Wandering Star

Wandering Star #1-3

by Teri Sue Wood

"Simply one of the best sci-fi comics ever written." — Overstreet's Fan Magazine
This much-praised space drama follows the far-flung adventures of Casandra, daughter of the President of the United Nations and the first terran accepted into the Galactic Academy. Casandra discovers to her woe that Earth isn't the most popular of planets and joins the outcasts working on the Wandering Star, the Alliance's prototypical spaceship. When the Bono Kiro, the Alliance's longtime enemy, makes a sudden reappearance, Casandra and her misfit crew just might turn out to be the galaxy's last hope. Sure to delight the legions of fans of the series, this beautiful hardcover edition collects all 21 of the original comics for the first time.
"[Wood's] science-fiction series shows her clear vision of story and character — and excellent ability to delineate both." — Comics Buyers Guide  
"Good science fiction turns on a compelling 'what if'. In this case, it's 'What if the Earth wasn't the center of the civilized universe?'" — Comics Worth Reading
"No one should be allowed to write a first book this good. A cross between Anne McCaffrey and Jim Starlin; humanistic yet still plot-oriented." — Cold Cut Distribution

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction

496 pages, Hardcover

First published June 20, 2016

About the author

Author Teri S. Wood (Resa Challender) began her career doing a comic strip called, The Cartoonist, which ran in the back of the Fantagraphic's bi-weekly, comic magazine, Amazing Heroes. There, she poked fun at all the greats of the comic book industry, which at the time, included Neil Gaiman, who retaliated with doodled postcards that Teri cherishes to this day.

Her first comic work was as the artist on the MU Press book, Rhudiprrt: The Prince of Fur. The next project Teri took on was to write and draw her critically-aclaimed, sci-fi series, Wandering Star. Teri S. Wood is very happy to annouce that Wandering Star will soon be collected into a lovely, hard-back omnibus by Dover Publications in the summer of 2016.

Since then, Teri has mostly done smaller projects, but hopes to take on another, large, comic book project soon: Darklight.

In the meanwhile, Teri lives out in the wilds of Forks, Washington, where she swears she has yet to see any sparkly vampires or Bigfoots, even though she camps often with her cousin Jatina Challender, and their Rottweillers.

Teri, who goes by the name of Resa Challender in real life, can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Tumbler, and also has her own website, with her smaller projects on it at Resa Fantasy Arts.

Thanks so much, for taking the time to read this.

Reviews

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This title has long been one of my very favorites, and (along with “Bone” and a very few others) is one of my "Go-To" reccs for non-comic readers to introduce them into the genre; it’s unfortunate that it has remained “Under the Radar” to this day, as it deserves a much wider audience!

Written long before Sci-Fi/Space Epics were in vogue, this title is warm, inviting, and overtly sentimental, and is clearly a labor of love from it’s creator, and it shows through in every page.

While I have the previous 3-volume set, this 1-volume omnibus is so gorgeous, I felt compelled to get not just 1, but 2 copies when I saw it at my local bookstore; one for me to add to my collection, the other to lend to friends.

Sure, you can nitpick a few odds and ends with this title, but the overall impression this book left with me when I first read it, and now have re-read it, is 5 stars.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indie comic artistry at it's finest! Collected here for the first time are all 21 issues of Teri Wood's "Wandering Star". A Forward and an Introduction give us a lot of backstory on the making of this comic and its history.This is pure space opera and I loved every minute of it. The art is rough and raw in its pencilled 1990s indie style, but it is quality and once you immerse yourself in the story you forget about modern sleek computer-drawn comics. The story is typical: a warrior race works its way around the galaxy taking over planets and turning the inhabitants into slaves with mind control devices. Earth has newly joined the Alliance and the story starts with the President's daughter attending the Academy. The story contains just about everything you could possibly want from an adventure in space. There are side stores to keep each issue fresh and the book reads brilliantly as one large cohesive unit. Teri is a talented storyteller and her main characters are lovable. The book ends with a reproduction of the original issue #1 that she made in her garage. This was really fun to see how her art changed dramatically and where the hints of her overall story started from. A must read for collectors of this genre.

[Megalion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for the copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Which leads to this caveat: I read a pdf version and had trouble seeing the dialogue which may have affected my experience though I try to filter that sort of thing out from my opinion.

Apparently this graphic novel series was a ground breaking series at the time it was original released, one issue at a time. I confess that I've only recently started reading graphic novels out of curiousity. So the historical impact of this series would be lost on me.

