Somewhere between 1504 and 531 I started to tackle Saga, with the intention of only reading the first story arc - six issues.

About three hours later I'd finished all 31 issues.

I've wanted to read Saga for months but somehow the name implied that there were hundreds of issues rather than a few dozen. Gosh.

Saga
A child is born to defecting soldiers on different sides of a centuries-long, galactic-scale proxy war. Unsurprisingly both factions have an interest in claiming the child for purposes unknown.

- Brian K. Vaughan wrote this so that it could never be adapted as television or film. It's too long and too adult for film (there is literally a triclops with a giant nutsack and a dragon performing autofellatio somewhere) and no TV budget can handle the amount of CGI needed for this.
- The Stalk has the most memorable character design in a comic. Of course she dies too soon. Fiona Staples is a master of this medium. I haven't been so happily freaked out since Pan's Labyrinth.

- My second-favourite character is a ghost girl with her intestines hanging out. My actual favourite character was a badass who died about 12 issues in, so... yeah. My third-favourite character is also dead about 20 issues in. Please don't let the fact that my three favourite characters are ALL DEAD dissuade you from committing to Saga.

- It's not just the art, though. The story could be described as "Romeo and Juliet, PREGNANT IN SPACE" but that doesn't even touch upon the themes of trauma, grandparents, pacifism, art, war, etc etc etc.
- I enjoy the earlier issues more because later issues tend to split the group up, slowing down the plot, but that's expected of big comic series.
- A character says, “There are only three forms of high art: the symphony, the illustrated children's book and the board game." He's obviously wrong because Saga is an illustrated book, definitely not for children, yet still a highly recommended work of incredible creativity and expert craftsmanship.