Saga, Vol. 1

Oh god why did I read this?! Need volume 2 now! Will be upset if Waterstones in Elgin doesn't have it (and it won't but it will have volume 3 because they all have only volume 3 of all series, why is that? )

The first volume is so great. I can't wait to continue... (no really, I'm reading the second right now...)

Me ha gustado mucho el volumen uno, me ha sorprendido como empieza así de sopetón y como va todo a 100 por hora, al menos es mi impresión.

Muy recomendable ^^

Ahhh what a fun read! Kind of a Star Wars-y Romeo & Juilet-y thing with enough cool details to feel really fresh. I'll definitely be picking up volume 2 ASAP!

So good!!
Can't wait to get my hands on the next ones!

This is the beginning of a great series. The characters are engaging while the story avoids pomposity, and the art is fabulous. Definitely my favourite graphic novel of the moment.

Holy shit, this is amazing. I want to reread it immediately.

(Also, somehow this was nearly impossible to find on Goodreads. Um, guys, just because they market it as the Twilight Saga doesn't mean that's what I want when searching for “Saga.” Also, shut up, Twilight.)

Notes, March 2014 reread: Yup, still amazing.

This is one of those books that I've seen a million times, heard about a million times, read about a million times, but never really felt like picking it up. Maybe it's because it's written by Brian K. Vaughn and while I did enjoy Y: The Last Man, I didn't completely fall in love with it. Plus, this sort of fantasy stuff isn't usually my go to.

But I started going through lists geek girls were writing about graphics you just have to read and across the board Saga is one of them. I happened to be at the library (shocker, I know) one day and they had these two volumes sitting there so I figured, why the hell not?

And I'm so glad I did. I enjoyed Saga much more than I ever expected. There's strangely everything in this book. Love, war, aliens, monsters, robots, villains, heroes, anti-heroes, betrayal, revenge.....you name it, it's in here.

Alana and Marko just want to find a peaceful way out of a war to raise a child that shouldn't exist. The warring factions send out assassins to kill them because they represent a unity that the rulers just can't let people know is possible. It's hard not to fall completely in love with Alana and Marko so it seems odd that I found myself sympathetic to almost every character introduced. Everyone is just trying to make it through this war and amidst all the fighting what seems to be the unifying theme is family. However you want to define that.

The dialogue is witty and sharp and the characters are vastly different across the board. The art is flawless and moments jump out and either delight or disgust you. Either way it's brilliant.

And then my grandparents came to live with us :3

The art is wonderful (although a little more risqué than expected, which is silly of me because I've read his Y:The Last Man series), there's humor, and the story is good thus far (but I find Hazel a little too omnipotent...)

I am a big fan of Brian K. Vaughan, and was interested to see him try something new; sadly, it seems, the ‘something new' involved abandoning his previous habit of methodical, precise plots and solid characters. That isn't to say that Saga is irrevocably a failure; only, the first book was, pacing-wise, a huge mess. Characters appear in and out of focus with little information, too many flashbacks, and narration that did more to obscure, confuse, and over-stimulate than it did to elucidate.

The worst failure, I think, is the addition of the narrator. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that their inclusion makes the story confusing and disjointed, adding a new perspective to a story already overladen with perspectives, and it compounds that sin by making their perspective tantamount to the survival of certain characters who are often in peril. Which is to say, basically, it takes all the suspense out of scenes which would, otherwise, be suspenseful. The narration doesn't explain things we need to know, either; it disappears in truly confusing scenes where narration would be welcome. It only adds a saccharine and unnecessary comment in twee font; it adds nothing thematically or narratively, and it stalls and slows scenes that could otherwise be gripping and fast-paced.

By the final quarter of the book, things calm down, perhaps due to BKV running out of characters to randomly introduce with no warning or foreshadowing. The story's disparate elements finally come into their own, and that's the story I'll pick up the next volume for.

As for this volume, I only wish BKV had a better editor or collaborator, someone to take him aside and tell him to pace himself. There are so many elements in this story. I don't know why, if you're so interested in splashy shocking cliffhangers (as Saga clearly is), you'd introduce all your elements and players at once, with no tension or surprise.

Story
I didn't know this sort of story was being told in graphic novels. If not for goodreads, I might never have known. The core of the story is as old as time itself really. I'm sure Romeo and Juliet wasn't the first story of star-crossed lovers, but it's probably the best known, and certainly the one that came to my mind. Two people tired of an endless war between their people find comfort in one another.

However, I don't remember robots, lightsabers, magic and monsters during my 9th grade English classes reading of that story. While the premise may not be new, the take on it certainly is.

