I fear I cannot possibly be objective about this series any longer, I love it so much. For any fan left traumatized and/or depressed after reading VolI fear I cannot possibly be objective about this series any longer, I love it so much. For any fan left traumatized and/or depressed after reading Volume 7, you'll be relieved to hear Volume 8 is a much lighter and more hopeful adventure. There are still bittersweet moments, but not of the acutely devastating kind.
Vaughan and Staples have gone Wild West this time around and placed our intrepid crew in an arid (and possibly dangerous) western-esque landscape. Petrichor has stepped up and has become an irreplaceable and totally kickass supporting character. Even Sir Robot is morphing into something increasingly likeable. The story arc is painted across a smaller canvas this time making everything feel much more intimate. To round things out, there's more The Will and Lying Cat, and more Ghus who I have missed!
Fans won't be disappointed with Saga's latest entry. For me, this series just keeps getting better and better. Or I'm just a junkie who's completely hooked perpetually jonesing for my next Saga fix.
Merged review:
I fear I cannot possibly be objective about this series any longer, I love it so much. For any fan left traumatized and/or depressed after reading Volume 7, you'll be relieved to hear Volume 8 is a much lighter and more hopeful adventure. There are still bittersweet moments, but not of the acutely devastating kind.
Vaughan and Staples have gone Wild West this time around and placed our intrepid crew in an arid (and possibly dangerous) western-esque landscape. Petrichor has stepped up and has become an irreplaceable and totally kickass supporting character. Even Sir Robot is morphing into something increasingly likeable. The story arc is painted across a smaller canvas this time making everything feel much more intimate. To round things out, there's more The Will and Lying Cat, and more Ghus who I have missed!
Fans won't be disappointed with Saga's latest entry. For me, this series just keeps getting better and better. Or I'm just a junkie who's completely hooked perpetually jonesing for my next Saga fix....more
And those of you who know me will know how much it poisons me every time I have to say that. One of these days I’m just going to turnKemper was right.
And those of you who know me will know how much it poisons me every time I have to say that. One of these days I’m just going to turn to stone. Ah but seriously, for you noir lovers out there it really doesn’t come any more smartly, authentically written than The Fade Out. This is a story that sizzles and understands at the heart of every noir tale is a fucking tragedy. This is a period piece and I lapped up the historical details like heavy cream. The characters are flawed just as we’ve come to expect in noir but retain a humanity that makes their pain a tangible breathing thing. And the dialogue is aces, I tell you....more
Well damn. What’s the sound of a heart snapping in two from shock and loss? Not sure, but I heard it reading this latest instalment. Saga has ramped uWell damn. What’s the sound of a heart snapping in two from shock and loss? Not sure, but I heard it reading this latest instalment. Saga has ramped up the epic feels as there’s a tragedy waiting around every corner here. But still, there remains the excitement and tension and wonder, as universal truths about love and war are spouted forth effortlessly. The depth of imagination and whimsy (yes even whimsy!) on display here never ceases to amaze me, pulling me into its gravity always and forever leaving me wanting more. ...more
It has everything -- action, drama, humor, a love story, kick-ass heroines, crazy wonderful world-building, high stakes aLove. This. Series. So. Much.
It has everything -- action, drama, humor, a love story, kick-ass heroines, crazy wonderful world-building, high stakes adventure, well-developed characters with distinct voices and motivations. I'm bedazzled and bewitched by its charms and wit and powerful themes. This is intelligent and emotional storytelling at its finest....more
First there was Scully and Mulder (the truth is out there).
Then came Sam and Dean Winchester (saving people, hunting things, the fMy fangirl timeline:
First there was Scully and Mulder (the truth is out there).
Then came Sam and Dean Winchester (saving people, hunting things, the family business).
Recently there's been Elizabeth and Philip (Married Russian spies not to be confused with Royals)
Now keeping company with all of these is Alana and Marko. Star-crossed lovers from the warring planets of Wreath and Landfall. Horns and wings aside, their love is universal and instantly recognizable. All they want is peace, to be left alone to raise their precious daughter. But their enemies are many and threats lurk around every corner, from the seemingly innocent ballet teacher to Alana's Open Circuit coworker with her infinite supply of drugs. Then there are the mercenaries, Robot insurgents, and interplanetary revolutionaries who want to make the denizens of Wreath and Landfall pay for unleashing such a brutal and unceasing bloody war upon them all.
So much love for this series it's turned me into bonafide fangirl stupid.
Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed...
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Sooooooo, here we are. Back to the more soap-opera-ish, plodding plot with
Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed...
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Sooooooo, here we are. Back to the more soap-opera-ish, plodding plot with a few interesting "twists" (for lack of a better word) thrown in. I was not riveted. Maggie going toe-to-toe with dickhole parents of dickhole kids is a less than inspiring sub-plot. More scheming by disgruntled community members. Eh, we've seen that number before too.
The Whisperers are sorta kinda interesting and new, I suppose, if you look at them with your eyes scrunched and squinting. It makes sense to me that there would be a group like this that would come along eventually. The real surprise is that it's taken this long, and perhaps how many of them there's rumored to be. Thousands? Really? That would be shocking indeed. For now, it's just a rumor and my fingers are crossed that this new "threat" turns out to be more than what they appear to be which is a step above same shit different day.
