FIONA STAPLES talks SAGA with BKV
Plus, your chance to win a rare SAGA print signed by both of us!
Well, this isn’t the update I was planning to write this week…
Brian here, and first, the good news: That’s the real Saga: Book Four I’m holding (collecting Volumes 10, 11, and 12), and it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Along with that magnificent new cover of 12-year-old Hazel from co-author Fiona Staples, this latest deluxe hardcover contains an exclusive SAGA ART GALLERY. Because we don’t do alternate covers, it’s a unique chance to see our characters tackled by a wide variety of other extraordinary artists.
But most importantly, it’s just a joy to be able to sit down and finally read these eighteen chapters in one sitting, especially because I know our release schedule became particularly erratic during that final arc (due to some health concerns with our small team, though everyone is doing much better now, thanks).
I’m so proud of these collected stories, which I think contain some of the loveliest artwork ever to appear in a comic…
So I hate to have to share this significantly less awesome news: because of an unexpected shortage of the beautiful paper stock we use on these hardcovers (which we didn’t learn about until after my previous newsletter), this release has unfortunately been pushed several weeks.
Image Comics was deeply apologetic for the unforeseen delay, as am I. But comic stores will still receive their orders a few weeks before the rest of the world, so you can now pick up a copy of Saga: Book Four at your friendly neighborhood comic retailer on JUNE 3 (and everywhere else on JUNE 30).
We’ll be announcing some big prize opportunities exclusively for those of you who order a copy from your local comic shop, so if you haven’t already, please ask them to set one aside for you today.
And if you do ask your local retailer to save a copy of Saga for you this evening, I hope you’ll please also consider reserving the new Image Comics collection of Barrier, a brutal sci-fi tale created with Panel Syndicate’s own Marcos Martín and Muntsa Vicente.
We released all five extra-long issues of Barrier several years ago, but this is the first time our story has ever been collected in print (in a softcover “widescreen” format perfectly matching Image’s latest edition of The Private Eye), and the final day to pre-order your own copy is TODAY.
Thanks to Library Journal for this generous starred review:
Vaughan, Martín, and Vicente reunite (after The Private Eye) for a formally daring sci-fi thriller that probes the limits of human communication. Set along the U.S.–Mexico border, the story finds the unlikely duo of Texas rancher Liddy and Honduran immigrant Óscar as they are forced to work together in order to survive being abducted by extraterrestrials, despite their cultural differences and lack of a common language. Vaughan leans fully into this divide, presenting dialogue in English and Spanish without translation, a choice that risks alienation but ultimately deepens the book’s central concerns. Martín’s widescreen layouts and expressive cartooning guide readers through moments of terror, confusion, and reluctant cooperation. His visual storytelling remains clear even as the plot propels the protagonists through increasingly alien experiences and terrain, blending grounded social realism with an unexpected cosmic menace. The result is a genre hybrid that feels both intimate and expansive. While the story is unapologetically political, the creators eschew easy moralizing, instead emphasizing how misunderstanding—linguistic, cultural, personal—shapes conflict.
VERDICT: Provocative and challenging, this work rewards patient readers and will make a good addition to graphic novel collections interested in socially engaged, formally inventive storytelling.
Barring any paper snafus, Barrier will be in comic stores on May 20.
And thanks to those of you who sent kind words about my Dune: Part Three update.
I’d been keeping that under my hat for a while, so it was surreal to hear NPR’s Book of the Day recommend Saga during a discussion of Frank Herbert’s work a few months back.
Fiona and I are grateful to have our work mentioned in the same breath as this cornerstone of the genre.
One of the many reasons I admire Fiona is that she’s probably the most private comic-book creator since Steve Ditko… so I’m thankful that she agreed to briefly emerge from her art cave to answer five questions about work, life, and this latest collection of ours.
5 QUESTIONS WITH FIONA STAPLES
Hey, Fiona! It was so cool to revisit the three volumes included in Saga: Book Four and notice the subtle ways your characters grow and change over the years. These were the first chapters of Saga that you created as a parent, so I was curious if having nonfictional children of your own changed how you approach our book’s fictional family?
Fiona: Well, it’s made me wish I could go back and redraw the first six volumes with the abundance of real-life experience and reference I now have. It’s also hard to resist stealing my kids’ ideas because they slot so nicely into our setting — Chapter 72 features a character called “New Guy” that was designed by my 5-year-old.
