Saga #1

History

Brian K. Vaughan had stepped away from monthly comics to work as a writer-producer on the television series Lost, making Saga his high-profile return to the medium; it was also his first creator-owned title to be published through Image Comics and the first time he used prose narration in his comics writing. The conceptual seed of the Saga universe dated back to Vaughan's childhood — a sprawling 'demented fantasyland' of spaceships and dragons he constructed in math class — but the specific story of Alana and Marko only crystallized when his wife became pregnant with their second daughter, fusing those old world-building notes with new, urgent feelings about bringing children into a world at war. Fiona Staples, whom Vaughan had not met in person until a panel at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, was co-creator and co-owner of the property from the outset; she designed every character, vehicle, and alien race, hand-lettered Hazel's distinctive narration captions in her own handwriting, and rendered the artwork in a pen-and-ink style coloured with a palette drawn from video games and Japanese animation. The launch issue was celebrated with a party at Los Angeles' Meltdown Comics featuring Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, and Vaughan promoted it with in-store signings in New York the same week.

Trivia · 7 facts

• Cover-dated March 2012; on-sale date March 14, 2012 from Image Comics — written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated and co-created by Fiona Staples, lettered by Fonografiks (Steven Finch), with Hazel's narration hand-lettered by Staples herself.
• First appearances of Alana, Marko, and Hazel (all cover and interior), as well as The Will, Lying Cat, Prince Robot IV, Special Agent Gale, and Vez — establishing almost the entire primary cast in a single issue.
• The first printing sold out immediately upon release; the issue ultimately went through at least five printings, with a second printing timed to the same on-sale date as issue #2 also selling out, and a third arriving shortly after.
• Hazel is born on the opening page of the issue on the planet Cleave, and narrates the series as an adult looking back — marking the first use of prose-style first-person narration in Vaughan's comics career.
• The series was Vaughan's first creator-owned work at Image Comics; Staples is a full co-owner of the property and has received first billing in credits since Chapter 25.
• In 2013, Saga won all three Eisner Awards for which it was nominated (Best New Series, Best Continuing Series, Best Writer) and six Harvey Awards including Best New Series and Best Single Issue or Story.
• The first-arc trade paperback (collecting issues #1–6, October 2012) debuted at #6 on the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller list, and the collected editions of the series have outsold those of The Walking Dead.

Cast · 3 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Saga

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#19 1st appearance — Ginny

Variants (5)