And Carl? Sweet jebus. (view spoiler)[After nearly bashing in the skulls of two douchebag out-of-control violent teenagers, he gets hit on by a strange new girl from the Whisperers group. And she's totally got a kink for Carl's empty eye socket. As in, she's totally into it. So much so she French kisses the damn thing (ewwwww)
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Yup, like that. Then she takes his virginity. For the record, Carl doesn't put up a fight. But what should have played out as a nice sweet innocent scene has a twisted underbelly cause you know this young woman has got some serious problems and that she's been abused and raped by her group. Great. Cause the one thing the Walking Dead has been missing is some good 'ol pedophilia. (hide spoiler)]
Sometimes this series feels like an albatross around my neck, a monkey on my back, Sisyphus's Rock. I NEED THIS TO END!!!! I NEED AN ENDING!!!! Do you hear me Kirkman???? For godsake man, take mercy on all of us and please JUST FUCKNG END IT.
This is the turning point us zombified Dead Heads have been waiting for -- a genuinely new beginning, not just the illusion of one immediately undone This is the turning point us zombified Dead Heads have been waiting for -- a genuinely new beginning, not just the illusion of one immediately undone by human depravity and Rick Grimes assholery.
A few years have past. We have actual thriving communities now. More than one! Fresh baked bread is happening! Can I get a hallelujah people? Community members are trading goods and favors and working together and sleeping with both eyes closed at night. Children are playing, carefree and silly. Adolescents are keen to take on an apprenticeship in order to learn a valuable skill. Good ol' one-eyed Carl is among them, eager for Rick to finally cut the apron strings so that he can forge his own path to independence and competency.
Maggie is thriving ruling roost over the Hilltop and breaking horses. She's also mom to Sophia and little Herschel. Glenn is a huge void in this scenario and I miss him still.
Rick has calmed the sweet fuck down. He even will take the time to watch a sunset now. And delegate and build partnerships based on trust and respect. But what of good 'ol Negan? He's still with us. Serving a life sentence behind bars and taunting Rick every chance he gets. Right now he's convincingly neutralized but this is the goddamn motherfucking Walking Dead. Guys like Negan don't survive to become the good guys or the defeated guys.
There are new characters who are behaving the way Rick's group would have three years ago -- angry, paranoid, mistrustful. They can't believe what they are seeing and are certain something more sinister HAS TO BE afoot.
If Kirkman wants us standing firmly in the middle of the rug so he can brutally and viciously pull it out from underneath us again I'm quitting this series for good. Don't take us this far only to HULK SMASH it all to pieces again. This new threat? (view spoiler)[ Quite frankly I was much more excited to think that the zombies had become sentient. That it's just sick mofos running around sewn up inside zombie skins TCM Leatherface style? Meh. Do we really need more human depravity at this point? Shit sake. (hide spoiler)]
On to the next volume -- Whispers into Screams. Uh huh. Here we go -- out of the blue into the goddam black of an Arby's abyss again. ...more
Can this series get any better or more exciting, Other Barry? I'm here to tell you it cannot. Up against it, this series makes cyborgs as interesting Can this series get any better or more exciting, Other Barry? I'm here to tell you it cannot. Up against it, this series makes cyborgs as interesting as watching paint dry. Cyborgs -- watching paint dry -- even the ones with removable vaginas of the lighting up variety. Just the tip, Archer. You want to lose that thing or what?
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All Archer joking aside (and yes, that was totally for you Mara), Saga is a tremendous graphic novel series that continues to blow my hair back, my skirt up and my socks off. Don't even ask me where I left my vagina, but I'm sure it's gotta be around here somewhere.
This third volume of the Saga saga (see what I did there?) continues to up the ante on the crazy and the thrills. What I love about this series the most is that even though every other page contains something I've never seen before anywhere else, it all feels so very sane, and beautiful and universal. This is a space opera dealing with an age old bitter protracted bloody war between two different races. But our heroes Marko and Alana, born to fight each other, raised to hate and want to kill the other, have fallen in love. They have given birth to a mixed race daughter -- Hazel -- our intrepid sometimes narrator, a living symbol of all that is innocent and good.
Marko and Alana (and Hazel) act as our sympathetic entry point into this story and the wacked out landscapes and sundry denizens we encounter along the way. Their plight might not be relatable, but the love they share for each other and their family certainly is.
The Will may be an assassin extraordinaire with plenty of blood on his hands, but he also has a conscience and a desire to be a good man, kept in line by his lie-detector cat creature (who is even more awesome than the exotic ocelot). I heart Lying Cat, okay? Okay.
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There's so much to love packed into this story -- the action, the heart, the energy and passion and tongue-in-cheek humor. Always with the humor. Whether it's captured in the text or in the artwork, dynamic sensational duo Vaughan and Staples find the humor existing everywhere in their tale, in the absurd, the poignant, the raunchy and the ironic. It's addictive and cathartic and all I want is more. Just MORE. Of all of it. ...more
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