-crossed couple protecting their infant daughter. The story opens with the narrator’s birth, in the middle of a machine shop on a war-torn planet. Her parents, Alana, a winged soldier from the planet Landfall, and Marko, a horned former prisoner of war from Landfall’s moon, have been on the run from both of their militaries. Betrayed, the family is almost murdered just as it forms; sheer luck gives Marko, Alana, and their daughter a chance to brave the wilds and make their way into the galaxy. Vaughan’s witty dialogue is laced with universal commonalities—the sharp fingernails of babies, burping techniques, love—that ground the alien nature of the characters and heighten the sense that the war between planet and moon and the hatred between enemies is tragically pointless. Staples’s character designs are fantastic—even the weirdest aliens reveal human emotion—and her two-page spreads, whether of battle or of tree-grown rocket ships, are glorious. This is a completely addictive, human story that will leave readers desperately awaiting the next volume. For mature readers. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Saga is the space fantasy comic of our times.

BookRiot

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who are reading Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples amazing adult scifi/fantasy Image comic Saga, and those who haven’t yet. The former people are leading happier, fuller lives, because Saga is amaaaaaazzzing.

io9/Gizmodo

An unwieldy, profane, and glorious ode to compassion and equality... a sprawling tale that shuffles the beats of numerous genres, including pulp romance, road trip, Western, dark comedy, and political thriller. And much of Saga focuses less on prejudice and more on smaller-scale pains that can be devastating in their own right.

The Atlantic

The kind of comic that you get when truly talented superstar creators are given the freedom to produce their dream comic...Saga is Heavy Metal eclecticism synthesized into a singular, sprawling narrative a la Cerberus or The Walking Dead—a vast sandbox built for neverending castle-building.

Entertainment Weekly

The humanity that BKV [Brian K. Vaughan] imbues on his characters is rich and relatable, and the danger that surrounds them is fierce and ever present.

IGN

Vaughan's whip-snap dialogue is as smart, cutting, and well timed as ever, and his characters are both familiar enough to acclimate easily to and deep enough to stay interested in as their relationships bend, break, and mend. While Vaughan will be the star power that attracts readers, do-it-all artist Staples is going to be the one who really wows them. Her character designs dish out some of the best aliens around, the immersive world-crafting is lushly detailed and deeply thought through, and the spacious layouts keep the focus squarely on the personal element, despite the chaotic cosmos they inhabit. Add another winner to Vaughan's stable of consistently epic, fresh, and endearing stories.

Booklist (starred review)

BOOKLIST (STARRED) — Vaughan, writer of the hugely successful Y: The Last Man , isn't one to think small. In this opener to his ambitious new series, bits of sf space opera and classic fantasy mesh in setting a sprawling stage for an intensely personal story of two lovers, cleverly narrated by their newborn daughter. Though recently soldiers from opposite sides of a massive intergalactic war, moth-winged Alana and ram-horned Marko simply want peace and anonymity to raise their daughter (an abomination to the powers that be) away from conflict and hatred. Vaughan's whip-snap dialogue is as smart, cutting, and well timed as ever, and his characters are both familiar enough to acclimate easily to and deep enough to stay interested in as their relationships bend, break, and mend. While Vaughan will be the star power that attracts readers, do-it-all artist Staples is going to be the one who really wows them. Her character designs dish out some of the best aliens around, the immersive world-crafting is lushly detailed and deeply thought through, and the spacious layouts keep the focus squarely on the personal element, despite the chaotic cosmos they inhabit. Add another winner to Vaughan's stable of consistently epic, fresh, and endearing stories.

From the Publisher

03/01/2015
Alana and Marko are two soldiers from opposite sides of a galactic war who fall in love and go on the run in this first volume of an ongoing series. While the book works as a poignant love story and an indictment of prejudice, trippy visuals and clever dialog make this Romeo and Juliet space opera a lot of fun as well.

Library Journal