From my newbie perspective in this day and age of story telling, I found it rather slow in pacing. I liked that our heroine didn't fit any female stereotypes. Which were especially narrower at the time. Perhaps that's why it was a big deal then?

I got more than halfway through it but the pacing of the story was too slow to keep straining to read the dialogue. It didn't seem like there was going to be any real climactic end to it either.

All said, it's not a bad story. The line art style was interesting. So I give it three stars.

[#ReadAllTheBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who grew up loving indie comics mainstays like ElfQuest and Sandman, I'm honestly surprised that I didn't discover Wandering Star until now, so many years later. It's entirely the type of thing that I would've been into as a teenager, with its moody but strong main character Cassandra and its plethora of other interesting characters. Odds are I would've shipped some of the characters together, regardless of their expressed interest in one another. (Shipping is odd like that.)

This is an incredibly ambitious series and I'd be lying if I said that at times it was a little frustrating, given that the overall universe and its stories are so much larger than what we're shown here. To use a modern equivalent, it'd be like if Saga had only covered Hazel's birth rather than its current sweeping goals. It could very easily be expanded upon and Wood has expressed interest in creating a webcomic, which I think would work fairly well nowadays.

The artwork here is well done and has a fresh style that helps showcase the characters' feelings and drives. Characters are equally well designed and I'd have to say that one of my favorites had to have been Mek, who first appears in the comics as a fervently anti-Earth student of the Galactic Academy. To say that he undergoes a lot of changes and problems throughout the series would be an understatement. What's most interesting about this series, however, is how much it applies to today's societies. Prejudice and war are sadly still very much a part of today's world and I think that many will be able to sympathize with Cassandra's plight.

Ultimately this is a series that has gotten far less attention than what it deserves and hopefully Dover's release will help rectify that at least in part. It's one heck of a story and one that would work well as a feature film.

5/5 stars

(ARC provided by Netgalley)

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Wandering Star' written and drawn by Teri Sue Wood is a reprint of the series from the early 1990s. This includes all 21 issues.

It's the future, and Casandra is the daughter of the President of the United Nations. She is sent off to school at the Galactic Academy and realizes that Earth isn't the center of the universe after all. She also finds herself in the middle of a galactic conflict against a race called the Bono Kiro, who are bent on subjecting the entire universe to their rule. She has her odd group of friends and a ship called the Wandering Star, but can she really make a difference?

The story is told with a framing device with an older Casandra. The art is rough and black and white. The lettering is a bit stylized in places and can be a bit tough to read. In spite of the art and lettering, I really loved this story.

At 468 pages, it's an epic space opera, but the personal side is heartfelt and poignant. It's about the kind of friends you make when you are young, and the way you feel at the loss of them. I'm so glad that Dover reprinted this and that I got a chance to finally read the whole thing.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

[Keith Bowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The early 1990s comics scene was rapidly evolving and devolving. Perpetual bombast became the order of the day for mainstream superheroes, with weightless, sketchy art styles coming into vogue. With the horror of that near-mandatory style the audience was especially subjected to insanely proportioned and posed women, and no one did anything but scowl and grit their teeth.

In the 1980s a black & white publishing boom flooded the marketplace, and while many books were professionally done, or at least had heart to make up for inexperience, there was an insane amount of drek. By 1994 there was such a backlash against b&w comics that made it difficult for even quality series to survive or even debut. One never knew if a series would continue long enough to finish a story.

Into this market came Teri S. Wood's wonderful science fiction epic, Wandering Star. Initially self-published with low key covers, from the very first chapter you could see there was a solid story coming. The artwork didn't have a mainstream polish, and definitely wasn't all lines-and-thongs, it featured a variety of intriguing alien beings and a heroine with natural, realistic proportions.
The story of an interstellar war took off, and the characters we came to love forged their relationships in the conflict, politics, prejudice, and tragedies that unfolded. Death is not a gimmick here, but the all too real result of war.

Ms. Wood's personal tale found its most fervent fans and boosters through the pages of the Comics Buyer's Guide, first in reviews, then in letters of comment from readers who concurred. Then a pre-internet viral campaign began. CBG offered short classified ads for free to subscribers and fans began using their free ads to promote Wandering Star. There were issues where it seemed (at least in my memory) there were more free ads for Wandering Star than the other classifieds combined. People who normally would not have bothered submitting anything gleefully supported her efforts and the beloved series’ following grew.

And here we are today, 20 years later, celebrating and enjoying anew this beautiful volume collecting all 21 chapters of the acclaimed graphic novel. Dover has always manufactured quality books; even their paperbacks have stitched signatures that most of today's hardcovers no longer have. The cloth covers under the dust jacket is lovely in itself, and there's a color section with all of the covers and many prints reproduced in sharp quality.

