Patrick: This is a little bit outside of our normal format, but I had awesome “I love living in LA” and “I love reading comic books” moments tonight, and I thought it’d be nice to share.
Meltdown Comics is a Hollywood staple. It’s where the people who mine your comics for ideas go to look for raw fiction-ore. And it’s the perfect place to go for that because the enthusiasm of both the staff and the clientele is electric. It’s a space where comics live, and not just in the form of posters and actions figures and pint glasses (although, that is all there as well), but in the conversations of the geeks who are more excited to read a new comic book than to meet Brian K. Vaughan and Damon Lindelof. Oh yeah, Brian K. Vaughan and Damon Lindelof were there, being charming as hell and talking about Vaughn’s brand new series: Saga. I was lucky enough to be in attendance for this and pick up my very own copy of Saga #1. Let me just say, straight out the gate, you should grab a copy.
Vaughan flippantly describes the series as ‘Star Wars for perverts,’ but with a little cajoling, it’s clear that Saga is a deeply personal story about the horrors of parenthood through the prism of familiar adolescent escapism. He says the universe of Saga has been knocking around in the back of his brain as far back as he can remember, but the characters and these stories were developed only in the last 18 months – coinciding with the birth of his daughter. The result is one of those works that’s instantly charming and repulsive, earnest and raw, but still image conscious. I just got home and devoured the first issue and it’s really an exciting mix of science fiction and fantasy, all wrapped around a story of one small family against the world.
Fiona Staples’ art is unrelentingly badass, but retains a lot of subtly. It’s great to see characters with designs like those pictured above give such nuanced performances. There’s a lot of emotionally exhausting territory covered in the first issue (and I can only assume the same will be true in future issues), but the art and writing work together to really sell these little moments between firefights and robots fucking. OH RIGHT, THERE ARE ALSO ROBOTS FUCKING. I love comic books, I said that already, right?
I’d love to do a monthly write-up with my fellow editors here at Retcon Punch, but this work is decidedly off our mission statement. Tell you what – we’ll knock it to the comments section. If we get interest expressed by some non-Retcon-Punchers, we’ll totally do it. Otherwise, I’m happy to get in on the ground floor of this one and enjoy it by my lonesome.
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I am super excited for Vaughan’s new series. When he was writing for Marvel, he wrote Runaways, which is a fantastic book. I highly recommend it, but be warned, not your traditional super-team. I look forward to reading Saga, and I like Star Wars.
You gonna pick up Saga today? I really liked the first issue and I’d like to have someone to chat about it with.
Yes, I am going to get it for sure.
I’ll give it a try, too. It sounds like fun!
And Shelby just texted to me say she picked it up. Add it to the pull list!
Patrick – it’s cool that you got a first-run signed on the day of release (since it’s sold out now, well at least the publisher sold all of theirs). Also, I’ll nerd up and read it. You know how I like getting in on the ground floor, no catching up to do here.
Man, that is one meaty issue. In addition to giving us a solid sense of our key characters, Vaughan lays out a decades-old war that has consumed an entire galaxy, all without making the issue feel overstuffed. I especially like the way mundane earth things, like wireless signals or owning dogs, add reality to the insanely colorful worlds the story is taking place on. I’m way looking forward to future issues.
Yeah, it should be mentioned that this is literally a over-sized issue. It weighs in at like 50 pages. Which is fortunate – as you mention, it lays out a lot of world-building details without ever feeling overly expository.
Vaughan had said during the talk that the world was an amalgamation of a lot of pop-culture ideas, but with a lot of real-world details – like the lack of cell reception you mentioned. It may be the most original world I’ve seen in fiction in a long damn time.
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