Tag Archives: Hazel

Nov 4 2013

Saga 15

saga 15

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Saga 15, originally released October 30th, 2013.

Shelby: I don’t have any kids, but I assume parenting is hard. Not just because you’re trying to figure out how to keep this small creature safe and provide for it and raise it in a way that it doesn’t turn out to be a total douche (presumably that is a common parenting goal), you’ve also got to put up with a deluge of “help.” Everyone who’s raised a child, as well as no small number who haven’t, believe they know the best way to do it. And they are more than happy to give you all sorts of advice on the subject. No matter how sound that advice may be (like, “you should probably get a job”), if it’s unsolicited it will probably be poorly received.

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Sep 27 2013

Saga 14

saga 14

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Saga 13, originally released September 25th, 2013.

Shelby: One of the big parts of growing up is learning that you can’t always have what you want. As a kid, when your parents tell you that you can’t have something, you pitch a fit in the middle of the Jewel-Osco, but as you grow up you learn to more appropriately deal with disappointment. It’s a process that never stops, because we constantly have things we want taken away from us. Sometimes we have to choose between two things we want, knowing that we’ll always be a little disappointed for the option we didn’t take. Sometimes we have to face the hard truth that we can never again have what was lost, no matter how badly we want it.

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Aug 19 2013

Saga 13

saga 13

Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Brandon are discussing Saga 12, originally released August 14th, 2013.

Patrick: At the midnight Saga release party at Meltdown Comics over a year ago, Brian K. Vaughan said that he wanted to tell the story of a normal family stuck in the middle of an interstellar war that they wanted nothing to do with. The series itself bears this idea directly – Marko and Alana are combatants from opposite sides of an endless war that find each other through their shared belief in peace. From a storyteller’s perspective, War is much easier to write than Peace. In war (metaphorical or otherwise), there is an objective: no matter how messy and dark it gets, conditions for victory are clear. Saga 13 finds our characters searching blindly for what they’re ‘supposed’ to do next. It’s a meditation on the hope buried in hopelessness and the origin and influence of values. That’s right – welcome back to motherfucking Saga.

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Apr 12 2013

Saga 12

saga 12

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Saga 12, originally released April 10th, 2013.

Patrick: Robots and aliens and monsters and ghosts and magic spells — Saga has never had a difficult time of establishing itself as a piece of science fiction / fantasy literature. The well-defined characters at the heart of the story — the young family of Marko, Alana and Hazel — go a long way toward grounding the series. In recent issues, that same humanity has been extended to peripheral characters, like The Will. This issue leaves all of those comfortable characters behind, and fills in the gaps in the surprisingly nuanced character of Prince Robot IV. When we finally meet D. Oswald Heist, it’s no surprise that he’s a fully formed person with hopes, fears and secrets. Despite itself, I’m beginning to believe that every corner of this world is fully realized.

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Feb 27 2013

Saga 10

Alternating Currents: Saga 10, Drew and Patrick

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Saga 10, originally released February 20th, 2013.

Drew: I owned a lot of magic sets when I was a kid. That is to say, I enjoyed magic, but I wanted to understand how it was done. In may ways, this is the approach that I’ve taken towards art — I love being amazed by good music, movies, writing, etc, but I desperately want to know the techniques (the tricks, if you will) that make art so enjoyable. In general, that has been a very rewarding approach, allowing me a much deeper appreciation for how art works than I might have otherwise, but it has its limits. Ironically, I’ve never been able to really apply that approach to magic — partially because the techniques there are guarded as a matter of course, but mostly because I simply can’t get over how dazzling the effect is. Reading Saga leaves me similarly flabbergasted. Continue reading →

Dec 26 2012

Saga 8

saga 8

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Saga 8, originally released December 19th, 2012.

Patrick: Shelby sometimes thinks we are a little bit too detail-oriented around here. But by and large, our assignments are “write about what you find interesting in this issue,” and details can be damn interesting. Saga 8 is one of those issues where what’s good about the experience of reading it might not be the same as what’s interesting about the issue. Heads up, I’m about to lose sight of the forest for the trees. But that’s only because I see some really neat trees and we already know the forest is amazing.

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Nov 21 2012

Saga 7

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Saga 7, originally released November 14th, 2012.

Patrick: Parents! Amirite? You spend your whole life trying to strike out a path for yourself, establishing your own values and building your own relationships, but parents can always re-enter your world totally ruin everything. They mean well, and they’re not even bad people, but the disconnect between the present and the past is never so pronounced as when someone’s parents are in town. Saga 7 spends a little time getting to know Marko’s parents, both as they were in Marko’s childhood on Wreath and now, when confronted with his half-bred daughter. As the holidays approach, this is an anxiety with which we can all readily identify. Lucky for most of us, that parental baggage doesn’t come with centuries worth of pointless warfare as a side dish.
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Nov 5 2012

Saga 1-6

Alternating Currents: Saga 1-6, Drew and ShelbyToday, Drew and Shelby are discussing Saga 1-6, originally released March 14th, April 11th, May 16th, June 20th, July 18, and August 15, 2012.

Drew: Eight months ago, Patrick floated the idea of covering Saga. At that time, we weren’t really considering expanding our coverage outside of DCs publication line, so we tabled the discussion. Almost eight months later, we’re finally expanding our coverage, and Saga is still at the top of our list. We like it. The only problem is, so does everybody else. I’m normally not worried about agreeing or disagreeing with fans or critics, but with a comic as universally loved as this one, will we have anything meaningful to add, arriving eight months late to the party? Looking back on the density of Saga‘s first six issues, I realize that we’re in no danger of running out of new things to say. Continue reading →