More than three years ago, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ mega hit Saga published its 54th issue. Now, thanks to Vaughan’s surprise announcement at New York Comic Con, fans finally know when the fan-favorite series is coming back.
Issue #55 of Saga will be published in January, Vaughan announced at a Saturday afternoon panel (with Staples appearing via video chat). The 44-page issue will be Saga’s normal $2.99 price and raunchier than even Saga’s regular fare, Vaughan said.
“Don’t read it on a train, work, or anywhere with other humans,” he said. “Sit in a dark room with it. We come back pretty hard.”
The series’ return will coincide with Image Comics’ 30th anniversary and mark the start of the second half of what Vaughan and Staples say will be a 108-issue series. “Image has been so patient with us,” Vaughan said. “There’s a real benefit to stopping every once in a while and just living life.”
Staples, who called in to the panel from her studio, expressed excitement at returning to the series after such a long hiatus. “I’ve known these characters for much longer than I’ve known my own children,” she said.
Vaughan acknowledged that the lengthy hiatus allowed him to plot out the rest of the series, which he said Staples also knows “in case I get hit by a bus.”
Some other things Vaughan shared, including plenty of adaptation news:
- Even though Vaughan and Staples regularly receive interest in adapting Saga to another medium, he remained firm in dismissing those requests. “I know you guys want a Saga movie,” he acknowledged to the crowd, but said he thinks Staples’ version of the characters should be “sacred.” Though, he said, “never say never.”
- We Stand on Guard, his sci-fi series with artist Steve Skroce, is in “secret development” with Legendary Entertainment, the same studio that is working to adapt Vaughan’s Ex Machina.
- Why Vaughan likes comics: “I like to do strange, idiosyncratic work that isn’t focus-tested.” He added, “Comics forever!”
- Vaughan loves the changes made in the TV adaptation of Y: The Last Man: “You shouldn’t be able to go to Wikipedia and find out what happened,” he said. In response to an audience question, Vaughan said he would not return to the world of Y even though he sometimes wishes he could “George Lucas his way back” to fix things.
- Vaughan’s favorite piece of non-comics media during the pandemic, he said, was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He also called Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf “one of the best graphic novels of the last ten years.”
- Vaughan said the best advice he ever received was from something Neil Gaiman said: “Get published as fast as you can because nothing makes you want to get better more than knowing strangers are reading your absolute garbage.”
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