And Then I Read: SAGA Volume 2

Image © Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

See if this sounds like a good idea to you: team up a great writer and a fine artist, each with a proven track record, and let them come up with a new project, created from scratch, anything they like, to which they’ll retain ownership. Publish what they produce. This will not work all the time, some results will not be commercially viable, some teams will not mesh well, or not be able to produce work consistently and continuously, some will simply not find an audience. But when it works, you can get books like SAGA, which seem fresh and filled with one great moment after another, and which readers will love and follow passionately.

Star-crossed lovers Marko and Alana, now new parents of Hazel, are in a constant struggle to stay alive. Everyone wants them dead except Hazel’s grandparents, and at times we’re not so sure about them. There are paid assassins, military commanders, enemies old and new on their trail, and only their luck, skill and help from a few friends made along the way are keeping the family alive at all. That’s the plot, but what really makes this book worth reading are the characters and their complex and fascinating relationships. There are no humans in this story per se, but really every character is human in ways that matter most, and you’ll recognize their good and bad traits on every page. Both the writing and art are wonderfully adept and seamless in that way which is so very hard to do.

Highly recommended.