Cheap at twice the price, do yourself a favor and fall into the future of Wandering Star.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wandering Star is absolutely an 80s comic from the first glance, from the fashion to the technology to the music the characters enjoy. And like the best of scifi, the now-dated aesthetic covers a rich story that can apply to any generation, past or future.

I loved the variety of alien characters, the depth of emotion, and how no matter how grand and large-scale the plot became, it was the small scale, the characters' reactions and emotions, on center stage.

Casandra is the first human to be accepted at the Academy. But because of humanity's violent past, she is ostracized and bullied by nearly everybody else in the "peaceful" Alliance, despite the fact that Earth's weapons saved them in a recent war.

She finally finds friends in a group of misfits who are building a spaceship- and then has to flee on that ship when the school is attacked. And things only get worse from there.

This comic doesn't pull any punches. Wandering Star ventures unafraid into some dark topics: bullying, religion and power, trauma, betrayal, death. Characters suffer, make mistakes. Some die. They fall into despair, question life, and suffer the long-term effects of trauma. 

Though at times, all they can find is "temporary happiness," the underlying message is one of hope and friendship in the midst of unimaginable destruction. At the darkest point, Casandra observes that "Nobody's all right. But at least it's something we all have in common."

The world may be violent and cruel, and things may not always make sense, but friendship, hope, and a little bit of thinking outside the box can bring light and end wars.

(copy from Netgalley)

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the oldest self-published comics out there collected in its entirety. It's obvious at first glance that this was produced in the 80's, not that that is a bad thing. Wandering Star follows Cassandra Andrews, the president of Earth's daughter as she enters the galactic academy. While there, aliens invade the Galactic Alliance and we see the war through Cassandra's eyes. The book is very introspective and deals more with the psychological aspects of war more so than the actual war itself.

Received an advance copy from Dover and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Sihanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

So i didn't buy this book from amazon or a regular book store I actually was lucky enough to be able find the whole series in its original single issues at my local comic book store. Regardless I definitely recommend buying this book not just because of the well written and thought out plot but also the amazing art that is just everywhere in this series from very emotionally moving range facial expressions, the depiction of a variety of alien spices, and the epic illustrations of space, and the authors beautiful use of stippling to illustrate this series is just amazing. So as I was reading the only thing that went through my mind was why hasn't this series been adapted into a t.v. series or at least an animated movie.
Anyways the writing and plot is also very well written and so easy to get into because of the way it takes a different approach to the usual recounting of war from a war hero. It makes the main characters recounting feel more intimate and real because it is always emphasized that all types of species were involved in the war and not just the standard two spices and then having humans come in as the third party to help out the good side and save the day. Another interesting that is highlighted through out the story is that the main cast were still innocent kids when all this destruction and grief was going and all the different reactions and experiences that they felt were more realistic and human because we get to see them not just work together but the levels of compassion they have for each other because of how they seek each other out even when they fighting or upset with one another.
We also get to see the main characters though process from her lowest points to her highest we do not always see her handle everything with grace she isn't perfect but her imperfections leaves room for her to experience a variety of emotions in order to grow and makes her reactions to things more realistic and relatable even when it cuts to the scenes where we see an older casi. Basically when reading this you grow with the characters and you learn all the lessons they are being taught through their war experiences.

Even after reading it almost 3 years ago I still recommend it to anyone that asks me if I know of any good books or is looking for a good comic for someone looking to get into comic books and graphic novels. So i hope this review helps, encourages you to purchase it, and maybe if you liked it as much as I did push you to recommend it to other people.

[Eddie Osburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What Wandering Star lacks in story or plot or polish, it makes up for in emotion, feeling, beauty and Grace. This comic book omnibus reads like a massive graphic novel depicting the tales we’ve heard before from a new perspective. A gigantic space opera with stellar stakes and out of this world characters, and our focus turns not to a character that is a master tactician, “the one hero,” or even emotionally stable. The protagonist is down-to-earth, normal, and simply has good ideas. Although her story culminates in the ending of an interstellar war we see her weep, sob, scream, yell, and sit in the rain as if it were a hot shower. Her companions are much like her as well, faulty in the ways we all are. And there is beauty in the way Teri S. Wood depicts that vulnerability, that strife. Her tile designs are clear cut choices, she makes room for large pieces of gorgeous art to sprawl across pages. She places eyes in the middle of painfully powerful rain, she situates the protagonist in a gorgeous array of flowers. She lets us feel, with the time and art to do so.

