Comics

Saga Chapter One by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

I've been hearing tonnes of praise for Saga for months now, but half ignored it for no particular reason. Inspired to look into it (again, for no particular reason), the description of it as a mature (as in "for grown-ups", not as in "hehehe porn") mixture of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones actually sounded right up my street. Then I discovered you can get this first issue for free on digital comics monopoly Comixology, so I did. Worth noting that it's double the length of a normal comic (more than double what you get in some these days), so it really is an exceptionally good free preview.

As for what it's actually like... Well, it certainly throws you in at the deep end of a complex world with lots of catching up to do. Thank goodness it is double length, because by the end of a typical first issue it's barely got anywhere. There's some intriguing stuff, but there's also a lot of good ol' modern decompressed storytelling, and I don't find the art detailed enough to support that personally. So, intrigued, but also unconvinced.

Additionally, I discovered the paperback collection of issues one to six is available in a "specially priced volume" -- presumably to get you started, then make you pay regular prices for future volumes. Not convinced it's worth spending money to continue though. I shall consider.