The idea of whether someone should bring a child into this world is not a new one either. If humanity refrained from reproducing when things looked bleak, we might have died out long ago.

The story was a good mix of action, tension and humor that had me turning page after page until I found there were gone. I'm glad I had the next volume ready to go after.

Artwork
I don't have anything to compare it to as I'm not really a reader of graphic novels. The only comics I usual read are the daily web comic variety. This is my first experience with Fiona Staples. I enjoyed her work. It seems to fit the story well and adds something that would be lost in a text-only version.

I know nothing about comic books or graphic novels or whatever you call them. I borrowed Saga Volumes 1 and 2 from the library after reading a glowing review on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website and was completely blown away by the humor, romance, emotion and creativity. I don't even consider myself a particularly visual person but the impact of the dialogue and the artwork is incredibly powerful. I doubt that I will become a regular graphic novel reader but I will definitely keep up with this series.

great!

Genius. I can't get enough of this world and these characters and stories.

I LOVED this so much! My favorite on-going series right now!! They are on a break, so now is the perfect time to catch up with the story. Highly recommended...Plus, if you start keeping up with the comics, then you get to read the awesome letter columns that Brian Vaughan writes!

Ostensibly this is a byproduct of Brian K. Vaughan's child-mind after seeing Star Wars - and, indeed, it shares with Firefly (another Star Wars descendant) that theme of cobbled-together families soaring through the stars together, pursued by quasi-mechanical beings who have family dramas of their own. It's all very warm and endearing. And it all starts in media res, which I always appreciate.

There are further Star Wars strains: hints of Han Solo or Boba Fett, for example, in the scoundrely, hunky, morally weird “Freelancer” (bounty hunter), The Will, and his sidekick, Lying Cat (I, like everyone else, love the Lying Cat). The difference, though, is that The Will - and Saga in general - takes Star Wars, blends it with craziness of the most hallucinatory Miyazaki/Moebius kind, and ramps everything up by a million watts.

I'm a little worried that I'm just reading it for TEH WEIRD, and not for the actual story or characters. Vaughan's quirky inventions (the wooden spaceship, Prince Robot IV, the ghoulish ghost babysitter), coupled with his down-to-earth Firefly-esque banter full of mundane squabbles and trivial asides, are really the two main draws. This is fine, I guess. Though eventually there should be something MORE - something in the plot (which, structurally, is VERY run-of-the-mill space opera) which resonates - something to remember this by, more than the gimmicks of one-liners and weird visual jokes (like the prostitutes on Sextillion omg!).

I get hints of a smarter, deeper core in things like, for example, Prince Robot IV's monitor showing blips of... what? His subconscious thoughts? I thought this was a great touch, and showed Vaughan had more to offer in Saga than just screwball over-the-top ideas and razzle dazzle. I hope he continues along this vein, now that he's done establishing the very weird, fun universe he's built. I hope he deepens things and explores what he's established, instead of rushing off to unveil MORE and MORE HEAPING PILES OF WEIRD.

Total aside, but the design of the covers is also beautiful.

When they say 2012 was a fantastic year for comics, I believe most people refer to this series and believe me it lives up to all the hype. That simple storyline of how far parent will go to protect their child playing out across the galaxy can be this good is really kudos to some great writing. The art is not really up my ally but it does the job. The worlds are created so matter of fact, that it has a feel of being very real. All in all, another great find and time to find the next volume. Highly recommended!

The best summary I can think of for this graphic novel is (with apologies to Shakespeare) “From forth the fatal loins of two foes, A pair of star-cross'd lovers make a life”. You flip through the pages and it looks like a space opera, and it is, but it in this first chapter of the series it focuses on the opera as much, if not moreso, than on the space. Which, I think, sets it above and beyond a lot of the other entries in the same genre.

At the heart of this tale of interstellar war, creepy alien bounty hunters, and royalty with televisions for heads is a surprisingly touching story about newleyweds struggling to discover themselves and their new roles as parents. Parenthood is something that mainstream comics usually handle quite poorly, so it's nice to see something in the medium that is actually respectful of the challenges and fears that parents face. Alana and Marko aren't perfect parents, but they want to be, and watching them struggle to keep their heads above water reminded me of my own experience of becoming a parent (even if my experience was without rocketship forests and lasergun battles).

Lastly, given that this is a graphic novel, it would be a shame to finish talking about it without mentioning the art. Fiona Staples does a masterful job here, portraying weird, alien things in ways that make them incredibly familiar and intimate. I'd never heard of her before this, but I'm definitely going to be checking out more of her work in the future.

Interesting beginning to a series! I am really looking forward to reading more about Marko, Alana and their daughter, Hazel...