Image's Saga...Thoughts?

[Blue Meanie]

I was just looking through my Thunder Agents series by DC and came to issue 7 which has the cover drawn by Fiona Staples. Love the cover and she did the covers from issue 7 - 10. Google her name and find out she was the artist for Saga by Image Comics. She's an amazing artist. Unfortunately I am very "late to the game" and see how much the series is going for as far as getting first prints. I see that there are Trade Paperbacks. Few questions:

1) Anyone on the museum have any thoughts on the series?

2) Has the series ever been released in Hardcover? I am not a fan of trades.

3) Any other series that she has done as the cover AND interior artist that anyone can suggest?

4) This last one is a stretch : Would love to own original art from the Thunder Agents covers that she did. I notice that she works in mixed media, pencils with paints/inks done for the most part computer. I've seen some prelims in pencil and inks of the Thunder Agents number 7. Does anyone know where I may be able to find original art?

Thanks. BTW, here is the cover that hooked me:




Interesting read of her process:

http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2011/02...agents-7-cover

[MRP]

I've been reading Saga since it launched, though I switched to trades after the 3rd volume. It gets a lot of good buzz, has been nominated and won Hugo's for graphic sci-fi story and Eisners. I enjoy it quite a bit, but it has a lot of adult content and some people don't like that in their comics. It is essentially the story of the tribulations of a pair of young lovers on opposite sides of the war trying to make a life and raise their daughter (who both sides of the war see as a half-breed abomination). It is told essentially as a flashback by the daughter at some nebulous point in the future (she is the voice of the captions, we never see that future time or haven't so far but I am a trade behind).

there have been 2 deluxe hardcovers that collect 3 trades worth of issues (18 issues) in each. I believe the seventh trade is out and the 8th arc in in progress (I have the first 6 trades now, long ago selling the original first printings when they began to skyrocket. Image does $9.99 for most first volumes of trades, so you might consider just trying the first trade to see if you like it before dropping the coin on the deluxe hardcovers. I think it's a great series, but it's not for everyone. It's a little Star Wars with a little Romeo and Juliet and political intrigue thrown in, but some of the characters are very sexual in nature, and some elements are there just to shock readers (the cover of the deluxe hardcover, showing the child nursing a play off some of the promotional art that was also controversial is an example of that).

Here's a link to the hardcover on Amazon...https://www.amazon.com/Saga-Book-One...saga+hardcover

I believe she did the interior art (plus a cover of the many variants) for the first couple of issues of the Archie relaunch written by Mark Waid a couple of years back. Here the link to her full body of work: https://www.comics.org/searchNew/?q=Fiona%20Staples at the Grand Comicbook Database (GCD). She has done a lot of variant covers, but she has focused mostly on Saga which she is the co-creator of with Bran K. Vaughan (Lost, Y the Last Man, Dr. Strange: The Oath, Ex Machina).

-M