I loved this book, it enthralled me with its story and kept me reading for the characters. The emotional depth that Teri Wood manages to bring to an action-packed war comic is wonderfully intense and beautiful and I can’t decide on another word to call it so let’s leave it at that.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Public library copy.

This was a nice oversized book I'd like to own someday. I have various single issues of the series, but not in sequential order. I first discovered the work as around that time I was mainly supporting indie black and white books like Bone, Strangers In Paradise, Stray Bullets, etc. I've always enjoyed the art, it's so distinctive and unique and the only thing somewhat close might be Howard Cruse's style because of the ink stipulation. This was a nicely published book with slick stock paper and professional art reproductions. I caught an unfortunate typo at the end that stated an artwork pinup was dated 1977 rather than 1997.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I originally read this back in the 90s in comic book format and had fond memories of it, so I welcomed a chance to revisit this space opera in one very thick and heavy hardcover. It wasn't as exciting as I remembered, as the main character seems to spend more time time speaking, thinking and praying about events than actually participating in them, but I still enjoyed the story and characters.

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some this might be a welcome reprint of a lost sci-fi graphic novel, but it's not been perfectly served. I know a lot of it is a reproduction of a home-made comic, printed as a one-woman publishing house by the author, stapled together on her parent's table, but it could have had a digital retread. As it is some of the text is very hard to read, some of the pages appear blue, and the whole looks awkward – while a lot of the art is stippled, pointillist inkwork the lettering appears to have the same quality. (And why the alien speaks in about twenty different varying fonts at random is beyond me.) As for the content itself, again it's not great to read – the action in the space battles and so on comes across quite poorly, and the book is a rather woolly and over-long affair, not really saying much about the problems of inter-galactic war that a few pages of 2000AD could not convey much more succinctly. If the returning collector leaps for this edition, they must note the alleged 32pp brand new colour section never showed in my e-ARC. But that wasn't important to me – I wanted a glimpse of why this was being given the deluxe treatment, and I'm sorry to say I found little to justify it.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun, complete collection of the limited, self-published (at first) story of the Wandering Star. I grew up on independent, self published comics. Elf Quest, Ceribus, and Groo the Wanderer were my bread and butter, and I sought them out. I believe I even read this series when it came out, although I don't remember it, 20 years later, and very much enjoyed reading it again for the first time.

This is the story of Casandara and her part in the intergalactic war, but told in retrospect, years after it happened. At first it seems an odd framing, but it gives a good narrative to the story, and the framing totally works.

Yes, there are battles, where would there not be battles, but there are also friendships made and lost, and gained, as well as the usual bullies that appear in life. Not a quick read, but a good read.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may be obvious from the look and from the art that the book was originally self-published.

But the art is good. And the writing is pretty amazing. Professional. Progressive and ahead of its time. She writes relationships - complex relationships - well, too. It’s fascinating how she wove how people felt about Earth-born people into the story.

The people feel real. You begin to be interested in them and care about them.

But this bound omnibus did tend to get to be fairly long story. Maybe something I shouldn’t have tried to read cover to cover all at once.

And for someone who seems to be non-religious, she sure talks to God a lot.

But overall, it was an interesting story. I liked it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dover Publications for a copy in return for an honest review.

[Eric Railine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wandering Star was one of the leading lights during the small press and self-publishing scene in comics in the 1990's, and it holds up very, very well this many years later. Teri S. Woods, writer/artist/sole creator, has a very unique and cartoony style that only gets better as the story progresses.

A delightful blend of drama and humor, action and emotion, Wandering Stars should appeal to fans of both Star Wars and Star Trek - and even to those who are neither. While the book is unabashedly science fiction (or science fantasy), it is 100% character driven. Highly recommended.

Disclosure: Though I originally read Wandering Star in its original monthly comic publication (way back when) I was provided an electronic reader's copy of the book to review.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cassandra Andrews, the daughter of Earth's president, is the first Earther admitted to the Galactic Academy. She had few friends there, but did get along with Madison, Elli, and Graikor. They made a team opposed to the clique lead by Mekon. They were out on the Wandering Star (a spaceship) when the Bono Kiro attacked. Wandering Star is Cassandra's retelling of the events of the war and how the outcome was achieved. There is plenty of emotion, action, and intrigue to keep the reader flipping the pages. The story is not new, but Teri Wood does a very nice job in telling it. If you like SF with a heart, you are likely to enjoy the Wandering Star.