BKV: Indeed! You and I started working on Saga right after my daughter was born in 2011, and I had always hoped that—if our series was a success—we might eventually be able to do a total of 18 volumes, each spotlighting key moments from one year of Hazel’s life, so we could follow our protagonist on her journey from newborn to young adult.
I didn’t realize that we might end up telling that story in “real time” across roughly eighteen years, but the advantage is that each volume so far has been enriched by our real-life experiences/age-specific stuff we’ve pilfered from our kids. I know that pace has been much too slow for some readers, but I hope our fellow parents agree that the years seem to be flying by.
Sorry, I’m supposed to be asking questions, not rambling defensively!
For the latest Art Gallery in the bonus section of our hardcover, it was your excellent idea to invite some newer voices to contribute Saga pin-ups alongside our more established colleagues (including superstar Zoe Thorogood, Spectators’ own Niko Henrichon, and more surprises). Can you tell us where you found a few of these amazing artists, all of whom absolutely crushed it?
Fiona: Taylor Hudson, Janeen Scott, Geneva Haley and Marlee Watts are the highly sought-after artists behind Hemlock Tattoo here in Calgary. I really, really like seeing great artists from other disciplines trying their hand at comics (especially our comic).
Ben Rankel is my partner and an awesome artist in his own right, and he knows Saga inside and out. Neil Lalonde is an indie and web artist who is always doing something interesting and fresh.
BKV: Yeah, I think Ben was the first contributor ever to take a stab at drawing my secret favorite character from the series.
Everyone’s pin-ups are killer, so thanks for sharing these incredible talents with our audience. We’ll be giving readers a sneak peek at a couple of images in future installments of Exploding Giraffe.
I hinted at this in a previous newsletter, but for the last few years, alongside Saga, you and I have (separately) been working on some top-secret comics projects. I’ve been writing what will probably be my final new ongoing series1, and you’ve been creating… something else, but equally epic in scope. I know you can’t yet reveal exactly what it is, but how’s it going??
Fiona: It’s an absolute behemoth of a graphic novel, and I hope its eventual announcement will elicit at least a bit of the joy and excitement that I’ve experienced working on it. It’s going well, it’s almost out the door, and I can’t wait to get back home to Saga when it’s done.
BKV: Your project is so cool and so unexpected, readers are going to lose their minds when they finally hear about it. Stay tuned.
I completely understand that some folks will be frustrated that we haven’t been solely working on Saga, but because writing is so much less time-consuming than drawing (and inking, and coloring, and covering, and everything else you do), I’ve had the luxury of tackling lots of different film/tv/comics projects alongside Saga over the last decade or so, and I think the added perspective I’ve gained from those other endeavors has always brought something new and valuable to our series. I’ve already seen that happening with your ever-evolving work, Fiona, and I’m confident readers will agree when Saga returns with our new arc later this year.
Speaking of which, we both despise spoilers, but do you have any small hints about this next storyline of Saga that you can share with our endlessly patient readers?
Fiona: There will be some Freelancer action, both new and familiar... and also tween hormones??
BKV: Oh, yes. And Chapter 75 is a wild standalone story, one that will probably make people furious, but it might be my favorite issue of the series so far.
Finally, because this fourth hardcover collection explores, among other things, young Hazel’s deepening love of music: What was the first record/cassette/CD/whatever you purchased with your own money?
Fiona: The first music I bought with my own money was a Veruca Salt CD, and I ordered it from a kid at school who I think was indentured to Columbia House Music Club.
BKV: Perfect.
Thanks again for the quick chat, pal! See you in the funny pages.
Before I run, I wanted to give away a treasure I just unearthed, this magnificent vintage Saga print hand-signed by Fiona, who made just 125 of these on very high-end paper (and this is one of her even rarer “Artist Proofs”):
If you’d like a shot at winning this masterpiece to hang on your wall, please just let us know in our temporarily reopened comments section:
What have YOU been making recently?
Art? Lunch? Trouble?
We’ll randomly select one responder and let you know the lucky winner in our next installment.
Peace,
Brian
But hopefully not my last comics work! I have a few more ideas I want to tackle and creators I’d love to collaborate with, but ongoing series are a young person’s game, and my old bag of bones turns 50 this July, if the deadlines don’t kill me first…
Ooh! Pick me!
While not nearly as beautiful a form of art, I have been hosting and making trivia at a few local breweries this year and it’s a joy to create something that large groups of people will dedicate their time and attention to weekly. I throw in comics rounds as often as possible. Would love to be selected to win!