Saga - The crack of comic books

Saga volume #1

Any comic that's first printed words are "am I shitting? It feels like I'm shitting" and continues to be published must be good. Saga, written by Brian Vaughan and art by Fiona Staples and published by Image comics, It is basically the crack of the comic world and turns you into a comic junkie desperate for the next issue.

Very first page of entire series

Landfall, home to the wings, and its moon Wreath, home to the horns, have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, so long in fact that the war has moved away from these place and onto surrounding planets and moons. Alana was a Landfall solider and Marko a Wreath solider who met in a POW camp and fell in love. Saga begins with the birth of their daughter Hazel after which within minutes we learn that Alana and Marko are wanted by both sides as a traitors. The story follows the new family as they try and escape the hit men, spies, royalty and soldiers after them as they just try and live their life in peace together. The story also follows a freelancer named The Will and his side kick Lying Cat, an alien cat who can tell if a person is lying, as they have been hired to find Marko and Alana kill them and bring baby Hazel back to his employers alive. The Will and Lying Cat's mission gets sidetracked as they attempt to rescue a young girl from the planet Sextillion where she is held captive as a prostitute.

Seriously even the plants want to kill them

The art of Saga is as close to perfect as a comic book can get, the sheer volume of character designs is staggering and the fact that they are all done well is a real achievement. One of my favourite things about the art in Saga is that all of the wings have different kinds of wings such as bat wings, feathered wings, butterfly wings and other bug wings and the horns all have different kinds of horns such as ram horns, antelope horns, cow horns, rhino horns and unicorn horns. the faces are expressive and show off the personalities of the characters such as sassy Alana, hopeful Marko and somber The Will. Saga doesn't shy away from surprising its readers with disturbing images without any notice such as a new born baby covered in blood and fluids, robots having sex, exploding heads and later in the series a giant humanoid monster with gigantic hairy testicles and it works surprisingly well.

Beautiful images like this then BAM! EXPLODING HEAD!!

A huge part of what makes Saga work so well are the characters, they have some of the most three dimensional and well rounded personalities that I have ever seen in any medium. All the characters make good decisions, they make bad decisions, they become irrational, they make selfish choices, they are frightened and through all of it they still try to make the best of the circumstances they find themselves in. You feel Immensely for Alana and Marko as they struggle with being newly weds and new parents situations that are hard enough without the complications of being wanted fugitives with an entire galaxy wanting them dead. I feel it is very realistic that Alana and Marko don't have any great heroic goals of trying to end a war that has lasted centuries all they want is to be left alone and raise their family in peace.

Setting realistic goals

Saga is one of the finest comics available and has had no drop in the quality of the writing or art since it began in 2012. Most people who buy volume #1 of Saga usually end up becoming hooked and turn into another Saga addict.

I give Saga a 4.5 out of 5 Lying Cats

Find out more about Saga here